Sudoku Magic allows you to take a photo of sudoku on iPhone and it solves it - <AUTHOR> http://www.magicsolver.com/?page_id=44 <comment><USER3> Lightweight augmented reality like this is going to be much more of a game changer than most people think. Today its just a toy that figures out whats missing in your sudoku, soon it will help you figure out whats wrong with your car, or where that bus is going, or whats in that hamburger.

I'd kill for an app thats linked to octopart so I can point my iphone at a circuit board and little bubbles appear telling me what all of the parts are and how to order replacements... pls make, kthnx.

<comment><USER4> I'd like to point at a plant or animal and know the species.

<comment><USER3> If they can figure it out in time, it opens a whole new realm of search for Google. Point and search will be huge. If not, those 2 guys eating the ramen and dreaming big will surely bring it to us post-haste.

<comment><USER5> We actually met some people doing something like this in Cambridge when MagicSolver was just starting - a group called imense (<http://www.imense.com/>). They have an automated picture tagger. You give it a picture of a field of sunflowers, for example, and it comes up with 'flowers, nature, field, ...'. I imagine that if you made it domain-specific (your PCB example), you might be able to actually classify the objects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm thinking that over the next 5 years, the simple act of giving every geek a powerful, programmable computer with a camera attached (that fits in their pocket) is going to do more for computer vision than all of the years of research that came before.

<comment><USER5> I certainly hope so. We got taught by John Daugman, who's done some amazing stuff in Computer Vision. It's brilliant for us to be able to do something like Sudoku Magic in a mobile phone. And we have plenty more ideas to come!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sudoku Grab (<http://sudokugrab.blogspot.com/>) has been doing this for a while - I'm not sure how Sudoku Magic compares.

<comment><USER7> Sudoku Magic is similar to Sudoku Grab, but we improve on the two main use cases:

1\. Playing Sudoku. We want to give players a better Sudoku experience. Simple things like tactile sounds and highlighting the current row, column and square make people happy. (The aesthetic still has a long way to go though.)

2\. Showing off. People mostly use our application to amaze their friends. That's why we show as-it-happens images of the vision algorithms. We're still finding ways to make it cooler. Any suggestions would be much appreciated :)

We actually got this working in J2ME back in 2005. We were negotiating a distribution deal with a handset manufacturer, but the discussion slowly went nowhere. They wanted it on a wider range of handsets than was feasible, as camera access on various handsets was significantly broken. For example, checkout [http://www.scribd.com/doc/17740520/Samsung-Z-Series- Handsets...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/17740520/Samsung-Z-Series-Handsets- Capture)

\- In the Z140, asking for a 640x480 image gave you a 320x240 image, squashed and repeated twice.

\- In the Z540V, asking for a 320x240 image gave you an image which was green and skewed!

Thank god for platform homogeneity.

<comment><USER8> At the moment it doesn't look like you show -how- the solver solves the problem. Showing how your solver works, by visualizing backtracking / guesses it makes, would be really cool.

<comment><USER7> Good point and good idea :)

<comment><AUTHOR> couldn't one argue that if you see _what_ its doing - it isn't magic? it's quite clear what its doing, and that isn't magical.

if its just a black box and it comes up with the solution - thats magic.

<comment><USER5> I do seem to remember a Pratchett quote that conjurers amaze you twice - <USER2> with the trick and once with the trickery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I want to make an app where you can take a picture of a resistor and it tells you the value by reading the colored bands. It would be really cool, but I'm not sure where to start. I really need a book on computer vision.

<comment><USER10> _I'm not sure where to start_

      There's an app for that!

(you could Google for some resistor pictures and play around in your favourite photoshop clone, then get an image processing library for your favourite language).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> it also gives you the possibility to play the photographed sudoku on the iphone. reading the headline, I tought the app only solves a photographed sudoku, which per se is not very useful (except you want to impress your friends). it's a pretty cool app. I recommend you to watch the video (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO8QjTZkcmw>)

<comment><USER5> If you like the look of it, you can find the app itself at: [http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftwa...](http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=322457381&mt=8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Reminds me of CubeCheater (<http://cubecheater.efaller.com/>) Photograph all sides of a Rubick's Cube and it shows you step by step instructions to solve that particular cube. Pretty cool.

</comment><comment><USER13> Some differences between Grab and Magic:

\- Magic also has a very powerful playing interface - big numpad buttons for two-humbed play, undo/redo, a nice pencil mode(the numpad buttons even change colour depending on which numbers have been pencilled in), movable highlights for the current box, row and column. It is actually better than most playing UI's, even for dedicated sudoku playing apps. Grab's playing UI is a bit simpler.

\- Grab has skins for the playing UI (you can change colour schemes) and an animated main menu.

\- Magic scores the puzzle for you when you capture (e.g. 4832 - hard), which is cool if you want to beat your personal best. As a bonus, the checking screen (where you can fix digits) doubles as a puzzle editor/creator. You can add/remove numbers and see how the difficulty score compares in real-time. It also tells you if the puzzle is unsolvable (e.g. due to multiple or invalid solutions) :-)

\- The capture process for Magic looks much nicer (a spinning cube + music rather than a progress bar) and seems more reliable but you can't adjust the grid boundaries.

\- You can contact the developers from the main menu in Magic

<comment><USER14> I'm actually working on an automatic grader for captured puzzles right now - this will use the same logic techniques that a human solver would use so should give a real indication of how tough a puzzle actually is.

<comment><USER13> That's exactly what Sudoku Magic does (same for puzzle generation in order for them to be fun). From naked singles to X-Fish, it uses them all :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In a similar vein I want a puzzle solver where you take a photo of the box and the piece and the app highlights where the piece probably goes in the picture

[http://ideasfrommydreams.blogspot.com/2009/04/iphone- apps.ht...](http://ideasfrommydreams.blogspot.com/2009/04/iphone-apps.html)

<comment><USER5> That might be doable. One of my fellow students designed a jigsaw puzzle solver that worked by looking at the shape of the piece, rather than a picture. However, I have worked in this kind of area and if you can guarantee little rotation, working out the translational offset isn't too bad. I'll give this some thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Sudoku Magic could be a great app to open a conversation with a top girl on the Tube! If a top babe is playing Sudoku on her newspaper, you can help her to solve her puzzle with your iPhone ;-))

</comment><comment><USER17> And the world takes the first step towards a working Tricorder.

</comment><comment><USER18> No futurist could have imagined sudoko magic just three years ago. Game changers, like augmented reality, is really great for entrepreneurs.

<comment><USER10> "We actually got this working in J2ME back in 2005" - RahulVohra, a few comments up this page.</comment></comment>


Kuc – Vector Programming Language Like k - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/zholos/kuc

<comment><USER2> I understand the desire for a free/open alternative to k but why do people keep reinventing J?</comment>


Why using Fonts as Icons can prove tricky: Subpixel Aliasing and Webkit - <AUTHOR> http://blog.woop.ie/post/18899095065/webkit-subpixel-aliasing-and-icon-fonts

<comment><USER2> Icon designers have been saying this for years.

For small icons, you really want to tune every pixel. Vector sounds great in theory (infinitely scalable!) but it just ends up being a blurry mess at small sizes.

</comment><comment><USER3> >The above test is using Modern Pictograms and Safari. subpixel-antialiased is too blurry, antialiased is too thin. If anyone can find a goldilocks solution that would be great.

Render the whole shebang twice (including the background), once with "subpixel-antialiased", and once with either "antialiased" or "none". The latter should be in a div in front of and aligned with the subpixel version, and with an `opacity` value of your choosing, probably somewhere around 80%.

 _Edit:_ Maybe closer to 60%.

</comment><comment><USER4> Actual second part of the title: subpixel anti-aliasing and some webkits on some platforms depending on the underlying text renderer.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am trying hard to see the point of this article. Is he suggesting that we stop using fonts as icons for buttons and menus? Or assuming that if we did use them, we wouldn't have the good sense to ensure they look essentially the same across the board? If your argument is "they don't look good at X size": don't use them at that size. And don't bother using sprites, either because the milage will vary greatly. If your argument is "they have a huge kb footprint": don't use web fonts that suck.

For every negative (so far, just one or two) point against @font-face, I can find 2 or 3 positive, more important points. Creating time-wasting sprites with multiple colors and then a giant section in my stylesheet aligning all of these "icons" is bullshit compared to the simplicity of @font-face.

If this anti-@font-face banter is by purists, you don't really understand what a _purist_ is, or your definition is wildly obsolete.

<comment><USER6> I think he's just pointing out the fact that you get subtle variations at different sizes & with different CSS settings.

