Old Tjikko, the oldest living clonal Norway Spruce - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tjikko <comment><USER2> Wikipedia article is far more informative and far less spammy: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tjikko](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tjikko)

<comment><USER3> This article states that it is not the oldest tree since its a clonal tree and not an individual. So I am confused, is it the oldest or not?

<comment><USER4> There are older clonal trees. They have dated genetic material matching this tree that is that old, but since the species can be clonal, that old genetic material is likely from an older clone and not the current individual.

<comment><USER5> Again, from 'pedia

oldest clonal colony is probably [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)#Size_and_age](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_\(tree\)#Size_and_age)

80,000-100,000 years old!

<comment><USER6> I come back to this one time and time again. Blows my mind to think about the fact that all of A.D. time is just a tiny fraction of what this organism has lived through.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For an even older tree, see Pando[1]. (HN previous discussion on Pando[2].) (And according to Wikipedia[3], the designation "World's Oldest Tree" would seem to be incorrect here.)

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_\(tree\))

[2]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9798911](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9798911)

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

<comment><USER8> Also interesting: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lomatia_tasmanica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lomatia_tasmanica)

"King's Lomatia is unusual because all of the remaining plants are genetically identical. Because it has three sets of chromosomes (a triploid) and is therefore sterile, reproduction occurs only vegetatively ... the plant has been cloning itself for at least 43,600 years (possibly up to 135,000 years)"

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of the cooler things about old trees is that the oldest ones tend to be puny, pathetic looking, twisted little individuals, because they grow very slowly and are often weather-beaten. The slow growth is because they tend to be located in exposed areas that have little soil and therefore not much storage for water, which limits growth but also reduces risk from fires, fungus, and other pests that jump from tree to tree. They may also be at the treeline, where temperature is a limiting growth factor as well.

One of the first papers to document this is a paper by E. Schulman of Caltech in 1957, called _Longevity under Adversity in Conifers_ [0]. Since then, this has been confirmed extensively in many more environments and tree families than Schulman analyzed. The basics are that slower growth minimizes resource use as well as the attack surface to pests, so the organisms can subsist for thousands of years until they are killed by climate change, or more frequently, the ground eroding out beneath them. It's somewhat reminiscent of the stereotypical monk/lama/mystic living an ascetic life in a cave in the mountains high above the gluttonous cities. However, the basic ideas of finding a niche on the fringe, limiting risk exposure and resource use, and staying small for a long time are completely inappropriate to the tech community, of course.

[0]: [http://wmrc.edu/history/docs/science-1954.pdf](http://wmrc.edu/history/docs/science-1954.pdf)

(edited for clarity)

</comment><comment><USER10> I can't help but feeling a bit sad for this tree. It's been living there, alone, with no other comrades, for thousands of years, silently giving us oxygen without asking for anything in return. Maybe people should plant a few trees of its kind around it, so that this fellow can belong to a social network. [1]

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/30/world/europe/german- forest...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/30/world/europe/german-forest- ranger-finds-that-trees-have-social-networks-too.html)

<comment><USER11> The picture shows that it's surrounded by comrades. Those comrades are the shrubs around it. Until recently, this tree was the same way. Quoting the Wikipedia entry at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tjikko](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tjikko) :

> For thousands of years, the tree appeared in a stunted shrub formation (also > known as a krummholz formation) due to the harsh extremes of the environment > in which it lives. During the warming of the last century, the tree has > sprouted into a normal tree formation

<comment><USER10> A shrub is not a tree. (:

<comment><USER12> in this case it is, it's literally the same organism as they share the same roots. Though that would make it lonely again I guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> At least they didn't find that out by cutting it down!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_(tree)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_\(tree\))

</comment><comment><USER14> I bet this guy feels a lot better now!

[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-one-man- acciden...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-one-man-accidentally- killed-the-oldest-tree-ever-125764872/?no-ist)

</comment><comment><USER15> According to the Wikipedia article referenced here, "the age of the tree was determined by carbon dating of genetically matched plant material collected from under the tree"

There's a tree on my campus called the George Washington Elm; [http://www7.nau.edu/arboretum/Littleman/washington_elm.html](http://www7.nau.edu/arboretum/Littleman/washington_elm.html)

It was apparently grown from a rooted sprig of the tree under which George Washington assumed command Of The Continental Army on July 3, 1775

Genuinely curious; does this mean the George Washington Elm tree here would be classified as being over 250 years old?

</comment><comment><USER16> Sucky title, it's the oldest _clonal_ tree in Norway.

<comment><USER17> It's not in Norway, it's a Norway Spruce that's in Sweden.

<comment><USER18> Are you suggesting that spruce _migrate?_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> So once people die off the remaining trees will become old growth forests :-) More seriously though, I love the fact that 9500 years ago sea level was 120M lower than it is today. I feel bad for people who lived in coastal cities back then but thinking about how much the world changes in relatively short time spans reminds me how dynamic it is. Never a dull moment on earth!

<comment><USER11> Post-glacial rebound means that land in some parts of the world is still rising after being pressed down by the weight of glaciers.

There are Nordic place names with terms like "island", places that were one coastal villages now far from the sea, and Lake Mälaren, once part of the Baltic, became a freshwater lake about 800 years ago.

In some areas the land rise is 1cm _per year_ , and is noticeable in someone's lifetime. (The only comparison picture I could find is [http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ppAQwRyWqWM/VBtDKBWso5I/AAAAAAAAAK...](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ppAQwRyWqWM/VBtDKBWso5I/AAAAAAAAAKI/dd0P29HUvNw/s640/karvaken%2Barchipelago%2Buplift.jpg) from [http://sburnadventure.blogspot.com/2014/09/kayaking- finnish-...](http://sburnadventure.blogspot.com/2014/09/kayaking-finnish- kvarken-archipelago.html) )

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I swear it doesn't look a day over 8,000.

</comment><comment><USER20> Yggdrasil! ;)</comment>


A rough guide to making a medieval manuscript - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2017/09/a-rough-guide-to-making-a-medieval-manuscript.html <comment><USER2> This article reminds me of a book I read many years ago, "The Mozart forgeries", by Daniel Leeson [1]. It tells the story of two forgers which create the autographs of two Mozart's most beloved works for clarinet, the Clarinet Quintet K581 and the Clarinet Concerto K621 (the originals have long been gone), planning to sell them to some museum for a huge amount of money. In order to do this, they acquire the documentation needed to learn how music was written in the XVIII century was written. They start from the production of paper sheets, the engraving of a watermark, the creation of a quill from bird feathers, the production of ink and so on. I really enjoyed the book and suggest it to anybody which appreciated this article. (Or Mozart. Or both, like me.)

[1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4368020-the-mozart- forge...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4368020-the-mozart-forgeries)

</comment><comment><USER3> So much craft is lost! In the Spielberg movie "The Post" there are some wonderful scenes of type setting using boards and lead. I also enjoyed the scene where the printed, folded newspapers ran on a huge conveyer belt until they were taken and collected for delivery. When I graduated from high-school, we got the final results from the morning newspaper. Hundreds of us and our parents got up before dawn, drove downtown, and waited until the huge doors of the paper delivery dock opened. Kids whose job was to sell papers on the street ran out and made a bonanza day selling the first edition to us. What followed were the cheers and tears you would expect. The day is etched permanently in my memory. No comparison with an email congratulating me and enclosing my transcript.

<comment><USER4> Craft will always be lost.

You could argue that the art of cave painting or tablet engraving was lost to make way for manuscripts written on papyrus and that was lost to make way for the printing press and so on.

Losing craft for efficiency will happen as civilizations advance, but one thing to keep in mind is the amount of craft that went into sending an email. It can be at the level of writing an email server with a high uptime and a client that reads them reliably. It can go down to bits and byte. And that doesn't account for the crafting of the hardware that those software run on or the effort that went into the infrastructure to carry those signals.

The trend is that each individual that has an idea to share has to put less effort into sharing their own idea, but that doesn't mean that what we built no longer requires craft. The tragedy is that we don't see and appreciate the monumental craft that went into making email __work __in the first place. I'd argue that whole process requires more craft, but the sender and recipient of the emails don't have to understand it.

EDIT: grammar

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Alternative tl;dr:

Step one: Live in the middle ages.

Step two: ??

Step three: Profit.</comment>


Google Flu Trends - US Flu Activity High - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.org/flutrends/intl/en_us/

<comment><USER2> Looks scary, but are trending search terms still reliable when those terms are all over the news?

<comment><USER3> Indeed.

I'd imagine searches for 'kidnapping' spike every time a pretty young white woman goes missing too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For more up to date information and projections: www.gleamviz.org (pardon the shameless self promotion)

</comment><comment><USER5> The other 3 country graphs show business as usual. I'd say it's mostly because everyone in the US is freaking out.</comment>


Stop Wasting People's Time and Start Setting Agendas - <AUTHOR> http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/?p=350

<comment><USER2> Agenda or not, the caller of the meeting needs the personality to shut people down who take tangents. I have seen plenty of organized people who are just too nice to take control of their meetings (agenda in hand).

Learn to say "okay, good, write that down and tell us more over E-mail". Treat every 5-10 minutes as a deadline, and if a discussion has not been productive or is too emotional, just skip that item as unresolved to make sure everything else is covered. And if there is evidence that attendees are unprepared, e.g. haven't even read what they were supposed to base discussion on, just end the meeting.

