Quack-Driven Development is a Waterfowl Methodology for Programmers - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jason_hutchens/tdd-is-canard-tell-it-to-the-duck-207b1d574f23

<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote this after the "Is TDD Dead?" debate of a few months ago, and I think it's high time I published and shared. Comments most welcome!

<comment><USER2> I'm not a fan of TDD either, but I am a practitioner of what I've dubbed "Maintenance Driven Development" which I've blogged about here: [http://taylodl.wordpress.com/2012/07/21/maintenance- driven-d...](http://taylodl.wordpress.com/2012/07/21/maintenance-driven- development/)

Bottom line: I prefer writing as few tests as possible to ensure the quality of the code and Maintenance Driven Development is a practical method for achieving that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, the TDD debate really got me thinking about why I write tests. It used to be about saving me time. Now it seems to be about satisfying other people that I know what I'm doing.

But I _am_ a fan of code-as-documentation, blindingly obvious business logic and data validations at the interface, and I was struck by how Uncle Bob's TDD example just disregards all of that. Hence the QDD piece (which is half serious, half joking; I've left it a puzzle for the reader to figure out which half is which).</comment></comment></comment>


3M Says No Evidence That Products Have Been Seized - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-05/3m-says-no-evidence-that-products-have-been-seized-after-reports <comment><USER2> Public Service Announcement for non-lawyers:

"I have no evidence X happened": "I did it and destroyed the evidence"

"I can't remember doing X": "I did it and can't destroy the evidence"

In other words: If you catch up to me with actual evidence, I'm proven not to lie (note that in several jurisdictions, lying might be illegal, especially as a witness).

There's nothing quite like corpspeak, just my favorite:

"I'm planning to have more time with my family": "The investors or my cofounder fired me"

<comment><USER3> I mean has there been any evidence? How could evidence of this even be covered up? The masks have to be somewhere. I mean 3M already criticised the US government for cutting mask exports so why would they suddenly lie and say they don't think anything has been seized? If anything I think they are trying to be diplomatic here by not directly saying that the whole thing isn't true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How hard is it to track down the shipments? Is there any proof from the European countries that the US really seized the masks? I'm just confused by this whole story and I don't understand how this has not been clarified yet.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is there a reason why the US government hasn't assigned a czar to oversee this company and address the shady behavior?

</comment><comment><USER5> [https://archive.md/cITAl](https://archive.md/cITAl)</comment>


Show HN: TabAttack – Export tabs as markdown, Make Chrome more efficient - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/JannesMeyer/TabAttack

<comment><USER2> Clever idea, I like it. For storing tabs and recalling them I use an extension called TabCloud, but using editable lists is cool. Especially for exporting the "finds" of a research session to a wiki or md documentation.</comment>


The Mercury logic programming system - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Mercury-Language/mercury <comment><USER2> No mention of Mercury is complete without mentioning PrinceXML, the only software I have ever seen using Mercury in production: [https://www.princexml.com/doc- refs/#acknowledgments](https://www.princexml.com/doc-refs/#acknowledgments)

<comment><USER3> Hmm, converting HTML to Pdf doesn't look like a task for logic programming language. Why did they choose Mercury?

<comment> ainar-g That's a peculiar opinion. Usually, whenever discussion comes to parsing and codecs, people like to mention how the problem P could be solved with a purely functional language L so much more elegantly. And yes, logic and purely functional languages are not the same, but they seem to be very close relatives.

<comment><USER4> I mentioned to my Haskell teacher in uni that I did 2 years of intensive Prolog for an AI course at another uni and so that I grasp the basics or 'everything recursion' (mind you, this is 25 years or so ago). He got angry and said the two have nothing in common and if I believe that I definitely should pay more attention. It was weird as I did not say they are alike; just that they share some concepts which are usually hard to understand for imperative programmers, but, after 2 years of breathing Prolog really are second nature.

<comment> ainar-g Honestly, that speaks more about the teacher's personal issues than it does about the similarities between logic and purely functional programming. I'm sorry that you had to experience that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The are examples in the wiki, but there are no references to that in the repo README. The authors should fix that.

This is the hello world

        :- module hello.
        :- interface.

        :- import_module io.

        :- pred main(io::di, io::uo) is det.

        :- implementation.

        main(!IO) :-
            write_string("Hello, world!\n", !IO).

My first reaction is why that :- at the beginning of the first lines? I'm sure there are pretty good reasons for it, probably because of the history of this lineage of programming languages.

That's fine if the authors are interested only in developers from that background. If they want to expand to the general developers community they should adopt a more mainstream syntax which will ease onboarding. Elixir gave a nice lesson about that, by giving Erlang a Ruby like syntax and onboarding many developers from non functional languages. Then Elixir is still Erlang and functional.

Probably the interpreter/compiler can do some more work and be able to understand what module, interface, import_module, pred and implementation are without the :- prefix. To my eyes that :- is only noise, I don't need it to read and understand the program. The language should help me, not the other way around.

Other points along the same line:

* The ! before IO reminds of the not operator in other languages and I wonder what it means. I should read the documentation but it feels strange.

* The :- again after the function definition. Other languages have either simpler characters to type (Ruby and Elixir have do, Python has :, C and Java have { ).

* The . at the end of statements. From other examples it seems that Mercury uses it exactly as Erlang does (one(), two(), three().) Elixir managed not to use neither commas nor the full stop. It uses do end instead ({} is more popular). Python use a different approach which I don't like but it's popular too.

<comment><USER6> Mercury's roots are indeed the explanation and justification for many of these points: Mercury syntax is deliberately designed to be very close to Prolog syntax. In fact, it is so close to Prolog that if you remove the declarations, then many Mercury programs are also valid Prolog code.

Regarding ":-", there is a difference between writing:

        :- implementation.

and

        implementation.

The latter is a _fact_ and can be read as "implementation holds". The former is a _directive_ that tells the compiler something.

As in Prolog, :- is an ASCII transliteration of ←, i.e., an arrow from right to left. A clause of the form:

        Head :- Body.

is read as: " _If_ Body is true, _then_ Head is true.". Such clauses are sufficient to describe every known computation.

In Mercury, !Var is a _state variable_. It is a shorthand for naming intermediate values in a sequence. Without using state variables, you can write the code equivalently as:

        main(IO0, IO) :-
            write_string("Hello, world!\n", IO0, IO).

State variables are more explicit than using DCG notation, and at the same time still easier to write than pairs of variables that are threaded through.

The "." at the end of clauses is likewise inspired by Prolog syntax.

Please note that Prolog programs are, syntactically, also Prolog _terms_ , and "." is used at the end of each clause.

<comment><USER7> >> Please note that Prolog programs are, syntactically, also Prolog terms, and "." is used at the end of each clause.

Heh. You won't believe how much trouble I got into for using Prolog terminology like "term" and "predicate" when speaking to logic programming people, even though they all know Prolog perfectly well.

You can probably imagine why- in FOL, and so in logic programming, a "term" is a variable, a constant or a function, and a "predicate" is a concept. In Prolog, a "term" is - well, everything! And "predicate" is either a clause or what LP people call an atom. Oh, and, btw, an "atom" in Prolog is either a predicate symbol, a non-ary function, or a constant, whereas in LP it's a predicate symbol followed by a vector of terms in parentheses.

How all this terminological confusion came about, I don't know, but I'm sure suffering because of it, and because I first learned Prolog, before really studying logic programming, as such.

<comment><USER6> The terminology of first-order logic is indeed quite different from that of Prolog. A key reason for this is that in FOL, we have to distinguish between the syntactic entities and their interpretations. So, in FOL, we have predicate _symbols_ that are assigned to _relations_ by an interpretation, we have constant _symbols_ that are assigned to domain _elements_ by an interpretation, we have function _symbols_ that are assigned _functions_ by an interpretation. In addition, many theorems also require that we distinguish between countable and uncountable signatures.

In contrast, Prolog is confined to a single _kind_ of interpretations, namely to _Herbrand structures_ , where each term "stands for itself", and where we only need symbols that _already occur_ in the clauses we are considering:

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

So, in Herbrand structures, the interpretation of a term T is simply the symbolic representation of T, i.e., "T". Importantly, one can show that a set of clauses has a model if _and only if_ it has a Herbrand model.

This also has important semantic consequences: For example, due to the compactness theorem (and its consequence, the upward Löwenheim–Skolem theorem), one can show that important concepts such as the _transitive closure_ of a relation, the class of _connected graphs_ , and the _natural numbers_ with only the intended model (up to isomorphism) _cannot be expressed in first-order logic_!

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

Yet, we can readily express these things in Prolog, and in fact almost every Prolog program also does that or needs them!

Why? Because Prolog (implicitly) only considers _least Herbrand models_ , so we do not need this layered syntactic view, and also do not run into these semantic issues when programming in Prolog.

An argument can be made that in this case, what at first seems like a restriction in fact extends the usefulness of the language. A similar argument can be made also for several constructs _within_ the language.

<comment><USER8> While Prolog's operational semantics are given in terms of least Herband models (at least, before you consider negation), you can also view a Prolog program as a subset of FOL and give a traditional model-theoretic account of the semantics. This may be less useful practically, for the reasons you give, but sometimes it's nice to consider that a symbol "fred" might actually refer to a person called Fred rather than just be symbols all the way down...

(It always surprises me when Prolog texts refer to the least Herband model as the "intended model" - it's definitely not what I intend when I write Prolog!)

So while we can say that an "ancestor" relation in Prolog correctly defines transitive closure within the least Herbrand semantics, at some point we actually have to relate that "semantics" to the real world if we want to know what our programs mean.

