'Anonymous' make it to TIME 100 most influential list - <AUTHOR> http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2111975_2111976_2112122,00.html

<comment><USER2> "a global collective of highly skilled hackers "

"Anonymous" as a whole isn't that skilled. They are mostly a collection of script kiddies that use pre-build programs to attack websites.

This takes almost no skill.</comment>


Author John Birmingham on eBook Piracy - <AUTHOR> http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/blogs/blunt-instrument/avast-ye-scurvy-dogs-here-be-my-answer-to-piracy-20120528-1zegt.html

<comment><USER3> DRM is seriously still happening? How hard would it be to setup some software that inspects the video driver output and copies it after each page turn? Or if not at that level, some kind of device that takes a scan of the display, OCRs it, and saves all the scans into a new, unlocked PDF.

I can understand some of these players being hell bent on having control of their product even after they sell it to someone else, but it seems inevitable that it will not last.

If you sell me a painting, you can't expect to stop me from taking photos and copying it. Or if I'm a painter, I may even modify it and resell it as a fork of your initial design.

Seriously, who (within a certain age bracket) has never copied a friend's audio cassette?

<comment><USER4> Please show me the software to not only do OCR, but also that will reflow these what are essentially bitmap-representations of books (or, at best, 'PDF- like representations') to a format such as epub which is required to get the full 'e-book experience'.

For the record, I've tried my hand (and failed) on software to do just this. It's a Hard problem, Hard in the CS and engineering sense, and sufficiently hard that I don't see it happening reliably in the first years, and there is to the best of my knowledge no software available that even comes close. To anyone who is going to suggest Calibre, please don't, lest you make yourself look like you know nothing about the issues I'm talking about.

<comment><USER5> > To anyone who is going to suggest Calibre, please don't, lest you make > yourself look like you know nothing about the issues I'm talking about.

Can you please elaborate on this. I've never tried, but I thought Calibre could strip the DRM from kindle ebooks. Or do you mean that Calibre can't handle the general case of arbitrary DRM (via OCR methods)?

<comment><USER4> First, Calibre doesn't do OCR (at least not the version that I last looked at, maybe a year or so ago). But then still, even if it would, having a bunch of OCR'ed pages doesn't make an ebook. Any eventual conversion software would have to strip page header and footer material, recognize chapter titles and paragraphs, etc.; and for technical books it's a magnitude worse still - <USER2> would have to recognize sidebars, images, multi-level chapter headings, ...

Converting a pdf into an ebook (by ebook I mean: epub or similar formats, I recognize that that is a fairly narrow definition of ebook; some people call scanned jpg's an 'ebook'), even without accounting for DRM or OCR, is Very Hard. PDF is only page layout, it doesn't have any semantics; ebooks are build around semantic markup (otherwise you can't make an automatic ToC, or reflow pages when the user increases font size, for example).

My point is: there is no software (to the best of my knowledge, and I've _looked_ ) that can convert bitmaps into their equivalent 'ebooks'. So, it's not quite as easy (actually it's so much harder so as to approach impossible, save from manual conversion) as the GP would make it seem.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the clarification. I agree that converting a BMP to a properly formatted eBook is next to impossible without at least some manual intervention (or using an expert system based on manually constructed book templates).

I do wonder how far Google has got with their internal software - and if they care at all about formatting, or just the text.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reading this sort of thing makes me want to go and buy this guys books.

I own perhaps a dozen books I've bought from amazon, and it vexes me continuously that they come drm locked and I can't do simple things like, swap them to a different device. I've regretted it every single time.

These days I get the free sample off of amazon, and if I like the book I go out of my way to find a way to get it DRM free, or buy a physical copy.

<comment><AUTHOR> I suggest you do, his books are awesome.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birmingham>

<comment><USER7> Funny thing... I didn't recognize his name, but the first book of his Axis of Time series was available for free when I got my first Kindle. This can be a great way to introduce people to an author or series, and I've bought books by an author based on the free one I got.

Unfortunately for Birmingham, Weapons of Choice just didn't convince me he was a great author, or at least not one that I want to spend more money on right now. Of course, I haven't pirated his books either, but the only reason I've ever done that is if the book isn't legally available electronically.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The author is a little contradictory in that he seems to simultaneously hold up drm as an author's last stand against piracy aswell as freedom denying. But I think the contradiction is just his own conflictedness about drm. He has to make a buck somehow, and if drm is the only way in this day and age then it might be his only option.

</comment><comment><USER9> One of the most rational discussions of piracy and DRM I've ever read.

</comment><comment><USER10> If ebooks are currently priced to cheaply at some point you would expect the content produced to slow down, at which point prices would rise because books that people want aren't being made.

I assume this author is trying to have it both ways, letting amazon sell their stuff cheap and get some volume while trying to make a far better margin off the Australian market.

</comment><comment><USER11> John Birmingham's publisher, where you can buy his DRM-free books: <http://momentumbooks.com.au>

</comment><comment><USER12> I am one of those people who have been "corn-holed" over the last 30 years and I seriously don't care how many publishers or retail outlets I put out of business by buying electronically.

The Internet selling model is here to stay and as long as the artist or author gets their fair cut for creating the work, the model is fine by me. The fact this author is tied to his publisher is between him and the publisher and not my problem.

I've read some rubbish by established authors with ridiculous e-book prices and some fine stuff for $0.99 by authors quite happy with the e-book format, Amazon does not need to apologise to anyone IMHO in fact I'm preparing my first book for publication with them later this year, I doubt I will make much but I have a day job and the Karma value will be immense, I suspect this is the feeling of a lot of authors (yes there is a lot of shit ebooks to wade through but its worth it when you find a gem!)

If there isnt an ebook and the price is too high I go to the library or dont read it (seriously how many people would seriously read a photocopied book)

<comment><USER13> _I'm preparing my first book for publication with them later this year, I doubt I will make much but I have a day job_

I've been working with an author-run e-publishing group for the past few months, and this is an attitude I see a lot. I understand where it comes from, but it's not really good for readers or the literary ecosystem. Amazon has no real stake in any of the books they publish. They own the platform that sells all of the content, so as long as they're selling _something_ , they're fine. There are no publishers giving books the criticism and support they need, and no passionate booksellers to promote them to readers. If even the authors don't care if a book sells, where does that leave us? I don't know. But I'm going to keep buying traditionally published books until someone figures it out.

<comment><USER14> He's just preparing himself emotionally in case it flops, is my guess. (or she) (and maybe that's what I do)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "They are all available on the torrents. For free. Go out and steal them now if you want. Call it 'copying' and argue the semantics if you like. Just don't expect me to be your friend anymore or, eventually, to write another goddamned book. I'm not a complete idiot. I got better things to do with my time than give away free tricks."

I was entirely on the author's side up until he said this. He deserves to be paid for what he does, but if he isn't willing to do it for free if that's the only way, then he probably shouldn't bother.

<comment><USER15> Whoa, are you sure about this stance? No creative task should ever be done unless your willing to work for free?

By your logic, I would be condemned to waiting tables for the entirety of my life whilst providing every line of code I write for free.

I don't think this is fair to people that want to pursue a creative path in life.</comment></comment>


Paradoxical Crystal Baffles Physicists - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150702-paradoxical-crystal-baffles-physicists/ <comment><USER2> Hyperbolic journalism aside, this is certainly an interesting material. Surprisingly, from a cursory literature search, it appears that no one has attempted to perform electronic structure calculations on SmB6, although the compound seems to have only started gathering interest around 2013. DFT of course wouldn't work for something with high electron correlation, but considering the simplicity of the molecule, I imagine QMC could tackle this fairly readily to provide some insight as to what's going on.

<comment><USER3> Discrete Fourier transform and quantum Monte Carlo?

<comment><USER4> "Density Functional Theory" and "Quantum Monte Carlo", two ways of calculating electronic structures (the former tends to be more approximate and the latter tends to be more computationally expensive)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The opening sentence makes it sound like scientists have discovered "semiconductors" for the first time - yet they were never mentioned in the article. I feel like I would have gained a better understanding of samarium hexaboride's unexpected properties if the author had contrasted them with a concept that is conceptually (?) similar.

        > "In a deceptively drab black crystal, physicists have stumbled upon a baffling behavior, one that appears to blur the line between the properties of metals, in which electrons flow freely, and those of insulators, in which electrons are effectively stuck in place. The crystal exhibits hallmarks of both simultaneously."

</comment><comment><USER6> > Calling to mind the famous wave-particle duality of quantum mechanics

Come on, quanta. You of all science news publications should know not to throw this misleading metaphor around willy-nilly. Not everything that seems contradictory ought to be compared to wave-particle duality, especially when so many people have the wrong idea about it.

<comment><USER7> It's not _that_ misleading. Pure waves and pure particles are dual to each other in the mathematical formalism, though actual physical phenomena are neither.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > One promising approach models the material as a higher-dimensional black > hole.

That's certainly not going to be misreported in the media.

<comment><USER9> But why? Isn't it big news that string theory has finally been proven?

<comment><USER10> Nothing about string theory is provable. If you throw a stone in a physics class you'll hit a new theory working with higher dimensions. A really simplified explanation might be "there's a qualitative attribute that means something special about how forces work with it".

<comment><USER9> Sure, I know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> >Amazingly, the observed deviation from the Lifshitz-Kosevich formula was presaged in 2010 by Sean Hartnoll and Diego Hofman, both then at Harvard University, in a paper that recast strongly correlated materials as higher- dimensional black holes, those infinitely steep curves in space-time predicted by Albert Einstein.