<comment><USER3> One tip is to verbally allocate at the start how much time should be spent on specific topics. Everybody gets the point when you say, "Okay, we'll spend five minutes on x, ten minutes on y, and the rest of the meeting outlining z."

Another is to share material prior to the meeting, so that people are up to speed and there are no surprises.</comment></comment>


6th RISC-V Workshop Proceedings - <AUTHOR> https://riscv.org/2017/05/6th-risc-v-workshop-proceedings/ <comment><USER2> One thing that worries me about RISC-V is how much encoding space for (major) opcodes they already used up.

There are 7 bits to encode the opcodes. Of those 128 possible values, 3/4 are used for 16-bit compressed/thumb instructions.

The remaining 32 values are allocated as follows:

* 4 are for custom instructions * 4 are for larger than 32-bit instructions * 21 are already used * 3 are reserved for future use

While there is some space for minor opcodes (encoded via func3/func7) inside of the already allocated major opcodes, this allocation seems overly generous to me considering how young the instruction set still is.

I would have felt far more comfortable with compressed instructions only taking 1/2 instead of 3/4 of the total available space.

<comment><USER3> RISC-V isn't limited to 32 bit instructions. In fact RISC-V insns are variable length, and as well as 16 bit (compressed extension) they can be longer than 32 bits -- in fact much much longer.

More details in section 1.2 of this document: [https://riscv.org/wp- content/plugins/pdf-viewer/stable/web/v...](https://riscv.org/wp- content/plugins/pdf- viewer/stable/web/viewer.html?file=https://content.riscv.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/05/riscv-spec-v2.2.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What RISC-V needs for high adoption, is a well-marketed product similar to the Raspberry Pi.

Give me an open source model board with a kernel, network, graphics, peripherals, and general-purpose I/O. Give it to me cheap. Give it to me with a desktop environment.

Give me example simple real-world use cases ("build a ping response box!", "build a home video recorder!", "build an internet-enabled light switch!", "build a sound amp!", "build a robot to take over the world!", etc) and the hardware and software for a DIY-er to... do it by themselves.

Give people hardware, software, and examples (monkey see, monkey do), and you'll find more people adopting RISC-V.

<comment><USER5> That's a big ask. Right now RISC-V has a handful of open source CPU cores. There's no open source network, graphics, peripheral and GPIO hardware that can be cheaply plugged into a synthesized design that can be sold at the price you want. Which is to say, while there's plenty of stuff out there that someone made work on a FPGA once, there's nothing with a track record and validation/driver stack ready that you can throw into your tools and expect to get a working chip with. And that's what those SoCs you find in the Pi and similar boards need if you want to get them out at the small-integer-dollars price point: no-brainer existing IP that won't surprise anyone along the manufacturing and support chain.

<comment><USER6> > There's no open source network, graphics, peripheral and GPIO hardware that > can be cheaply plugged into a synthesized design that can be sold at the > price you want.

Why not PCIe? Aren't there already a bunch of design/validation/verification tools for it? A RISC-V CPU with just a bunch of PCIe lanes (and a couple of channels of fast DDR4) coming off of it (and maybe an IOMMU) would be a lot easier to integrate with existing hardware, rather than trying to recreate open-source equivalents of modern GPUs and network hardware.

<comment><USER7> I like the idea, but unfortunately PCIe isn't easy or cheap to implement on silicon. The problem is that you'd need the PHY, which is the high speed, analog interface, and that needs to be designed and tuned for the fab and process node you're targeting. In practice the only sane way to get PCIe on your chip is to buy a PCIe IP block from Faraday or Synopsys. The same goes for SATA. Ethernet and USB on the other hand is available in discrete PHY chips, so writing some open-source controller RTL for RGMII and ULPI is much more reasonable for an open-source chip. (Obviously, if someone would cough up the money for taping out a RISC-V SoC with PCIe PHYs onboard and make it in a large enough volume that the price gets down to reasonable levels, I'd be buying a bunch of'em.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The NVidia slidedeck is pretty interesting: [https://riscv.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/05/Tue1345pm-NVIDI...](https://riscv.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/05/Tue1345pm-NVIDIA-Sijstermans.pdf)

<comment><USER9> It is actually. Lots of interesting tidbits.

Also this, which I completely missed:

[http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/20/chinese-company-hacks- tesla-c...](http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/20/chinese-company-hacks-tesla-car- remotely.html)

<comment><USER10> Did you mean some other link? A Tesla story seems totally unrelated

 _edit:_ ok, I get it now: the slidedeck mentions the above Tesla story in a slide about security.

<comment><USER9> That link is in the presentation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Folks, you must watch this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FtEGIp3a_M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FtEGIp3a_M)

<comment><USER12> Why?

<comment><USER11> "50 years of Computer Architecture in about 15 minutes" \+ current state and future

<comment><USER13> Wow, that video is a lecture by one of the leaders of RISC-V. I had no idea there was a RISC-2 and RISC-3, and that they were optimized for SmallTalk and Lisp respectively. Wonder what Alan Kay has to say about RISC-V? He's been banging on about how Intel messed up their chip design, does he approve of RISC-V? Seems like the perfect time to get things done right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> At the end of the day, RISC-V will only succeed if I can buy a board where I can attach some SATA drive, a monitor and keyboard/mouse the same way people buy some ITX board.

This might be tough to hear for people discussing the ins and outs of RISC-V and why is so much better than x86 or ARM and the big name sponsors don't make it any better with the usual tight hugs and lullabies. But you need to put it in the hands of the people just like "the PC", otherwise it will be a pet project waiting to be forgotten by everybody other than the nostalgic ones.

<comment><USER15> There's gazillions of embedded processor cores in every device you own. Your SSD, network card, phone, motherboard, router, TV, modem, car, fridge, you name it all have multiple processor cores running some piece of firmware you never see. RISC-V has a pretty good value proposition for those: an open standard with no licensing costs with a rapidly maturing software ecosystem. To say that RISC-V will only succeed if you can attach a monitor to it only betrays a very narrow view of where processors are actually used.

<comment><USER16> ... most of whom are already using ARM.

Intel - _Intel_ \- tried to compete in the embedded market and has recently quietly withdrawn several of its products. It's a tougher market than it sounds, and it's also more conservative than you'd expect.

<comment><USER17> Intel didn't really try. You know who did really try ? espressif, with their famous ESP32.

Or the startups: indie-semi, who sell mcu's built as lego's from multiple dies, affordably! which allows them to do custom-design and semi-custom design of mcu's per customer , while offering a large library of standard mcu's.

Or terechip, who built a chip packaging process who can handle dies orders of magnitude smaller than current systems - opening possibilities for far cheaper mcu's and other simple chips.

Or even ambiq-micro, which created a way to design mcu's that take ~10x(?) less power by enabling transistors to work on an extremely low supply voltage.

This is how you compete with entrenched competitors. By doing something they cannot do.

And Intel ? their fab doesn't even fit mcu's(no flash on logic processes, not good fit for analog). They had no advantage, no differentiation( maybe besides their neural network, a feature that didn't seem to attract customers). How did they expect to win ?

<comment><USER18> Its almost as if they expect that just putting chips into a market makes that market have to buy it, almost as if they have gotten to used to not needing to compete. How could a chip vendor that has thoroughly cornered a few major market segments and might be considered to have some amount of monopoly status ever get into such situation?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I used to be a big champion of RISC-V, just look at my submission history, but I've become increasingly weary due to SiFive's dubious leadership.

1) It's still impossible for anyone to get their hands on an FE310 chip over half-a-year on from the release of the HiFive board.

2) They promised open-source cores, but somehow backtracked due to "customer requests". How does this make any sense? And if so, just have an open-source version, and a closed-source one that, I dunno, has a SiFive logo on the mask.

I was really inspired by them, now I'm mostly dejected. Still, I'm hoping someone like ST takes their peripherals and makes an MCU with a RISC-V.

<comment><USER20> Sorry to hear that you're feeling dejected.

On your questions: 1) We are providing FE310 samples to folks who ask us for them at firstname.lastname@example.com

See our past forum posts for similar requests: [https://forums.sifive.com/t/assistance-getting-in-contact- wi...](https://forums.sifive.com/t/assistance-getting-in-contact-with- sifive/562/6) [https://forums.sifive.com/t/e300-on-the-market-other-sbc- s-w...](https://forums.sifive.com/t/e300-on-the-market-other-sbc-s-with- it/421)

2) We do provide both versions, just as you recommended. SiFive continues to maintain the Rocket repository at [https://github.com/freechipsproject/rocket- chip](https://github.com/freechipsproject/rocket-chip)

We intend to continue to maintain this core and ensure it's compatible with any updates to the RISC-V specification.

For commercial customers who do not want to utilize rocket-chip, we are providing them with other options.

-Jack (from SiFive)

<comment><USER19> Thanks Jack for taking the time to respond.

Keeping the faith alive...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What's needed, and possible, today, is a competitive and relatively simple AVR or ARM-M0/M3/M4 replacement (with I2S). Such a chip is likely to receive stellar support from the maker-community.

My gut feeling says that such a chip is likely to come from Samsung, but NXP and Expressif are also likely candidates. All are RISC-V members.

Anything more complex should wait until the specs are complete.

</comment><comment><USER22> So I guess the thing currently keeping RISC-V from moving forward is ratification of the privileged spec, which is planned for end of 2017/2018?