Edit: putting this all another way, my understanding of (pure, positive) Prolog's operational semantics is that the least Herbrand model contains exactly those sentences that are true in all models of the program, whether those models are Herbrand or otherwise. So it's not quite true to say that Prolog only considers the least Herbrand model, but that it may as well only do so because the (operational) result will be the same. It's been a while since I've looked at this any great depth though.

<comment><USER7> >> (It always surprises me when Prolog texts refer to the least Herband model as the "intended model" - it's definitely not what I intend when I write Prolog!)

Good point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anyone know how this compares to Picat? I spent some time looking at Picat and plan to use it in the future in an (mainly SQL) ERP system for solving constraint decision problems. Picat is v nice, I could never get my head around Prolog, Picat is much easier for me to grok and appears to be a lot more powerful.

</comment><comment><USER4> This language has been around for ages and does not get enough attention imho; it is a very fast Prolog like and it has been robust for a while now. But almost no one uses it unfortunately...

<comment><USER10> I used Mercury intensively for about a year a while ago. I think what ultimately turned me off was the incompleteness of the implementation (several of the most interesting features were only 80% implemented, and the unimplemented corner cases were undocumented and caused the compiler to crash, so you just had to guess what it was you were doing that was too advanced), and the incomprehensibility of the error messages (an order of magnitude even more incomprehensible than C++ template errors).

Notably, the lack of support from the instantiatedness system for partially instantiated structures put Mercury at a big disadvantage to Prolog's expressiveness in my opinion.

So now, instead of using Mercury and wishing it better supported partial instantiation and had comprehensible error messages, I use Prolog and wish it had even a basic static analyzer and support for the !Var and @Var syntaxes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm sure this is awesome, but there's no code examples until I download a read a PDF tutorial. I think a couple of examples in the README or on the homepage could go a long way. What differiates this from Prolog or Datalog?

<comment><USER12> More expressive than datalog, faster than Prolog.

<comment><USER13> However, less expressive than Prolog

<comment><USER14> Could you explain or point to any discussion on why would that be.

<comment><USER15> Mercury brings a bit more sanity to Prolog with its mode system. This is one of the key reasons why it runs fast and can be used to build big systems like Prince. That said, it _is_ a restriction on expressiveness of programs, and sometimes that makes it hard to do certain things. That's true of any type system.

There's still an interesting question about whether a different iteration on the mode system could capture more of the semantics of Prolog while still being useful, but so far nobody has done that research yet. It's more trendy to do FP research these days, so I'm expecting it could be a _long_ time before we get an answer, sadly.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


US launches next-gen weather satellite that will revolutionize forecasting - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/11/19/u-s-launches-next-generation-weather-satellite-that-will-revolutionize-forecasting/ <comment><USER2> I think people are accustomed to it and therefore overlook it, but note that government, using taxpayer dollars, delivers the most high-tech systems in the world - not only for meteorology, but also science, medicine and space exploration (as well as military and intelligence). There is a benefit to countries and to the world when the people pool their money for something big.

<comment><USER3> *taxpayer funded research

Government doesn't do shit, except write the check. this all comes from acadamia, nasa, darpa, etc.

You're point that science is pushed forward by people pooling resources is absolutely correct, I just want to make it clear that Government has very little to do with it. This is just societ bolstering the resources of our greatest minds.

<comment><USER4> >Government doesn't do shit

>nasa, darpa

I don't think you understand...

<comment><USER3> They are government funded but have exactly nothing to do with governance. They could be privately funded and accomplish the exact same things.

<comment><USER5> In a mathematical sense, yes, every citizen who gives a certain amount of tax money to the government to pay for research bodies could, instead, give money straight to some sort of central body to distribute it to the same various groups.

But they wouldn't. And you know it. Even the Science Philanthropy Alliance ([http://www.sciencephilanthropyalliance.org/what-we- do/resour...](http://www.sciencephilanthropyalliance.org/what-we- do/resources/faqs/)), which funds researchers using privately-donated money, says that taxes are necessary to have scientific progress.

<comment><USER3> I didn't say anything IF taxes were important or IF people's WOULD pay them.

And yes, we are talking about semantics (mathematical sense). People couldn't give money to the DoD and accomplish the same thing, nor could they give money to DHS or any of the other Executive Departments.

NASA is an independent, federally funded, civilian agency. The part of it that is Federal, is its budget.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "This is probably the most complex technology that our species is involved in — weather prediction is,"

I think this is just a pattern of people seeing the complexity in their field, but not knowing anything about other fields and thus believing that they are doing the most awesome thing ever.

LHC guys will say their technology is the most complex one, Intel, the AI guys, and so on..., not to mention the global infrastructure required to run the Internet.

<comment><USER7> They're speaking of Chaos Theory, which was invented/discovered for weather prediction.

'Complexity', in this sense, doesn't mean 'it's rocket science' bus is a definable quantity.

<comment><USER8> That definition of complexity, counting all the interlocking parts, leads to laughable conclusions. Example: The decision whether to walk my dog at the park or at the beach is now more complex than launching satellites. Since the park/beach decision relies upon both weather forecasts and dog psychology it is therefore more complex than either. Since weather forecasting involves launching satellites, there are more parts in the park/beach decision.

To be relevant, complexity should measure not the entire system but the number of variables at a specific point in the system. Rocket science isn't very complex as it is very compartmentalized. Different stages in the process involve discrete decisions divorced from others scheduled to occur at different times. So, weather forecasting wins because the number of variables at every decision is far greater. The flow-chart for a rocketry decision is more vertical whereas the chart for a weather forecast is more horizontal.

<comment><USER9> Where should I go with my dog in 7 days can be argued that more complex.

Where should I go now - not so much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is actually pretty cool. I last worked with satellite data from GOES 8 and 9 in '98\. I remember satellite images were sent sent every 3 hours and full disk images were 12 hours. I worked in a weather office where they had one pc running DOS that received the data from Satellite and saved the data where various HP-UX servers manipulated the data.

Last i remember, all data transmitted by these satellites are not encrypted, anyone can build a receiver to gather the data to generate satellite images.

One day I hope to have time to do this myself.

<comment><USER11> I currently use an SDR to capture ADS-B messages, but it can also be used for satellite images fairly easily:

[http://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-tutorial-receiving-noaa- weath...](http://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-tutorial-receiving-noaa-weather- satellite-images/)

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the link to that site. GOES weather satellites use a different format.

Found the beginning article to the series here:

[http://www.rtl-sdr.com/setting-up-a-goes-weather- satellite-a...](http://www.rtl-sdr.com/setting-up-a-goes-weather-satellite- antenna-system/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like their choice in name: GOES-R.

Ghostbusters reference: [http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/7/7f/Goz...](http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/7/7f/Gozer.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140529144058)

<comment><USER13> I believe once they are commissioned they are given a number (eg current ones are GOES-13, GOES-14, GOES-15). They are also given a designation as GOES-EAST or GOES-WEST depending on where they are being used. So GOES-13 was GOES-EAST until it had an anomaly and GOES-14 was moved out of a storage orbit and designated GOES-EAST. It returned to storage once they fixed the issue with GOES-13.

The R is just a sequence number for launching; S and T are slated next. If there is a failure before commissioning, it won't receive a numerical designation.

So the GOES-R name was just a happy accident I guess.

<comment><USER14> Wait, if GOES-* is placed in a synchronous orbit, shouldn't the name be GOES- NOWHERE?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Oh boy, what a flurry of buzzwords. Game changer, Breakthrough, revolutionize...

All I got from the actual information is a better resolution and faster analysis, nothing that would support the hyping.

<comment><USER16> Capital Weather Gang usually does a better job explaining things to the masses, so that's a little disappointing. Having a similar conversation with family and friends, it's challenging to explain the hype.

Weather is incredibly complex and difficult to model and predict. We have multiple sources of truth to provide the input to our models: radar sites spaced hundreds of miles apart, balloons that are launched twice a day and hundreds of miles apart, METAR stations that record ground observations, satellite, etc. Satellite data is the closest you can get to seeing the entire atmosphere as an interconnected system with no gaps in data, but is limited by being a top-down view (better spectral information will help), somewhat low resolution, and 5-15 minute update intervals (storms can go from nothing to tornadic in 45 minutes).

CIMSS and other groups of researchers are doing great work with our current satellite data like identifying when supercells are likely to produce tornadoes and estimating instability in a column of the atmosphere. Increasing spectral information, resolution, and frequency will enable products to be refined and new products to come out - such as lightning detection, which currently relies on private networks.

Severe weather nowcasting is only one of the areas that will benefit from this, but the one that I'm familiar with as an amateur meteorologist. GOES-R has the potential to cut false alarm rate and increase warning times for severe weather. Weather nerds are rather excited, as this stands to be a powerful new tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is great. I worked on the ground processing systems for this satellite. I left before my own algorithmic systems went through final review. Was good for me to leave career-wise but I wish I could have seen it through to the end.

</comment><comment><USER18> When will humanity have enough sensors and computing power to give a similar forecast that Dark Sky provides today, but 7 days in advance? What will that system look like? It seems like it is a mostly matter of time, but I just don't grasp what all will need to be done to get there and if it is 15 years out or 100.

<comment><USER19> The only real hope for that is if we start directly controlling weather. The last 1,000,000x increase in processing power has bought less than a days worth of accuracy. In the very short term you can just model the momentum of the air, but the feedback loops quickly reduce stability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I started to depend on the hourly rain, snow prediction data from google/weather.com in the last year or so. Especially when planing ski trip.