This is boggling to me. Higher dimensional black holes!?

<comment><USER12> I think it is bad journalism, intended to boggle not enlighten.

The paper mentioned is [http://arxiv.org/pdf/0912.0008](http://arxiv.org/pdf/0912.0008), and does not itself make mention of black holes.

Presumably the "higher-dimensional" aspect is coming from Hartnoll and Hofman's "large number of degrees of freedom" analysis.

I don't know anything about this area to guess whether there is really a black hole analogy.

But I am confident it isn't a useful analogy to make anything more clear!

<comment><USER13> That paper does not directly mention black holes, but holographic correspondence (which is even in the title!) does seem to have strong connection to black holes and higher dimensions, which is further spelled out in the references. As far as I can tell (which admittedly isn't much), the black hole connection goes deeper than just an analogy. Overall, I don't feel like Quantas short reference there is bad journalism, the subject matter being truly quite mind-boggling.

Here is another article from the same reporter about this holographic stuff:

[https://www.quantamagazine.org/20130701-signs-of-a- stranger-...](https://www.quantamagazine.org/20130701-signs-of-a-stranger- deeper-side-to-natures-building-blocks/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > But while samarium hexaboride does conduct electricity at room temperature, > things get strange as it cools.

So maybe the magnetic field undoes some of the effects of low temperatures? Or is that too un-sensational an explanation for modern physics?

<comment><USER15> When you suggest that "the magnetic field undoes some of the effects of low temperature", what do you mean? How could a magnetic field "undo" effects of low temperature? And which effects?

This sounds like a comment from the all too common armchair physicist that has no real rigorous background in physics.

<comment><USER14> Did you read the article? It's all there.

> Sebastian and her collaborators observed electrons traversing orbits > millions of atoms in diameter inside the crystal in response to a magnetic > field

If cooling the material down turns it from a conductor into an insulator, and then a magnetic field is observed to make it conduct again, then maybe the magnetic field reversed whatever effect the cooling had. Seems a lot more believable than "black holes".

<comment><USER15> I am mostly replying to your initial comment of

>Or is that too un-sensational an explanation for modern physics?

which has the frankly pretentious air of "I see an easy explanation you don't, why didn't you see it?"

This is a common phenomenon where someone reads a pop sci article and decides they know better than experts in the field. So I asked a couple basic questions to see whether you have any real idea what you're commenting on, or whether you're stringing together concepts you have no real understanding of and then being snide.

What is an insulator, and what is a conductor? What are the quantum mechanical properties of a material the determine whether it is one or the other, or potentially some sort of mixture? How would or could a magnetic field influence conductance of a material?

How does a material transition from a conductor to an insulator, and how does on recognize that transition?

For that matter, what are the known laws of magnetic interaction that one would have in mind when trying to model such an interaction?

Or have your comments had no real content?

<comment><USER16> Related video, Feynman can't explain magnets: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0r930Sn_8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0r930Sn_8)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It always amazes me how much we still have to learn about condensed matter physics.

<comment><USER18> It always amazes me how much we still have to learn about physics.

<comment><USER19> It always amazes me how much we still have to learn.

<comment><USER20> It always amazes me how much we have learned.

<comment><USER21> Please do not turn HN into Reddit. The signal:noise ratio is a very important thing to maintain. If it begins to slip too much, it might turn into a monotonically decreasing slide.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Will Michael Dell still shut Apple down and give money back to the Shareholders? - <AUTHOR> http://startupmeme.com/2007/04/26/apple-announces-record-fiscal-quarter/ <comment><USER2> You know what's interesting: there has been a lot of discussion about the fading of MS as the standard of all things office and OS (in spite of their current hordes of cash.) What hasn't been talked about is the environment that this change is making for Apple. The biggest argument for all business to use MS and PC's has been the standard set by them for file exchange and application availability. With that standard now moving to the web, it opens the door _WIDE_ for Apple to start taking market share in the PC market, an opening that hasn't been here for them since the Apple II. (Note: I am typing this note on a Dell laptop, but my next one is looking increasingly like an Apple. How I dreamed of getting a NEXT when they first came out.)

<comment><USER3> Precisely. I can't imagine getting a dell when, for approximately the same money, you can get a machine that can run OSX, windows, and ubuntu, with better display quality and support. (well, applecare some people hate and some people love... either way)</comment></comment>


Technical Breakdown of a new NES game written in Lisp - <AUTHOR> http://www.dustmop.io/blog/2019/09/10/what-remains-technical-breakdown/ <comment><USER2> This was an incredibly enjoyable read. A lesson to take away is that many of the ideas of Lisp can be taken advantage of without reeling in the entirety of an existing stack.

Writing a Lisp parser is easy. Walking Lisp code is easy. Serializing Lisp code is easy. Adding a new primitive is easy. Adding very basic syntax transforming macros is easy. All of these are virtually trivial if your host language is a Lisp, as was the case with Co2.

What they didn't do is what many people might think are table stakes with Lisp: writing a garbage collector, writing a runtime, supporting lambdas, and so on. Those are unreasonable asks for 2K RAM on a 6502. I wouldn't say they wrote a bonafide Lisp, but they made use of many ideas of Lisp successfully to write a game that is very surprisingly readable while not being too abstract over assembly.

Since Lisp began in the 1950s, it has always needed to stay tied to the low level. Even today, with SBCL or CCL, you can write your own assembly code. One relevant thing to the article is Baker's COMFY 6502 language for writing assembly code [0]. A few implementations can be found on GitHub.

[0] [http://home.pipeline.com/~hbaker1/sigplannotices/sigcol04.pd...](http://home.pipeline.com/~hbaker1/sigplannotices/sigcol04.pdf)

<comment><USER3> If you aren't going to have a GC, "rich" runtime or lambda support, what does LISP really bring you over FORTH? And implementations of the latter on 6502 have been commonplace since the 1980s...

<comment><USER4> I understand that Forth is powerful and elegant, and one of the last languages I'd want to take on in a fight when wielded by a master, so let me pretend you were asking about a stripped-down Lisp compared to, say, Pascal, instead:

* The simple syntax of stripped-down Lisp is very amenable to application-specific or domain-specific macros. This turns out to be a convenient way to do things that often the language or compiler alone can't do as well, if you used only functions, data, and conventions.

* That the syntax is so simple, and can also be first-class data that is displayed from the programming environment like it looks in syntax, makes it especially nice for things like intermediate representations that are refined incrementally. For example, you can show a translation series of steps that go from syntax parse, to resolutions, to phases of optimizations, to high-level assembler, to a very low-level target code (still represented with parentheses and "opcodes"), from which you write bytes. This can also be convenient.

In this particular case, they're using Racket (an implementation of a dialect of Scheme) to implement a compiler for a Lisp dialect they invented. Using Racket gives them both a nice general-purpose language for implementing their compiler, and happens to already have a lot of tools for parsing their own stripped-down Lisp and manipulating it.

IIUC, Naughty Dog used Racket for a similar purpose: to implement their own Lisp. For a narrative DSL for some AAA titles.

<comment><USER2> Naughty Dog used Allegro Common Lisp by (still alive and well) Franz Inc.

<comment><USER4> Neat, I didn't know Naughty Dog also used Allegro CL, in addition to Racket:

* "RacketCon 2013: Dan Liebgold - Racket on the Playstation 3? It's Not What you Think!" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSmqbnhHp1c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSmqbnhHp1c)

* "Functional mzScheme DSLs in Game Development" (MzScheme was the name of the main PLT Scheme interpreter that was renamed Racket) [http://cufp.org/conference/sessions/2011/functional-mzscheme...](http://cufp.org/conference/sessions/2011/functional-mzscheme-dsls-game-development)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I loved Lisp upon my first exposure in the late 80s in university. Then I "had" to professionally abandon Lisp leanings because I entered the game industry which required, at the time, a commitment to 8-bit assembly code. No problem. Lisp remained a hobby. Fast forward! Unexpected intersect! I love this so much and thank you for the great writeup!

There's a podcast for present day NES developers called The Assembly Line.[1] I'm sure they'd enjoy this story and talking to you.

[1] [https://soundcloud.com/nesassemblyline](https://soundcloud.com/nesassemblyline)

</comment><comment><USER6> This is a complete and absolute hack and I love it. When reading the README file of their github it is possible to see how "impure" pragmatic decisions were made like for loops and not supporting proper recursion. I wish there would be more projects like this one porting lisp runtimes to more and more hardware.

In the other hand the racket lisp behind the scenes _generates_ the assembly code based on some of the scheme primitives rather than porting its whole Racket runtime there, which in spite of not being the same as running a lisp in the NES hardware is still impressive.

<comment><USER7> Most Lispers and some Schemers are quite pragmatic in that regard. With the former favouring OOP and looping over recursion and the latter using imperative code when it matters.

With developer mindshare flocking to the Haskell view of FP, for the Lisp family, only the Clojure users seem to still hold purity in high regard.

<comment><USER8> Purity isn't in contrast with pragmatism; what Haskellers refer to as _purity_ is referential transparency.

You can still do this kind of work in Haskell as well. It is a great imperative language.

Though as someone who has written assembler compilers in Common Lisp... it's felt relatively easy to do in CL. I've only heard people talk about writing control software for drones from Haskell. I have no idea how one would do that in practice though.