I don't think he is saying not to use them. In most cases we just want the icons to look "good" and it doesn't matter if there's subtle differences in anti-aliasing. But other times a designer may want to be pixel-exact, in which case sprites still serve a purpose.</comment></comment>


Node.js vs. io.js: Why the fork? - <AUTHOR> http://anandmanisankar.com/posts/nodejs-iojs-why-the-fork/

<comment><USER2> We will see how long io.js will be maintained and how quickly will slow down</comment>


India's best known poet and Nobel laureate flunked school - <AUTHOR> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Tagore-flunked-school-St-Xaviers-School-reveals/articleshow/4497442.cms

<comment><USER2> He had some great comments on school:

<http://learninfreedom.org/Nobel_hates_school.html></comment>


Who Is Most Likely to Switch From Windows to a Mac? - <AUTHOR> http://www.vertoanalytics.com/chart-week-likely-switch-windows-mac/ <comment><USER2> In the actual article it says 25% are 'willing' to switch to the Mac, not that they will.

I'm 'willing' to switch to a Porsche 911. That doesn't mean it's going to happen.

The truth is we really don't know exactly what the report said at all. The whole article looks like it's predicated on deliberate distortion and misrepresentation of the underlying source.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here in Britain there's a Microsoft advert at the moment (maybe elsewhere too, no idea) that says at the end of it "You don't expect to be able to draw on a screen"

That's literally the only feature they mention. Touchscreen compatibility. It makes them look like they're from the stone age and completely unaware of the competition

<comment><USER4> It's true, to an extent: only the more expensive iPad Pro supports Apple's native "Pencil" tool - the non-Pro iPad can only use third-party Bluetooth styluses that have a sub-par user-experience.

But yeah - Microsoft just won't let the "Pen computing" vision die - they've been at it since their first "Windows for Pen Computing" release in 1992.

Serious question: does anyone use the handwriting note-taking abilities they added to the Edge Browser when people were begging for Extension support?

<comment><USER5> As an owner of both a Surface and an iPad Pro, I can confidently state that the stylus experience is much better on the iPad.

The stylus is a neat gimmick on the Surface, but usability suffered after they stopped licensing their stylus tech from Wacom. Sometimes it tracks the stylus when you're not quite touching the screen, so you get messy little lines before and after your strokes. The pressure sensitivity isn't very good either. It doesn't track well enough to take hand-written notes at the scale you'd write on paper, so you have to write in huge letters. Microsoft should go back to Wacom.

As for Apple's Pencil, it's fantastic. It's actually better than my Wacom Cintiq (admittedly, it's a previous gen Cintiq. The new version may be better). The accuracy and latency are great, pressure sensitivity is excellent, and tilt sensitivity works well. The only bad thing is that you have to charge the stylus, but a full charge takes about 20 minutes.

So if I were Microsoft, I wouldn't be using the stylus as a selling point, considering their stylus is way behind the competition. And seriously Microsoft, you have no business trying to develop your own stylus tech just to save a few bucks. Wacom has this stuff figured out, so just pony up the dough and be done with it.

<comment><USER6> I agree with your opinion that the Apple Pencil offers the best experience (and I also own a Surface Pro 1 and 3 and a couple of iPad Pros).

Even the first Wacom stylus that Microsoft had for the first Surface Pro wasn't as good as the Pencil. When I got my first iPad Pro, I was angry at Microsoft for not doing as good a job as Apple did with the Pencil despite having many years head start. Honestly, wtf Microsoft?

Luckily for them I like just about everything else in Windows better than iOS. The only thing Windows has been missing for tablet mode IMO has been a dictation key on their virtual keyboard. That's why I treat my Surface Pro as a laptop. (I gave away the Surface Pro 1 and kept the 3.)

Microsoft is _finally_ giving us a dictation key this fall though, so I will most likely switch away from iPad altogether if that works well. At that point the only thing the iPad will offer for me is the tight integration with Facetime/iMessage. I can't wait to have a full OS and real Chrome on a Windows tablet again!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What I find ridiculous are Apple's prices. I need 16GB RAM, 256+GB SSD for dev work. In 2014, a MacBook Pro with these specs cost me €1500. Today, it would be €2000. I lost my MacBook on a train two weeks ago [1]. Because of this surge in prices, I decided to go for a Dell XPS 13. It's supposed to be the best Linux laptop and cost me €1600 with 16/512GB.

[1]: [https://fman.io/blog/lost-laptop/](https://fman.io/blog/lost-laptop/)

<comment><USER8> In 2014, USD/EUR exchange rate was around 1.35-1.40. In 2017, it has been around 1.05-1.10.

So assuming Apple originally prices things in dollars and converts for foreign markets, 1500 EUR in 2014 is the same price as 1900-2000 EUR today just based on the exchange rate changes.

<comment><USER2> I'm in the UK. Don't even get me started. Thanks Brexit voters, you really stuck it to The Man this time!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> After being a windows jerk for 20 years I fully switched over about a year ago. My only remaining attachment to Microsoft is an old version of office I have running in CrossOver.

I think what did it for me was the hardware, but the forced updates and telemetry completely sabotaged trust and closed the deal. It was a tough move, but my new found hatred for Microsoft fueled the whole journey adequately. Just what are they thinking?

This survey is making me think I may start packing my things and moving to Linux. With great numbers come all the nasty viruses. No thanks!

<comment><USER10> yeah, interesting that the survey doesn't report the numbers of dissatisfied Mac users who plan on switching to GNU/Linux. I suspect they were never given this as an option.

Anecdata would suggest that the desire to move to something else is more prevalent amongst devs and techies. The MacBook is becoming a consumer device.

<comment><USER11> > The MacBook is becoming a consumer device.

I think it always has been. The "pro" has been aimed more at artists than techies, and even there thing have been sagging as of late.

That Macbooks ran unix was a legacy of Next, and there in turn i was a convenient choice for rapidly bringing up a usable OS.

The BSD side of OSX/MacOS have been largely stagnant since the first release, afaik.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This article feels like click bait. Windows install-base is so vast that the "25% Will Switch in 6 months" part is clearly ridiculous. Just be clear Apple sells around 8 million mac in 6 months while the Windows 10 installed-base alone is 500 million...

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm using Linux PCs for development for 10 years now, but when I started mobile development, had to buy a MacBook.

And I have to say, it is kinda nice. I don't think the gains for developer are so big that they justify a double price, but they are certainly nice.

The alu body is very sturdy and the touchpad disabling when typing is really good.

I also started doing educational videos and QuickTime + iMovie are pre- installed so I could start without any hesitation.

On the other hand, macOS has bad UX, often I can't find how to do things right away, because they aren't correctly named or hiding is some strange sub-menus somewhere. I don't think it's much worse than on Linux, but everyone was praising macOS UX and I just can't see it. Also the keyboard has a different layout than on PC and it feels like shortcuts are randomly spread between Ctrl and Cmd. The first week I had to Google some keys, because the keyboard didn't have labels for them ([, ], ~ and | for example).

I also read that many people are switching from Apple MacBooks to MS Surface Pro since the latest iteration of MacBooks came out.

</comment><comment><USER14> As the conclusion says,

 _I'm not implying wrongdoing on Verto's part, but I don't believe their survey results. The idea that such a huge chunk of the PC market could or would simply up and move to Apple, or that Apple could even absorb the influx of customers within such a short period of time, are both highly dubious assertions. Customers may talk about making these kinds of moves due to brand halos or favorable perception, but there's no indication that PC consumers are going to leap for Apple en masse._

</comment><comment><USER15> The real threat to Windows is Chromebooks as more and more people are realizing they don't need to spend $1-2k for something when they can do most of the stuff they want with a $2-300 device.

</comment><comment><USER16> good luck for that to happen, really doubt these Surveys are even gonna be close to reality

</comment><comment><USER17> Clickbait trash.</comment>


PADDs, not the iPad – when tablets are cheap enough to give away - <AUTHOR> http://www.sicpers.info/2014/07/padds-not-the-ipad/

<comment><USER2> Sorry to go offtopic, but man, I miss DS9. Where in this television renaissance is my high-quality serialized space sci fi?

As for the post itself, I could see it. And in addition to price drops, I think you'd need to see improved inter-device communication—I want to copy text from the PADD I'm reading and paste into the email I'm writing on another one. Seems like there's already wheels in motion on that point.</comment>


We're so good at medical studies that most of them are wrong - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/03/were-so-good-at-medical-studies-that-most-of-them-are-wrong.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss <comment> a-priori From the end of the article: "... such as compelling researchers to share both data sets and the code for statistical models."

This would be a welcome change. It seems very strange to me that it is not the accepted practice to make available any source code used in the analysis. It's an essential part of their methodology, and any bugs in that code could produce hard-to-detect flaws in their results (dropped data, rounding errors, etc). Just look at the work jgrahamc did on climate change analysis: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1128782>.