[https://riscv.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/05/Tue1115-Technic...](https://riscv.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/05/Tue1115-Technical-Committee-Update.pdf)

<comment><USER23> > privileged spec

I _hope_ this refers to ring-0-like instructions such as x86 STI, and not some kind of OEM/manufacturer "you can only use this set of instructions if you pay us" type privilege?

<comment><USER23> Who on earth is downvoting this? Get a grip

<comment><USER24> They're downvoting because the entirety of your comment was a (baseless) worry about the definition of a word that would have taken seconds to check.

<comment><USER23> Totally have time to read huge PDF's every day.

<comment><USER24> It has a section in the wikipedia page, which is right under that PDF in the search results.

Alternatively in the PDF you would only need to look at the "Introduction" section for a minute.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So, how does RISC-V compare with Donald Knuth's MMIX instruction set? Did they use it as a starting base? Consider it at all? Be cool to program MMIX in actual hardware.

<comment><USER25> What makes you think both are related? AFAIK MMIX isn't a very "practical" ISA.

<comment><USER26> Yeah, it has something like 256 64bit GPRs. Not even the big monster CPUs have that many microarchitectual registers to rename to.

<comment><USER27> Well Haswell is 168 integer + 168 FP.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Comcast is now hijacking 404s - <AUTHOR> http://www.comcastvoices.com/2009/07/domain-helper-service-here-to-help-you.html

<comment><USER2> I think you mean "hijacking NXDOMAINs". Hijacking 404s would be considerably more intrusive.

<comment><USER3> True enough, that's exactly what it is.

That said, I see this as 'testing the waters', if they get away with it it is only a matter of time before deeper packet inspection will be added to the list and 404 redirection might at some point be done. It needs to stop here, comcast needs to be shown where the line is.

<comment><USER4> Unfortunately, many other companies are already doing this (Time Warner/Earthlink/Road Runner). Comcast is just following a growing trend.</comment></comment></comment>


The Insults of Age - <AUTHOR> https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2015/may/1430402400/helen-garner/insults-age <comment><USER3> It's interesting that I've had the complete opposite experience as a white man. The older I get the more respect I get in public, for no apparent reason. The painting example was so apt. No one would dare step between me and a painting. It's a very odd thing, as I don't feel like I deserve any more respect than I did 20 years ago.

<comment><USER4> Age is a weird prejudice because it depends so much on environment. In most companies, you're viewed negatively before age 30: you're expected to work the worst hours because the assumption is that you have nothing "better" to do and would just be out drinking. In Silicon Valley, you're viewed negatively _after_ 30\. Some doors close and others open.

I do find, strangely, that I'm _way_ more attractive to women now that I'm older, even though my looks have (objectively) declined. Adolescent men are unwanted, invisible, and generally disliked by society unless they're in the top 5% for social skills; things get better at 25 and a lot better after 30... although I'm still glad that I married young because I'd imagine that the dating pool shrinks considerably.

<comment><USER5> _> although I'm still glad that I married young because I'd imagine that the dating pool shrinks considerably._

it actually doesn't, in fact it grows continuously, but you'll just be shamed by older women and married men for dating younger women.

<comment><USER6> Shame on them for being so concerned about with what consenting adults do.

Select every argument about why it is none of their business to outlaw/shame homosexuality, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-P.

<comment><USER5> as soon as you start talking about what people are actually attracted to (not what they _say_ they are), the shit starts to fly. my comment has swung up/down in votes throughout the day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _" In two strides I was behind the schoolgirl. I reached up, seized her ponytail at the roots and gave it a sharp downward yank. Her head snapped back. In a voice I didn't recognise I snarled, "Give it a rest, darling." She twisted to look behind her. Her eyes were bulging, her mouth agape. I let go and she bolted away to her friends. The three of them set off at a run. Their white ribbons went bobbing through the crowd all the way along the City Square and up the steps of the Melbourne Town Hall, where a famous private school was holding its speech night. The whole thing happened so fast that when I fell into step beside my friend she hadn't even noticed I was gone."_

The city is Melbourne, the author Helen Garner [0] and the casual racism is pretty accurate. Yet the response should not be condoned. If you switch a 70 year old woman, to a 70 year old man, the man would be detailed and assault charges laid.

As ugly as the racism is, using this kind of force shows a level of entitlement you often see with people who have had authority. [1]

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

[1] Garner was a High School teacher till '72.

<comment><USER8> _" If you switch a 70 year old woman, to a 70 year old man"_

Or pretty much anybody other than an elderly white woman (in a "western" country). Anyway, I don't think the physical violence was necessary but I do admire her intervention on behalf of a stranger against an obnoxious (probably racist) act.

<comment><USER7> _" I do admire her intervention on behalf of a stranger against an obnoxious (probably racist) act."_

Over-reaction. The lesson shown here to kids and those watching, if you feel others are being threatened, physically strike back. There is no _immediate threat_ , words would have done the job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting story! To me it seems Ms Garner is ok with growing old and more fragile, but does not accept being viewed as inferior or respect-unworthy. Good for her! I wish more elderly people would decouple their loss of youth from their self regard.

<comment><USER10> > I wish more elderly people would decouple their loss of youth from their > self regard.

I think Garner's point is that we live in a society in which _other people 's regard_ for your worth is a function of your age.

<comment><USER11> And yet, hypocritically, she negatively judges the youth as such.

<comment><USER12> Furthermore, she considers a innocent question from a child as a insult to her age and gender.

<comment><USER13> That's not the half of it. This author deserves no respect based on that article.

She is typical of "me me me" and the continual flow of sexism we see from Australian journalists. The last few decades in Australian media have been a dark spot. This author is sexist, arrogant and takes pride in yanking a strange girl's hair (which is tantamount to assault).

"In two strides I was behind the schoolgirl. I reached up, seized her ponytail at the roots and gave it a sharp downward yank."

"My only regret is that I couldn't see the Asian woman's face at the moment the schoolgirl's head jerked back and her insolent grin turned into a rictus."

<comment><USER12> Yes, however I originally felt uncomfortable commenting much further here, at the risk of being accused of sexism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Older people used to be considered wiser and respected. The baby-boomer generation basically invented ageism when they were young in the 70's, it's ironic to see it bite them back now.

<comment><USER15> _The baby-boomer generation basically invented ageism when they were young in the 70 's_

Earlier than that. The original "Never trust anyone over 30" was already a saying by the mid-sixties as a consequence of FSM: [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Movement](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Movement)

The movement itself was just another step in the protests of the civil liberties movement, and to some degree HUAC. I'm sure we could go back farther, but that's just off the top of my head.

Essentially, every new generation denigrates the older generation, and each older generation thinks the newer generation is going to hell-in-a-handbasket.

There is nothing new under the sun.

<comment><USER16> Thanks for the wikipedia link. At first glance I was like what does the Flying Spaghetti Monster have to do with this.

<comment><USER17> omg, nose coffee... Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> When you are this talented at communication in general it must be triply annoying to be condescended to.

</comment><comment><USER19> Yes! The internet needs more old people posting to it! No society is complete without people of all ages - people of all wisdoms you might say - <USER2> their knowledge and opinions. Our blogs are noticeably lacking the voice of the elderly, undoubtedly b/c the elderly use the tech less for sure, but it's unfortunate for us. Maybe in 50 years the internet will be a much more temperate place ;)

</comment><comment><USER20> Hmm.

It's easier on men, I guess. It does wound my vanity a bit when young women on the bus offer me a seat. But otherwise, being on the large size and generally glum looking, I don't get people baby-talking me or condescending much.

<comment><USER21> It was funny when the chick at Starbucks called me "sir". Heh.. "sir"... that didn't happen when I was in my early 20's...

<comment><USER22> Really? I've been referred to as "sir" by sales individuals for quite a while, even in my early-twenties. I guess it's a culture thing.</comment></comment></comment>


Samurai Helmets - <AUTHOR> https://news.kynosarges.org/2019/04/19/samurai-helmets/ <comment><USER2> While beautiful, most of these pieces are primarily ceremonial or intended for generals who would rarely involve themselves on the battlefield†.

Almost all of these pieces date from after the unification of Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate (c. 1600). From 1600 to 1850 Japan experienced a stable period marked by very little real armed conflict. During this time, the samurai transitioned from soldiers to what were effectively mid-level bureaucrats. However, unlike most bureaucrats, they managed to retain all of the trappings of a martial lifestyle, including ornate armor, beautiful swords, and the occasional mortal duel. It was during this time of relative peace that these (sometimes ridiculous) fashion pieces developed, somewhat complicated by the tradition of incorporating pieces of much, much older helmets into the "core" of the helmets (one of the helmets in the OP has a core dating from the 14th century, but was significantly embellished later on).

†This is generally true of what arms and armor have survived from around the world. The stuff that was actually used rusted away long ago; the highest chance for survival was to have been so valuable that no one dared to actually take it onto a battlefield.

<comment><USER3> > and the occasional mortal duel.

Duels under Tokugawa were forbidden and punishable by death of both opponents. The only fighting that samurai could see was terrorizing of unarmed peasants.

Samurai were not warriors in European sense but more of a mob enforcers. Good for terrorizing peasants not really fit for fighting in any military sense.

During Meiji when peasants got professional military training and leadership samurai became toothless.