I found them amazingly accurate. Now I know why. I am looking forward the future forecast provided by next gen satellite.

</comment><comment><USER21> I wish they'd leave the 100mhz APT signals on these so kids around the country could build their own little "weather stations"... Being able to listen to those (I never had a wideband enough radio to see them) was one of the coolest things.

<comment><USER22> Are they not? (I haven't heard anything either way.)

<comment><USER21> They've moved to Ghz band (Ku?) for weather several years back [1].

Great moves for science and I am happy that we are advancing tech, but an upgraded version of APT nowadays with how cheap tech is getting could have provided people in developing countries some better pictures of coming weather. Also could have kept the 10 year old inside of us with cheap 100mhz radios outside at night, listening to the satellites passing over our heads.

1: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_picture_transmission...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_picture_transmission#Future) & [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- resolution_picture_transm...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- resolution_picture_transmission)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Enjoy it while you can, as most likely the incoming administration will turn off this satellite. Why spend a lot of money to discover politically inconvenient data? Two birds, one stone.

<comment><USER24> The parent is downvoted but raises the noteworthy point that congress has in fact diverted funds away from atmospheric research specifically to avoid climate science. I'm not sure where this GOES satellite falls in the constellation of climate study tools.

<comment><USER25> Ironically, they can't fully defund it as it is mission critical for the military industrial machine. All deployed aviation assets in the US military have somewhere attached to them a USAF meteorologist. I flew the Shadow 200 TUAV "drone" in Iraq from 2003-2004 and we always had a single air force person with us for weather stuff. It is critical for safety of flight. Also, for launching things like missiles and really anything airborne, you need to know the weather for safety reasons. It only lightly touches on it in the article, but this is why the DoD is so serious about funding and working with NOAA even though NOAA is part of the Department of Commerce.

<comment><USER2> > they can't fully defund it as it is mission critical for the military > industrial machine

The U.S. military lacks critical funds at this point due to defunding, depending on how you define "critical". The service chiefs testified that they will not be able to defend the country unless they get more money.

[http://breakingdefense.com/2016/09/four-service-chiefs- say-t...](http://breakingdefense.com/2016/09/four-service-chiefs-say-they- cant-defend-us-under-sequestration/)

<comment><USER25> They've been saying that since the dawn of the US Military. I genuinely don't buy it. It is just like Trump's alarmism over the size of our military (the navy specifically) shrinking under Obama post-GW Bush surge. The technology has gotten so much better and automation in specific allows us to do more with less people. This is by design and I'd almost argue if the tech wasn't getting better and needing less humans, our R&D is clearly failing. The current Order of Battle of the entire US Military calls for us to be able to fight two large scale wars simultaneously. We've done that arguably well/poorly with Iraq and Afghanistan. They're coming to grips that with unconventional warfare, you simply need a LOT more boots on the ground trudging around.

Our technology advantage alone allows us to realistically probably coast for 6-8 years and still be matched only realistically by China. Russia has a few things that can match current US kit (their new tanks are excellent and they have some of the best anti-air kit in the world), but the Kremlin simply far and above lacks the cash to be in a position to afford to pay for a serious modernization. Obama's sanctions along with the massive drop in oil have put a dent in Russia's economy regardless of Putin's posturing. Sure they have very nice new jets, but they have precious few of them. We have nice new jets, better radars, and all of our older jets can spank the pants off of their older jets, etc, etc.

This is really just my anecdotal experience as a US Army veteran who was in OIF II 2003-2004.

<comment><USER2> > They've been saying that since the dawn of the US Military.

I follow foreign policy issues closely, and I disagree.

> The current Order of Battle of the entire US Military calls for us to be > able to fight two large scale wars simultaneously. We've done that arguably > well/poorly with Iraq and Afghanistan.

I'm not sure what you mean by that usage of "Order of Battle". IIRC US military planning calls for them to fight one war, a medium-sized one IIRC, and keep a second medium-sized war in a holding pattern. Iraq and Afghanistan are small wars against very weak opposition whose best weapons are IEDs.

However, there isn't much here beyond claims with no basis. I'd be interested in seeing some evidence for it all.

<comment><USER25> Having been in the US military, the command was always alarmist about troop sizing even in the blatant face of improving technology. We have counter- defilade rifles now (XM25). This puts the best part of a small mortar in the hands of an infantry rifle platoons. Does it mean you can get away with less artillery platoons and mortar squads? It might, yes. Does it mean you can retrofit counter-defilade capabilities into normal infantry operations allowing smaller units to do more? It does. This was my point. I saw this directly while I was in the service and it has always been that way. Yes we've done budget cuts under Obama for the US military, but we also had an unprecedented "surge" during GW Bush, meanwhile tech has been improving. Look at an older Nimintz class Aircraft Carrier with their 5000+ crew. Compare that to the newer Gerald Ford class carriers with their increased operational velocity and 2600 crew. Will some admirals tell you they're hamstrung due to having fewer soldiers? No doubt. Does that always reflect reality since they can literally do more with less? Nope!

The "Order of Battle" is US Military terminology to denote the composition of a military unit to respond to certain threats. It is most commonly used from Division / Brigade level and lower by the intelligence officers, but goes all the way up to the Pentagon & Department of Defense. An order of battle is designed to solve the question of, "How do I shape a military unit to best defeat the adversaries they're pledged or expected to fight against?". Absolutely nothing in the US's two war doctrine says for us to fight a medium war and be prepared for another medium sized war. Not sure what you think, but Iraq and Afghanistan are both big wars where we've simply de-emphasized "winning" them to optimize for less soldiers dying. The land mass is enormous in both and since a war is basically about owning a piece of land, it is easier to judge the size by the size of the land being attempted to liberate. Also, if we were fighting a larger conventional war (sans nukes) we would likely win/lose much quicker with much lower casualties. The asymetric warfare we're currently waging is something the US simply isn't very good at (nor is any conventional military really). What do you think?

For instance, I was a member of the US's first "Stryker Brigade Combat Team" (D Troop, 1/14th Cavalry, 2nd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division out of Ft Lewis, Washington). Our Brigade of ~5500 soldiers replaced the 82rd Airborne _division_ of ~19000 soldiers and did equally well due to our Order of Battle emphasizing speed (via the Strykers mainly) over sheer massive footprint and heavy slow armor. This was due to the enemy not being heavily armored and primarily using small pickup trucks "technicals". In this area, we pretty much dominated it as you'd have a fully loaded Stryker squad across the city (Tall'Afar or Mosul primarily) before anyone even realized it as they were much quieter than say a Hummvee.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Great thing to know. Hope it reduces fatalities in the near by countries like Haiti too.

<comment><USER24> The weather predicting organizations of developed nations are remarkably cooperative and significant data are shared widely.

<comment><USER27> And yet the NWS won't incorporate Canadian radar data from storms moving across the Canadian sword into western New York.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Sure it will.

</comment><comment><USER29> Would love to read the article, but paywall.

<comment><USER10> no problems reading it myself, never seen paywall on Washington Post articles

<comment><USER30> There is, it's a soft paywall, letting you read a certain number per month.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The only thing this will revolutionize, is the alt-right's ability to deny more facts that climate change is real :(

<comment><USER31> Wouldn't more information make it more difficult to claim unscientific things?

<comment><USER25> You would certainly think so, but clearly you can't reason with the alt-right. The Trump election proves that somewhat handily.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Woah, something from the next generation? Someone call the temporal agents and let them know. This is exactly what we faught against in the temporal cold war.</comment>


Where's the lane? Self-driving cars confused by shabby U.S. roadways - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-autonomous-infrastructure-insig-idUSKCN0WX131 <comment><USER2> This is one of those cases where the engineers aren't going to be able to cheat and force the world to conform to their model of reality. I await the "falsehoods programmers believe about roads." If you actually want to build autonomous cars there are a whole host of assumptions that you have to throw out. To give only one example: are all roads paved?

<comment><USER3> It would also imply that anyone with access to road marking paint can fool autonomous vehicles into misbehavior.

<comment><USER4> Such tricks could fool a significant percentage of humans, too.

<comment><USER5> And road construction crews love to play those tricks. There's a spot on the FDR highway around NYC where for years the road was redirected to swerve, but the lane markings remained straight. If you were not paying full attention and just followed the lines, you'd drive straight into the wall.

<comment><USER6> That seems less like a fun prank and more like sociopathy. I'm really surprised nobody got sued.

(I'm not a lawyer, but "We created an optical illusion directing people to crash into a wall, so those victims should have been paying attention and figuring it out" doesn't strike me as a robust defense in court.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Shabby roadways"? If there was ever a case of "first world problems", this is it.

Frankly, US roadways are really good. I was amazed by the amount of signage present, not to mention the pavement itself.

Yes there are imperfections. But when was the last time you tore apart your car's axle due to inability to avoid the 20th gaping hole you ran across in just one way of your commute?

You want shabby roads? Go to third world countries. That's the real test for self-driving cars.

<comment><USER8> It's pointless to compare the United States with third world countries. You should be holding it to much higher standards.

I myself compare the United States with our peers in Western Europe, Japan, Korea, etc. In this scope, our roadways are actually kind of sad, especially when you factor in how much we spend on them and double-especially when you factor in that we don't have solid railroads.

Our highways are generally paved really thin (compare to: German highways) and they end up cracking and breaking all the time. I've never driven between two cities on an Interstate highway without being slowed down by construction work.

Also, just from day to day observation: I live in Chicago and everywhere I walk, the streets look disastrous. They're broken apart, and some of them are half-repaired with concrete chunks sticking out (check out LaSalle and Randolph)--on some streets it's a miracle to me some cars get through without a flat tire.