<comment><USER2> It is stunning in general that it can count as 'science' and a piece of 'scientific research' though the code employed is held secret. In fact, the use of proprietary software in science is at least as dubious as the use of .doc format for government documents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A big problem is that there's often no objective way to pick the "right" statistical test. This gives experimenter the freedom to choose the statistical procedure that favors positive conclusion. Here's a classical example when the statistician has the freedom in choosing between binomial and negative binomial test

Two experimenters contrast treatments A and B. They both have A preferred to B in first 5 patients, and B preferred in the 6th. First experimenter planned to run 6 experiments and count the number of successes, so they get P-value 0.11 for the hypothesis that A is better. The second experimenter planned to run comparisons until B is preferred, up to 6, and got P-value of 0.03. (see Appendix A of <http://www.annals.org/content/130/12/995.full.pdf+html>)

A realistic example of this issue coming up <http://www.jstor.org/pss/2336980>

Another example is choosing between one-tailed and two-tailed t-test. When you ask for the probability of effect being as extreme as observed x under null hypothesis, should you ask for probability of effect>x or |effect|>|x|?

Eliezer Yudkowsky goes into some discussion on this [http://lesswrong.com/lw/1gc/frequentist_statistics_are_frequ...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/1gc/frequentist_statistics_are_frequently_subjective/)

The most illustrative example of subjectivity of hypothesis testing is probably the issue of testing strings for randomness. There are many tests for testing whether a particular string of bits is generated by a Bernoulli process, with not one having a legitimate claim to being "the right one"

One way to remove the bias is three-way triple-blind testing, ie to measure effects of existing, new, and placebo treatments, have statistician analyze datasets while blinded to their true labels.

</comment><comment><USER4> The first portion of the article entirely focuses on multiple testing. If you don't perform alpha spending or Bonferroni-type correction despite looking multiple times at your data, you will - of course! - find spurious associations. This is simply bad science and/or lazy refereeing on the part of the journals.

In human genetics we have Mark Daly, David Altshuler, and Eric Lander to thank for doing the thoughtful theoretical work beforehand to identify the alpha for identifying genomewide significance for any study: 5E-8. To my knowledge, GWAS results are much less commonly found to be invalid in a later study.

The message is this: everyone knows at least one method of correction for multiple testing, and virtually everyone knows that they should be doing this. No journal should publish papers that merely show nominal, instead of corrected, P values.

</comment><comment><USER5> Could it also be because Statistics is hard and that a lot of researchers don't have a good grasp of it?

<comment><USER6> Especially these bio/medical types, rigorous thinking isn't a requirement in their qualification process.

<comment><USER2> Isn't statistics what you resort to when there isn't scope for rigorous thinking?

<comment><USER6> No, statistics requires rigorous thought to be applied properly. That's why it's usually taught in the mathematics department.

<comment><USER7> Teaching a first course in statistics in the mathematics department (rather than in a dedicated department of statistics) may be a mistake.

<http://statland.org/MAAFIXED.PDF>

<http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6hb3k0nz>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False" (2005) by John P. A. Ioannidis

[http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal...](http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124)

</comment><comment><USER9> Most medical studies have a small sample size because it is difficult and often prohibitively expensive to do studies with large numbers of subjects. Small sample size increases the likelihood of spurious results.

The other problem is that mainstream journalism does an abyssmal job of reporting science. How many times have your read a newspaper article or seen a segment on the evening news that tells you that X is good for your health or X is bad for your health as if it was an absolute truth, a law of nature on par with V=IR or F=ma? Then, out of curiosity, you look up the actual journal article published by the scientists and find their claims to be considerably more modest.

</comment><comment><USER10> Three kids, same pediatrician. First kid: "Drink lots of whole milk". 2nd kid: "drink only skim milk; kids are too fat". 3rd kid: "drink 2% milk in moderation".

<comment><USER11> I have a friend who's a doctor. A few years ago I read a few books about nutrition for laypeople, and when I had questions, I tried asking him. He couldn't tell me much. Virtually everything I asked him about, I knew more about it than he did, just from reading a few books. He obviously knew more about enzymes, metabolic pathways, and cardiac arteries than I did, but when it came to practical questions like how much protein I need to consume or how well calcium is absorbed from broccoli and collard greens, he had learned literally _nothing_ in medical school. The closest he came to studying nutrition was when he took a special elective unit on diabetes in rural Hispanic populations.

The way he sees it, nutrition is a separate specialty done by people who study less than doctors and get paid less than doctors, and it isn't taught in medical school, so he isn't embarrassed at all by his ignorance. He regularly gives advice to people who have risk factors like high blood pressure or high cholesterol, but the advice he gives them (eat in moderation, eat more vegetables and less junk food, exercise a little) is pretty generic, and none of them follow it anyway.

<comment><USER12> Doctors are typically educated in how to fix problems, not so much in prevent them. This is unfortunate, since most people think they're experts in everything including nutrition, and treat them as such, but they're really not.

Maybe if doctors were paid to keep their patient base healthy rather than just fix them when they're sick, they'd look into more of that.

<comment><USER13> Capitation is one approach to solving that problem. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitation_%28healthcare%29> Unfortunately the times frames are still fairly short because patients often move around. So even when doctors are compensated through a capitation system, there isn't enough incentive to encourage patients to make healthy lifestyle choices that will only pay off many years in the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> One of the problems I've run into in my current work is that statistics deals with problems a lot like the drunk man looking for his keys under the lamp. As far as I can tell there is one man in the entire world who works on stable distributions (like normal distributions, but with tunable skew and heavy- tailedness parameters), which have been quite useful for me. If you have or believe you have data that has subtle dependencies among the random variables, you _could_ use a copula but multivariate Archimedian copulas are hard to compute with (far as we've been able to tell, at least), copula fitting is a research problem, and copula choice is black magic.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm not a fan of the common sense check. A lot of science is, or at least was, completely contrary to common sense.

However, reproducibility is absolutely vital. If future researchers can't replicate the results of a study, then statistical flukes are going to be a real problem. If studies can be replicated, then statistical error can be handled very efficiently. Each time a given piece of research is reproduced (even if it's only reproduced to serve as a set-up control for a future study), will exponentially reduce the odds of a statistical fluke surviving.

</comment><comment><USER16> Some time back on--I think--Overcoming Bias, I read that less than half of medical studies are verified when independent verification is attempted.

Does anyone have this reference? I can't find it again.

<comment><USER17> <http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/meds-to-cut.html>

<http://clinicalevidence.bmj.com/ceweb/about/knowledge.jsp>

<comment><USER16> Thanks NN. I don't think this is quite the same thing as what I was thinking of, but useful anyhow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does it apply to other sciences? (I think it does but I don't have any access to papers confirming it)

<comment><USER19> Most likely, not nearly as much. In medicine, tests are expensive and ethically complicated, because you're experimenting on living beings whose inner workings we barely understand. So the ability to make firm conclusions, like you can do in the sciences, is not there.

Gravity is proved. Evolution is rock solid. We still don't know if coffee is good or bad for us.

<comment> a-priori _Gravity is proved. Evolution is rock solid. We still don't know if coffee is good or bad for us._

Gravity is not proven. Falling is easily observed, and general relativity is a pretty good theory for it, but the jury is still out on how exactly gravity works. Evolution is also easily observed (e.g., drug resistant pathogens); its basis in natural selection and genetics is the part that is rock solid.

As for coffee, it's some combination of good and bad. Which part dominates in which situations is up for debate.

(Apologies for being pedantic -- caffeine high just set in.)

<comment><USER19> Fair enough. I should have said that the Law of Universal Gravitation, not "gravity", is effectively proven. We don't know how gravity works.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Garmin obtains decryption key after ransomware attack - <AUTHOR> https://news.sky.com/story/garmin-obtains-decryption-key-after-ransomware-attack-12036761 <comment><USER2> > If a payment was made through a third party it could also be covered by the > Treasury sanctions, which warn: "Foreign persons may be subject to secondary > sanctions for knowingly facilitating a significant transaction or > transactions with these designated persons."

I accidentally took a phone call for a job that basically involved using Bitcoin to launder money to send ransom payments to terrorists. They told me that although it's technically illegal, the U.S. government has never prosecuted anyone for paying a ransom. I noped out after the first phone call for obvious reasons, but it was pretty interesting just to learn about the industry.

Anyway when Garmin says they didn't pay the ransom themselves, they are telling the truth, instead they would have used this company or one of their competitors. You can't just open a Coinbase Pro account and buy 10 million BTC and transfer it your first day. No bank is going to allow you to do that, since they would then be liable for facilitating that transaction. Instead you need to contract with a company that specializes in ransom payments and has already accumulated the crypto in advance. Then you pay them a percentage for their services.

<comment><USER3> Weird. I would think that while it's not worth the government's time to go after individual companies paying off ransoms, it would definitely be worth their time to go after a business professionally focused on paying illegal ransoms who tell interview candidates that they are aware that what they do is illegal.

