World of Goo does a Radiohead. Pay whatever you like. - <AUTHOR> http://2dboy.com/games.php

<comment><USER2> There is a huge difference between giving away a year-old product and giving away a brand new, never-been-sold-before one.

Let me explain.

Radiohead took a -huge- risk by releasing an album, out the door, right at the start, with a "pay what you want" pricing model.

2dboy is taking -no- risk by releasing World of Goo with a "pay what you want" pricing model. They are already on the tail end of the demand curve at the $20 price point, they are just using this as a chance to capture more of the market at a smaller price.

Radiohead took a huge swing with their pricing model, 2dboy didn't. It's a completely different situation.

<comment><USER3> This is true, but it is also what we call "looking a gift horse in the mouth".

<comment><USER4> Are we also calling end of season sales as "Gift Horse" now? (Ps I like WoG)

<comment><USER5> If the alternative is a end of season not-sale, I would have to say yes. (Same here).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would have paid more for it then the ask. I had it preordered though. Maybe I can gift a copy...

I hope they make it an iPhone game. If they would have released it for the iPhone originally it would probably be the most sold game on the system.

</comment><comment><USER7> Great game. Even if you aren't much of a gamer, give this game a try. Anyone who ever enjoyed building anything (everyone here?) should enjoy the puzzles and anyone with even the smallest bit of design taste (most of us?) should enjoy crazy well polished presentation.

<comment><USER8> I downloaded a copy back then and decided it was not my kind of game pretty soon. Later I found out that I just played as much as the demo would have gotten me. So I recommend trying the demo instead of blindly warezio0ring if you just want to check it out. It should be enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I got this with the Steam Indie Pack; it was one of my favorite entries. (If you're looking for games beyond this, let me also recommend Blueberry Garden, Braid, and Everyday Shooter.) I can't support the design trend of simple gameplay with elaborate detail enough. Most game design today strikes me as being ass-backward: Attention is focused on insane playtime and complicated systems, and not on the small details. The result had been a lot of games that look ugly and aren't fun to play without dedicating a lot of time to them.

World of Goo and similar indie games are making gaming mainstream. Anybody can play them and enjoy them. Casual players get the fun distraction, and more hardcore players can appreciate the finer details and the more difficult challenges.

<comment><USER10> Hm. I can't go along with the general love-fest over World of Goo.

I bought World of Goo for $20 in large part because of the hullabaloo around it, and completed it in an evening. It was basically a bridge-builder derivative, where it's fun to overcome all the challenges, but once overcome, the desire to improve on them with economizing / scoring is a lot less. I got about 6 hours at most play time out of it.

If I valued the games I've enjoyed for replay value with a similar price / playtime equation, such as Far Cry or Far Cry 2, I'd have to conclude I should value them in excess of $500 apiece. First person shooters, when executed well, completely blow away puzzle games in replay value.

I would rather value WoG at about $2 at most. I'm not sure I'm any better off for having bought it, other than knowing that I don't want to play it again.

<comment><USER9> The desire that's built in is the online tower building. But I don't do it for that. I do it for the thrill of seeing how efficiently I can make my pieces.

The graphics are beautiful. The soundtrack is incredible. The humor is perfectly executed. The feel of the controls I hope to one day equal. The physics engine's to die for.

I don't know you, barrkel, so hopefully you don't take it personally when I say: You'd value that package at _two dollars_? Pathetic. This is what I hate about the gaming community. You said you got six hours of play out of it, and _don't_ think that was worth $20? I pay $10 for a CD with 40-60 minutes of music on it. I pay $15 for a 3-hour movie. This masterpiece of a puzzle game you value at two dollars. Unbelievable.

It's worth mentioning that I can't stand most first-person shooters. The Orange Box ones (Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal) are the only ones I've played and liked. The level of workmanship on the average FPS saddens me. They strike me as gimmicky and cheap.

I can't comment on how long it takes to beat World of Goo, because I haven't beat it yet. I'm on the second world out of, what, six?, and I've played it for a few hours. I spent an hour alone trying to hit the challenge records on each level. But the game isn't just about beating levels. It's about the joy of putting things together, seeing what works and what doesn't.

All that was released by a team of two people. Far Cry was made by a team of five hundred people, and it's nowhere near as sleek as World of Goo. I think 2D Boy puts Crytek to shame. They're entrepreneurs and artists and I wish them the best of luck—and it really pisses me off when the tasteless slobs that call themselves the gaming community decide to shit all over a good thing.

<comment><USER11> If the idea you're raging against is that there is no 6 hour experience worth $20, I'm totally behind you.

But you take it a step further and accuse barrkel of being a "tasteless slob" for not valuing World of Goo more than $2, and that's just ridiculous. It's precisely as ridiculous as if I called you a "tasteless slob" for what you were saying about all non-Orange-Box FPSes, 'cause there are a bunch of real gems out there.

What's my point? My point is that there's a question of taste. We can of course still talk about craftsmanship and aesthetics in games, but to criticise someone simply for saying they like games with high replay value and this isn't it, that's ridiculous. You said you don't like FPSes that aren't from The Orange Box, which shows to me that there are some damn fine games that you don't value, but it would be silly of me to criticize you for not wanting to pay market price for them.

<comment><USER9> I made a point to tell barrkel that I hadn't met him and that I wasn't intending my remarks personally. I don't feel comfortable judging somebody by what they write online. The friends I'm most in touch with from my hometown are gamers. By some standards I'm a gamer, though I'd disagree with the classification. So obviously I don't mean "everybody that plays games" when I refer to the "gaming community".