We are a tremendously successful and advanced country. There is clearly a very big problem with the state of our roads.

<comment><USER9> > double-especially when you factor in that we don't have solid railroads

I think you mean 'passenger railroads'. The US freight railroad is world- class. Lots of spurious debate about railroads in the US comes from confusing the pros and cons of a freight network (which we have) with the pros and cons of a high-speed passenger network (which we don't have). The benefits of a continent-sized high-speed rail network in a continent with low population density tends to be over-emphasized.

[http://business.time.com/2012/07/09/us-freight- railroads/](http://business.time.com/2012/07/09/us-freight-railroads/)

<comment><USER8> That is indeed what I meant.

As for benefits/needs of a high speed passenger network--all I have to say is that my current options for going Chicago - New York which I do frequently are: 1. garbage airlines that are consolidating more and more and increasing their prices for no apparent reason, 2. broken roads that are constantly being repaired, and 3. Amtrak

That said, it's clear to me that a high speed rail connection (for example Chicago - NY at ~200mph) would be a no brainer. I'd even pay more than I pay American Airlines for the route.

<comment><USER10> Between DC-NYC-Boston we have the Acela train here, which is surprisingly decent in terms of price and service. It gets up to 150mph but due to traffic and the layout of the tracks only averages 80mph or so. Still, it beats flying imho.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Where's the lane?"

I've often asked that myself dear robot. Welcome, you're now truly a fellow driver

</comment><comment><USER12> Non-self-driving cars are often similarly confused. While there are situations a human can handle that a self-driving car can't as easily, many situations confound both, and necessitate cautious driving and a careful lookout in case you're not actually in your lane (or another vehicle isn't in theirs).

</comment><comment><USER13> What?? You want to sell a self-driving car but you want it to be a good driver _only_ in pristine, well-marked roads?? What kind of half-assed solution is that? Well, now that I think about it, the car could determine if the road wasn't good enough and tell you to take over, but then you'd have to be ready to do it and not busy reading a novel or talking with your mother on the phone, so it would defeat the purpose of doing the driving a bit. Anyway, I'll bet the only real solution will be to make the ai better. Just as with airplanes, you can't hal-ass something like this and blame it on lack of road paint, it would be too dangerous (you know, with airplanes, how they're so safe because otherwise they'd be so dangerous).

</comment><comment><USER14> Driving in LA I often have trouble finding the lane. Either there are no markings or there are several markings of different fadedness. In rain it's even worse. You just take your best guess :-)

<comment><USER15> Where in LA are you driving? It definitely isn't that bad to be "often"...

<comment><USER14> 405 north in the rain is fun. Even better in the dark :-). Or just 5 north all through the LA area.

<comment><USER16> Most of LA in the rainy dark is absolutely terrible. There are no raised markers or reflectors for lane dividers, so combined with the often faded lines and reflections of headlights, it's impossible to tell where the lanes are. Most drivers (myself included) just kind of slow down and say "this seems like about the right place...".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I personally wouldn't want to be in a car that didn't work if the lane lines were faded. Apparently all terrorists will need in the future to cause mass mayhem is a can of paint.

<comment><USER18> Why wait for them to fade when you can cause much more directed mayhem by painting new lines that lead the vehicle somewhere unsafe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> How can you head a multinational automobile engineering company and _not_ be aware of this most basic shortcoming of your product?

<comment><USER20> Who says he wasn't aware? Most likely, he wasn't aware that the specific place where they were planning the demo didn't have markings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Uhh...many HUMAN drivers are confused by U.S. roadways...I've been in many places where the lane is more about following the car in front of me as there are no well visible markers. Kind of like when it snows, the lane is the two tire tracks, who cares where the actual lane is haha.

</comment><comment><USER22> Here's a tweet I sent to the City of San Carlos about 4 weeks ago. Fortunately they've since remedied it. This is Holly (Redwood Shores Parkway) looking west towards an overpass over 101.

If it's not clear, 2 lanes come over the overpass towards where I shot the photo from. An offramp from 101 North terminates where the white pickup is.

This has always been a _terrible_ merge. 2 lanes come across the freeway, and the offramp is a new 'added' lane, but the striping/bott's dotts between the #1 and #2 lane coming down from the overpass are virtually nonexistent. There are cracks in the road (the dark marks) where the lane markings should be.

It was always a big risk because cars in the right lane coming over the overpass used to just drift over into the offramp's new lane, and half the cars coming down the offramp didn't know they had a new lane, so they'd just STOP at the end of the ramp.

THEN the City, in its infinite wisdom, decided to fix _none_ of these problems, but instead add a striped bike lane that cuts across the offramp. Absent lane markings to follow, drivers in the right lane would just follow the dashed bike lane and force themselves into the offramp's new lane. I witnessed at least 5 near collisions in the several minutes I was there taking photos.

They've since SOMEWHAT improved the markings between #1 and #2 lanes, but the bike lane markings are much more substantial and people still tend to follow them. Also, it still tends to confuse people using the offramp.

But this is an endemic problem; I bike commute and often a bike lane _switches sides of a car lane_ in the middle of an intersection. It's the traffic version of "Step 1: right lane. Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit!" Or "good luck, hope you come out on the other side of the intersection alive.

[https://twitter.com/reidconti/status/705866795417075712](https://twitter.com/reidconti/status/705866795417075712)

<comment><USER23> To be clear - this is a bike lane on a road with _onramps_? Uh, what? There aren't even bollards (in the part without an onramp, obviously) or any semblance of protection.

<comment><USER24> It's the surface street side of the ramp there in the photo. Here's the approx location:

[http://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=37.51639&mlon=-122.25424#...](http://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=37.51639&mlon=-122.25424#map=17/37.51639/-122.25424)

The photo is taken looking towards the freeway, showing the offramp.

A typical bike lane in the US is made out of paint, the lack of protection isn't noteworthy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> at a certain point, fast approaching, we should start optimizing road markings for electronic sensors over human sight. How costly would it be to strip the middle of every lane with a small magnet or RFID that could detected by vehicles and even convey static metadata, such as mile maker, speed limit, number of lanes, distance to next stop light etc.

<comment><USER26> I would think radio towers with GPS-like positioning information would be cheaper and better, particularly since they could include other information like road conditions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> If they are confused by US roadways, they'll melt when they come to India and see this - [http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/00397/20080331593...](http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/00397/2008033159380401_397767e.jpg)

<comment><USER28> Survival of the fittest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I saw this in Honolulu last week: [http://i.imgur.com/WIdrgiG.png](http://i.imgur.com/WIdrgiG.png)

I assume the extra "markings" are related to a road repair, but I couldn't imagine a worse situation for a self-driving car.

<comment><USER30> That looks like it's maybe this: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowel_bar_retrofit](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowel_bar_retrofit)

<comment><USER29> Thanks! Even includes a section on confusion with pavement markings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Ha! I was waiting for this! I was on a multi-lane road recently and I couldn't see the lane delimiters. They had faded to the point they were no longer visible. It required a lot of concentration to avoid hitting cars near me and it was quite disconcerting.

</comment><comment><USER32> The solution to this problem, at least for the foreseeable future, is to have the autopilot only active when the car is on a certified autonomous road. This would have to be a legal definition, in which road construction would de- certify that road section, and the certification continuously updated via the autonomous cars themselves. As soon as cars start seeing degraded conditions they update a central database, which alerts other cars to switch to manual mode well before entering that road section.

</comment><comment><USER33> O.k. so lets say the roads got nice stripes. What about:

1) Under rainy conditions?

2) Heavy snow fall?

3) Incompletely plowed roads?

4) Roads under construction - i.e. partially striped and the little flags that haven't been completely moved around between road realignments?

Do you mean to tell me Alpha Go can beat a human at Go but can't be trusted not to drive a car into a ditch?

It is nice to know that the way we avoid the singularity is with confused road markings :-)

</comment><comment><USER34> Seriously? Just use all the sensors you've got to determine the edges of the road, divide the width of the road in half, and the right-half is the direction you're traveling in. Based on the size of this half, determine number of lanes. Create a virtual box so the car stays in the space of where the right-most lane should be. No need to read road markings to stay in lane.

 _edit_ Nevermind, I forgot that not all roads have an even number of lanes in both directions (even considering single turning lanes and medians). But absent a median or any markings at all, the above is a relatively safe bet. I'm sure they could build a set of heuristics to accommodate the exceptions.

Humans have spatial vision, so we should also be able to create cameras that can make out objects floating in free space (such as traffic lights), piece out their components, and compare them to a set of common criteria to determine its intent, the way humans basically do.

</comment><comment><USER35> Companies using inadequate software and sensors blame roads for engineering failure.

<comment><USER36> I'm not sure that's the case. In the greater Seattle area, roads have deteriorated to the point where it can be difficult to spot road markings even as an experience driver, and it's not unheard of for the markings to be completely worn away. I'm not sure about the rest of the country, but roads are painfully underfunded here.

<comment><USER37> > roads have deteriorated to the point where it can be difficult to spot road > markings even as an experience driver

Yes, but apparently self-driving systems are doing a worse job than humans. But this only means the AI isn't quite there yet. I say AI, not sensors, because their vision is probably already better than human's.

<comment><USER38> It's a combination of sensors and AI. You'd be surprised by how low quality (wrt framerate & resolution specifically) the sensors used in production autonomous features/vehicles are. See mobile-eye's papers and products: [http://www.mobileye.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/09/StereoAss...](http://www.mobileye.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/09/StereoAssist.pdf)

<comment><USER37> The newest reference date in that paper is 2009 so I suspect the paper itself is a bit old. I really doubt that video would be other than state-of-the-art when the whole system is so expensive.