<comment><USER2> Maybe, maybe not. It's technically illegal to grow or possess any amount of weed, but in practice you don't get prosecuted (by the feds) unless you have over 100 plants or thousands of pounds. Until ~2004 it was illegal for native Americans to be within Boston city limits.

There are thousands of things that are illegal, but in practice are rarely or ever prosecuted, even in cases where people are violating those laws at pretty significant scales.

In my case that's not a risk I'd be willing to take, but I can see why other people would. The reason it's not prosecuted though isn't because of companies, it's because there are lots of wealthy people who travel overseas and then get kidnapped, and the government isn't going to prosecute their families for paying to not have their kids dismembered and the videos posted on YouTube. The reason companies aren't prosecuted is mainly because once you decide not to prosecute families for doing this, then anyone else can make an equal protection argument.

<comment><USER4> The perspective that there are "thousands of things that are illegal" but not prosecuted always fascinates me, that's not at all a common perception e.g. here in Germany. Is that a difference between common law and civil law systems? Maybe in places where code law is mostly binding, there's a lot more pressure on the legislature to keep the law books up to date with the current norms of society.

<comment><USER5> I can only speak from my layman's understanding of US law. In the US, there's a doctrine prosecutorial discretion. Basically the police and prosecutors can choose whether to arrest and charge someone for a crime.

> "Maybe in places where code law is mostly binding, there's a lot more > pressure on the legislature to keep the law books up to date with the > current norms of society."

In the US, where everything is so entwined with politics, there's a lot unenforceable laws still on the books.

For example, the US Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws in 2003. Last I checked, Texas still has a law on the books criminalizing sodomy. Sure Texas can't enforce it, but the conservative majority in the legislature won't actually repeal the law because politics. Similarly, when the US Supreme Court ruled that banning same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, Texas had to recognize same-sex marriage. But there was no law allowing same-sex couples to divorce. So there was this weird limbo wherein you couldn't get divorced if you were in a same-sex marriage.

America is weird.

<comment><USER6> There's a difference between laws that exist but are rendered moot by a court ruling it unconstitutional, and laws that exist and are constitutional but are just never used, and laws that exist, and are probably not constitutional, but aren't used, so have never been challenged.

For all intents and purposes sodomy was made legal by the 2003 precedent; that those laws are still technically in black-and-white doesn't mean they're in force.

But there are lots of laws that are still in force but aren't actually picked up and used much. They're still there, though. For instance, hardly anyone was prosecuted for Espionage Act violations for decades, but nobody disputes that the DoJ can dust that law off and start using it again, subject to the current jurisprudence on free speech etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's not clear to me from the article that Garmin did in fact get the decryption key. There's enough verbiage suggesting they _didn 't_ pay the ransom, so are we to assume they had other means?

It also took Garmin quite awhile to acknowledge the ongoing situation formally (their outage page has been accurate with red lights across the board). Could it be that Garmin just started to spin up more hardware and began a migration of their last backups? (I'm so far removed from how their service operates so apologies if this sounds impractical)

<comment><USER8> Migrating to backups seems possible. Garmin is pretty complex in that it produces hardware and software across a few verticals, but I don't think there's anything that makes them particularly unique in the way they'd handle backups/failover.

I think it's also possible that Garmin proactively pulled the plug on their public-facing services in order to mitigate the spread of the attack. It would be _really_ bad if the attackers could make the hop from Garmin's web services to consumer devices.

<comment><USER9> According to Symantec attackers first gain entry and then explores the network. This process will take anything from days to weeks.

By the time the encryption begins they have explored every way possible into critical systems.

Preventing the second stage attack is what Symantec has been successful in preventing, this video gives an insight into how that works

[https://youtu.be/p1KJiv-RjMU](https://youtu.be/p1KJiv-RjMU)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This title is overly misleading. There is no evidence presented in the article to even suggest they paid the ransom. And Garmin declined to comment.

It's possible they paid, but it's also possible they are just restoring backups.

<comment><USER11> If they didn't pay off the hackers and are recovering on their own, it would be in Garmin's best interests to issue a public statement explicitly saying so. Failing to do so may make them a target for other hacker groups. Their vulnerability is now proven and their willingness to pay strongly suggested.

<comment><USER12> Even if they did pay, wouldn't it still be better to say they were restoring from backups? Makes them look far less vulnerable to the attack and they can likely wrap it with enough PR speak to not be technically lying. Arguably about as morally troublesome of an act as paying for the ransom.

<comment><USER13> >Even if they did pay, wouldn't it still be better to say they were restoring from backups?

Probably because that would be securities fraud? You'd be essentially duping investors into thinking the company is better than it is. eg. if there was a fire in your widget factory and the whole place got destroyed, you can't turn around and tell investors "everything's fine, the fire suppression system worked as intended", because you'd be lying to investors about the state of the company.

<comment><USER14> Investors don't get to see trade secrets. They obviously restored some backups even if they paid random via a reputation laundering company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Has there been any discussion about the technical details of the attack? I am having a hard time imagining how a compromise of a workstation could result in the entire company -- their own apps, their call center -- going down for days. I can see how malware could break production severely ("kubectl delete deployments" from a trusted workstation). I can see how malware can wipe out your desktop. I can see how malware could f your cloud infrastructure account. But I'm not drawing the line to "we can't build a new release and deploy it on another provider" or "we can't buy an emergency Dialpad account to start taking calls from customers".

My guess is this: two separate attacks occurred. The first attack involved compromising production, and installed a scheduled job that, at a certain time, would delete all database backups and code repositories, deschedule all workloads, delete all DNS records, etc. The next attack involves the fact that all source code is on managed workstations, so they compromised the IT management system to push malware to every machine globally at the exact same time that would destroy all git repositories (etc.) on the workstations. The result was that when the scheduled time occurred, production would crash and there would be no backups. (They must have wiped all the tapes at their offsite backup facility, too. I guess anything can be done for a price!)

To me, this sounds too complicated to even be feasible. I am still impressed when I edit some manifest with a new version number that 90% of the time that code eventually starts running. Being able to orchestrate a multiday outage just seems amazing to me, and that you'd make a lot more money being a cloud provider than a cybercriminal.

The other thought I had was that maybe they just kept thinking "we're so close to getting it back" for three days, rather than saying "everything is lost, revert to backups".

<comment><USER16> > I am having a hard time imagining how a compromise of a workstation could > result in the entire company -- their own apps, their call center -- going > down for days

Can't guess at specifics, but if it's a Windows network, I would be utterly unsurprised if all users had excess permissions to shared drives

Many Windows networks just have a giant X: everyone can write to, and it's been like that forever, and it's so deeply baked into everyone's workflow that it never gets fixed

<comment><USER17> Is it common practice to have the servers running your production (not in the manufacturing sense) cloud services _join the AD domain that has your office staff in it_? Why? That doesn't even make any sense from a convenience PoV.

It just seems like an unfathomable level of incompetence required to go from compromising some random Windows workstation all across the hardware that runs your app services. And lest we forget: a ransomware attack is always also a massive _data loss attack_. Garmin better get to work complying with the law and notifying impacted customers (all of them?).

<comment><USER18> If there's one thing I've learned in the computer industry, it's that there is no such thing as an unfathomable level of incompetence. All levels of incompetence are not only fathomable, but repeatedly demonstrated. It's amazing that anything works at all.

<comment><USER19> If this wasn't so, so true, it'd be even funny :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There's nothing definitive that says they paid the ransom or obtained the decryption key from the attackers. Rumors on Twitter say that they're rebuilding services from backups and slowly getting things back online

<comment><USER8> I can imagine it's possible that a 1-week outage + cyber risk insurance claim + rebuilding from backups could net out to less than $10M.

<comment><USER21> It doesn't matter. Unless a live is at risk, you never ever pay ransoms, or others will try again.

<comment><USER22> Ex Garmin employee here. Some of their infrastructure supports emergency response. Hard to know how much of what went offline, but if /that/ goes down, people die. On-call was not fun.

<comment><USER23> supposedly inReach wasn't included in the down time? Wonder if due to better infra or just highly (and rightfully so) prioritized once things went south

<comment><USER24> Most of it runs over Iridium, so I wonder how much IoT is really involved vs just being a different hardware front-end for Iridium services.

<comment><USER23> Ah, that would probably explain it. I was wondering if the actors wanted to avoid touching services that could impact peoples lives, due to that potentially leading to more motivated investigations. Possibly, but also could just be that it is largely a hardware front-end for Iridium's service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder if going after such a well known target was a mistake since once the news leaked out it put Garmin in a position where it would be much harder for them to pay the ransom. I wonder if their chances of success are higher by going after a larger number of lesser known and less valuable targets who may not garner the attention nor have the IT staff to deal with the issue.