<comment><USER9> Here is a blog about assembling 6502 code in Haskell: [http://www.wall.org/~lewis/2013/10/15/asm- monad.html](http://www.wall.org/~lewis/2013/10/15/asm-monad.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm struggling with the same problem: I'm a Lisp programmer who's writing a commercial game, in my case a Unity engine game, which requires C#.

I've opted for a less elegant, but technically simple strategy: I'm writing all the build tools/content tools in Clojurescript, and then writing only the core game engine in raw C#.

Next, I'm using [http://bridge.net](http://bridge.net) to cross-compile the game engine into javascript, which I can then link to from clojurescript so that all unit tests and 90% of all QA testing can be done via clojurescript tooling, without any C# in sight.

This allows me to deploy a commercial game in "native" C# without any performance penalty, but with as few lines of C# as humanly possible.

<comment><USER11> This seems really complicated, relative to using the Clojure CLR port. Is it just not mature enough, or were there other advantages to going via JS?

<comment><USER10> Using Clojure CLR would make the build process simple, at the cost of some complexity and likely a performance penalty in the deployed application.

On the other hand, my strategy makes the final deployed application dead simple and fast, but leads to a build process that's complex and messy.

It seems objectively true that the latter approach is going to be less risky, because if the final deployed game doesn't work well, the whole project is f###ed.

The only way to mitigate this risk and still stay with 100% Lisp is to create your own Lisp compiler, which is exactly what OP did... but that way lies insanity :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One of the advantages of lisp is REPL-driven development. I imagine you can't just edit a fn, eval it and then see the changes immediately. What is the workflow like when creating a NES game using co2?

<comment><USER13> I dunno about Co2, but the last time I heard about a project like this -- Naughty Dog's GOAL -- they _absolutely_ could compile GOAL on the fly on the development PC and send it immediately to run on the PS2 dev kit inside an already running game. REPL-driven development directly on a game console. It was awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is impressive. I appreciate you documenting the development of it and giving an overview of what's going on inside. I wish there were more blog posts like this. Have you reached out to the Racket community about the game and co2? Also, would you say this Lisp is geared more toward people who already know 6502 assembly, and not toward people who just want to write a NES game in a Lisp?

<comment><USER15> With only looking through the article and being a 6502/NES programmer myself, you can't escape having to know 6502 and the NES hardware to write a NES game. This Lisp is cool and it will certainly smooth the process and is a good fit for an Adventure game and other parts of NES game development where you aren't counting cycles (like UI).

<comment><USER14> Good to know. Assuming it's true that 6502 asm is not too difficult to learn, co2 looks like it would be fun to work with on a simple game. Really neat project.

<comment><USER15> 6502 is easy to learn. Have some fun here [https://skilldrick.github.io/easy6502/](https://skilldrick.github.io/easy6502/)

For me the challenge with the NES itself was getting a good tutorial and then with making a game, getting your art from your mind into the tiles and sprites and in your project. Your art 'pipeline'. Once that's established it becomes easier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you like this, you should also check out the work around Retro City Rampage. RCR is a GTA1 clone for multiple platforms from a few years back, but the developer also made a real NES ROM of it. Here's a great talk about that process: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvx4xXhZMrU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvx4xXhZMrU)

(I'm not related to the project, but it's one of the few games I've 100% completed because it was just so good)

<comment><USER15> I don't think they finished the NES version?

<comment><USER16> Sort of, it's in the game as an emulated ROM: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZffFxLyD4Ig](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZffFxLyD4Ig)

<comment><USER15> Prototype version, as in unfinished, too bad. But it's cool it's an Easter Egg.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Looking at the code examples of the entity system in this article made me wonder what it'd be like to code a MUD in this language or in lisp generally.

Does anyone know if there are any MUDs out there coded in lisp? I didn't find any good results in google aside from the MPI lisp-like language built on top of FurryMUCK.

<comment><USER18> A bit tangential, in relation to MUD-like games and Lisp. The original author of co2 (that is to say before it was developed further by OP), has worked on a multi-user interactive fiction with some of the other persons who worked on this NES game. For that he used mzscheme to run a server side virtual world of bots/NPC interacting with the players via a browser/javascript client.

You can find some information there:

[https://archive.bleu255.com/nakedonpluto/about/](https://archive.bleu255.com/nakedonpluto/about/)

[https://gitorious.org/naked-on-pluto/game- server](https://gitorious.org/naked-on-pluto/game-server) (cert expired)

[https://gitorious.org/naked-on-pluto/game- client](https://gitorious.org/naked-on-pluto/game-client) (cert expired)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'd like to hear more about the compiled stack.

In extremely latency sensitive applications, the mix of stack and instruction cacheline faults can cause significant overhead.

<comment><USER3> No cache lines on a 6502, though!

<comment><USER19> I'm talking about modern architectures

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Really cool article. I appreciated the "engineering on the battlefield" vibe. I'm curious why they first went with Lisp.

</comment><comment><USER21> They made their language using Racket! Great to see Racket style Language Oriented Programming being used for something so cool

</comment><comment><USER22> Lisp is and was the best programming language. I moved to Java many years ago and still regret :)

</comment><comment><USER23> Cool! Thanks for sharing! Just picked up the game, it looks awesome.

</comment><comment><USER24> Very impressive and readable. Congratulations!!!

</comment><comment><USER25> I know it's off-topic but I appreciate so much when somebody hosts their own blog rather than using Medium or some nag-ware hosting service.

I didn't get any pop-up "pardon[ing] the interruption" or asking me to join a mailing list, or anything! To think this used to be the normal way of doing things on the web.

<comment><USER26> The other side of that coin is that on mobile the article is painful to read and the layout is horrible.

For what it's worth I hate medium as well. But I would recommend ghost.org if you want to go with self hosting.

<comment><USER27> Also choosing a good wordpress theme helps a lot. :)

<comment><USER28> The post is using [0] this theme, which hasn't been updated in over 6 years.

[0] [https://wordpress.org/themes/duster/](https://wordpress.org/themes/duster/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Chui – The World's Most Intelligent Doorbell - <AUTHOR> https://preorder.getchui.com/the-world-s-most-intelligent-doorbell <comment><USER2> The first thing I thought of when I saw this was the doorbell scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off: [http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/282975/Ferris- Bueller-s-D...](http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/282975/Ferris-Bueller-s- Day-Off-Movie-Clip-It-s-Ed-Rooney.html)

Seriously though, I like the idea but what happens if someone holds up a photo of a friend or family member who's face automatically unlocks the door? It would be pretty easy to get a suitable image from a Facebook profile, for example.

<comment><USER3> In fairness, technology that can reliably tell subtle differences between faces should be adaptable to differentiate between a face and a static image of a face that doesn't even blink never mind change expression (though I suppose you could still fool it with a high res video...). They also mention the option of passcodes as an additional security level. These could still be compromised of course, but so can actual keys.

Personally I'll stick with keys for actually letting people in, but the ability to see who's visiting when I'm out, and leave them automated messages if I'm busy would be neat.

Can't help thinking there's a novelty market for a simple stripped down version that lacks the long range connectivity but simply uses the facial recognition to trigger different cheesy ring tones to identify different friends and family members.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4>
      > Chui is registered to your account and can only work with our web application.
      > You're prompted to approve if someone tries to register it to another account,
      > effectively rendering any stolen Chuis useless. No information is accessible on
      > any stolen Chui

How do you achieve this? From your video it looks like Chui is based on a stock Raspberry Pi - what prevents me from using another SD card or altering the information on the SD card (the 'registration' stuff)?

Another question out of personal interest: When I cut off the power off my Raspberries without shutting them down, the filesystem is often left corrupted and the Pi refuses to boot. Did you manage to find a solution for this? Is there something like a 'mini UPS' out there that stores just enough power to securely shut down the Pi?

<comment><USER5> I'm using a Pi as a server for my hacked-together home automation. It seems to run ext4 and hasn't corrupted in the face of frequent power-offs. Out of curiosity, was there anything special about your setup? Did you track the corruption down to anything specific or was it just random?

<comment><USER4> Mine are also running ext4. I haven't investigated it too much, but it happened 2-3 times during development (quite frustrating when you haven't backed it up for a while).

On another project we're running 30 Pis simultaneously and before we told the operators to shut them down properly each evening we had at least one corruption a week (which wasn't too much of a problem since we always had some provisioned cards on hand).

There seems to be an UPS solution for the Pi already [1].

[1] [http://www.piups.net/](http://www.piups.net/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Has anyone run independent hardware and software tests on devices like this and Lockitron? Are the services open-source?

I just find the whole idea of remote locks to be disturbing. And yes, that even extends to keyless entry on cars. I'm just a Luddite that way.

<comment><USER7> Just as evolution doesn't judge by anything other than success (a cockroach is arguably more "evolved" than a human), neither should technology. A simple mechanical twist-bolt happens to have significant technological feature advantages over a fancy mobile-enabled whatsit, even if it's lacking in other areas.

You pays your money, you takes your chances. :)

<comment><USER6> Sometimes dumber is better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Strikes me that a simpler product might be more attractive: i) a doorbell you can switch off when you don't want to be disturbed ii) a lock you can control with your phone.

<comment><USER7> As soon as it interfaces with a lock, you're talking about a high degree of mechanical complexity and hassle to install, at which point you might as well chase the high end of the market with every bell and whistle possible.

<comment><USER8> Just because the tech is complex doesn't mean the customer proposition or feature set should be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Have an annoying friend or neighbor that always shows up unannounced. Add > him to the do not disturb list and Chui will not even bother you with a > notification (or a doorbell chime if wired).