[BUSHIDO: WAY OF TOTAL BULLSHIT] [https://www.tofugu.com/japan/bushido/](https://www.tofugu.com/japan/bushido/)

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

[2] [https://www.historynet.com/satsuma-rebellion-satsuma-clan- sa...](https://www.historynet.com/satsuma-rebellion-satsuma-clan-samurai- against-the-imperial-japanese-army.htm)

<comment><USER4> That is during the Shogunate. Before the unification, The samurai were involved with actual on field battles.

<comment><USER3> Mostly using arrows not swords. But yumi is inferior weapon compared to reflexive bow used by Chinese, Korean, Mongol or Turkic soldiers.

Also if you look at any Japanese castle (Himeji had been well preserved by US Bomber Command for navigational purposes) you will quickly realize that any continental army will take at most a week to dry it's moats and dig mines under it's wall. Fortunately Japan never had seen invading army on its soil.

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

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

This samurai / bushido hype is so much out of proportion and simply untrue.

While in the same time real history of Asia is full of military class of exceptional value. Indian Rajput, Islamic Gunpowder Empires, Malays, Mongols - to name just a few

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

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

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

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

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

<comment><USER4> I am not going to compare medieval continental technology to medieval Japan because that would be against the spirit of comparison. Japan was pretty closed society even when they traded with the continent. While it is true that the continent saw cutting edge tech in terms of unbalanced battle situations, we can surely appreciate the Japanese stuff for it's aesthetic vibe.

If Japan was suddenly in the continent, I am sure they would have to compete and modify their war society like the rest did. But the root aesthetics would be the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I highly recommend checking out the Samurai Collection[1] referenced here, if you can get to one of its showings – it travels around quite regularly. The exhibit is great, both in size (good, but not overwhelming) and presentation details. Especially the full (O-yoroi) armor, which is in transparent cases that let you get up close on all sides to see how the armor is constructed, and the many levels of artisanship that go into each piece.

Also, the exhibition venues will often do things like find local artisans to demonstrate related skills. E.g. I demoed making the armor lacing braids (as much as 200-400 yards, in reeled silk, per suit!) when the show was at the Portland Art Museum.

[1] [http://samuraicollection.org/aboutus_history.html](http://samuraicollection.org/aboutus_history.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> After looking at pictures of a bunch of samurai helmets, I came to a realization that Darth Vader's helmet is more or less the shape of a samurai helmet. Maybe this should have been obvious to me (especially being a fan of the Hidden Fortress film), but it was a cool discovery for me.

<comment><USER7> George Lucas was inspired by samurai films. This film are called jidai seki (period films). From jidai --> jedi. Also C3PO and R2D2 are inspired by the couple of mongrels in Hidden Fortress.

<comment><USER8> This is also why the Jedi (at least in the earlier films) use two hands to hold their lightsabers. It's the Japanese style. Of course, Samurai swords were two-handed because they were heavy, due to the poor quality of steel available. A light saber "blade" would presumably weigh nothing, so it would make more sense to hold it one handed like a, well, saber.

A master of the more technologically advanced European saber would probably cut a Katana-wielding Samurai to ribbons. Good thing the Samurai would probably just shoot him from horseback anyway.

<comment><USER9> I've been mulling the cause and effect mentioned in your comment. Poor quality steel -> heavy -> 2 handed.

I don't ever recall seeing a 2 handed bronze sword, and if the steel is worse than bronze, why didn't they go back to that? Which kind of suggests that it isn't.

I'm assuming low quality steel is overly soft rather than overly brittle. If it were overly soft wouldn't that favour shorter blades? You'd either get flex, or as you mentioned, added weight, which seems a bad trade off compared to a shorter sword and shield?

I got the impression 2 handed swords/no shield was an honour thing, rather than a tactically advantageous thing, I'm in no way an expert on such things though.

<comment><USER10> >I got the impression 2 handed swords/no shield was an honour thing, rather than a tactically advantageous thing, I'm in no way an expert on such things though.

I am not an expert either but as I understand it, Samurai were nobles and fought on horseback with their primary weapons being spears and bows, and they considered swords a backup weapon.[0]

The mythologizing of the Samurai, their honor-above-reason mentality ("bushido") and the katana as their primary weapon was a retrofiction created in the Edo period, when the Samurai had been disarmed and relegated to bureaucrats, and they wanted to justify and romanticize their violent past, and the term _bushido_ was invented in the 20th century, and was itself based on Western ideals of chivalry in knighthood (which also, really, didn't exist.)[1,2]

[0][https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/10331/why- didnt-...](https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/10331/why-didnt- japanese-infantrymen-and-samurai-use-shields)

[1][https://www.tofugu.com/japan/bushido/](https://www.tofugu.com/japan/bushido/)

[2][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11990721](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11990721)

<comment><USER9> "The mythologizing of the Samurai, their honor-above-reason mentality"

Agreed, I was focussing more on the not tactically advantageous, rather than ascribing an honour code per se.

It is generally a good idea to agree weapons beforehand, it helps keep the battlefield survivable. The 20th century wasn't known for it's 'honour' but WW2 combatants did refrain from using chemical weapons for example, and nukes were never used in the cold war and it's proxy battles. I'd label that as part of an honour code? I'm not making the case too forcefully though.

<comment><USER11> More like fear of reprisal than honor. Chemical and nuclear weapons are very hard to defend your civilian population from. Mutual Assured Destruction has worked so far but I wouldn't call it an honor code.

<comment><USER9> Germany fought to the end in WW2, the eastern front was particularly brutal. I suspect there were already fears of reprisals.

I wasn't thinking MAD specifically, although I'm aware of at least one example where Russian early warning picked up an incoming object that appeared to them to be a missile, and they didn't respond, which seems very un MAD. I was thinking of the proxy wars, Vietnam, Korea, etc. I'm not even sure the threat of nuclear attack was used. I suppose you could say that's part of MAD (not attacking allies), if that were the case, wouldn't the same reasoning extend to not fighting them in the first place, in the same way there were never any conventional wars between Russia and the US?

So agreed it is mainly about self preservation, but I would say it goes a little further than that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is the fantastic impracticality of these helmets due to the handicap principal ( [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicap_principle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicap_principle) )?

<comment> crooked-v Some of these are almost certainly just ceremonial pieces, but the ones that aren't would have served a distinctive signpost for troops under a samurai's command, the same way that flags strapped to armor and horses were common in premodern warfare through the world. Fighting without radios or even so much as binoculars is extremely confusing, and if you're leading a bunch of peasant militia who get a bare minimum of training, you want it extremely obvious who's giving the orders and where to try and group up if people get separated in battle.

<comment><USER12> ...and the face masks?

<comment><USER13> These would be useful for both terrorizing your enemies and also ensuring that you don't take a blow to the face.

<comment> crooked-v Also, easily exploitable high-quality iron was much rarer in Japan than in Europe, so reinforced masks gave some face protection while being incredibly cheaper than steel faceplates on helmets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If anyone lives in London and would like to investigate how the ancient sword arts of japan tie into meditation, I highly recommend [http://battodo- fudokan.co.uk/](http://battodo-fudokan.co.uk/)

<comment><USER12> From the websight "Nakamura Ryu Battodo is a distillation of traditional Japanese swordsmanship ..."

In other words, it is not a traditional sword system but a modern one.

<comment><USER15> Given it's less than savory origins I wouldn't consider it a basis for meditative contemplation either.

<comment><USER16> For those wondering, this may be referring to it being the replacement for allegedly using live prisoners for sword practice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There's an interesting helmet with a large statue of Fudo Myo-o, the "immovable radiant king" of Shingon Buddhism.

I don't recall seeing another helmet with a full statue. Are there more examples?

<comment><AUTHOR> That was the first and only one I had seen, too. I suppose there may be a few more but they certainly seem to be rare. This exhibition had no other examples. The helmet with a flame-engulfed dragon that was shown mounted on an armor suit comes closest.

<comment><USER18> Armor 1 and Armor 3 both feature heavy use of a light bluish thread for decoration. In China a similar blue, made from kingfisher feathers, would be an imperial symbol -- do you know if there's any relationship / what the significance in Japan was?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not aware of any such relationship in Japan. The exhibition didn't mention it, and I haven't heard of it elsewhere either. I think it's just decorative here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does the Royal Armouries in Leeds still have that amazing collection of Japanese armour?

That would be my bank holiday recommendation.

</comment><comment><USER19> Mouse and cat armor: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19703277](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19703277)

</comment><comment><USER20> What is the mass of the helmet?

<comment><USER21> I tried one on once at a hole-in-the-wall samurai museum in Tokyo. It was pretty hefty but very well-supported - my head didn't feel wobbly or strained.

<comment><USER9> "hole-in-the-wall.... museum"

My interest is piqued.

I'm inferring that they're just very small museums? Do they have any essential characteristics?

Google isn't being very helpful.

<comment><USER21> [https://www.timeout.com/tokyo/museums/samurai- museum](https://www.timeout.com/tokyo/museums/samurai-museum)

It's one man's work of passion. When I went, it was quiet enough that an attendant guided us around the entire first floor personally. It's not exactly tiny, but it's just two narrow floors behind an unassuming frontage, and so a _big_ change from the other (public) museums in Tokyo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> are these helmets practical or mostly for decoration purposes?