<comment><USER26> But then you're not going to get as high of a payout? Maybe this math works, or maybe it's a feeler to figure out where the line is.

<comment><USER27> Maybe the smaller targets were already tried but didn't make the news

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> For the vast majority of users Garmin have ZERO liability re data retention. They could just say WHOOPS! and zero all accounts and require everyone to resync. And I would have respected them for that as they've now sent $10M to these assailants to increase the sophistication of their attacks and retain/lure/entrap more skilled developers. But then I'm a bit of a moral absolutist.

If their financial records were all toast too I wonder what the fines would have been ...

<comment><USER29> Yeah, Id also accept all my data zeroed instead of financing hackers.

It still puzzles me greatly how this ransomware has such a huge impact. How Does it allow hacking and encrypting the db servers?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I should be able to see all of my locally recorded stuff without the cloud.

I was happy that basic functions of my Garmin Venu continued to work. But some stuff should be cached, or stuff that hasn't been sync'd should be available locally.

<comment><USER31> I want to say that previous versions of Garmin connect did have the data locally, such that you could see your runs or activities without being connected to the Garmin services.

The present version of Garmin connect does nothing if you are not connected to Garmin servers. E.g. you can't see your activities, your data or anything else.

When this change occurred, I remember that it annoyed me greatly. Why not have some local data cached on your phone? Other apps seem to manage that no problem. If you'd have no internet access, you could at least still use the app to see your activities and sync them later. This seems so obvious to me that I have trouble understanding why they chose the current route.

Of course, it's still not a total disaster. Garmin devices still work and track, you can still view the data on them, and they usually plug in as a USB drive anywhere so you can upload the data manually.

Still, for smartwatch users, this could have been a really minor inconvenience rather than what it is now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm quite surprised that people seem kind of ok with the idea of ransomware. It's a horrible, criminal corrupt practice and it's destructive to pay or participate in anything to do with this.

<comment><USER33> I think the kind of ok feel is from the "they should have had backups, that'll teach 'em" crowd.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I am a lot more interested in the answers to questions like:

1\. Why was there lateral spread across low-criticality devices fitness devices and avionics devices?

2\. Why was there lateral spread across manufacturing, customer support, and PII regions?

3\. What assurances are there that health information wasn't leaked?

4\. What's the general security position around avionics, marine, and health data at Garmin?

<comment><USER35> Segmentation is expensive and slows stuff down. Businesses are bad at segmenting risk.

I'd expect the avionics and marine stuff to be a little better due to compliance requirements.

<comment><USER36> I don't know. It seems like whenever a company needs to have data shared, it by default is siloed. Yet when a company needs siloed/segmented verticals, they are shared with no boundaries. You rarely hear about companies that have done it correctly, yet everyone has worked for a company that does it badly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > Smartwatch maker Garmin has obtained the decryption key to recover its > computer files from a ransomware attack last Thursday, Sky News has learned.

Is this really the aspect of their business that they're most known for now? I still think of them as a GPS/Geolocation device company.

<comment><USER37> It's their absolute boom segment right now, dwarfing the revenue of all others. Somehow the Apple watch made a lot of people who'd rather wear a Garmin suddenly think that it's perfectly fine to wear an absurdly expensive GPS watch. Garmin has succeeded in establishing a price range where the Apple offering would barely make the upper third.

<comment><USER38> I feel seen by this comment! TBF, I already had a Garmin GPS watch that I bought circa 2006 (one of their first I believe) for tracking my runs. When it came time to upgrade I compared it to the Apple watch. And you're right. I definitely decided I'd much rather spend that much money on something with a 12yr upgrade cycle vs the 2-4 year cycle on many of my Apple devices.

What I've found most surprising is I have young children, and having a Garmin activity tracker watch (seems to be not much more than a step counter) has become _the_ thing every 6yo is expected to have these days. We've avoided it so far, but from speaking to parents with children at neighboring schools they're nearly ubiquitous in the youngest year levels now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I was confused by the use of "sanctioned" in the byline. They meant it mean "had sanctions imposed", but I understood it as "given permission" which set the article in a completely different tone. What an odd word.

<comment><USER40> More fun examples here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto- antonym?wprov=sfti1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym?wprov=sfti1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Does US or other western country ever retaliate? It seams to me that Russia and China keep attacking as and we do nothing. Was vkontakte ever taken down? What would happen if an US hacker group "independent" of NSA would attack a Russian company?

</comment><comment><USER42> A few people have commented on the logistics of paying a large Bitcoin ransom which can entail hiring a 3rd party to pay it.

Could an independent party buy the decryption keys from the ransomware party for their asking price then attempt to resell this to Garmin (or other party) for more money?

Of course it's a bit game theory because you're depending on the target to pay and the ransomware attacker to not relinquish and resell the key to anyone else including the target.

Ignore the legality of it all else it's not very interesting to think about.

<comment><USER37> More likely scenario: the attackers demand 10 mil knowing that 10 would be an unlikely best case scenario and a more likely outcome would be something like 2 mil, passed on on exchange for the keys by a cooperating fake computer forensics firm that claims to be able to restore the data without paying the attackers. For only 3 mil, an absolute bargain. The victim would pay the 3 mil, either falling for the show or _claiming_ to be falling for the show.</comment></comment>


Do Not Hire Me as a Ruby on Rails Developer - <AUTHOR> http://www.tomordonez.com/blog/2014/04/15/do-not-hire-me-as-a-ruby-on-rails-developer/

<comment><USER2> You know, if you call yourself a web developer on your Linkedin profile and you list "Ruby, Ruby On Rails" as skills & experience you'll probably get hit up by a lot of recruiters for web dev jobs. This shouldn't be surprising.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Or improving my typing."

Switch to Dvorak, put my WPM from 80 - 100. Super frustrating at first, but worth it I think.</comment>


NodeUp Podcast: Io.js Update #1 - <AUTHOR> http://nodeup.com/eightyfour

<comment><USER2> If you want to use a native player like VLC to listen at faster than normal speed, here's a direct link to the MP3:

[http://www.archive.org/download/NodeUp84IojsUpdate1/NodeUp84...](http://www.archive.org/download/NodeUp84IojsUpdate1/NodeUp84_iojs_update_1.mp3)

<comment><USER3> In Firefox you can right click it and change the play speed. It only allows you to change to 0.5x, 1.5x and 2x but if you want some other speed you can simply open the console and do `document.querySelector('audio').playbackRate = 1.3`</comment></comment>


How a Startup from Krakow Got Mentioned in "The Art of Computer Programming" - <AUTHOR> https://www.sinterit.com/how-a-startup-from-krakow-got-mentioned-in-the-art-of-computer-programming/ <comment><USER2> Apart from the 2016 Christmas Tree lecture [1] (which is even available in 3D [2]), Knuth also mentioned this "mysterious package from Poland" during an earlier (a week earlier) lecture at Brown University [3] (about 25 minutes in).

I love this talk (he gave roughly the same talk at both places, though one was more rushed than the other). He goes pretty deep into history — for example his discussion of Hamiltonian tours (knight's tours etc.) in Sanskrit poetry is at a level of detail that I have not seen in any other published source in English. After knowing that he was interested in this topic, I requested a contemporary Sanskrit poet to write a "knight's tour" Sanskrit poem, and gave it to Knuth as a gift. He loved it!

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjZB9HvddQk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjZB9HvddQk)

[2]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DrzK3Z0rg0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DrzK3Z0rg0)

[3]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UFkH5ZlVqQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UFkH5ZlVqQ)

<comment><USER3> What a cool gift. I didn't know Knuth was into Sanskrit poetry. Nice to notice that people from STEM fields are interested in things like that. I'm always happy to see something related to ancient languages in HN.

<comment><USER4> There is perhaps a technical reason for this. Computer languages are described using BNF notation, apparently invented in the 20th century, but others have noted that Panini did this 2500 years earlier, describing Sanskrit with a similar notation:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backus%E2%80%93Naur_form](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backus%E2%80%93Naur_form)

 _The idea of describing the structure of language using rewriting rules can be traced back to at least the work of Pāṇini (ancient Indian Sanskrit grammarian and a revered scholar in Hinduism who lived sometime between the 7th and 4th century BCE).[1][2] His notation to describe Sanskrit word structure notation is equivalent in power to that of Backus and has many similar properties._

Citation:

[https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=363165](https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=363165)

I can't copy the text here, but it's worth a read:

[https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/association-for-computing- machin...](https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/association-for-computing- machinery/p-nini-backus-form-suggested-993dM00q6Q)

Knuth is mentioned in the same letter as Panini, regarding the naming of "BNF".