Edit: Also that company makes add-on collision detection products. That is a different application than auto-driving.

<comment><USER38> I worked on these cars this summer at GM. I can't say what model of camera sensors we used for obvious reasons, but the resolution and framerate were not too far off from what Mobileye has in that paper!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> so that's even in a fairly rich "developed" country...hello the rest of the worlds roads aren't generally any better...

this is exactly the moment when I ponder "why the hell is this whole automatic-self-driving-car thing being pushed so hard generally?"

it seems like a rather absurd and silly effort to begin with... what's wrong with a bloody system of maglev propelled capsules being shot through tubes, or the train, or a normal car you drive with a steering wheel, accellerator pedal, and brakes?

</comment><comment><USER40> This is why we need self-driving road paving trucks first. Kinda serious, especially for filling potholes.

</comment><comment><USER41> I want to know how they plan for self-driving cars to work in snow.

<comment><USER42> Tesla's system uses the information about the road gathered when the snow was not present. Teslas are very popular in Norway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Notably absent from cast of complainers: Google.

<comment><USER44> At the same time I'm pretty sure they also commented that self-driving cars might be 30 years away during an event at SXSW this year.

<comment> semi-extrinsic I really liked the Rolls Royce CEO's comment on their self-driving tech: "Oh, we invented that 111 years ago. We call it a chauffeur."

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-01-06/rolls- royce-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-01-06/rolls-royce-ceo- record-sales-year-may-spur-suv)</comment></comment></comment>


Snapchat Security Advisory - <AUTHOR> http://gibsonsec.org/snapchat/

<comment><AUTHOR> Highlights:

* They encrypt all snaps with the same encryption key (AES in ECB mode). The key is embedded in the app and is the same key on iOS and android.

* They have an API that, given a phone number, will return a users snapchat handle and name if the phone is valid. This is a batch API with no limit. The security firm was able to successfully send a request with 75k phone numbers.

Not mentioned in the post is that snapchat appears to run over HTTP and sends an auth token. Anyone listening to traffic should be able to grab that auth token as well.</comment>


International Travel to the U.S. Sees Double-Digit Decline Under Trump - <AUTHOR> https://finance.yahoo.com/news/international-travel-u-sees-double-190800415.html <comment><USER2> I was nearly denied entry at a US airport yesterday during a domestic travel because the TSA agent wanted to verify my visa. She saw my old visa in my passport and refused to look at my new one despite me telling her multiple times. She asked me to step aside and called another agent. This agent told her they don't have to check my visa, only the passport and allowed me in. If I had just shown my US license instead, this could have been avoided.

This is the second time I had a similar experience. The first one was when I was leaving from US. Just before boarding, someone from CBP wanted to check my visa. He saw my old visa first and started raising his voice.

I am not used to being treated as a criminal. I guess I will have to get used to it or leave this country.

<comment><USER3> What the hell is the TSA dragon doing checking your visa if you're already here?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is great! Less traffic, less people, and better rates on hotels!

<comment><USER5> With an estimate loss of $7.4 billion in tourism dollars. This is a nightmare most major cities in the US. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/afte...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/after- trumps-travel-ban-tourism-outfits-say-that-brand-usa-has-taken-a- hit/2017/04/14/d0eebf4e-158e-11e7-833c-503e1f6394c9_story.html)

<comment><USER6> I'm sure the parent comment was being sarcastic but who even knows anymore?

<comment><USER4> I should have added the /s for other readers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's an expected side-effect when a nation decides to no longer do business as usual.

Something to keep in mind when our "friends" get their ass in another jam.

[https://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/1922-why-i- quit-b...](https://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/1922-why-i-quit-being- so-accommodating/)</comment>


Show HN: Ping-Pong Game in Terminal - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kumaran-14/terminal-pong <comment><USER2> Cool project, I think the README might need some improvement. The 2d level headings are h5 and then 3d level headings is __bolded __text; it looks kinda odd. I 'll send a PR :D</comment>


Ask HN: How much time do you spend on the work vs. the rest of your life? - <AUTHOR>

If you divided your life into, lets say, four areas: 1. Work 2. Health 3. Relationships 4. Personal growth<p>In all honesty, what percentage of your life would each receive? <comment><USER2> The question is meaningless for me. There's no dividing my life up into this area or that area. It's all one big rolling ball of string. Ok, maybe I could split it up into "job" and "not job" but health, relationships, personal growth are all blended together (along with entertainment, home maintenance, chores, walking the dog, and goofing off). I could tell you how many hours I bill a month but work still flits in and out through every waking hour (and maybe some dreaming hours).

</comment><comment><USER3> My equation is to achieve fulfillment in personal growth (area 4) through work (area 1) without messing up my marriage (area 3) and still having time to keep up my health (area 2).

The overwhelming majority of my time goes towards work (area 1) since I'm usually bootstrapping a startup while also consulting to pay the bills. Since I have to maintain my marriage as well (area 3), my health (area 2) usually suffers because there's just not enough time in the day. The end result of this situation will probably be the loss of a decade or two (hopefully not 3) of lifespan. C'est la vie.

If I could cure myself of being a degenerate entrepreneur, or make/raise enough money from a startup that it can be my full-time job and limit myself to 60 hour work-weeks, I could achieve some kind of balance. But its never really happened so far. It is the goal. I think I might achieve it next time.

</comment><comment><USER4> Before financial independence: 95%.

After financial independence: 20%.

<comment><USER5> Is that a planned breakdown of your time once you reach financial independence, or actual data from your life? If so, congrats on the independence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm working on a master's degree, play squash with profs, try to teach my research to my (ever so patient) girlfriend, and consider watching lectures on MIT OCW to be "personal growth". It's all blended together!

</comment><comment><USER7> In terms of waking hours, let's see...

1\. Work/commute: 62.5% 2\. Health (gym): 1.4% 3\. Relationships (romantic & otherwise): 12.5% 4\. Personal growth: meh. I don't itemize downtime, and I _need_ downtime. Building the business quite obviously helps me prepare for the future -- spending time on my non-renumerative hobbies does, too, by preserving my sanity.

(Someday I'm moving the business from downtime to Work and will recover the rest of Work for my own uses. Hopefully in the not-too-distant future.)

</comment><comment><USER8> This is currently the hardest thing I'm battling in my life (As sad as that may sound)

On one hand I want to work hard after my fulltime job and read more programming books, write more open source software and write more to my programming blog

On the flip side I want to spend more time on my other passion (Cooking), more with my girlfriend, more time growing myself.

I'm working towards a half/half setup by so far cutting out freelance work from my life, but I think I still need to balance it out more.

</comment><comment><USER9> Counting waking hours only, work (incl. commute) 65%, relationships (marriage and others) 35%, health 10%, personal growth 100%. Yes, that adds up to 210%. I don't see why these tasks should be mutually exclusive.

I live in the city, so I either walk or cycle to work, so my commute can double-count as health. Some of the "other" relationships involve "health" activities as well, and whatever I'm doing, I try to somehow aim for personal growth.

</comment><comment><USER10> maybe 10%. even with the 10%, i might not enjoy too much about work and would love to find work that seems to blend in seamlessly with the rest of my life.</comment>


Blockchain Graveyard - <AUTHOR> https://magoo.github.io/Blockchain-Graveyard/ <comment><USER2> Funny, after reading the article I decided to go to Coinbase to see the Bitcoin prices, and this is what I find:

 _We have reason to believe you reside in a country in which Coinbase is prohibited by law from doing business (Iran, Islamic Republic Of) per the sanctions imposed by the U.S. Treasury Department 's Office of Foreign Assets Control. As a result, we've unfortunately had to close your Coinbase account._

I'm not Iranian and I'll comply with their KYC requests, but every day Coinbase feels more and more like PayPal. I thought this is what we were trying to avoid in the first place.

PS: Happily, I had no funds on the account. I hope this helps as a reminder to others: keep your money in your own private wallets.

<comment><USER3> > Coinbase feels more and more like PayPal

> Coinbase is prohibited by law from doing business

The premise that bitcoin frees you from normal legal requirements is the problem here. Or the US attempts at global jurisdiction for KYC, take your pick.

Paypal is not _gratuitously_ bad. Every annoying decision they make is because they're backed into a cost-minimising corner by fraud and compliance problems.

The bitcoin community believe that purchases should be fully _caveat emptor_ , and as a result there's a high level of fraud and theft which is going to put off non-ideological adopters.

<comment><USER4> >The premise that bitcoin frees you from normal legal requirements is the problem here.

It does. Coinbase != Bitcoin. Conflating the two is like conflating Gold with EZPawn.

>and as a result there's a high level of fraud and theft

Source? I buy things with bitcoin quite frequently. With even a modicum of judgement, it's easy to sniff out scams. This is also what reviews are for.

<comment><USER3> ?

Using bitcoin to send money to Iran from the US remains illegal even if there's no institution in the middle.

Source for theft and fraud: [https://magoo.github.io/Blockchain- Graveyard/](https://magoo.github.io/Blockchain-Graveyard/)

<comment><USER5> > The bitcoin community believe that purchases should be fully caveat emptor, > and as a result there's a high level of fraud and theft which is going to > put off non-ideological adopters.

> Source for theft and fraud: [https://magoo.github.io/Blockchain- > Graveyard/](https://magoo.github.io/Blockchain-Graveyard/)

The site you've linked seems to be talking about thefts, similar to losing your credit card and someone running rampant with it, not purchase fraud.