</comment><comment><USER23> (define (get) (get1 (quote ()) (read)))(define (get1 b r) (if (eof-object? r) (reverse b) (get1 (cons r b) (read))))(define (put) (put1 (quote ()) (read- char)))(define (put1 b r) (if (eof-object? r) (list->string (reverse b)) (if (char=? #\\) r) (put1 (cons #\\. (cons #\\. (cons r b))) (read-char)) (put1 (cons r b) (read-char)))))(define (final lis) (if (null? lis) lis (final1 (car lis) (cdr lis))))(define (final1 f r) (if (and (pair? f) (pair? (cdr f)) (eqv? (quote quote) (car f))) (cons f (final (cdr r))) (if (list? f) (final2 f (gather (count (car r)) (cons (quote ()) (final (cdr r))))) (if (or (vector? f) (pair? f) (eq? #\\) f)) (cons f (final (cdr r))) (cons f (final r))))))(define (final2 f g) (cons (append (final f) (car g)) (cdr g)))(define (count s) (- (string-length (symbol->string s)) 2))(define (gather c lis) (if (= c 0) (cons (reverse (car lis)) (cdr lis)) (gather (- c 1) (cons (cons (cadr lis) (car lis)) (cddr lis)))))(for-each write (final (with-input-from-string (put) get)))

<comment><USER24> I'm bored and we are on a site called hacker news; anyone want to join me on de-obfuscating this code?

<comment><USER25> Here's the best I could do at formatting and reading/commenting it, so far:

        ;; Usage: (get)
        ;; Parse the entirety of stdin as a sequence of s-expressions.  Return
        ;; that list of expressions.
        ;;
        ;; The definition of this function is a little contrived, because in
        ;; lisp it's simpler to prepend to a list than to append to it, which
        ;; would be the natural thing to do.  So instead, we build the list
        ;; such that it is backwards, then we call (reverse LIST) on it when
        ;; we read EOF.
        (define (get)
          (get1 (quote ()) (read)))
        ;; Usage: (get CURRENT-BUFFER JUSt-READ-EXPRESSION)
        (define (get1 b r)
          (if (eof-object? r)
              (reverse b)
            (get1 (cons r b) (read))))

        ;; Usage: (put)
        ;;
        ;; Read the entirety of stdin as a sequence of characters, perform the
        ;; global string substitution ")" -> ")..", then return the result as
        ;; a string.
        ;;
        ;; The definition of this function is a little contrived, because in
        ;; lisp it's simpler to prepend to a list than to append to it, which
        ;; would be the natural thing to do.  So instead, we build the list
        ;; such that it is backwards, then we call (reverse LIST) on it when
        ;; we read EOF.
        (define (put)
          (put1 (quote ()) (read-char)))
        ;; Usage: (put CURRENT-BUFFER LAST-READ-CHAR)
        (define (put1 b r)
          (if (eof-object? r)
              (list->string (reverse b))
            (if (char=? #\) r)
                (put1 (cons #\. (cons #\. (cons r b))) (read-char))
              (put1 (cons r b) (read-char)))))

        ;; Usage: (final LIST)
        ;; ???
        (define (final lis)
          (if (null? lis)
              lis
            (final1 (car lis) (cdr lis))))
        ;; Usage: (final1 FIRST REST)
        (define (final1 f r)
          (if (and (pair? f) (pair? (cdr f)) (eqv? (quote quote) (car f)))
              (cons f (final (cdr r)))
            (if (list? f)
                (final2 f (gather (count (car r)) (cons (quote ()) (final (cdr r)))))
              (if (or (vector? f) (pair? f) (eq? #\) f))
                  (cons f (final (cdr r)))
                (cons f (final r))))))
        ;; Usage: (final2 f g)
        (define (final2 f g)
          (cons (append (final f) (car g)) (cdr g)))
        ;; Usage: (count SYMBOL)
        (define (count s)
          (- (string-length (symbol->string s)) 2))
        ;; Usage: (gather c lis)
        (define (gather c lis)
          (if (= c 0)
              (cons (reverse (car lis)) (cdr lis))
            (gather (- c 1) (cons (cons (cadr lis) (car lis)) (cddr lis)))))

        ;; 1. Use (put) to read stdin as a string and perform the ")" -> ").."
        ;;    global string replacement.
        ;; 2. Feed that resulting string to (get), which parses it in to a
        ;;    sequence of s-expressions.
        ;; 3. Feed that list of expressions to (final), which does something
        ;;    to it and returns a list.
        ;; 4. (write) each item that (final) returns.
        (for-each write (final (with-input-from-string (put) get)))

<comment><USER26> It looks like you cracked open the lobster. I tried compiling this:

(+ 6 (*).... 2 3 2 3)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


10 Years in Jail for Internet Pirates Now Reality in the UK - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/10-years-in-jail-for-internet-pirates-now-reality-in-the-uk-170501/ <comment><USER2> Criminal laws as legislated by criminal politicians...</comment>


Meet Instagram's First Female Engineer - <AUTHOR> http://www.elle.com/news/culture/brina-lee-instagram-engineer-interview <comment><USER2> It's getting silly. At work, you are engineer, that's all.

<comment><USER3> I've started applying the "ginger test". (As in redhead) If it would become ridiculous when substituting "ginger" for woman, girl, or female in an article, then I can be certain that the article _is_ ridiculous.

 _" whats it like being the only redheaded person in the office and do you think your red hair affects your performance as a coder..."_

<comment><USER4> _I 've started applying the "ginger test". (As in redhead) If it would become ridiculous when substituting "ginger" for woman, girl, or female in an article, then I can be certain that the article is ridiculous._

Totally right. Like gingers, women have no history of being discriminated against, harassed, or ostracized, certainly not in _our_ industry. Who do they and their white knights think they are, acting like women sometimes get treated differently?!</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What recurring meetings do you have? Are they useful? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> This is not a "meeting" exactly, but I have it scheduled as one.

Every morning, I have a half-hour (sometimes extended to an hour) blocking meeting to check and reply to my emails, where I'm the only one invited. I get a ton of email in this job, and if there's a risk of me getting interrupted and losing my flow, I will get swamped. Having a dedicated amount of time to do this really helps.</comment>


Tails 3.0 Released - <AUTHOR> https://tails.boum.org/news/version_3.0/index.en.html <comment><USER2> Those two changes seem particularly important:

* Tails 3.0 works on 64-bit computers only and not on 32-bit computers anymore. Dropping hardware support, even for a small portion of our user base, is always a hard decision to make but being 64-bit only has important security and reliability benefits. For example, to protect against some types of security exploits, support for the NX bit is compulsory and most binaries are hardened with PIE which allows ASLR.

* Update Tor Browser to 7.0 (based on Firefox 52 ESR) which is multiprocess and paves the way to content sandboxing. This should make it harder to exploit security vulnerabilities in the browser.

What do you guys think about dropping 32-bit?

<comment><USER3> I wonder if this will effect journalists and activists in parts of the world where old machines are still used (Africa, Middle East, parts of Asia). Not being able to make use of newer browser versions (without updating every time or taking the risk of using a persistent volume) could put them at greater risk.

<comment><USER4> Previous versions of Tails already had exuberant hardware requirements.

I guess privacy is only for the rich.

<comment><USER5> Literally nothing is preventing you from creating your own secure Linux installation on any hardware you've got.

<comment><USER6> Besides ones technical skills. Not all activists are knowledgeable enough to just roll their own distro.

<comment><USER7> Beyond that, I thought it was now well understood that rolling ones own security software is a terrible idea. Many eyeballs etc. Activists with the technical skills /should not/ roll their own, they should definitely contribute to existing projects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is great. I very much appreciate the work done by the contributors to the Tails project and I trust & agree with their technical decisions for this release. As Internet keeps getting more monitored, Tails serves as an important tool in maintaining the balance of privacy and allowing for the anonymous sharing of information going forward. Big thanks to the Tails team.

</comment><comment><USER9> For the love of Christ don't use Tor Browser. Every other modern browser, including mainline Firefox, is safer.

<comment><USER10> From another comment elsewhere in this thread:

> Update Tor Browser to 7.0 (based on Firefox 52 ESR) which is multiprocess > and paves the way to content sandboxing. This should make it harder to > exploit security vulnerabilities in the browser.

Firefox 52 ESR sounds like mainline Firefox to me.

<comment><USER9> Literally the same version of Firefox as underpins Tor Browser will tend, pretty much at all times, to be safer than Tor Browser. You can use the search bar at the bottom of the page to find out why, or search the Internet for "grugq tor browser" if you want more people explaining the issue.

<comment><USER11> > Literally the same version of Firefox as underpins Tor Browser will tend, > pretty much at all times, to be safer than Tor Browser.

This is absolutely false. Especially if you're considering the alpha versions which include Selfrando.

See "Real-world Exploits against the Tor Browser" pages 9-10 where they conclude,

> The reason is that these function pointers are only accessed through an > indirection layer, i.e., memory objects on the heap contain a pointer to a > virtual table which is located in the code or data section of the > application and contains a number of pointers to virtual functions. Since > the attackers can only disclose the virtual table pointer, but not the > virtual table itself, as it is not on the heap, they cannot disclose gadget > addresses. Note that, when only ASLR is applied, the address of the virtual > table is randomized with the same offset as the ROP gadgets. Therefore, such > an attack can bypass ASLR but not selfrando.

> We therefore conclude that selfrando can thwart most real-world exploits. > Attackers can only succeed in rare cases where they can disclose the > complete heap and data section.