[https://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/t_es/t_es_rao- t_s...](https://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/t_es/t_es_rao-t_syntax.htm)

Knuth invented LR parsing of context free grammars:

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

 _LR parsers were invented by Donald Knuth in 1965 as an efficient generalization of precedence parsers. Knuth proved that LR parsers were the most general-purpose parsers possible that would still be efficient in the worst cases._

<comment><USER5> It is widely assumed Pāṇinian languages (generated using the formalism he used for describing Sanskrit) are context free languages but the following paper argues that they are a much larger set than CFLs.

[https://web.stanford.edu/~kiparsky/Papers/panini-1.pdf](https://web.stanford.edu/~kiparsky/Papers/panini-1.pdf)

My Knuth tale: I happened to be sitting near Prof. Knuth at a dinner last December and I mentioned to him Pāṇini & Sanskrit in the context of something I work on now and then. He heard Sanskrit and immediately pointed me to this Christmas lecture of his!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Retrospectively considering "It would be nice to own a 3D-printed object like this!" as an understatement (i.e. a "mistake" in his book) was a clever hack to create an excuse for giving them one of his famous reward checks. And kind and hilarious to boot! Prof. Knuth is amazing.

</comment><comment><USER7> Nice one, congrats!

(Also imagine my surprise, seeing my home town mentioned on the front page of HN this early morning! I thought for a second that sleep deprivation finally got the best of me.)

I wish you best of luck. I used to be in the Kraków's 3DP commumity back in Materialination heydays. That was before you were founded, but maybe we've crossed paths there.

</comment><comment><USER8> It looks like they got the N upside-down. The top of the N (the end with two serifs, as you can see here [http://www.identifont.com/similar?TI](http://www.identifont.com/similar?TI) ) is pointing to M, rather than the bottom.

<comment><USER9> It looks like you are correct. They seem to have taken the design from Donald Knuth, who put the N in upside down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Of course this is exceedingly cool and the item itself is of good quality, but it should be said that it's possible to make your own twenty-sided dice with whatever you want on their faces, by ordering blank dice on the internet and painting your desired symbols by hand. There's also companies that can print you the diece you want.

In fact, gaming lore says that in the early days of pen-and-paper RPGs, gamers couldn't find anyone selling the polyhedral dice they needed, so they ordered instead Platonic solids used for demonstration of geometric objects' properties from school supplies retailers and filled in the numbers by hand, as above. Which in no way means that any early d20s were missing a few 1's and 2's :|

</comment><comment><USER11> FYI Prof. Knuth presents the problem at 16:50 into the lecture[1] linked in the blog, then shows off his Sinterit trinket at 18:30ish.

[1] [https://youtu.be/DjZB9HvddQk?t=1010](https://youtu.be/DjZB9HvddQk?t=1010)

</comment><comment><USER12> Startup opportunity: Custom 3D printed dice. Pick any variation (e.g. less boring than cube). Different text and order.

Excellent swag.

<comment><USER13> You're limited to the other Platonic solids [1] for dice having more than the standard 6 faces if you want the odds to be the same, aren't you though?

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

<comment><USER14> Just has to be face-transitive or isohedral for dice: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isohedral_figure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isohedral_figure)

For example: [https://mathsgear.co.uk/products/d120-dice](https://mathsgear.co.uk/products/d120-dice)

<comment><USER14> I should add that I have no affiliation with mathsgear, in fact, I was unaware of their existence until just now. They seem to have lots of nice stuff: [https://mathsgear.co.uk/collections/shapes](https://mathsgear.co.uk/collections/shapes)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As someone who brought a branch of a US company to Krakow (my birth place), I can only say - great job and congrats!

</comment><comment><USER16> What does it say in Knuth's response?

"Of course you could have used the ( <word here> font/foot???)"

<comment><AUTHOR> cmtt aka Computer Modern Typewriter, the same font as in the diagram from TAOCP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Very fun.

I didn't know what a Hamiltonian graph was: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamiltonian_path](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamiltonian_path)

</comment><comment><USER18> :) beautiful story, thanks for sharing</comment>


VW storing around 300,000 diesels at 37 facilities around U.S - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/29/597991227/why-300-000-volkswagens-are-being-stored-in-these-massive-auto-boneyards <comment><USER2> Key bit right here: "These vehicles are being stored on an interim basis and routinely maintained in a manner to ensure their long-term operability and quality, so that they may be returned to commerce or exported once U.S. regulators approve appropriate emissions modifications,"

<comment><USER3> > "once U.S. regulators approve appropriate emissions modifications,"

well isnt that handy [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/climate/epa-cafe- auto-pol...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/climate/epa-cafe-auto- pollution-rollback.html)</comment></comment>


Twitter analysis: identifying a propaganda bot network - <AUTHOR> https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2019/09/03/twitter-analysis-identifying-a-pro-indonesian-propaganda-bot-network/ <comment><USER3> If it's possible to do this analysis why does twitter not routinely shutdown these networks?

<comment><USER4> The analysis in this post is only on two rather small hashtags (a very small percentage of the whole of Twitter).

It also involves a lot of "eyeballing", particularly the part where the author looks at the graph and notices a weird pattern. That's very hard to do automatically.

<comment><USER5> > That's very hard to do automatically.

When you run a worldwide network that has significant potential for abuse and spreading misinformation I would consider it to be your duty to monitor it and guard against these kinds of things. If it costs too much then maybe you shouldn't be in business or should change your business model so that you can afford to clean up the damage your business is doing to society.

<comment><USER6> Issue is if you run such automation with aggresive settings that would pick up this - you also increase false-positives and those for such a business could have a more negative impact than a few small bot nets.

So you do need people somewhere in the loop to handle these things.

What would be nice though would be if social media offered rewards for identifying such abuse, after all - they happily pay bug bounties, why not abuse bounties! That would get them lots of zero-hour/non-contract workers doing their job for them and big companies love that it seems and to be able to do that in a PR way that has positives. Well, it works for BUG bounties, why not incentivise the populus to police the populus against abuse as well.

<comment><USER7> > you also increase false-positives

...

> if social media offered rewards for identifying such abuse

couldn't this also be gamed for false positives, and create an incentive for groups to form smear-for-profit entities which try to spin small communities as 'bad' to the benefit of others?

<comment><USER6> When life is a game, everything is gameable. However, as humans are good at adapting, you are playing one large mass of people against a lesser mass of bad players. So whilst you may get gaming of the system, that would still stand out to others who would investigate.

But let us not forget, things like posting IP and client and other such details that may prove useful in identifying such abuse, may well elude public investigation. So it would be these niche area's in which Twitter could then focus upon.

However, as an example of a slightly comparable problem - wiki editing and the weighted credibility of editors over time, we may well end up creating a hidden social media based upon a small subset of society and perhaps yielding a bias in some direction or another in judgment of what is abuse.

<comment><USER7> agree all is gameable - this is why I argue social media should provide tools for users to filter their own content rather than being everyones nanny

<comment><USER6> Totaly, that would work. Let people impose their world view upon themselves via filters instead of imposing it upon everybody, would solve so much and tick all the free speech boxes.

But with the ways social media churns upon spam/botnets, it would place a huge load upon people self filtering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > This exact sentence was published by many of the other bots in their own > individual tweets using the hashtags #westpapuagenocide and #freewestpapua.

A clickbaity video "what the government is trying to hide" that contains pro- gov messages ("they've developed an app for personal finance management and are giving villages more opportunities", "they are helping the food industry") posted under those hashtags. Is that attempting to influence people that are looking up those hashtags (presumably expecting to find info on "the genocide"), or is that just to add noise to the hashtag?

It looks too high quality for just noise (so it's probably too expensive to produce a lot of that content), but on the other hand, I can't imagine someone saying "woah, there's a genocide going on in west papua? I better check twitter. Ah, here's a video ... mhh, they are deploying an app to help people with finances and there's something about the food industry? I'm now convinced there is no genocide". Like, is that some "if only people knew about our app, they wouldn't mind the crimes" thinking? Does that work?

</comment><comment><USER9> Not a bot, Twitter recently blocked my account that had almost no activity without providing any reason and now I cannot delete it which is in contravention of GDPR.

<comment><USER10> > I cannot delete it which is in contravention of GDPR

Go on. They've refused your removal request with appropriate ID sent to their office, or?

<comment><USER11> Appropriate ID is username/password if real-life ID was not previously linked to an account directly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Uh, from the article: why is he using sudo to run a python script?

      sudo twint -u bellanow1 –media -o papuabots1 –csv

Not good

<comment><USER13> Theory: he's a reporter, someone showed him the command, one time it didn't work and the other person said to use "sudo" possibly because he was trying to write a file somewhere he needed access to. Now he always uses sudo because it always works...

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Surprising to see this on here. The ongoing genocide of the West Papuan people by Indonesia has largely been ignored by the West.

BTW the propaganda team behind this bot network has also been very active on reddit.

<comment><USER15> Every now and then bellingcat covers a "lesser" news story like this one, so they can pretend their main purpose isn't to push for regime change in Syria.