If I do not hear a doorbell chime from within the house when I press a doorbell button, I fall back to pounding on the door. Their "do not disturb" feature should have an option to sound a low volume chime near the door, just loud enough to convince the person at the door that the doorbell is working.

> Don't want Chui to simply be triggered via button press. No problem, Chui > can be triggered via Motion Detection and Face Detection. Whereby the > presence of a face or motion will prompt it to take a photo and make deliver > a notification.

It would be fun to go beyond simple motion detection and recognize gestures, so I could allow my friends automatic entry, provided they do a Klingon salute.

</comment><comment><USER10> I love the idea, liking the design so far, and wanted to back it. However, $200 for this seems way too steep. I feel the same way about the Lockitron ($179). Granted, I live in a 900 sq. ft. apartment and not a multi-level house with backyard, etc., but spending almost $200 so I don't have to get up from my couch to see who is at the door is asking too much.

Like I said, I love this idea and I want to back it, but I can't commit that much cash to it (I realize you are only charged when it ships). At that price, the market is too niche (people with physical disabilities, large houses, or just large wallets) and I can't see this succeeding for long.

<comment><USER11> I agree with you, it's cool but there's no way I could justify it. However, I think Lockitron offers more utility than this and, assuming I was allowed to install my own locks, I could see myself potentially using it

Hell, it'd be cheaper and probably less confusing to visitors for you to just yell from the couch.

<comment><USER12> Chui is also beneficial while you're away. If you're expecting to be occupied you can have Chui deliver messages for your. You don't require your visitor to have a certain kind of smartphone to work with your lock, and it can make your home more intelligent(ex: recognizing when you get back and automating certain tasks.)

<comment><USER11> Still requires having previously dropped the dough to get a smarklock. Given that Lokitron lets you remotely unlock/lock, it saves you the ~$200 this costs and only takes a simple SMS if the person doesn't have a smartphone

<comment><USER12> yes, but lockitron doesn't tell you who's at your door nor does it allow you to communicate with them...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What happens if you cut the wire?

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/crowdhoster/chui/uploads/ckeditor/p...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/crowdhoster/chui/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/data/000/000/007/content.jpg)

<comment><USER12> Chui is supposed to be wired into your doorbell which would render that impossible. And if you're using it for monitoring then you've set to be triggered by motion and it would notify you prior to such action.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This feature set is very cool!

I personally would not install a device that requires a 3rd party to function when the functionality should be on my own computer, but other people may not feel that way.

One issue is that it doesn't look like a doorbell - people aren't going to find it to press it. Make the button stick out more and light it.

Powering it is going to be tough for people. Make sure the wire to power it has a VERY tiny connector, so you can drill a very small hole in the wall and feed the wire.

But I'm pretty impressed with the idea.

</comment><comment><USER15> Chui runs depth detection to prevent pictures from being used!

<comment><USER16> Get a prototype to the Cambridge University Computer Lab, we'll break it.

<comment><USER17> Out of curiosity, how do you break depth detection?

<comment><USER18> I'm guessing the same way you break it in humans. Like this:

[http://www.davidairey.com/anamorphosis-and-the-art-of- chalk-...](http://www.davidairey.com/anamorphosis-and-the-art-of-chalk- pavement-drawing/)

<comment><USER17> These don't work if you have two eyes and are close to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This looks similar to August: [http://www.august.com/](http://www.august.com/)

All products that are pretty much laughable in terms of security. These companies have huge liability in case of robbery.

</comment><comment><USER20> If I cut the power, wouldn't it defeat to have the most intelligent doorbell?

</comment><comment><USER21> Seems very easy to steal. and 200$?

I'll buy mine second-hand at the black-market ;)

</comment><comment><USER22> I would love to know where the name comes from.

Personal vested interest.

<comment><USER23> I believe it's Japanese for "attention!" or "warning!"

<comment><USER24> or "leopard" in Swahili, or various words in Mandarin, or a tiny town in Brazil...

<comment><USER22> I feel obligated to throw in that it's also my surname.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Maybe someday Google will buy Chui for $1B.

</comment><comment><USER26> "Don't want to deal with breaking up with your emotional boyfriend?"

Quick someone submit a pull request to fix their gendered language.</comment>


Liste – A home for your ideas and task - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/schaffen-co/liste-ae56cdedf313

<comment><AUTHOR> We're looking for a front-end developer and a back-end developer to help build this great product with us!</comment>


Multidimensional analysis of plot arcs in thousands of TV and movie scripts - <AUTHOR> http://sappingattention.blogspot.com/2014/12/fundamental-plot-arcs-seen-through.html

<comment><USER2> Can someone explain how the author classified the topics? As I understood the article (and to be honest, I didn't understand it very well) he:

1\. Takes a corpus of 'words often used in topic X'

2\. Compares that corpus to the script, divided into 12 sections

3\. Gives a value to how much the corpus corresponds to the script

A couple of things which interested me:

* Finding original films - would it be possible to come up with a list of films which have been manually classified as 'romantic' but which don't follow the standard 'romance' plot arc?

* Unusual direction or editing - Are there films for which the dialogue can't be used to classify what's going on? Perhaps analysing the soundtrack (loudness, bpm, minor vs major keys) and the video (brightness, colouring, movement) and comparing it to the dialogue would show something interesting.

* Compare the 'deviation from the norm' to reviews, awards, box office takings, and press coverage.

Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea how to do something like that. Just wondering if it's been done before.

<comment><USER3> Answering your first question:

Latent Dirichlet Allocation ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_Dirichlet_allocation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_Dirichlet_allocation) )

<comment><USER4> He links to a good explanation about topic modeling and LDA: [http://tedunderwood.com/2012/04/07/topic-modeling-made- just-...](http://tedunderwood.com/2012/04/07/topic-modeling-made-just-simple- enough/)

<comment><USER2> Thank you both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What is "unknown" that is included in the graphs? It is not explained. Title only mentions tv and movie scripts.

</comment><comment><USER6> This analysis shows the already known 3 act structure of most plays. Is it a cross cultural phenomenon?

<comment><USER7> Some would say so:

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

<comment><USER8> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirty- Six_Dramatic_Situat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirty- Six_Dramatic_Situations)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is very good. I wonder if this could be used to describe someone's personal taste in movies.

</comment><comment><USER10> "twelfths"? Why isn't the word count measured in French metric quarts of ink, then? I'm disappointed.

P.S. Cool article though.

<comment><USER2> Any unit of measurement would have been arbitrary, and twelfths at least lets you refer to the first third, quarter or half. No idea whether that was the rationale, but I don't think any other division would have seriously affected the point the article is making.

<comment><USER10> Well, if the point of the study would change with the choice of the units, then the study isn't that good, is it? :)

I'm not arguing the point. I'm arguing, that using twelfths has not utility over using per cent, for example, but is counter-intuitive.</comment></comment></comment>


The Agile Disease [2008] - <AUTHOR> http://lukehalliwell.wordpress.com/2008/11/16/the-agile-disease

<comment><USER2> The whole time he's discussing Scrum... A methodology that I don't believe most of the consultants he called out even really endorse.</comment>


Show HN: Razor Blades Club – A small service for wet-shavers - <AUTHOR> https://www.razorbladesclub.com <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. I and my brother have been working on this for the past couple of months and would love to get some feedback on it. It's a small service for the wet-shaving community aiming at offering a variety of double edge blades (even in quantities as low as one blade) as a one-off purchase or as a subscription (which took a long time to implement:)). I don't know whether the message is clear, whether the idea could work and if there are things that we could improve (of course there are :)) Any suggestions or feedback will be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.</comment>


The cold fusion horizon - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/why-do-scientists-dismiss-the-possibility-of-cold-fusion <comment><USER2> I understand the argument about the sociological reputation trap, but a little more reading about Rossi's research turns up some very fishy evidence:

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

In particular, the copper supposedly generated by the fusion of hydrogen and nickel has an isotopic composition very similar to that of natural copper, rather than what one would expect from byproducts of nuclear reactions. As a result, it's much more likely that copper comes from a conventional source rather than actual nuclear fusion.

It also doesn't help that Rossi has been convicted of fraud for purportedly inventing dubious devices in the past. In particular, he "created" a system for turning toxic waste into oil, but this turned out to be just dumping the waste into the environment. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Rossi_(entrepreneur)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Rossi_\(entrepreneur\))

I'm all for avoiding groupthink in scientific research, but this might not be the right story on which to base that argument.

<comment><USER3> And that is, what I think is Rossi's biggest problem. Very showy, very secretive.

The explanation I've heard is that he has something which works (for some definition of works) but doesn't know _how_ it works or why. And because of that he is walking around afraid that if too many details get out about how it works then someone smarter then him will jump in and patent/publish the _why_ and then be forever known as the person who "invented" this technology.

I don't know if that is true, but listening to Rossi talk and what he has written it seems like it could be true.

But elephant in the room is that if you can produce a MW of usable energy out of this thing then why not run it 24/7 and generate your quarter million a year in revenue (pretty much any market will buy baseload power at $30/MWhr. Use your first quarter million to build another one in year two, then use the half million from year two to build two more for year 3 and use the million dollars you get in year 3 to build four more, and the two million dollars from year 3 to build 8 more. Etc. Easy to sell shares in a company that is doubling in revenue each year and will continue to do so until it reaches 25% of baseload power (1TW or about a billion a year in revenue).