[1] : [https://people.torproject.org/~gk/misc/Selfrando-Tor- Browser...](https://people.torproject.org/~gk/misc/Selfrando-Tor-Browser.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> [https://tails.boum.org/news/version_3.0/index.en.html#news-v...](https://tails.boum.org/news/version_3.0/index.en.html#news- version-3.0.check) says you should run "uname -m" under Tails to see if "your computer is 64-bit". How does that work? Does Tails automatically choose kernel version appropriate for your hardware, or what?

<comment><USER12> > How does that work? Does Tails automatically choose kernel version > appropriate for your hardware, or what?

No, you run `uname -m` and then download the appropriate version of Tails (although it appears Tails 3.0 is only available on 64-bit now).

<comment><USER4> I mean, "uname -m" gives you information about the kernel, not about the hardware.

If "uname -m" says "i686" it means that your kernels is 32-bit (or pretends¹ to be so). It doesn't necessarily mean that your hardware is not capable of running a 64-bit kernel.

So unless I'm missing something, the above procedure does not work correctly. Instead, you should run something like this:

      $ lscpu | grep -w mode
      CPU op-mode(s):        32-bit, 64-bit

¹ [http://man7.org/linux/man- pages/man8/i386.8.html](http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/i386.8.html)

<comment><USER12> That's a fair point. I misunderstood your question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I recently started using Tails so for security reasons cough _backdoor_ windows _ios_ cough,.. and found that it worked surprisely well. It has a disk utility, liber office, and the drivers even worked for my wireless dongle! Kudos to the Tails team!

</comment><comment><USER14> None of the machines available to me worked with the previous release, I guess it's time to try again for the x64 subset...

</comment><comment><USER15> [https://webconverger.com/](https://webconverger.com/) is still 32 bit and keeps a clean slate.

</comment><comment><USER16> Tails should use Devuan. It does not have systemd. What do you think?

Translated automatically.

<comment><USER17> Assuming Debian Stretch still uses non-systemd networking configuration (which was the default case in 8 at least), or Tails switches back to it, systemd shouldn't impact what Tails tries to do in any way.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would you use a prediction market mobile app - <AUTHOR>

I want to develop a mobile app for prediction markets, which allows users to predict outcome of events, e.g. Will Life of Pi win "Best movie" Academy award.
Before developing I want to know if there is enough demand for such an application. Would you use such an app if it is available in the market right now.
There is a popular prediction market sit e called InTrade, which is recently banned in US because it allows users to predict using real money <comment><USER2> What incentive is there for users? Prizes, points, fame?

As a game, I think prediction markets do not entertain too many people because predictions are very long term. Have you thought of a way to fix that?

For what it's worth-- one of the issues I'd have with a mobile format for making more serious predictions myself would be that it's harder to do research on such a small screen.

<comment><AUTHOR> There will be virtual currency involved. So, when users participate and if they predict correctly they will earn virtual currency.

Most of the events in prediction markets involve something that user already knows what is going to happen.

<comment><USER3> Virtual currency isn't real money and I doubt it would create enough incentive for people to take their participation seriously enough to give you accurate predictions. The only way is to use real money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> We just built a prediction market iOS app for Inkling: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/inkling- predictions/id549984...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/inkling- predictions/id549984060?mt=8)

It uses fantasy currency due to US law...</comment>


Astronomers have spotted the universe's first molecule - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/astronomers-have-spotted-universe-s-first-molecule <comment><USER2> Clickbaity title. Should have been "Astronomers have spotted the universe's first _type of_ molecule", or "Astronomers have spotted _molecules like_ the universe's first".

<comment><USER3> sorry to say so, but that seems rather obvious. _of course_ astronomers haven't spotted the actual first instance of a molecule.

<comment><USER4> If you come from a non-technical background, where many physical discoveries of varying difficulty all _seem_ impossible, it's an obviously misleading headline.

<comment><USER5> How often people of non technical background go to science magazine with so little knowledge that they assume there's a way to find _the_ universe's first molecule?

<comment><USER6> I don't know much about physics/astronomy. My rough understanding is that very early in the Big Bang, all matter/energy was condensed into some really exotic form and it turned into atoms and molecules as it expanded. When I read the headline, I imagined that during the Big Bang a molecule was produced that somehow had a lot of energy and emitted that energy in such a way that we managed to detect some kind of echo of it today. I have seen images described as images of radiation from the Big Bang, so this sounded impressive but not unbelievable to me.

<comment><USER2> This was my impression too. I still thought it was _probably_ not what they meant - maybe a 10% chance that it was - but it was misleading nonetheless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm curious why the helium hydride (HeH) would form before H2 (molecular hydrogen). Hydrogen (single atomic form) should have formed a larger fraction of post-bang elements than helium (and much more than lithium). I didn't see anything in the article about this.

HeH has a binding energy of 25.1 kJ/mole [1]. H2 has a dissociation energy of 104 kcal/mole [2]. Expressing these energies in eV per molecule, it's ~0.26eV for HeH and ~ 4.5eV for H2. So H2 would seem to be stable at higher temperatures and should form first in a cooling gas mixture whose particle kinetic energies are declining.

Or is "binding energy" different from "dissociation energy"?

Would like to understand a little of the thermodynamics that allow HeH rather than H2 to be the primordial molecule.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_hydride_ion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_hydride_ion) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond- dissociation_energy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond-dissociation_energy)

<comment><USER8> That was also my first reaction.

But TFA says that H+ reacted with neutral He. That gives you HeH+, which is what they detected. And I see that the ionization energies of He are 2372.3 kJ/mol for the first electron, and 5250.5 kJ/mol for the second. But the ionization energy of H is just 1312.0 kJ/mol. So neutral He would have formed long before neutral H, and He plus H+ was the first possible combination.

Also, HeH+ is an extremely strong acid, so it would grab an electron from just about anything else that it encountered. And neutral HeH is not stable.

<comment><USER9> In the post-bang environment, you can flip those numbers around to see the order in which the hot nuclei capture the hot electrons. A [He+2] nucleus can grab hotter electrons than a [He+1] ion, which in turn can grab hotter electrons than a [H+] proton.

So at a temperature cool enough for neutral He to exist and still hot enough for [H+] ions, they were pretty much the only massive things around that could react with each other.

If an [HeH+] caught a hot electron, it would fall apart into He and H, with no further need to share electrons. A [H+] could glom onto that neutral H to make [H2+] (which also forms when cosmic rays blast through an H2 cloud). If an [H2+] caught another electron, the H2 and another [H2+] will react to make [H3+] and H. So it turns out [H3+] is a pretty common hot cloud molecule, too.

Plain old H2 doesn't exist by itself until the temperature drops enough for those positive ions to catch electrons and stop being an acidic plasma.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The article says "HeH", but tt's very important to notice that the molecule they detected is HeH+ (the charged version), not HeH (the non charged version).

I can't find the information now, but the non-charged version is probably not stable (or the bound is extremely weak).

The title of the research paper is: Astrophysical detection of the helium hydride ion HeH+

</comment><comment><USER11> > Helium hydride (HeH), a combination of helium and hydrogen, was spotted some > 3000 light-years from Earth by an instrument aboard the airborne > Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a telescope built > into a converted 747 jet that flies above the opaque parts of Earth's > atmosphere.

Not quite. The paper makes it clear that what was actually observed was HeH+:

> Here we report observations, based on advances in terahertz spectroscopy8,9 > and a high-altitude observatory10, of the rotational ground-state transition > of HeH+ at a wavelength of 149.1 micrometres in the planetary nebula NGC > 7027.

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1090-x](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1090-x)

<comment><USER12> I don't think it's _wrong_ , tho definitely (somewhat) less precise. An ionized molecule is still that molecule.

<comment><USER10> If you forget to put the charge + or - in a chemistry exam, you will never approve.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> They've spotted the first type* of molecule, no? Not the actual first molecule.

<comment><USER14> They're all interchangeable, right? Unless the first compound was really, for some reason, between a deuterium and an H3. But the difference in energy levels would be hard to detect.

In any case, the scarcity of signatures outside violent environments indicates that no primordial HeH compounds survived, and these are recent re- occurrences.

So, "the first type of compound". Less punchy, I guess.

<comment><USER15> > _They 're all interchangeable, right?_

Only with respect to use (properties).

They still all have different histories (space/time lines).

If they indeed have found the first molecule, that would be a huge thing (and a huge mystery, of how they've managed to (a) find it, (b) recognize it as such, since all are interchangeable).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why would this form before H2?

Or are they really talking about a first compound? And if they are, why not say so?

<comment><USER10> Read the comment by mirimir, that is based in the research article instead of the press article: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19694140](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19694140)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Maybe this ought to be merged with [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19690167](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19690167)

Using the phys.org link, because it's more substantive.

</comment><comment><USER16> They found one only?

</comment><comment><USER17> HeH!</comment>


You could have invented Parser Combinators - <AUTHOR> http://theorangeduck.com/page/you-could-have-invented-parser-combinators <comment><USER2> Yup, parser combinators are a lot like regexes and if you can write a basic regex engine then with a few tweaks you get parser combinators.</comment>


Ask HN: Do software developers need agents? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a freelance software developer and I can see value in hiring someone to handle 1)finding me gigs 2) contract and fee negotiations with companies looking for contract workers. Recruiters come close but have their clients', ie the hiring company's best interests in mind. Does such a service exist? If not why not? <comment><USER2> Ed (<http://mycloudwatcher.com/>) has basically been doing this for a number of years. He provides a valuable service to clients. Clients trust him. Clients have other needs & ask him if he knows anyone who can do X (mobile, Node.js, art, writing, etc...). He refers and vouches for freelancers (and he has fill-in-the-blank forms for everything & everybody).