<comment><USER16> bellingcat made its mark documenting the MH17 shootdown. [https://www.bellingcat.com/tag/mh17/](https://www.bellingcat.com/tag/mh17/) has the exhaustive history

<comment><USER17> Let's say they seem to be consistently on one side of the Russia - <USER2> disputes, of which Syria has been one of the issues. Just a quick browsing of the articles published in the last few months show that the vast majority of the investigations is focused on various malfeasances of Russia, Syria or Iran.

<comment><USER18> Bellingcat investigations on Syria predate Russian involvement in Syria.

<comment><USER17> Bellingcat was founded in July 2014, while Russia has been siding with Assad from the start of the war- vetoing sanctions, providing weapons and preventing an open attack by the US in 2013.

<comment><USER18> Russia did not enter Syria until 2015. Bellingcat's founder was already publishing on Syrian conflict in 2012.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should one avoid using niche technologies for a startup? - <AUTHOR>

I am doing a startup with a small tech. team. We would like to use cutting-edge technologies like Clojure, Erlang, node.js, etc. which are not really mainstream but help in rapid application development and iteration. The problem here is that in case of a potential acquisition by another company, the deal might get canceled because the technology we used is non-mainstream, and the acquiring company might face a lot of problems in maintaining the code-base. So the question here is how do you deal with such issues? Should one compromise speed of development now in favour of an easy acquisition path tomorrow? How do you convince the `elders' in your startup about this? <comment><USER2> This site would not exist and none of us would be here had pg not been successful with Viaweb, which utilized Lisp. I think that PG and company were probably bright enough that things would have worked out with other technologies too, but Lisp made them happy and more productive, I guess.

<comment><USER3> "Did it alarm some potential acquirers that we used Lisp? Some, slightly, but if we hadn't used Lisp, we wouldn't have been able to write the software that made them want to buy us. What seemed like an anomaly to them was in fact cause and effect."

\-- <http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can't tell you how many startups I've run across who are deperately looking for programmers who know [insert cutting edge/obscure technology here].

Because they can't find anyone they like, they are stuck making bad/deperate hires or with the prospect of rebuilding the codebase. The list of technologies that are tough to hire for vary by market. In my midwest market, Rails still falls in that group and I know a ton of companies that can't find the talent they need. Do your best to stick with the technology stack that has the largest candidate pool in your market.

<comment><AUTHOR> True, but that means we will have to stick to Java even though we are Lisp, Python, Erlang guys here. That also means that we will have to muck around with JavaEE crap even though we can build the same thing much faster using something else; all this to be future proof.

<comment><USER5> I don't have any experience to back it up, but I'd say go for the technologies you want to use: Good programmers can learn a new language pretty quickly, whereas knowing whatever is language du jour doesn't make you a good programmer. Hiring someone just because they know a framework doesn't really strike me as a sensible hiring strategy.

There might not be as many Clojure programmers as Java Programmers, but there's probably a higher proportion of good programmers working in Clojure than Java. Hire whoever you can find who is technically able, passionate about tech and your idea, and I'd wager they will pick it up pretty damn quick.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't think acquisition will be as much of an issue as recruiting employees will.

If you think you can find people to work for your company who either know those languages or can learn them quickly enough to not kill your productivity or your product, then go for it. Otherwise, you may want to think about making some tradeoffs (i.e. node.js over Erlang because you're going to be far more likely to find competent js devs than Erlang devs.)

Most acquisitions end up with the founding team contracted to transition for a year or three; during that time the acquiring company either rewrites the IP or ends up with enough qualified people to take it over.

</comment><comment><USER7> The best path forward is the one that lets you iterate easily and bring a product to market as quickly as possible. Until you have validated your MVP with customers you are burning cash with the risk of zero return.

When and if (and it's a BIG if) companies are expressing interest in acquiring your technology, you can sort out whether you'll need to rewrite portions as part of a deal. But far more likely is that the product will pivot at least to some degree, and you'll be thankful that you're using technology that you can comfortably and quickly modify.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's probably wise to use a more common framework. Even if you are more productive initially being able to hire people when you're off focusing on some other aspect of the business is important too.

I'm not sure there is a huge productivity difference between the modern frameworks unless you really know nothing about what you're getting into. I'd choose something mainstream that you all know at least a little and can use and then get to work.</comment>


Ask HN: Any recommendation for reading glasses? - <AUTHOR>

I have searched and can't find a pair of reading glasses that don't smudge several times a day, talk about frustrating, any ideas for a pair that's more smudge free? <comment><USER2> I like Sportex reading glasses. Very light weight and comfortable. Not sure about smudges, but I haven't had any problems. Easy to clean though.

[http://www.amazon.com/Select---Vision-4050150GY-Sportex- Read...](http://www.amazon.com/Select---Vision-4050150GY-Sportex- Readers/dp/B00AO7R462/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1438637695&sr=8-1&keywords=sportex)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I read some reviews, seems there are some weakness issues with them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Try Warby Parker. They have issues delivering (allow a month) but the product is good. My husband bought sunglasses with diff prescriptions in both eyes and they work great, no smudge issues.

</comment><comment><USER4> I just use cheapo off-the-shelf ones from Walmart or Target.

But I think the heart of the issue is, I had glasses as a kid, and I learned how to handle them without smudging them much.

When they do smudge, I just run some water on them, then use liquid hand soap, then rinse.</comment>


Iran's 'Generation Normal' - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/b110ec2e-04b0-11e5-95ad-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3blsvzkKF <comment><USER2> Foreign reporters visiting Iran are usually in an echo chamber.

They visit Tehran and a few other big cities. Live in best parts of those towns and hang out with people who are educated and pro western and quite exposed to other cultures.

Iranian middle class (and specially the younger generation which are the majority) are pro western, quite progressive and modern.

But they don't represent the whole population of Iran.

Unfortunately this echo chamber sometimes even blinds ourselves as well.

Source: Iranian living in Tehran.

<comment><USER3> One of the most interesting moments involving Westerners wishing to be misled about the dire straits of another nation/culture occurs in this thread: [http://www.quora.com/Does-the-average-Pakistani-support- the-...](http://www.quora.com/Does-the-average-Pakistani-support-the-Taliban)

The answer I'd like for you to read is not the one with 4.7k upvotes. It's the one below it with just 62.

The most popular answer implies, very nicely and agreeably, that all cultures are equal, and that any problems are the result of poor governance and or some faceless structure/entity. The one right below it states that, while it's true that environment plays a large role in oppression, fundamentally it is the people who perpetuate such an environment.

It is very comfortable to rest at one extreme or the other (as the OP's article goes to show). I, for one, think it is better to follow what the man who wrote the 62-upvote post says, despite the mental discomfort it causes:

"A lot of work has to be done to cleanse one's mind from years of propaganda and brain washing against the "Western World, Israel, and India". But it's not going to happen by pretending that everything is okay."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is a facebook page called My Stealthy Freedom that is for Iranian women to send in pictures of themselves without the mandatory hijab. Please go there and read some of the women's stories. [https://www.facebook.com/StealthyFreedom/](https://www.facebook.com/StealthyFreedom/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Maybe not directly related but I recently attended a local event for the #EducationIsNotACrime global campaing [1] about how the largest religious minority in Iran is prevented from teaching and accessing higher education. In the event they projected an impacting documentary [2] that explained how they are organizing themselves in a secret university with help from teachers in many other countries in order to continue their education.

[1] [http://educationisnotacrime.me/](http://educationisnotacrime.me/)

[2] [http://film.educationisnotacrime.me/](http://film.educationisnotacrime.me/)

</comment><comment><USER6> 'Normal' was fairly biased, as it mostly refers to an average western individual.

Nothing wrong with it, but why not avoid the negative aspects of it? Why not fostering your own culture?

<comment> guard-of-terra Their culture failed them by bringing islamists in power, might as well discard it.

P. S. Mine failed me either so I know what I'm talking about.

<comment><USER7> that did not happen without meddling from the west...

<comment> guard-of-terra Sure but it's not the west that took hit. They can meddle with you and get away with it. Too bad. Go complain to your god. Go burn some flags.

"You should not blame the west, you should become the west".

<comment><USER7> I truly love how you assume i am Iranian just because i brought that up...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The point about revolutions setting you back are fantastic.

<comment><USER9> Well, depends on who "you" refers to. That revolution wasn't entirely for the own good of the Iranian people [1]

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat#United_States_role)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> >Remember, she tells me, most Iranians' priority is economic wellbeing. Political freedom is the concern of a minority.

The great tragedy of modern society.

<comment><USER11> You can't eat freedom.

<comment> guard-of-terra Without freedom it's not up to you to decide whether you eat tomorrow or not. You can hope that they continue to feed you "in exchange" for your freedom. Until they have better idea.