Either way, the way in which Rossi's e-cat story is playing out it screams hoax not breakthrough. That has nothing to do with the "reputation" of cold fusion and everything to do with the difference between seeing breakthroughs get promoted and hoaxes get promoted.

<comment><USER4> Another possible explanation is:

He is really not very good at measuring energy input and heat output. He built something and confused himself into thinking it was producing more energy than it consumes. He took some money from investors to develop the technology. He spent much of the research money, eventually to realize that his device does not, in fact, produce energy. His investors now want their money back and he is concerned they are going to break his legs.

So at this point he has no choice but to maintain his original claims for as long as possible. Appearing now to be bumbling and incompetent may be preferable to appearing accurate and precise with measurements.

<comment><USER5> > He is really not very good at measuring energy input and heat output.

Calorimetry is actually extremely hard to do right. VERY hard. I stopped following this field a few years ago, but back then EVERY single positive result was due to faulty calorimetry.

<comment><USER6> Lubos Motl called out the specifics of the Energy Catalyzer hoax some years ago. I think it had to do with neglecting hydrostatic pressure within the water pipes, which allowed steam to get in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great article. I'm not going to defend Rossi, but what happened in 1989 was a travesty. Yes, Pons and Fleischmann were premature in their annnouncement. But they didn't deserve to be made pariahs, and there were others whose careers were destroyed for so much as publicly entertaining the possibility that cold fusion might be made to work. Edward Teller, on the other hand, was old enough not to care:

 _Around 1992, McKubre says, he was summoned for an audience with legendary physicist Edward Teller. "He asked probing questions, in better depth, I think, than anyone else on the planet. You could see what a giant intellect he must have been in his time. I was subjected to this interrogation for four hours. At the end of it Teller said that he did not think that cold fusion was a reality, but if it were, he could account for it with a very small change in the laws of physics as he understood them, and it would prove to be an example of nuclear catalysis at an interface. I still don't understand what he meant by that, but I'm quite willing to believe that it's correct."_ [0]

It really shows how political and, frankly, _corrupt_ Big Science is. As this article points out, failure to replicate proves nothing. The charitable reading is that Pons and Fleischmann didn't even know for sure what properties of the alloy they were using were critical to the reaction, though they had some ideas. That possibility should have been considered.

[0] [http://www.wired.com/1998/11/coldfusion/](http://www.wired.com/1998/11/coldfusion/)

<comment><USER8> Early announcements would have been one thing, but all evidence points to these guys committing flat out fraud.

<comment><USER9> Evidence?

As far as I can tell the only 'fraudulent' thing they did was jump to the conclusion of "WE MADE ENERGY WITH COLD FUSION" when they probably should've announced their result with "looks like we have some unexplained heat". They most probably were, however, understandably rather excited.

<comment><USER8> Producing even a little heat with fusion produces a lot of nasty radiation. As in kill everyone in the unsheilded room within a few seconds.

Based on the amount of unexplained heat they produced fusion would have been extremely radioactive, however they did not treat there setup as an extreme radiation hazard. Which suggest they did not think there would be any fusion.

PS: Here are some pictures for a device expected to produce less than 1W of fusion. [http://www.cmgww.com/historic/farnsworth/inventions/fusion/f...](http://www.cmgww.com/historic/farnsworth/inventions/fusion/fusionhot.html) Note the deep and cheap to produce pit.

<comment><USER7> > Producing even a little heat with fusion produces a lot of nasty radiation. > As in kill everyone in the unsheilded room within a few seconds.

This is greatly exaggerated. The amount of excess heat they claimed to observe was really quite small, and D-D fusion produces a relatively weak neutron flux [0]. I'm not saying some shielding wouldn't have been a good idea, but instant death? No.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power#Deuterium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power#Deuterium)

<comment><USER8> 100Mev+ X-Ray / Gamma radiation is not fun. There is some play in the numbers based on type of fusion, but ~1w is on the order of 10^12th reactions per second and flat out lethal. Sure, if a device is weak out 1 millionth of that then it's not a big deal, but nobody cares about 0.000001 watts / second.

<comment><USER7> You didn't even click the link. Neutrons from D-D fusion are at 2.45 MeV.

<comment><USER8> Yea, I was off by a factor of 10.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalent_dose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalent_dose) 1W of 2.5Mev neutrons ~= 10W worth of Gamma Rays in terms of equivalent dose. ([http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/nuclear- engineering/22-01-introdu...](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/nuclear- engineering/22-01-introduction-to-ionizing-radiation-fall-2006/lecture- notes/absorbed_dose.pdf)) There are several 14.1+Mev fusion products see chart: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion) (Which is probably where I was thinking 100Mev), but it's already normalized so we are talking 10W equivalent.

Granted that 10W dose equivalent is not focused so a person standing next to it might get 8% of that which is .8W, or ~0.01W/kg equivalent (for a 80kg person) which just happens to be ~1 Rads per second. (1 rad = 0.01 Gy = 0.01 J/kg. 250 to 500 rads is the LD/50.

So, Standing next to an unshielded 1W neutron source has a 50/50 shot giving you a lethal dose within ~4 to 9 minutes.

PS: 2.5Mev Neutron radiation @ 1J per kg is ~10 Gy which is ~LD100 and probably where I was thinking 1W = death.

(Please double check my math.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think there's definitely a cultural problem where the outcome of an experiment is associated with the reputation of the scientist who performed it. We see this in the bias to publish only positive results - as though if an experiment did not make findings of significance it is a failing of the scientist who performed it - and we see this in the reluctance of many scientists to investigate that which would be very surprising if found to be true.

The NASA research into the EmDrive is an excellent example of this. The discovery of a method of propulsion which does not consume onboard mass yet achieves energy efficiencies greater than that of a photon rocket would be extremely surprising, which makes it all the more important that apparent effects such as these are investigated. The correct response on seeing an unexpected experimental result is not to ignore it or to assume the experiment is wrong (although that should be treated with a high probability), but to report it and to systematically investigate the discrepancy until either the unexpected result is confirmed with a degree of evidence commensurate with its unexpectedness or the error is discovered. Extreme skepticism can be equally as bad as extreme gullibility, and it is extremely discourteous to imply or to assume the existence of fraud, or to attack the character of the researcher unless there is overwhelming evidence supporting such an aspersion. Even if it might by probabilistically justified to promote the possibility of fraud on the part of the scientist to the most likely explanation for an unexpected result, this has negative externalities on entire scientific fields and forces researchers to "stake their reputations" on publishing surprising results, which is just the sort of perverse situation we should strive to avoid.

<comment><USER11> The NASA EmDrive research is what I thought of, as well.

I found the vehemence and personal nature of the attacks on those results to be surprising, disappointing, and beyond the bounds of typical rational skepticism. Sure, it will probably turn out to be nothing, but NASA is not trying scam us. Not every investigation of weird results is a scam.

<comment><USER12> If this is such a credible or important result, why are none of the articles about it ever from NASA or quoting NASA?

<comment><USER4> I thought it was 99% an independent effort and a NASA lab just let them use their vacuum balance test chamber.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Rossi is very fishy, and he has no clue why his 'invention' works. Scratch that.

However, these two Swedish professors Lidgren and Lundin were involved in testing Rossi's claims a few years back. Lundin is a plasma physicist at the Swedish institute for Space Physics, and has a long publication record. ([https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22rickard+lundin%22&hl...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22rickard+lundin%22&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5))

Now they've published a paper:

"Nuclear Spallation and Neutron Capture Induced by Ponderomotive Wave Forcing"

Here: [http://www.irf.se/Publications/?dbfile=IRF%20Scientific%20Re...](http://www.irf.se/Publications/?dbfile=IRF%20Scientific%20Reports&dbsec=Administration)

They're saying essentially that they can use heat and EM field to resonance to make solid-state materials expel a neutron. They call this "thermal neutron spallation".

Which is a pretty bold statement of an entirely novel concept.

They've said they're setting up an experiment to demonstrate this novel form of neutron spallation.

<comment><USER14> > They've said they're setting up an experiment to demonstrate this novel form > of neutron spallation.

They'd need to have some results besides Rossi and then others would need to replicate it, and then replicate it again by yet another team for it to start being believable and taken seriously.

Not a physicist, just a regular computer programmer, but reading that paper I see some pretty serious claims -- matter transmutting to different elements (isotope formation), neutron emission and capture, at 2000'C environment, there are claims about having 1-10 kWh generators running for years with a few grams of fuel only.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Completely different field- but I think Charles Darwin's way of "crippling potential criticism of one's ideas by taking charge of all conceivable counterarguments" is a great example of how important rhetoric is, especially in such 'biased' areas. Just imagine what would have happened to his idea of Evolution if he had not been such a rhetoric genius.

[https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/11/11/adam-gopnik- angels-...](https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/11/11/adam-gopnik-angels-and- ages-darwin/) "[...] the other great feature of Darwin's prose, and the organization of his great book, is the welcome he provides for the opposed idea. This is, or ought to be, a standard practice, but few people have practiced it with his sincerity — and, at times, his guile. The habit of "sympathetic summary," what philosophers now call the "principle of charity," is essential to all the sciences."

</comment><comment><USER16> This article is funny. It tries to do an end-run around any criticism of the subject matter by constructing an elaborate piece of work to establish that if you don't agree with the basic premise of low energy nuclear reactions there must be something pathologically wrong with you.