In the case of credit cards, someone's still paying for it, it's just not you. There's no reason why this same system can't be applied to Bitcoin, without having to change anything in the protocols. It's just an extra intermediary in the middle who suffers the loss instead of you.

Got any sources that relate to purchases per your original?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Friendly reminder that people still aren't using decentralized exchanges in 2016 even though Coinffeine (Crypto / USD), Bitsquare (Crypto / Bank), and Bithalo (Crypto / Crypto) exist which are all quite mature now.

Technically we've had the smart contracts to solve these trust problems since 2013 but still nobody is using them. Mostly the problem is these projects haven't received the funding (or attention) they need so there's no money to build momentum and overcome the initial brutal networking effect. It's also surprisingly hard to bootstrap an exchange, much less a next generation exchange using smart contracts (first hand experience) because of the serious engineering required, especially when you can probably make far more money with a traditional exchange by cutting corners.

I think there will eventually be a legitimate VC backed company who fixes this horrible security mess but for now we're forced to watch history repeat itself. Sorry for the rambling post hacker news, but as a guy who tried to fix these problems myself after Mtgox was hacked and failed for non-technical reasons, it's depressing to keep seeing the same hacks and thefts in the news. Startups in the FinTech space really need to stop being such hypocrites and learn what Bitcoin has to teach us.

Protip: Bitcoin is a lot deeper than a currency or consensus system. It can also be used as a general purpose philosophy for designing high security systems in general.

<comment><USER7> I think the reality is that most people want a directly responsible entity to whom they can get support from.

<comment><USER8> ... and since the premise of Bitcoin was to free users from precisely these third-parties, it seems that Bitcoin is a bad use-case for these people.

<comment><USER9> But "these people" are also "most people". "Most people" also don't use PGP, for many reasons, but IMO chiefly that it's hard to manage keys without outside (centralized) help. If Google managed PGP keys for you, there'd be little problem with muggles sending and receiving encrypted (albeit insecure) email.

Since Bitcoin needs a critical mass to be successful, centralized exchanges and wallets are needed to build it up so it's generally useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Only two marked "insider"? There have been more than that. There were several incidents where the insiders initially claimed they were robbed, but that didn't hold up upon closer examination.

In the altcoin world, "take the money and run" is almost standard operating procedure. Remember Paycoin?

</comment><comment><USER11> There were around 40 cryptocurrency exchanges till early 2013, which were studied for causes of their failure. [http://tylermoore.ens.utulsa.edu/fc13.pdf](http://tylermoore.ens.utulsa.edu/fc13.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER12> Some of these incidents didn't completely destroy the company or cryptocurrency. For instance ShapeShift.io is on the list but they recovered from their theft incident and are now going strong.

</comment><comment><USER13> I hadn't realised there were so many institutions and so many breaches...

<comment><USER6> Trust me, there's even more than the OP listed. This post gives a good history to some of the older thefts: [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83794.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83794.0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Was relieved to not find Coinbase on the list.

<comment><USER15> He's the former security director at Coinbase. There could be NDA issues, or maybe not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This just in, thieves steal cryptocurrency just like real currency.

The "protocol related" is by far the most concerning of course.

<comment><USER17> Indeed. It's called "wallet" for a reason. If you don't protect it, it gets stolen.

</comment></comment><comment> blubb-fish Yesterday I noticed that blockchain.info wallet now asks for an E-Mail address and features a JS based UI which doesn't render properly in Tor Browser. At least not from scratch.

Anyway - just would like to state that I am actually using BTC as a currency - to buy stuff :)

</comment><comment><USER18> A bit off topic, but I found that page theme and layout very enjoyable to read. Good design

<comment><USER19> Except that the text gets cut off on a 4 inch iPhone in portrait mode.

<comment><USER20> Switching orientation to landscape and back fits it properly to the viewport. That this should be necessary is vaguely silly, but at least it works.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Pretty sure Mintpal was a exit scam and not only a hack.

<comment><USER22> Very likely, along with many others. The official SR2.0 explanation doesn't make sense, for example. Many of the early online wallets were set up completely anonymously. Maybe they were not set up to be scams but the temptation must be considerable when no one knows who you are.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are your open office rules? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> In my open office it seems that rules are made up as they go along. Enough people complain about smelly food at desks -> ban on smelly food.

Now if they can ban clipping your nails at your desk I'm sure the guy next to me is going to be have to do it at home, but that would improve my level of sanity.

</comment><comment><USER3> Avoid them like the plague? ;-)</comment>


China temporarily shuts down thousands of factories in pollution crackdown - <AUTHOR> https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-shuts-down-tens-of-thousands-of-factories-in-widespread-pollution-crackdown/ar-AAtZIqD <comment><USER2> A less mentioned reason for pollution curb is that China wants to attract their top talents back home, as well as global up-and-comers who wish for more accommodative research funding. Most top Chinese students who studied abroad are currently residing in the US, working in major tech companies and academia.

They created the Thousand Talents program for promising and distinguished researchers, Chinese or otherwise, to work and stay in the country with salary comparable to the West, in nominal terms, and many extra privileges. [1]

Pollution is a major concern among those who are interested and this gives additional urgency to the government.

Basically, they understand very well that top talents are essential for developing advanced technologies they need, and they are pushing very hard to develop native talents and attract promising ones from other countries. This is the Singapore playbook that has propelled their two universities into major institutions in engineering and other fields within a few decades. (Engineering programs in both Singaporean universities are now ranked in the top 10 or 20 in the world. Also, both Tsinghua and Beijing are ranked in the world's top 10 in AI publications recently, but they plan for more universities to move up in more fields.)

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_Talents_Program_(Ch...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_Talents_Program_\(China\))

<comment><USER3> > Basically, they understand very well that top talents are essential for > developing advanced technology they need

Because companies around the world are now aware of the fact that Chinese government steals technologies. Also, Chinese government is too late trying to get talents back.

Most of the laowais (expats) that were in Guangzhou, that were in technology, have left in recent years. The only foreigners left are africans trying to eek out a living and English teachers who can't make it anywhere else. You can imagine the reasons why: poisonous air that will give you cancer, poisonous food that will give you cancer, dirty water that will give you cancer, horrendous traffic (and everyone driving around honking and disregarding rules), bad mannered locals (imagine jackhammering at 4am, spitting, elbowing, cutting in lines), censorship, foreigners getting arrested without a reason, expensive rent (compared to quality), no way to be connected to the western internet without VPN (and recently, VPN have been failing as well), no way to talk to families overseas. And this is in the top province in China. Imagine tier 88 or even tier 2 cities. (shudder)

There's no reason to be in China other than to make money, then get the hell out. And that seems to be even harder now with the economy stagnating and everyone blowing bubbles into the real estate.

Thank god I got out of China. Many already have.

<comment><USER2> Your story illustrates why they are focusing on pollution control and developing the Social Credit System.

"..the Social Credit System will focus on four areas: "honesty in government affairs" (政务诚信), "commercial integrity" (商务诚信), "societal integrity" (社会诚信), and "judicial credibility" (司法公信). Media coverage has thus far focused mostly on the rating of individual citizens (which falls under "societal integrity"). However, the Chinese government's plans go beyond that and also include plans for credit scores for all businesses operating in China."

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System)

<comment><USER4> China's too late.

China's Debt to ratio is a staggering 833%

[http://www.baldingsworld.com/2017/10/23/everything-we- think-...](http://www.baldingsworld.com/2017/10/23/everything-we-think-we- know-about-chinese-finances-is-wrong/)

Why China Lost About $3.8 Trillion To Capital Flight In The Last Decade

(FDI was only 1.3T over the same decade, leading to a massive loss)

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/insideasia/2017/02/22/china- cap...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/insideasia/2017/02/22/china-capital- flight-migration/)

So no money.....and recently it prevented South Korean companies from withdrawing assets from China. Now companies around the world knows. Who's gonna invest in China now?

[http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/english/news/national/19352-e...](http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/english/news/national/19352-exodus- china-s-korean-companies-suffering-omnidirectional-retaliations-china)

<comment><USER5> I think there's an important distinction missing here.

First, NET FDI (foreign direct investment) into China was 1.3 trillion USD over the last decade, not nominal: [https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.KLT.DINV.CD.WD?locat...](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.KLT.DINV.CD.WD?locations=CN).

FDI is a pretty imperfect measure for a short period of time. If a Chinese company buys foreign assets, say mines in Africa or forests in South America, that counts as a net outflow. In the long run though, those investments may well pay off handsomely. For a rapidly developing country with a high savings rate, there's no inherent reason why Chinese companies investing abroad should be an indication of _doom_ for China.

As someone who regularly does business with Chinese companies, it has been my experience that it has never been harder to remove currency from China. It is true that capital controls have become increasingly tight.

Edit:

Additionally, given the regulatory difficulties of foreign companies investing in China, it's not surprising that outflows of investment by Chinese companies outsize incoming foreign investment into China.

<comment><USER6> if someone is interested in the actual situation, the following videos are a good starting point

Davos 2017 - China's Pivot to World Markets

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8HsNfQIZQs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8HsNfQIZQs)

Davos 2017 - Strategic Update: The Future of Energy

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wvln5Ce_Sk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wvln5Ce_Sk)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We are seeing increased action on environmental compliance in China. Our SaaS company offers tools to help businesses comply to environmental (and safety and quality laws). We recently bought a company in China that is in the same business and I can tell you that the citizens are very happy with government initiatives and companies are taking this seriously. (Separate post coming about SaaS in China).