<comment><USER12> This is usually why revolutions occur during times of famine. When they can't even feed your kids, then you have no choice but to seek 'radical' options.

<comment> guard-of-terra It's a a sad truth that a single famine or economic depression can turn your whole life to risk-aversion and only valuing physical security.

You'll effectively ruin your life, next gen life, probably more. You survived but you died inside, like a zombie apocalypse.

<comment><USER12> Thats the opposite of what I said; that a famine causes you to loose risk aversion and thoughts of security. You go for whatever you can see as best, regardless of the consequences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Yup, posting under throwaway because I don't want the downvotes.

Here's my take from interacting with Iranians(ones that grew up in Iran or maybe didn't go to college in the US): they have a chip on their shoulder about western influence and a scarily misogynistic stance( note though, they are, by and large, not religious). Sure, they dress like westerner/hipsters but they still have a weird mix of superiority/inferiority complex.

Am I saying Iranian people are bad/evil? No. I am saying that being brainwashed from a young age, being taught to think and act a certain way doesn't change overnight or even a generation. This generation is, if they are anything more than acting out the normal teenager rebelliousness, going to be the same as the last in all aspects that matter.

And, acting like this isn't the case isn't going to make the problem go away.

Also, since when is being westernized normal?

<comment> guard-of-terra "since when is being westernized normal"

You are either western or you are "mumbo-jumbo" aboriginal wildling. There is no third way.

"Westernized" is denigrating btw. What you should be is 'civilized'. We've got only one civilization worth its name today.

<comment><USER13> "westernized" is supposed to be denigrating. Thats what I call people who wear hipster clothes but are still misogynistic bastards :) Being westernized means eating your big mac but acting in a backward manner.

Now, being civilized is different than being westernized.

Why? Because roots are important and the melting pot of globalization needs to melt more than one direction and in more facets than just cuisine :)

Oh yeah, what "is the one civilization worth its name today"?

<comment> guard-of-terra You're a very enlightened person indeed, I sincerely wonder why all the downvotes.

<comment><USER13> Sarcasm? Can't tell, but I agree.

Regardless, enlightenment is not a function of downvotes or upvotes[0]. It's definitely not thinking everyone is equal/good/civilized/uncivilized/whatever: that's political correctness.

[0] I bet most of the downvoters haven't interacted in any way with cultures other than their own. They've _maybe_ met a few american-iranian kids and decided that's a close enough approximation of actual Iranians. It's not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra "She tells me she sometimes wonders whether it was wise to get married in the first place. Many of her friends in Chalus are unmarried and don't feel the need to start families. "Marriage just means more restrictions.""

By the way I think that not having family/children is an ultimate way to bring vengeance to their parents who failed them. They want grandchildren but they're not getting any. Too bad.

If you don't eagerly feel that you are bringing children to a good healthy society: don't.</comment>


Farmers in Niger are nurturing gao trees to drive environmental change in Africa - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/16/regreening-niger-how-magical-gaos-transformed-land <comment><USER3> Mandatory mention of Kenyan Wangari Maathai [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wangari_Maathai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wangari_Maathai) She started a grassroots movement of planting millions of trees in Kenya. She received Nobel prize in 2004 for her environmental work in Africa.

<comment><USER4> Sounds like a treeroots movement, to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> On topic: Researching Gao trees, I learned about Fertilizer Trees.

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

Question: Does nitrogen fixing remove the need for adding other soil macro nutrients?

<comment><USER6> That depends on what you're doing and what kind of yield you're expecting. It's not going to completely replace the huge quantities of fertilizer we apply to conventional fields, but it helps. That's part of the reason we do crop rotation - beans/legumes fix nitrogen as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The same principle, using trees to increase soil moisture and water table, applies in California. Redwoods absorb moisture from fog, while the replacement grassland (or Eucalyptus) do not.

</comment><comment><USER8> This reminds me of a startup that does reforestation that I first saw on Hacker News a few years ago: [https://fellowsblog.ted.com/how-to-grow-a- forest-really-real...](https://fellowsblog.ted.com/how-to-grow-a-forest- really-really-fast-d27df202ba09)

</comment><comment><USER9> I've read that the drumstick tree [1] is a sort of wonder tree [2] too. It is grown a lot in South India, and the pods as well as the leaves are used as food. The pods are commonly added to sambar, a dish made from dal, vegetables and spices.

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

[2] By "wonder tree" I mean one with many good uses.

The neem tree [3] is another.

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

</comment><comment><USER10> I always wonder why we spend 100s of millions on various "aid" programs that miss the most basic ways to improve a struggling country at the agriculture/arboriculture level.

Also, they need a large mix of trees to avoid the vulnerability of single- species diseases, although this gao tree sounds amazing!

<comment><USER11> Nobody is missing basic ways. These "poor" countries only problem is large deep corruption. I mean look at the world map - Africa as a continent is twice the size of USA. Enough of it is in a climate perfect to grow vegetables, fruits, and so on. But so what? You send a $100 in aid to Africa, most likely only a dollar would be handed to some poor champ, rest goes thru politicians and government blood hands :(

That's it. Fix enormous corruption and these countries will be in the top 10 prospering in a decade or two.

<comment><USER12> > These "poor" countries only problem is large deep corruption.

I'm curious, why do you think there's so much corruption in these countries compared to others globally? Just keen to understand what your take on this is.

<comment><USER5> Centralized control of resources creates a single point of failure and makes corruption more attractive than if regions / states only paid taxes to the federal government.

Africa is resource rich. If left alone, African countries might be as influential as the Saudis. Gold, colbat, petrol, diamond and other resources would be far more expensive to buy. Thus, a divided, corrupt Africa is in the best interest of developed countries.

It's said that Kwame Nkrumah, a man who helped hasten the independence of a few African countries including Nigeria was ousted from Ghana through external help (CIA?). Because he was working towards an industrialized, self reliant and United Africa.

I also read here on HN of a Swiss banker whose job it was to offer attractive loans to African leaders for projects he knew would never be repaid. And collect payments in intentionally undervalued natural deposits and/or concessions for their multi national companies. He would in the same deal help setup untraceable swizz accounts for these leaders. And teach them various means of looting their countries dry. And threaten the leader who doesn't play ball with immediate repayment of compounded loans.

Lastly, like the war on drugs, I believe that Africa's war in corruption is corrupting the continent far more than all other factors combined. Here's why:

New leaders spend their first two years fighting corruption, trying to recover loots because the treasury's empty. Thus houses will be seized, companies repossessed, accounts frozen...

Thus the current commander in thief and his crew would invest in foreign real estate, companies, offshore accounts... Thus impoverishing the country further.

Obviously, the solution is that they shouldn't steal. But that's not an option. Because leaders who don't steal are mocked by the populace - <USER2> story. Money equals power. Thus, honest but powerless ex-leaders are easily framed / scapegoated by their successors.

To protect their interests, the truly corrupt never leave power. 40 years in office is normal. And their children gain official posts as soon as they are born - no joke.

That's my two cents.

100 years from now, hopefully, transparency will get better.

<comment><USER13> This is exactly it. But to add my 2c: one thing really missing from these countries that we take for granted is a sense of community outside the immediate family. i.e. the spirit of nationalism is missing, which means that members work and and responsible only for their immediate families.

Which is for good reason: most folks don't interact with the State, they only really get help from family and occasionally friends.

So when in power who do you think they will tend to favor? When the family calls in a favor, you give. Or you do favors for your family and call in a favor later when you really need it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Mesquite trees also do this.

</comment><comment><USER15> This reliance upon, or even worship, of one species is a disaster waiting to happen. Permaculture would solve this, it strives to create multitude of relationships between many animal and plant species, and unorthodox accomodation to local circumstances /ecosystem. Then whole agriculture would not depend one single type of tree and is more resilient.

But the unorthodox part is probably where it breaks down, it's much easier for humans to follow "recognized" methods than observe and adapt.

<comment><USER16> My impression from reading the article was that this wasn't a choice of a gao tree monoculture over better methods, but actually a choice between this monoculture and _widespread slash-and-burn_ [0]. See also, [1].

It may not be the best from an ecological standpoint, but it's certainly better than the alternative, and as you said, has the advantage of being well- accepted among the farmers in the area.

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash-and- burn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash-and-burn)

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy)</comment></comment>


ICANN reveals new gTLDs - <AUTHOR> https://gtldresult.icann.org/application-result/applicationstatus/viewstatus

<comment><USER2> It seems odd that they publish the emails of applicants? Not behind captcha or anything.

It's interesting that Google's applications were hiding behind "Charleston Road Registry Inc."

</comment><comment><USER3> Funny to see that there is more than one company that was formed to go after the ".app" tld.

<comment><USER4> same with .buy, .book, ,auto and many others

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Has ICANN rejected _any_ gTLD applications yet?</comment>