And you are not only suffering from a defect, no you are doubly wrong, because having LENR would be such a great thing for the world.

For me it is simple. If someone shows up with a working LENR device (or even any device, who cares how it works as long as it is safe) that really outputs considerable power and they are willing to sell me that power at a rate that is lower than what my electricity company charges then I'll be more than happy to sign up. Until then they, their investors and promoters should do what they can not to raise expectations beyond those that they can readily prove, no matter what the benefit to mankind and no matter how many scientists got unfairly (if so) railroaded for fudging their numbers and defrauding investors.

Cold fusion, zero point energy, unicorns.

<comment><USER14> Yap. This is almost certainly a scam. As long as there are rich people, there will be scam artists selling them "cold fusion", "infinite energy machines", it is fascinating to watch these happen.

This also creates an interesting market, just like scam artists look for marks that other scammers have deceived, there is probably someone taking notes which investors are buying into the story. Those people would be good targets for the future. "Hey psst, I got a this scientist friend working for NASA that is building a flying car running on weak nuclear force energy, he just need a bit of funding".

<comment><USER17> > ""cold fusion", "infinite energy machines""

I don't think it's fair to lump those two together. I think we all accept the energy potential in fusion is there, and it also seems possible that the most efficient way to tap that energy is one we have yet to fully understand. The most efficient method could be found under the 'cold fusion' umbrella, and even if these methods turn out to be a different process than fusion, we still may end up learning something new anyway. For example, sonoluminescence has been linked to fusion before, but even if the processes involved end up being different to fusion, it's still an interesting process:

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

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

The point is, it doesn't serve us to dismiss fields of scientific research that have some chance of bringing us a new understanding of the science involved, even if we end up scrambling around in the dark for a long time.

<comment><USER18> Sonofusion was also fraudulent: [http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091123/full/news.2009.1103.h...](http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091123/full/news.2009.1103.html)

<comment><USER17> You missed the point. I said even if the process turns out to be something other than fusion, interesting phenomena like sonoluminescence are still worthy of study anyway.

Same with this E-Cat stuff, clearly there's something we haven't formally explained yet going on, and the experiment has been shown to be reproducible, sounds worthy of study to me, even if it turns out to be a different process than fusion, and even if it turns out it can be explained without changing our scientific models.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> He says that failing to recreate Fleischmann and Pons' findings isn't enough reason to doubt their claims because recreating results is tricky, and implies that therefore we have no actual reason to doubt that they achieved cold fusion. But we do.

Not only did their apparatus, according to their own measurements, not produce any of the radiation that would be an unavoidable byproduct of fusion, but the core also didn't contain any fusion byproducts. As a result I think it's perfectly reasonable to conclude that they could not possibly, in any if their experiments, have achieved Fusion. If their measurements of excess heat are true, whatever it's source was, it wasn't fusion.

<comment><USER11> I don't think the point of this piece is to claim Fleischmann and Pons actually succeeded. I think the point is that there is a difference between the failure of a particular experiment, and proving that all experiments in cold fusion will fail.

Fleischmann and Pons was certainly not the only science experiment to produce a false positive in 1989, but it was a huge, public failure, in a research area that is filled with cranks (easy energy). I agree with the article's author that it probably tarnished an area of research that, while far-fetched, should not be automatically dismissed as impossible.

<comment><USER19> I don't think many people are saying it's impossible. I'm not. But given the history I think its reasonable, before treating any claims in this area as credible, to either want a clear theoretical basis for a given experiment or unambiguous details on how to repeat a compelling result. In the absence of either or preferably both of those, all we are dealing with is uncorroborated and unverifiable claims which we have no reason to take seriously.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The article seems to be lost on a large number of commenters who are asserting (or almost asserting) that this is a scam because (1) Rossi seems to have a dubious history (I'm only going by the comments, not my own investigation) and (2) Rossi is secretive (3) Rossi is not a notable scientist from a top-tier University (4) Rossi comes across as overconfident.

This is what the article is pointing out. The author is saying that in this case the cost of a false positive is so incredibly low and the benefit of a positive result is so high that we should be more willing to lower our guard a little more. These kind of quick reflex objections based on red flags will be useful 99.99% of the time, but major scientific advances only occur 0.01% of the time and so maybe humanity would benefit more if we loosened up a bit on our skepticism, especially surrounding the person or the field and focus more on the science.

<comment><USER16> The quick reflex is an optimization, if it is true the proof will surface on its own strength, until then you can safely ignore it. After all, unless he's _actually_ discovered something you're wasting your time.

The burden of proof is rightly on the one making outrageous claims, there is no burden of sufferance because the positive benefits are so high. They'll be there regardless of whether one believes, after all, it works or it does not.

See also: ubeam, theranos, moller and so on.

<comment><USER17> > "The quick reflex is an optimization"

That's not what's happening here. The optimal response in terms of saving time is to stay neutral until stronger proof arrives. What's happening instead is people being hostile to research being conducted in a way they disagree with, or by people they disagree with. That negativity takes energy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Based on watching videos and reading about other stuff he's done:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Rossi_%28entrepreneur%2...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Rossi_%28entrepreneur%29)

I vote for this being a scam. A very clever scam but another scam.

There is in fact whole cottage industry centered around energy and battery technology. The audience for this is not us or other scientists but investors. It is about demos, videos, secrets, lots of tubes and wires, flickering lights, acting like they just discovered free energy and will revolutionize the world of physics. The goal is to make people with money believe you.

In general, just because people have money doesn't mean they also know science and thus many are targets of scam artists. But the "art" part in scam art is to also pick an area that is not too confusing (brain surgery, genetics, something too theoretical, etc) or too hard but something seemingly simple -- "we make energy", "we have a new battery", "a device that produces more energy than it consumes" etc.

</comment><comment><USER21> I dislike the whole opening about "superluminal neutrinos". That announcement was asking for others to identify the issue with the testing rig, as they figured there was one but could not find it themselves. As far as I know, the only ones to claim the existence of superluminal neutrinos were the media.

I agree that there is an unacceptable stigma against certain fields of research (look at how long it is taking to test the EM drive, which has been reproduced how many times already?), but I don't see a problem in not believing someone already convicted of fraud when they claim to have discovered something but won't let you see how it works.

Until findings are reproduced, I give this the same level of credibility I give this guy:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEJtsC5sVZA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEJtsC5sVZA)

</comment><comment><USER12> "There are credible reports that a 1MW version of his device, producing many times the energy that it consumes, has been on trial in an industrial plant in North Carolina for months, with good results so far." \- _This_. This is why scientists are skeptical. "Is there a plant" isn't a hard scientific question. We don't need or care about "credible reports". It's there or it isn't. And if you refuse to admit one way or another, you're almost certainly lying about the whole damn thing.

</comment><comment><USER22> This cold fusion guy supposedly has a 1MW plant in test at an industrial site. That should be verifiable.

Nobody seems to know if Theranos' technology actually works, even the investors. With a multi-billion valuation, that's a big problem.

Nobody seems to be sure whether the D-Wave quantum computer really does anything "quantum", even though they've shipped products.

How did we get to the point where we can't even verify claims for supposedly working technologies?

<comment><USER23> When "fake it until you make it" is a widely spread mantra, people get good at the "fake it" part.

<comment><USER22> I just saw the movie "The Big Short", about the guys who saw that the mortgage collapse was coming and figured out how to short it. They had to talk a bank into creating a new kind of derivative so they could short mortgages. There's an opportunity here. Someone needs to come up with a way to short startups. There are a lot of "unicorns" worth shorting.

<comment><USER24> Haven't watched that yet. I love the idea, though. Silicon Valley creates so many BS valuations that there should be some negative incentive to it or at least a steady stream of people getting rich off calling their BS. Might lead to some changes in valuations as a side effect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I really wish people would stop discarding the idea of nickel-hydrogen cold fusion just because Rossi has a bad reputation. So I am happy when I see cautiously positive articles like this one.

Firstly, those who research this domain are fully aware that cold fusion is impossible according to theoretical physics. But experiments trump theory. And as I have written about it 4 years ago ([http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=61](http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=61)) the fact is there _are_ experiments conducted by multiple other groups of researchers that demonstrate anomalous heat being produced by nickel-hydrogen cells. Not only this anomalous heat cannot be explained by current physics but there are clues that nuclear fusion is taking place (some nickel atoms being transformed into copper atoms). Unfortunately the controversy about this entire area of research is amplified by the fact that many of these experiments are very hard to reproduce.

Research has made some progress over the last 4 years, and my opinion has not changed: whatever mechanism is taking place, it seems to be able to unleash fantastic amounts of energy from very little material. We just need more researchers to look at into it and understand it.

<comment><USER12> On the other hand, there aren't billions of dollars to be made in a cottage industry from cranks claiming that fusion-like setups cause things to actually get cooler or that some form of reverse-fusion occurs. So if you have enough people looking hard enough and only publishing the best results, you'll definitely get "experiments" which show "anomalous heat". And they will _definitely_ be "hard to reproduce" since they're just noise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> That reminds me, whatever happened to that perpetual energy machines from those "Steorn" lads from Dublin?

edit: never mind I see they are still around somehow (and managed to waste millions in process) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steorn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steorn) [http://orbo.com/](http://orbo.com/)

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

"Welcome to the online shop for Orbo technology, home of our "never die" battery technology-based products.

We're excited to move towards bringing the first of our products to market in 2016 and revolutionising the world of consumer electronics.

The battery is dead."