I have lived in China for 1.5 years in 2005, 2010 and returning a lot now and I have travelled pretty much everywhere in the country, in my humble opinion, China is on a very interesting path that will make it hard for the US and EU to compete in a variety of sectors. We shall see. [https://www.nimonik.com](https://www.nimonik.com) and [http://www.envitool.com](http://www.envitool.com) are the companies in question.

<comment><USER8> Good luck with the new initiative. Can't come quickly enough and should provide growth for decades.

I live in SH and run a professional services company. At the margin, does seem attempts are being made.

Vince Fulco, CFA, CAIA Weisisheng Consulting vfulco[@]weisisheng.cn

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It took only about 10 years after the Clean Air Act in the US before the big cities such as Cleveland and Pittsburgh had clear skies. China should be able to do it faster, since the technology already exists and cars already come with pollution controls.

<comment><USER10> China's biggest problem in doing this is not technological, but based on the fact the party doesn't believe in rule of law, so their are nonmechanisms to enforce regulation beyond official fiat and periodic crackdowns, neither of which are sustainable in the long term.

They have crackdowned before, many times actually, but without real continuous enforcement of rules, factory owners are caught in a horrible prisoners dilemma given how hyper competitive production is (if your competitor cheats and you don't, you'll be out of business quickly). In this case, political reform is directly related to the environment.

<comment><USER9> Yes. Some inspector who was trying to get a sample of Diesel fuel from a distributor to test for sulfur and such was told "you have the obligation to do that, but not the authority."

Here are the rules for Diesel fuel in China.[1] The official standard for sulfur has been been slowly lowered from 0.2% to 10 ppm, but enforcement is weak. There's a weaker standard for "nonroad Diesel" for tractors and such. It's observed that at night, when the blue trucks roll into Shenzhen, the pollution level goes way up, because they're using "nonroad Diesel".

The US is now <15ppm sulfur for all Diesel uses except ships. It took 25 years to get there. The EPA is (was?) trying to get ships down to 1000ppm within 200 miles of the US.

It's not that hard to enforce this, because there aren't that many refineries. China has only 75 refineries. The US has about 125. Not that many places need to be inspected.

[1] [https://www.dieselnet.com/standards/cn/fuel.php](https://www.dieselnet.com/standards/cn/fuel.php)

<comment><USER11> > The US is now <15ppm sulfur for all Diesel uses except ships. It took 25 > years to get there. The EPA is (was?) trying to get ships down to 1000ppm > within 200 miles of shore.

Already done (knowledge only due to personal interest), but it only applies within 200 miles of shore. It's also the IMO (International Maritime Organization, a UN agency) rather than the EPA. Currently the limit on open waters is at 35,000 ppm (3.5%), which will tighten to 5000 ppm in January of 2020.

Sulfur aerosols are just as bad as NOx and create just as much smog. They also turn into acid rain. They have a noted anti-geenhouse effect, but again... acid rain.

It should also be noted that there is basically zero technical or economic justification for sulfur pollution. It requires no significant inputs: a catalytic step that results in hydrogen sulfide, then a regenerating amine reaction (effectively solvent distillation), and finally the hydrogen sulfide is burnt (as in energy-producing) to produce elemental sulfur, which is sold. This is how the majority of sulfur is made.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Xi is smart guy and must be sad seeing this every day [https://www.windy.com/overlays?cosc,33.358,107.644,5](https://www.windy.com/overlays?cosc,33.358,107.644,5)

<comment><USER13> Thanks for pointing out that site. That is an awesome map. I find it very interesting / telling that the US has bright red areas for CO2 as well but all of them are at major shipping ports and in the ocean. Not surprising seeing how much pollution shipping creates.

<comment><USER14> Why does the Grand Canyon have such a huge pocket of CO? It's over 1200ppbv. Is there currently a forest fire there? The air quality there looks as bad as over Staten Island or some Chinese cities.

<comment><USER15> That pocket looks rather like an anomaly in the data. There is a very large coal-fired power plant (Navajo Generating Station) near Page, Arizona, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> China is also pushing 1 in 5 cars sold to be electric by 2025. The government definitely seems to be taking the problem seriously.

([https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/business/china-hastens- th...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/business/china-hastens-the-world- toward-an-electric-car-future.html))

<comment><USER17> At least someone is... it's a sad, sad day when the supposed "leaders of the free world" insist on burying their heads in the sand WRT: global warming. Even if we _ARE_ wrong, acting as if reducing pollution is a _bad thing_ is just silly.

<comment><USER18> That's extremely far off base.

The US has seen its CO2 emissions consistently falling for years, while generating ever greater economic output from its falling CO2 emissions output, a trend that is set to continue regardless of what the White House does.

The US is presently a leader at reducing its CO2 output and CO2 output per unit of economic growth. Its CO2 emissions from energy production is at a 26 year low, a time when the economy was half its present size in real terms.

Per capita CO2 emissions in the US have declined by nearly 30% since their peak, per the Department of Energy. They're back to where they were in 1960. The trend-line is persistently down.

Several major economies of Europe are seeing similar aggressive trends in general CO2 emissions and per capita emissions.

China's CO2 emissions are still rapidly increasingly by contrast. They have no plans to actually reduce CO2 emissions, their plan is to _maybe_ slow the increase in the next two decades. They also have no plans to reduce their extreme consumption of coal, rather they plan to try to have more renewable energy as a share. Currently China is producing at least 2x the CO2 output of the US with growing CO2 emissions, while the US has an economy 60% larger with a trend of falling CO2 emissions (set to continue as natural gas & renewables replace coal).

It's often said that the blame should be on the developed world because they're outsourcing pollution to China. At this point that's blatantly incorrect. China has made a choice about how it manufactures, to keep its costs artificially low so as to remain competitive. The US has doubled its substantial manufacturing output in roughly 30 years, without any corresponding output spike in CO2. China is cutting environmental corners, because if they don't the cost of their manufacturing would go up significantly.

<comment><USER19> "Consistently falling for years": The current downward trend is just a blip in the general trend across all recorded data since ~1900

"Leader at reducing its output": Down is easier when you're standing on a mountian instead of at sea level.

"Per capital...": US per capita output is still higher than China's.

It really is a matter of how you look at it, and which timespans you observe.

Looking at the same data you could come to vastly different conclusions:

[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/01/climate/us- bi...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/01/climate/us-biggest- carbon-polluter-in-history-will-it-walk-away-from-the-paris-climate-deal.html)

<comment><USER18> > It really is a matter of how you look at it, and which timespans you > observe.

No it's not. China is producing 2x the CO2 of the US, while the US has an economy 60% larger. China's emissions are still rapidly climbing and are set to continue to do so.

> The current downward trend is just a blip in the general trend across all > recorded data since ~1900

So you're predicting that the US is going to dramatically reverse course and begin producing a lot more energy with coal, soon? That's the only way the US CO2 decline trend is going to reverse course and consistently move higher. You must also be predicting that the US is going to entirely skip the inbound electric car change-over. As it looks now, the US is seeing the slow death of coal, with increasing electricity from natural gas and renewables, while simultaneously the US is about to adopt electric cars (like much of the developed world). Would you mind supporting your counter premise with some kind of data?

> US per capita output is still higher than China's.

It should be. US GDP per capita is five to six times that of China. China's CO2 output is 2x that of the US. That means the US is radically more efficient than China when it comes to economic output vs CO2 output.

China's CO2 output has been climbing rapidly the last five and ten years. The US added $4 trillion to its economy while reducing its CO2 output. China is such an immense polluter when it comes to CO2, that within perhaps just 15 years that per capita CO2 imbalance will decline to near zero - with the US still possessing 3x to 4x the GDP per capita of China.

<comment><USER19> You may have a differing opinion, but to me "per capita" is the only fair metric there is, unless you can make a convincing argument Chinese are somehow worth less than Americans.

And "per capita" still places the US solidly at the top of global polluters.

"per GDP" is an useless metric to me. You don't get to have more of the pie just because you managed to figure out how to get fatter eating it.

<comment><USER20> > unless you can make a convincing argument Chinese are somehow worth less > than Americans

At the moment, if we are viewing people as a resource, in terms of economic production per individual, they are.

That aside, I agree with you in general, but the point can also be made that It is not fair to compare the US and China per capita because in theory China is still a developing country, and only when the standards of living are similar between the two countries would the comparison be fair.

This assumes that improving standard of living is more important to China than controlling emissions though.

<comment><USER21> Per unit of production is a far better metric for export economies.

Per capita is only meaningful without international trade.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> When the USA exported it's manufacturing, it also exported the associated pollution.

That being said, just because the pollution is manufactured overseas doesn't mean the USA won't eventually breathe, drink or eat it. The USA might have cleaned up its own backyard but that doesn't mean net pollution from US consumption is down.

<comment><USER23> There are a billion people in china, I have a hard time imagining that none of them contribute to polution for their own ends.

<comment><USER22> Certainly they do.

But when the factories left America for China, so did their smokestacks. For all intents and purposes America outsourced it's pollution problems.

Yet no one talks about that? Why do you think that is?

p.s. Regardless of China's billion+, the USA still out consumes them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Read Hank Paulson's book, Dealing with China. That's a the former CEO of Goldman Sachs who opened the Chinese banking markets, and became Secretary of Treasury, overseeing the financial collapse here in 2008 (1). It's from 2015, goes up through October 2014.

He knows Xi. Well. Read that book.

[https://www.amazon.com/Dealing-China-Insider-Economic- Superp...](https://www.amazon.com/Dealing-China-Insider-Economic- Superpower/dp/1455504203)

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm more than willing to bet that this is due to the Communist Party Congress and the attendant media spotlight shining on China.

They did the same thing during the Olympics. Afterwards, though -- same old same old...