Ed is probably the closest example of this idea I've seen; recruiters don't make as much money from freelance referrals so if they do this at all, it would be sparing.

Cool idea though. I'd be interested to see if it works out in an explicit fashion as OP describes.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know about the US, but in Europe (and Morocco where I live), many freelance use "sales engineers" (technico-commercial in French, not sure if it's the correct translation), this person gets a commission for every gig he lands for the freelancer.

</comment><comment><USER4> An agent traditionally represents someone that has a unique talent -- say an actor, director or a high profile fashion model. These are situations where the name of the person (i.e. their brand) brings actual financial value to a project. So for example if Tom Hanks stars in a film you produce the value of the film just increased.

In stark contrast developers are engineers, i.e. they make something that's a result of a specification. Now yes some developers are better than others, but that work is "under the hood".

Now an exception to the above might be a "rock star CTO" or founder who is really more of an architect or a product person. But at that point their actual code is besides the point if you know what I mean. In fact the actual code from this sort of rock star might even be below average, but that's not why they're getting funding.

Side note: In the case of an entertainment artist who has an agent it's the artist with the best track record that will do do well. An unknown artist with an agent is still at the bottom.

<comment><USER5> This isn't exactly true. Virtually every actor and actress has an agent as it scales better than negotiating every gig independently. The big difference I see is that the gigs are mostly very short and numerous. Very few are more than a few days work.

<comment><USER4> But let's think about it: The actors you're talking about who have the agent on the lowest rung are still professional actors, i.e. they do acting to earn a living and nothing else.

However that set of actors is a small sub-set of those actors who get a role every now and then but don't earn a full time living. So there is an entire class of actors who get an industrial spot, do summer stock, play an extra or do voice overs who don't have an agent.

I know this because I've hired those actors for various projects. However if those actors had a name that you could recognize they'd have an agent.

<comment><USER5> They are probably doing themselves a disservice in that industry then.

<comment><USER4> Not really — an agent who doesn't get you gigs still gets a cut. Having an agent doesn't always open doors or get you more money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So this thread is a few days old, but to add my experiences, I've spoken with two "talent" agencies, one that specializes in design and another that tries to specialize in technical people. Design is easy because it's subjective, but even to the common eye there's a difference between good and bad and how those relate to their client's brand. The problem with the latter is that they were focused on past job titles because they didn't actually understand the industries they were working with enough to be able to say "Okay well this guy can write in X, which translates well to Y, and has a strong interest in Z." In doing a little more research, there were a few companies that did seem to know their stuff, but they weren't in my area. If you find one, do a little bit more research about them as individuals and as a company to see if they can actually help you or if you'll just land in a database full of people who maximized buzzwords on their resumes.

</comment><comment><USER7> Similar people do exist in the industry. The only problem is that they tend to be salaried people working in a team of similar folks. However, for small firms and indie developers, getting in touch with such people is a real problem. We are looking out for such skills. If you have such skills or know someone who does, ask them to get in touch.

</comment><comment><USER8> I also love this idea, but I'm not sure it would translate to anything outside the sports/entertainment arena.

In both sports and entertainment the "agent" model works because the person being pursued is considered highly irreplaceable (like Kobe Bryant or Angelina Jolie). For the team, players having agents is a huge negative. But what choice do they have? People are only willing to put up with a bad process when they feel that they are getting something invaluable. That's why people line up out the door and around the corner at special food spots like Georgetown Cupcakes, or for a cheesesteak in Philadelphia.

In other words, even though I agree that some developers are so highly skilled that they are essentially invaluable, if you walked into a company with an agent they'd simply put your resume aside and find someone else. Programming (especially in the eyes of the non-technical) is a highly replaceable skill.

<comment><AUTHOR> From what I understand, even unknown actors have agents to find them parts in commercial or as extras etc. so I'm not convinced only irreplaceable people need agents. I agreed that it is less convenient for the hiring manager because they are dealing with someone who is skilled at negotiation but they would be forced put up with it because the demand for skilled developers is so high.

<comment><USER8> I would guess that's more a byproduct of the irreplaceable though, right? In an industry where the "good" actors have an agent, not having one would make you look illegitimate. In other words, if Brad Pitt didn't have an agent it's unlikely people would put up with Extra #12 having one.

<comment><AUTHOR> So, by that logic, having an agent as a software developer would make me look more legitimate then everyone else :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The idea of agents is usually in industries such as real estate, sports etc. where agents help their clients by shielding them from unknowns and other things that the clients are not very well versed in. In software dev though, I am not sure if we need an agent in addition to what we already have which is recruiters. True that the recruiters work for the employer's benefit more than yours but how exactly can an agent help here ?

What you _do_ need is good connections/contacts which unfortunately only comes with experience and meeting people on your own. If at all, I would say try finding a mentor or someone like that.

</comment><comment><USER10> Interesting idea - I think the reason they don't exist is maybe that the dev probably wouldn't be happy about paying a finders fee to the agent? I mean recruiters obviously have fees, but these are normally paid by the employer and hidden from the dev (from my own limited experience the fee can be in the 10000s).

Some possible payment models - a) a percentage of the successful position. b) an hourly rate for doing the task of job hunting. c) a percentage combined with a one-off application fee.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've been considering finding someone to do this sort of thing for me (someday). I'd probably pay a certain percentage of the contract. Some people I know have expressed an interest in this sort of position, primarily because it would allow them to telecommute.

Depending on your needs, you could probably find someone to help you out. Finding someone with a bit of legal knowledge and experience might be a good idea. Try putting an ad up-- I bet you'd get a lot of responses.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think its a cool idea, and I think it almost makes sense. In showbiz, you sign lots of short contracts and lots of gigs, so you need someone to deal with the hassle and be in the know, cause you have to find new stuff often. Software is kind of like that, but not as frequent. I think it comes down to frequency maybe- If you need to find new jobs often, an agent would be very helpful.

</comment><comment><USER13> More of a secretary for you to do the tasks you find take time from your actual job which is programming. You can always make him/her review possible jobs for you and do the initial contact and to manage your time usage. Though you still would need to work the project details with the client yourself.

</comment><comment><USER14> I would use this service and I've spoken recently to freelancers who'd like a service like this. Bringing a level of stability to freelancing would probably make more devs jump into it.

</comment><comment><USER15> I would say this is a good idea. Contracted workers in IT support etc have agencies find them work, why don't they do it for freelance devs?

</comment><comment><USER16> Isn't this pretty much what a consulting firm does?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not exactly, consulting firms find the work but they also pay you a salary and they have the final say in what projects you work on. Developers work for consulting firms, agents work for their clients.</comment></comment>


Taxi medallions have been the best investment. Now Uber may be changing that - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/06/20/taxi-medallions-have-been-the-best-investment-in-america-for-years-now-uber-may-be-changing-that/ <comment><USER2> Imagine if driver's licenses were treated the same way cities treat taxi licenses and liquor licenses.

The number available is limited, so if you want a driver's license you have to wait for someone to die, and then buy the license from the estate. Since it's artificially scarce you'd have to pay a pretty penny to get one. Some companies might step in and buy up driver's licenses to rent them to drivers for only a few hundred dollars a month...

Treating any form of license as transferable private property seems to be against the public interest.

<comment><USER3> Singapore has a quota system for vehicles. The cost of a 10-year vehicle license under their auction system can exceed the value of the vehicle: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_Entitlement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_Entitlement)

The situation isn't the same as your hypothetical situation though. The licenses aren't perpetual or (for the most part) transferable.

Incidentally, the traffic flows pretty well there.

<comment><USER4> Singapore is a different case, because it's such a small country. Between the size of the island and the climate (hot/humid) they can't afford uncontrolled growth of car usage. It's also a place (like Manhattan) where you don't need a car.

Frankly, I think car usage should, ideally, cost 2-3 times what it costs in the U.S. to account for all the externalized costs. (Those taxes could be used to modernize the train system and public transportation.) That wouldn't be practical, unfortunately, as the country is set up now.

<comment><USER5> Public transport and trains don't do anything to help the many folks living outside cities. Singapore is very different to downtown Texarkana.

Try telling bill the farmer that his truck is gonna cost 3x more to run this year to help fund light rail in The city. Singapore and the US is an apples to pork chops comparison.

<comment><USER6> Australia has a system whereby "bill the farmer" (and miners) can claim a tax credit for fuel excise taxes, whereas inner city drivers can't.

The UK has a system where inner city drivers have to pay congestion taxes.

Both of these systems make some progress towards limiting congestion and subsidising public transport in dense areas without hurting those outside the cities. Personally I think they should both go a lot further.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The threat to medallion owners isn't that they'll lose passengers to these services. It's that they'll lose drivers — who have been aggressively courted by Uber. "Without the drivers, we're dead," "

Oh really? Please tell me again how people were thinking a gimmick that's valuable only because of a government imposed monopoly is a sound investment.

The bubble is popping. And it would be interesting to ask why did the price started going up around the 2000s...

<comment><USER8> > a gimmick that's valuable only because of a government imposed monopoly is a > sound investment

City streets are a limited public good. Aside from ensuring quality and consumer protection, regulation & limiting the number of taxis ensures that traffic can actually flow. A traffic consultant says that NYC's plan to add 2,000 medallions could slow down all traffic by 12% because taxis don't park -- they roam the streets constantly.