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

Oo

<comment><USER27> Ah yes.. If I'd invented a source of perpetual energy, this is exactly how I'd commercialize it too: [http://orbo.com/products/ophone](http://orbo.com/products/ophone)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The key sentence:

We are like a thirsty town, desperate for a new water supply.

Our human inclination is to talk ourselves into believing the mirage. Add in the inevitable snake oil salesmen... As scientists, the more we desperately, wish for a thing to be true, the more we must demand of the evidence.

</comment><comment><USER29> Database with cold fusion papers (very comprehensive):

[http://lenr-canr.org/index/Summary/Summary.php](http://lenr- canr.org/index/Summary/Summary.php)

The BSM-SG model describes LENR fusion very well, most of the reported experiments implement one ore more of the theoretical mechanisms for successful fusion.

[http://www.amazon.com/Structural-Physics-Nuclear-Fusion- BSM-...](http://www.amazon.com/Structural-Physics-Nuclear-Fusion-BSM- SG/dp/1482620030/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)

But does not make so much sense without understanding the main book.

</comment><comment><USER30> I recently was excited to find out that cold fusion is actually real. Check it out: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon- catalyzed_fusion](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion)

No one ever seems to mention it but it seems like it could be a promising avenue someday.

</comment><comment><USER31> The same thing goes for those that would dare to dispute string theory or human-caused global warming. Trying to publish any papers that defy either of those canons will likely end your career.

<comment><USER32> In some circumstances yes, but I think actually that most of the papers out there disprove AGW, it's just that nobody reads them. I've read many papers given to me by AGW proponents that they claim support AGW, and in every case they don't and in most they actually support the opposite conclusion. (as do most of the scientists who have signed petitions.)

As a political movement, global warming doesn't need science, politicians and advocates just declare it "settled" and thus feel they don't have to defend their claims.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> One big argument against free energy at low temperatures is that if it was possible then the natural world would have already discovered it.

The other argument is that if someone has a free energy device, they actually shouldn't need to convince _anyone_ , they could just hook it to the grid, get paid for the power, use the money to build more devices, repeat until they had a serious power company. And then they start bargaining.

<comment><USER34> I'm not sure that argument against it holds up. For all we know some Deuterium and Palladium are hanging out in the cosmos undergoing fusion, and we would have no idea about it. There are real room temperature fusion methods[0] that can also happen in nature, but even if that method was break-even it doesn't mean Mother Nature would exploit it due to the difficulty of starting the reaction.

Getting paid for power and getting enough seed money to build more generators does involve convincing people, as well, and is pretty much what Rossi has been doing. He even started his own energy company, iirc, and has been selling self-contained "generators" to people.

0: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon- catalyzed_fusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion)

<comment><USER14> > Getting paid for power and getting enough seed money to build more > generators does involve convincing people,

He is clearly not trying to convince anyone serious by disallowing scientists to measure using their own equipment and on their own terms and conditions. Energy production is not hard to measure and people have been metering electrical enenergy for many decades now.

So far is obstructing and preventing such scrutiny. He is trying to convince only rich people to give him money. If you look at that as his goal, he is doing all the right steps in that direction.

> He even started his own energy company, iirc, and has been selling self- > contained "generators" to people.

How many people have bought and used his device to generate power?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The article claims Rossi was given a US patent. A patent is supposed to allow a person of ordinary skill in the art to make and use the claimed invention, so in principle it should be easy to test his claims.

Of course, if it works the tester will have to pay royalties.

</comment><comment><USER36> Rossi contraption is just that (or not, as long as it's not scientifically open no-one should care).

What I'm curious about is this:

[http://animpossibleinvention.com/2015/10/15/swedish- scientis...](http://animpossibleinvention.com/2015/10/15/swedish-scientists- claim-lenr-explanation-break-through/)

Guys basically claim they found a way to create free neutrons at lowest possible energy cost, published a paper and even ran some initial experiments.

</comment><comment><USER37> LENR, if possible, will have a much bigger impact on global economy - may even transform the way economies works. Its not just clean energy, but think about the impacts of artificial transmutation.

Also if LENR is possible, it also means that some or all of the biological life possesses this capacity and it could be an undiscovered fundamental natural occurrence.

BUT - all of this sounds too good to be true :( Fundamental discoveries have pretty much slowed down and it is very natural to be skeptical about these.

</comment><comment><USER38> After some study of reactionless drive, I'm somewhat ready to accept that there is a lot to be learned about physics: [http://www.gizmag.com/cannae- reactionless-drive-space-propul...](http://www.gizmag.com/cannae-reactionless- drive-space-propulsion/33210/)

I'm certainly open minded about LENR, although the "free" energy attract a lot of shady characters.

</comment><comment><USER39> A good documentary to watch is Fire from Water.

There has been a lot of work into LENR and a lot of it is positive. Toyota dedicated a two years research division to it.

The trouble is it's not consistent, and when excess heart is recorded, we're not sure why. I'm sure this is of those fields that needs a "eureka" moment where some group figures out what might be simple missing pieces.

<comment><USER40> If cold fusion research was tested with more accuracy, it would be a more respectable thing to research (or at least not laughed out of the room).

All of the tests on cold fusion/LENR devices never seem to use appropriate measurement tools for the measured range, much less the gold standard methods for counting energy in/out, leading to enough error you could hide a truck.

No more calculating energy from thermal camera pictures from 1 side of the device without checking periodically if the heat output is uniform. Similarly, they like to use 3-phase input power when a standard wall-plug power would do. Measuring 3 Phase power in these cases is like trying to measure the weight of a person using a truck scale. Also you can do more shenanigans with 3 phase that the meter wouldn't pick up, which due to the history of scams in this field is even more important that the power being fed to the device is proved to not have anything funny going on.

I'd like for cold fusion to be true, but in order for them to be taken seriously, they need to test the devices with much more rigor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I am confused as to the author's justification for seeming to give credence to a thoroughly discredited person.

It would have been a better article if he had just stuck with "the science says it is possible just not probable" instead of discussing Rossi. And no mention of Pistol Shrimp - I am disappointed.

<comment><USER24> Why Pistol Shrimp? Other than them being cool as heck if the claims about them are true.

<comment><USER42> I can't find any high-quality single page that gives the history, but here's a low-quality one that explains the connection: [http://twistedphysics.typepad.com/cocktail_party_physics/200...](http://twistedphysics.typepad.com/cocktail_party_physics/2007/06/running_hot_and.html)

Basically, pistol shrimp "attacks" produce a small burst of light (sonoluminesence). There was a theory that this was actually a form of fusion (sonofusion). There were some studies done that demonstrated this (Taleyarkhan, 2002). But there were lots of irregularities about the study (Naranjo, 2006), and like cold fusion it's been (mostly?) discredited.

<comment><USER24> I like her writing style. Fun read. Never heard of sonofusion or thought about using sonoluminesence for it. Sounds like some potential albeit with careful measurements & checks. Something that odd & difficult to measure is likely to trip people up anyway. Just the nature of the thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Could someone explain how Rossi's device is different from recent fusion reactor experiments?

[http://www.ipp.mpg.de/3984226/12_15](http://www.ipp.mpg.de/3984226/12_15)

</comment><comment><USER44> Reading this reminds me of the controversy with the Cannae Drive

</comment><comment><USER45> Rossi is a known liar. He has been jailed for it.

It has been far too long for independent confirmation of the claim. After all, it's in his _best interest_ to be proven correct.

He is a fraud. The fact that he's taken outside investment means he's a _convincing_ fraud. And that is how he puts food on his table.

Not from commercializing his 'findings.'

He'd be a wealthy man indeed, years ago, had this turned out to be true.

It's thus in his best interest to line up/support independent verification -- for years now -- and yet no independent verification exists.

Move on, it's bunk.

</comment><comment><USER46> Cold Fusion is _real_. It powered my website back in the 1990s. Where have all of you been since then?

</comment><comment><USER47> At first I was like please die, cold fusion from Adobe. Then I was like oh. Nevermind.

<comment><USER48> Yes, hopefully Adobe Coldfusion's "horizon" will be an event horizon.

<comment><USER49> I seem to be trapped in an orbit quite near the even horizon where time has slowed to a crawl. (5 years into a CF project)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> hold short, wasn't it proven months ago that the E-Cat "worked" by using the ground return for powering a second heating coil?

<comment><USER51> As far as I know, it hasn't been proven, as the requisite access has not been granted. Of course, Rossi could easily have disproved it as soon as the issue was raised, if it were not so.

Edit: The posited arrangement is diagrammed and described here, along with other reasons to doubt:

[http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2013/05/21/the-e- cat...](http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2013/05/21/the-e-cat-is-back- and-people-are-still-falling-for-it/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> This finally puts aeon.co on my 'never read' list. What a poorly fact-checked piece of writing.

</comment><comment><USER53> Considering this intersects Rossi, the E-Cat reactor and Sweden, it might be interesting to know that Rossi and his claimed invention is quite controversial in Swedish media.