<comment><USER5> Also happened during the 2016 G20 summit in Hangzhou. There's a Chinese phrase for it, "G20 blue" or "G20蓝". ([https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/08/26/china- basks-i...](https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/08/26/china-basks- in-g-20-blue-as-factories-ordered-to-shut/))

That said, this doesn't seem to be a localized shutdown, of the kind we saw during the Olympics or G20 summit. I know of a number of Chinese factories in industries ranging from finished wood products to consumer electronics that have been shutdown nationwide for "environmental audits".

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> > This has temporarily stopped production from wide swaths of factories along > China's east coast and forced some factory owners to move supply chains to > other countries.

What's the next country down in the environmental/cheap labor race to the bottom? Is India about to see huge manufacturing growth?

<comment><USER27> Malaysia and Indonesia. Some smaller companies have already shifted there.

<comment><USER8> This year I assisted some displaced workers in SH whose jobs were being moved by a Fortune 1000 company from PRC to Malaysia. The exodus is real and companies have to diversify their risks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I guess this is one example of an upside to authoritarianism. When the leadership decides something is important, you'd better get with the program or else...

That being said, it's a shame that the US is having difficulty demonstrating the upsides of democracy and capitalism on this front.

<comment><USER21> You just need the will

EPA Bans PCB Manufacture; Phases Out Uses

EPA press release - April 19, 1979

[https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/epa-bans-pcb- manufactur...](https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/epa-bans-pcb-manufacture- phases-out-uses.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The funny thing about many US and EU enviroment protection supporters, that they drive an abandonement of almost pure nuclear energy use, while increasing the dependecy on coal and oil energy plants... And those produce not only chemical, but also a radiological pollution.

</comment><comment><USER30> I have to commend China for taking drastic action in response to their drastic problem.

As I understand it, it's actually very feasible to apply a carbon filter to the smokestack of a factory itself.

<comment><USER31> Totalitarianism does have some benefits.

<comment><USER32> [citation needed] How is applying the rule of law totalitarian?

<comment><USER33> Totalitarian systems are quicker to come up with the rules (in this case for self-preservation). And when time matters, then it has obvious advantages.

<comment><USER34> Businesses can react quicker because internally they run like dictatorships. That's why I am always wary of people wanting to run government like a business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Eventually they had /have to do it. Looks like you need to poison your air to industrialize but after a while you need clean up. Part of the trend. After people achieve a few basic needs they ask for cleaner air, less asthma and cancer.

Talking abut...efficiency. Can we guess some many lawsuits will be filed in courts against this? I'm guessing, zero. Must have been illegal all the time, but tolerated, until it wasn't.

</comment><comment><USER36> Flexport wrote a blog post on this a few weeks ago as the first waves it were happening: [https://www.flexport.com/blog/massive-factory-closures- china...](https://www.flexport.com/blog/massive-factory-closures-china-cracks- polluters/)

</comment><comment><USER37> China has been trying hard to change it's image recently.

<comment><USER38> China's central propaganda department spends $10bn+ per year on overseas propaganda, it's no surprise that money is going somewhere.

<comment><USER39> Well, I'd want to see a source for this, but my personal experience doesn't make it hard to believe that they'd be pumping out externally-facing propaganda.

That being said, the changes can be felt on the ground level. Public dialog is _changing_ about climate change.

<comment><USER38> The $10bn figure is from 2 years ago, it's likely higher today [https://www.ft.com/content/324d82c4-2d60-11e6-a18d-a96ab29e3...](https://www.ft.com/content/324d82c4-2d60-11e6-a18d-a96ab29e3c95?mhq5j=e5)

<comment><USER40> FT itself is heavily invested by the Japanese.

<comment><USER38> Your point being? It's well known that China spends billions on overseas propaganda. The $10bn on propaganda has been reported in multiple outlets. Does the Nikkei Times article on it somehow make the figure untrue?

Also, your entire comment history is just pro-China comments. Why is that the only topic you think is worth discussing on the site?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> How will this impact imports and the US economy? Are there any mid-Kickstarter businesses who are having to refund donations because the factory cancelled their work?

</comment><comment><USER41> I believe the world is warming through man made causes. However, I think it is just a byproduct of overpopulation. Pollution cannot be stopped with a exponential population curve. So turn off plants, recycle, re-arrange chairs, and volunteer all you want - but, in, 2040 I am not sure how we will support 9billion - without lots of waste.

</comment><comment><USER42> msn.com??? Wonderful 90s throwback. Didn't realize this still existed.

<comment><USER43> It's still the #46 website in the world according to Alexa.

<comment><USER44> I didn't realize Alexa is still considered as a good source of data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Sounds like someone in China has finally seen the documentary _Godzilla vs the Smog Monster_ and doesn't want to end up like 1970's Japan.

Especially since they don't even have a Godzilla protecting the shore line.

<comment><USER31> China's push to clean energy and advanced manufacturing to reduce pollution dated back at least to 2003, because I saw people investigating natural gas in an area that can produce high quality coals really cheap (Shanxi province).</comment></comment>


Cash me outside girl making $100k a week? - <AUTHOR> In this video: Tai Lopez suggests the Cash me outside girl (Danielle Bregoli) is making $100k a week:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQTfyuEdNfo&feature=youtu.be&t=998
For those who haven't seen her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrtSOTGNqA8
Can anyone elaborate on how she's doing this? - How it happened? Who's fuelling the growth etc? <comment><USER2> She gets 30k (40k if she has to leave the country) from her fans to meet and greet her

</comment><comment><USER3> youtube ads :\</comment>


There and Back again (commuting sucks) - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_paumgarten?currentPage=7

<comment><USER2> _"People who are normally circumspect may, when describing their commutes, be unexpectedly candid in divulging the intimate details of their lives. They have it all worked out, down to the number of minutes it takes them to shave or get stuck at a particular light. But commuting is like sex or sleep: everyone lies. It is said that doctors, when they ask you how much you drink, will take the answer and double it. When a commuter says, 'It's an hour, door- to-door,' tack on twenty minutes."_

Quite reminiscent of "Two-Fisted Tales of Commuting": <http://archive.salon.com/comics/boll/1998/06/src/04boll.gif>

</comment><comment><USER3> It might be better if you linked to the first page, not the last. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> oops! can someone fix that for me?

The correct link: [http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_paumgarten)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've never lived more than 10 minutes from work. Love it.</comment>


Free Software Types are Banging the Theora Drum, Hopelessly - <AUTHOR> http://blog.apphacker.com/2010/05/02/free-software-types-are-banging-the-theora-drum-hopelessly/

<comment><USER2> Umm... buggy H.264 in Linux? Come again? H.264 playback using Open Source software is not buggy. Far from it. Whether VLC on Linux or MPC on Windows - it works extremely well.

In-browser H.264, maybe, but that's has nothing to do with the quality of open source H.264 decoding. Maybe a plugin problem, and likely a temporary one at that.

I use open-source codecs to watch H.264 all the time. I have watched hundreds of hours of it on Linux-driven devices without a problem. This article is nothing but FUD itself.

And if you want to talk about the quality of H.264 encoding, I'll put x264 up against any commercial product any day, period. It beats the hell out of everything I have seen.

<comment><USER3> H.264 playback on Linux is a nightmare. Libavcodec can only do single-threaded decoding, which makes playing 1080p content practically impossible. Even my 3.2Ghz Core 2 Duo can't keep up in scenes full of motion or film grain. The same files play fine in Quicktime on my 2Ghz Macbook.

In addition, many postprocessing options are inefficient and actually decrease video quality. For example: the default settings in both VLC and XBMC cause video to slowly get blockier and oversaturated until a new keyframe comes in. Again, the same videos look fine when played in Quicktime, and I've seen this issue across platforms.

Another problem I've had is that I'll often see a single row of green pixels at the bottom of the screen. It's probably caused by some sort of off-by-one error.

All of these sorts of annoyances accumulate to become infuriating. No commercial product would be released in such a state.

<comment><USER4> I use mplayer with vdpau (nvidia gpu acceleration) on my Athlon II X2 240 and it happily plays 1080p.

<comment><USER3> Only certain newer graphics cards from Nvidia and S3 support VDPAU. If you have Intel or ATI/AMD graphics, you're SOL.

Also, the feature isn't auto-detected in any player I've used. You have to know that your card and player support VDPAU, and know how to enable it.

<comment><USER5> Every nvidia card since the GeForce 8xxx series beginning supports vdpau (save for a few exceptions), and even a few from the 7xxx series.

And if you don't have nvidia, sucks to be you for buying from a video card mfg that doesn't make nice things for its users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So in other words, sit back and relax while we wait for VP8.

</comment><comment><USER7> I have a question - I am a linux user and am willing to pay a few dollars to get a patent-encumbered, high quality decoder - if it allows me to watch high def entertainment with low enough internet bandwidth expenditure.

Is it that a vast majority of Linux users are unwilling to _pay_ : for content and software ?

If it is as I suspect, then it could easily sound a death knell for media consumption on Linux. I wonder how much sooner would we have had Linux hardware-assisted H.264 playback (ffmpeg, vlc), if there money to be made off them.

H.264 is evil for content producers - for content consumers, if (and _only_ if) the quality of H.264 >>>>>>>>>> Theora, then I can see why we would have to pay for it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Isn't H.264 the core of Quicktime? Isn't it obvious that Jobs is just pissed off that Quicktime lost out to Flash as a web video standard? I remember when Flash was for interactive stuff and Quicktime was for anything video.

This is just a second wave of attack for Jobs cause the first one failed.</comment>