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/31/157477611/does- new...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/31/157477611/does-new-york- city-need-more-taxis)

<comment><USER9> If you limit taxis, more people will drive their own cars. To make up some numbers, if you want to take 2000 cars off the road, you might have to eliminate 2500 or 3000 medallions.

Instead, traffic-limiting measures should target _all_ vehicles using congestion tolls, gas taxes, vehicle taxes, or something more innovative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Am I the only person that thinks government regulation is a reasonable thing for the taxi industry? Regulations on work hours, car safety, tougher environmental standards, driver training, requiring pickup if called, etc all seem reasonable. It's unfair that Uber is able to skirt most of these rules. The same could be said for hotels (noise, safety regs, etc) and restaurants (food safety, etc). Should all services be unregulated? Anyways, I do think things like Uber and Airbnb are very cool and innovative, I just feel a little uncomfortable about where it's leading us to.

<comment><USER11> The biggest issue that I have with this is that the government regulations are meaningless these days due to lack of code enforcement.

Two great examples: 1.) Staying in Fremont, CA, needing a trip to the San Jose airport at 4:50 in the morning. I had a cab 'scheduled' but a few drivers didn't show up, and they didn't bother calling me to let me know that they were not going to show up. The dispatcher didn't speak english well and didn't understand the questions that I asked. If I had instant feedback that nobody was coming, I would have made alternate plans the minute that I knew nobody was going to pick me up. 2.) In Chicago for a business trip. I generally don't carry cash, but, needed a ride from point a to point b. Taxi driver's sticker said he took credit cards, but his machine was 'down.' A "standoff" of sorts occurred between me, the taxi driver, and Chicago PD; ultimately, after the police harassing him (and reminding him that a working credit card reader was required in the city), he reluctantly ran my credit card and let me out of his car.

It's unfair that the Taxi companies skirt these rules too -- Uber and Lyft just give their ecosystems a quicker way to get ride of bad actors and focus on customer service, where the Taxi companies are focused on keeping the medallion owners happy.

<comment><USER12> I've never had this issue. Every dispatcher has spoken very clearly and my cab orders have arrived on or ahead of time every time. As for the credit card issue that is easy enough to fix. I always give them a cash tip and then ask them to put the actual travel charge on a credit card.

<comment><USER13> Cities vary. There are good cab drivers, bad ones, and really bad ones. I've had the same things happen to me as the previous poster: didn't show up, claimed credit card didn't work (frequent.)

I have also had a few other things: kidnapped, cab driver trying to run other cars off the road, talking on cell phone (40% - 60% of the time), stopping for gas, picking up their friends, operate a vehicle with brakes that were clearly barely operable, and so on.

Uber has bad drivers too, but I assume they don't last long. In NYC, at least, cab drivers can expect to keep driving even after killing pedestrians. [http://nypost.com/2014/02/09/cabbies-who-kill-or-maim-in- nyc...](http://nypost.com/2014/02/09/cabbies-who-kill-or-maim-in-nyc-keep- licenses-return-to-work/)

<comment><USER14> This is what you'd expect government to do when taking away a licence would mean the person loses their livelihood.

The same thing is true for lawyers, land meters, certified accountants, ... they effectively get one "get out of jail free" card for any offence that occurred on the job, and isn't an obvious repeat offence, or was an obvious case of corruption (and getting paid a lot, but not directly to commit a crime is not corruption).

Why ? Two reasons. Firstly, because taking that licence destroys the person, nobody wants to do it. Second because of the effect of taking away licences, their competitors could cause their licence to be taken away to increase business (for lawyers at least, I know two cases where this happened)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just another business model that refuses to evolve. Driverless cars will be here soon enough and the model will have to change again. That's life.

If history has proven anything, it is that evolution always wins.

<comment><USER16> When driver-less cars come, Uber too will be redundant too. That's a while away though.

<comment><USER17> At that point, something like Uber still makes sense as a centralized ride brokerage. Cab companies will have driverless cars that go everywhere, but on many cities, no company will have enough cars for you to just want to go to their website to request a ride.

It becomes a mix of Expedia an an auction site. You say where you are, and where you want to go, and get bids from car companies that claim to be able to get to you in X time, and charge you Y to get to your destination. You get to pick. With automated cars, their bids are all by algorithm.

I'd be shocked if the Uber people weren't thinking about this problem today.

<comment><USER14> > At that point, something like Uber still makes sense as a centralized ride > brokerage.

Since this is such an obvious part of the business model, I don't think they will get the chance to do this.

There's one thing people don't yet understand about robots in the public space. Who carries the responsibility for the driving, and for accidents ? Currently for normal cars this is shared between producer and driver. With self-driving cars both the producer and driver are one and the same company, and obviously the occupants won't feel a great sense of responsibility, they'll feel they are victims, for obvious reasons : they didn't do anything.

So ownership and insurance of things don't make sense for driver less cars. Ownership of them doesn't make sense because the responsibility thing doesn't work if you don't allow the producer remote access to do anything they want to the car. Insurance doesn't make sense for similar reasons.

So yes I'm sure the car companies will allow Uber to take part in some "affiliate" scheme, but I'd expect that to be the limit of their involvement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There's a kind of live by the sword, die by the sword theme here. If government rules can be enacted to make an item's value go up, they can also change to make the same item's value go down.

</comment><comment><USER19> From the article:

       In February, he sued the city on behalf of medallion
       owners, brokers, managers, financiers and cab
       affiliations. The suit argues that the city has violated
       their rights by allowing new companies to provide an
       essentially identical transportation service without
       complying with existing regulation. By eliminating the
       exclusive right of medallion owners to provide that
       service, the suit argues, the city has taken away the
       thing that gives medallions their value as property
       under Illinois law.

       "If you think it's an improvement to change the rules,
       maybe you can do that," says Edward Feldman, a partner
       with Shakman. "But you have to provide compensation for
       the property rights you're destroying. And that's the
       Constitution."

       Medallions represent a promise, he says. And on that
       promise, medallion owners took out mortgage-size loans.
       If the city backs out of that promise, it must make them
       whole.

So, if I buy a fishing license but fail to catch any fish, can I sue my state's Department of Fish and Wildlife for a refund of my $50? I wonder what people would say if I tried?

<comment><USER20> That's an invalid analogy. A valid analogy would be that you purchased a fishing license from your state's Department of Fish and Wildlife because you were told one was legally required to fish in a certain location, but the Department of Fish and Wildlife then failed to take action against others who began fishing in that same location without a license.

Good idea or horrible idea, certain cities created licensing regimes that promised to protect taxi drivers from competition if they paid for medallions. Now that others are flouting the law and circumventing the licensing regime, the taxi drivers want their protection money back if they're not going to receive the protection they were promised.

<comment><USER6> In terms of individual taxi drivers who took out massive loans this is a valid argument. In terms of the rent-seeking institutional investors who lobbied the government to create an asset class which diverts most of the profits away from the people actually doing the work and makes taxis more expensive for no return in public benefit.

I have no issue with government regulation of the taxi industry - quite the opposite. Certainly I think that it's important to mandate vehicle safety inspections. But if taxi licenses are going to be supply constrained, they should be issued by the government for a flat fee on a first-come first- served, use-it-or-lose-it basis. They should only be purchasable by the driver that will be driving the taxi and they should not be transferrable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Taxi medallions have also been a great barrier to entry in the taxi business. John Stossel investigated this a while ago:

[http://youtu.be/anKCO99_O8s?t=1m53s](http://youtu.be/anKCO99_O8s?t=1m53s)

<comment><USER22> Ugh, Stossel. Taxi deregulation has been done many times before. Try this: [http://toomanytaxis.com/2009/01/taxi-deregulation-brings- onl...](http://toomanytaxis.com/2009/01/taxi-deregulation-brings-only-regret/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The arguments about chaos without regulations is bullshit. There are proofs around the world.

It's going to be very interesting to see how the industry will change.

1\. Almost all will switch to Uber, Lyft etc. 2\. Driveless cars take over. 3\. Distributed network of driveless cars backed by bitcoin like transactions. No need for central logistics like Uber.

What will happen first: 2 or 3

<comment><USER24> Under 3, doesn't there still need to be a dispatch system?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I loved Nassim Nicholas Taleb's discussion of why being a taxi drive can be better than being a banker (Antifragile).

This Uber stuff is throwing a twist into his conclusions.

</comment><comment><USER26> Anyone else find the graph of medallion values a little weird?

Looking at the DJIA, It was ~11,700 in Jan 2000 and by March 2009 it was down to ~6,600. The graph makes it look like it was about 100% of what it was in 2000. That makes no sense.

Also, they have the CPI plotted, but it's a straight line at 100. So they might be correcting for CPI, but in that case, you'd expect the 2009 DJIA to be even lower.

</comment><comment><USER27> How much can someone who already has their own car make doing Lyft, UberX or Sidecar? It might be a good option for empty-nesters who need extra cash but don't want to sell assets or dip into pension pots.

<comment><USER28> I took UberX yesterday. The driver told me he used to be a cab driver and he loved Uber. He made more money and spent less time doing it. For reference, when he drove a cab he had to spend $600 per month to rent the car!

<comment><USER29> If you use your own car as a taxi, your depreciation, insurance and maintenance costs would also be significant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Why don't cities issue taxi licences for 1 or 3 years, instead of permanent medallions?</comment>