Searching for his name on Sveriges Radio (Swedish Public Radio): [http://sverigesradio.se/sida/sok.aspx?q=andrea+rossi](http://sverigesradio.se/sida/sok.aspx?q=andrea+rossi)

...gives these results (with my very short translated snippets):

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

Blind faith in cold fusion (2014-05-27)

 _" Andrea Rossi claims his machine works using cold fusion, yet scientists cannot look into the machine or get all test data. Even though this, established Swedish physicists have written positive reports about Rossis machine."_

[http://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/375904?programid=412](http://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/375904?programid=412)

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

Scientists helped suspected con-man to sell miracle machine (2014-05-27)

 _" I realize he's using us."_

[http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=406&arti...](http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=406&artikel=5872983)

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

Negative results were never published (2014-05-28)

 _" Andrea Rossi's alleged miracle machine, the E-Cat reactor, has been tested at Uppsala University. But no results of the test or the circumstances surrounding it have been published. Even at the [Swedish] Natural History Museum has an important study been made to suggest that Rossi's allegations are not true. Again, nothing have been published."_

[http://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/375957?programid=41](http://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/375957?programid=41)

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

Andrea Rossi paid air plane tickets for Swedish scientists to Italy (2014-05-30)

 _" The visit resulted in a very positive report"_

[http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=406&arti...](http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=406&artikel=5876160)

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

Swedish scientists on paid trip for E-Cat reactor (2014-06-17)

 _" A believer ignores all arguments. Despite all the warning bells a half- dozen researchers at Uppsala University and the Royal Institute of Technology continue to cooperate with Andrea Rossi to try to find out about his alleged power device email catalyst functions."_

[http://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/396095?programid=412](http://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/396095?programid=412)

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

All of the links above contains the actual radio episodes, in Swedish only though. There are more articles about him in Swedish media, these are just from our NPR. And please understand that my translated snippets are just meant to give a small taste of the content of the radio episode, you obviously need to listen to it go get the full content. :)

</comment><comment><USER51> It seems that philosophers are not immune to scam artists. I am surprised by this particular example, but only a little bit.

<comment><USER54> have you even read the article?

<comment><USER51> Yes, and I have also read other sources, especially with regard to Rossi.

e.g:

[http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1306/1306.6364.pdf](http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1306/1306.6364.pdf)

[http://www.sott.net/article/241427-E-Cat-Cold-Fusion- Machine...](http://www.sott.net/article/241427-E-Cat-Cold-Fusion-Machine- Claims-of-Fraud-Heating-Up)

<comment><USER55> Then I hope you see the irony in your comment, and why the first reply was a little incredulous.

I'm not defending Rossi, BTW. The odds are very, very, very good that it's another scam. But it's not _impossible_ that he's on to something and that's exactly what the article's author points to, along with lamenting how tragic it would be if cold fusion turned out to be real and we wasted 20 years not pursuing it because of the reputation trap.

<comment><USER51> I am wondering if we read the same article. The author uncritically cites already-discredited studies in favor of the E-Cat without noting the doubt that surrounds them, and only mentions fraud as being so improbable as to effectively dismiss it. He is apparently literally salivating over his expectation that he will be proved right.

FWIW, I know cold fusion is not definitively ruled out by physics, I would be thrilled if it were realized, I think it is a valid area of research and I always thought that Pons and Fleischmann were treated far too harshly, but ignoring strong indications of fraud is only going to make that case harder to make. I hope you can see that these are not mutually contradictory opinions.

<comment><USER56> I know almost nothing about cold fusion and theoretical physics in general, but as a guy who has read some Popper and Hume I'll chime in with an obviously subjective opinion, and say that after reading all the HN comments and parts of the article the first thought that came to my mind was this: "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".

Interestingly enough that exact quote is present in TFA, but in a manner that makes it debatable:

> This is not to deny that there is truth in the principle popularised by Carl > Sagan, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We should > certainly be very cautious about such surprising claims, unless and until we > amass a great deal of evidence. But this is not a good reason for ignoring > such evidence in the first place, or refusing to contemplate the possibility > that it might exist

Paragraphs like this one remind me of a work-colleague of mine, who I try to convince from time to time during our cigarette breaks that aliens have not visited our planet and that they're not just "about to arrive", impending asteroid apocalypse be damned. At which point she almost always responds to me like this: "paganel, yours are valid opinions, but we cannot refuse to contemplate the possibility that one day they may arrive". This also reminds me of how early Christians actually believed that the second arrival of Christ was just around the corner. Whatever this guy writes about and whatever he believes in, it is not about science.

<comment><USER17> > "Whatever this guy writes about and whatever he believes in, it is not about > science."

You say that, but you're ignoring the thrust of his argument.

Let's say, for argument's sake, that the results from Rossi's experiment seem somewhat dubious. Easy to dismiss a single flawed experiment, right?

However, there have been at least four separate reproductions of the experiment results since then (article mentions reports of similar results from Sweden, Italy, Russia and China).

The main question raised by the article can be summarised as: If evidence of a reproducible experiment with unexplained results exists, which is usually a key indicator that the experiment warrants further investigation, why is there sometimes reluctance to investigate when this reproducibility comes along?

Science is not served well by dogma. Interesting results can come from unexpected places. The wilful ignorance of the reproducibility is the issue here.

<comment><USER51> > Let's say, for argument's sake, that the results from Rossi's experiment > seem somewhat dubious.

You would not know it from the article, but 'somewhat dubious' is a mischaracterization that suggests the problems might merely be experimental difficulties. In reality, the demonstrations have shown a sustained pattern of concealment and other highly dubious behavior, and there are also significant purely scientific problems, such as the isotope ratios of the alleged by- product. That's before we get into Rossi's earlier activities in high-tech waste management, which led to at least allegations of fraud. You may want to check out the links several of us have provided in these comments, and then ask yourself whether Huw Price has accurately described the situation.

<comment><USER17> Do the links provided tackle the reproductions of the experiment, or just Rossi's experiment?

<comment><USER51> You should read them yourself.

<comment><USER17> If you've already read them, you could save me some time, a simple yes (they cover more than just Rossi's experiment) or no would be useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> If Rossi's device really worked, he would be a moron to sell it or even show it to anybody.

You can start an energy company, start small at the beginning, provide something like water heating for a small neighborhood. Then use your profits to grow exponentially until you take everyone else out of business. If you have such a device, you're only really limited by the chemical supplies (nickel powder?).

</comment><comment><USER58> Wow, 154 comments and complete and utter cluelessness. Yikes. Seriously people, why are you commenting on a complex subject you clearly know very very little about? I suggest you go read the articles on lenr-canr.org before any further commenting. Better yet, get back to your day job. You have no idea how little you know about this subject. [http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2015/06/mt-s...](http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2015/06/mt-stupid.png)

Fact: Cold fusion is a phenomenon that has been studied by 100s of scientists and replicated 1000s of times by folks as diverse as the Navy and Toyota and published in many many different and respected journals.

</comment><comment><USER59> I don't disbelieve in cold fusion, the EM drive, superluminal anything, solve- all-problems nanotech, or the singularity because of the reputation of scientists.

I disbelieve them because pessimism. They're just such... "wouldn't it be great if" results. Wouldn't it be great if we had cheap, limitless, clean energy? Wouldn't it be great if we were not subject to the tyranny of the rocket equation? Wouldn't it be great if the stars really were in reach? Wouldn't it be great if all material needs were going to be met in the next generation? Wouldn't it be great if we were going to achieve godhead?

It would be great. It's so great that I just don't see it happening. It sounds like a myth people tell themselves.

This is admittedly not a logically coherent dismissal. But you can't derive anything from base principles, and if you have to have a heuristic, I think it's a more useful heuristic than a reputation-based one.

<comment><USER60> Wouldn't it be great if we could produce fertilizer out of air? Wouldn't it be great if we could get energy by just digging in the ground? Wouldn't it be great if we could just prevent polio with a simple injection? Wouldn't it be great if we could travel by just flying over the ocean?

<comment><USER61> To take one example, nitrogen was discovered in 1772. Haber process (which converts nitrogen gas to ammonia) was discovered in 1909, and was successfully industrialized in 1913.[1]

In other words, when Haber process was discovered, the question was NOT "wouldn't it be great if we could produce fertilizer out of air?". The question was, "We _know_ the air is full of substance that makes fertilizer. How can we make that happen?"

Or, alternatively, when nitrogen was discovered, nobody said "We paved road for making fertilizer out of air!" It was probably something like "How weird, air is full of this strange stuff that makes animals suffocate." And apparently its discoverer went on to call it "noxious air".

Honestly, I can't think of any important scientific discovery that was accompanied by "This is great! Think what it could do for civilization!"

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

<comment><USER60> >Honestly, I can't think of any important scientific discovery that was accompanied by "This is great! Think what it could do for civilization!"

Radioactivity.

<comment><USER62> Fire.

<comment><USER61> "This is great! We can burn down Ook's village! He'll never know what hit him!"

"We can _what_ down Ook's village?"</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Can we talk about push notifications? - <AUTHOR> http://samverhasselt.com/post/43109883454

<comment><USER2> Yes, notifications are a mess on many platforms. I especially agree that pushing advertisements as notifications is unconscionable.

By the last several months of my ownership of an Android phone, I had nearly surrendered to notification purgatory--wherein you just give up on dismissing them. The ones that really got on my nerves were notifications from the Android Market ("Google Play") about application updates, caused by applications having auto-updated or by those that would not auto-update because they wanted to promote their permissions in some way. The irony being that I installed virtually no third-party apps on that phone so the notification noise was particularly frustrating. Oh, Google Finance updated itself? Who cares?

So far, I've found notifications on Windows Phone to be far less annoying. Though by making them less intrusive, they've also made it slightly easier to ignore them. And that too may be a problem in some cases. All told, though, I'd rather ignore a few than be bothered by to the point of surrender by notificatrivia.</comment>