That said: I stand by what I said to begin with. Does replay value matter in a game? Of course. Is a game without replay value worthless? Certainly not. If a game takes me six hours to beat and I willingly play through all six hours, I've spent as much time playing it as I'd spend on a two-hour movie if I'd watched it three times.

So there's the first thing that I find offense in: The suggestion that something worth "only" six hours of time hasn't given me enough value. In the "gaming community" as I define it, having a game take up dozens of hours of your life isn't an offense. I've always disagreed with that. I remember having a conversation with a friend over Final Fantasy VII, which I played for an hour and then put away. "It takes a few hours to get good," was his mindset. I find that casual disregard for time appalling.

The second thing I found offensive was the suggestion that World of Goo was worth only two dollars. _Two dollars?_ I pay more than that for a fucking cheese steak! For five dollars I will pay a man to sizzle some meat for me and put it in a plastic bag. For _two_ dollars I will pay a fast food chain for a plastic cup to pour syrup into. When two people spend $10,000 of their own money and countless months developing a gem of a puzzle game that takes a quarter of a day to beat—and it's taking _me_ much longer than that, personally—I think it's worth more than 20 minutes' worth of minimum wage.

Craft and finesse has become so devalued. I blame it on gamers, though "gamers" here is a category that includes a whole bunch of non-gamers, including a whole branch of programmers that I occasionally criticize here as well. It's this attitude that other people's work is meaningless, the attitude of FAIL and meh., where having twenty hours of gameplay is expected but making any of those twenty hours magical and beautiful is utterly disregarded. It's not every gamer, it's a specific _sort_ of gamer, but it's a _prevalent_ sort of gamer. The kind that argues that Bioshock is as valuable a contribution to society as the works of Joyce or the movies of Hitchcock. And it bugs me not just because it's obnoxious and tasteless, but because on the _flip_ side we have a lot of _tasteful_ people who argue that video games are not art, can never be art, and I disagree with _them_ as well. I love video games. But it's hard to argue with those tasteful game-haters when the average gamer works to hard to convince others of his crippling tastelessness.

<comment><USER10> After reading you carefully, I believe you have a fundamental problem in your understanding of the world, and in particular, how economics works.

Things don't have intrinsic value in and of themselves. The fact that something has had "$10,000 of their own money and countless months" invested in it does not mean that the end product is valuable. You appear to be subscribing to the labour theory of value here; it's like something out of Marx.

My point is that I can choose to do multiple things with my next unit of time. I get to choose how I spend my time and money. By analysing my preferences, I can figure out how I value different ways of spending my time. And the fact is I only chose to spend about 6 hours playing something that cost me $20, while I spent perhaps $90 for over 1000 hours playing Far Cry / 2. If you work it out, you'll see $2 is actually pretty generous, as it includes the aspects of the WoG playing experience that can't be directly substituted by the FPSes, such as novelty and newsworthiness. Nevertheless, I regretted spending $20 on WoG. Not hugely, but I regretted it.

Accuse me of tastelessness all you like. Perhaps taste, like value, is in the eye of the beholder.

(Of course, when you factor in the cost of hardware and the like, the cost for me for various FPSes is actually pretty substantial; but these are sunk costs, and almost all of the resources save the graphics card are used in my day job anyhow.)

<comment><USER9> Reading comments on Hacker News isn't "reading carefully". We're operating on a pretty shallow level of conversation right now.

What I find funny is that you chide me for assigning things an intrinsic value, and then go right ahead and try to assign a formula for value based on time played/money. You're doing exactly what you accused me of. And you're being _far_ snottier about it than I am, which is also kind of funny, because I'm the one being the snob here.

See, unlike you, I don't assign _any_ monetary value to time. I don't divide twenty by six or a thousand by ninety to decide if something's been worth it. That's stupid, all due respect. I don't divide the hours I wear a shirt by the money I paid for it either. Instead, I value the _experience_ of that time spent. I'll take six hours of unique, novel gameplay with gorgeous graphics and good music to a thousand hours looking at generic FPS, listening to generic FPS sound, playing what amounts to fairly generic gameplay. What I liked about Half-Life 2, actually, that made it worth my time, was that it had so many elements of gameplay merge into a fairly simple control set. Valve's flawed in a lot of ways, but when I spend time on their stuff they give me an _experience_.

I mentioned the time and money those developers spent not because I think it makes their game more valuable, but because I empathize with them and with what they made. If we want to use another bullshit metric, 6hrs/2ppl = 3, whereas 1000hrs/550ppl = less than two, not to mention we're talking two games that cost obscene amounts of time/money to provide. So those two people are producing more than those 550, with less money spent.

"Less money spent", that's another issue. See, I can't sympathize with your twenty dollars. It's twenty dollars. If you're cheap enough to regret a twenty dollar purchase, I think you're being kind of whiny. But what I can't _stand_ are those games that take millions of dollars to make, but don't have any sort of ingenuity behind them. I think that's a horrible, horrible waste. Can't stand games that lack ingenuity. So for me, Far Cry is yet another disaster of a game, and World of Goo, while imperfect, is a small little gem. And that's why it offends me that the sort of person who would spend a thousand hours shooting pixels would hate on a title with an inventive physics system, especially when it was made both with money that _wasn't_ that much on a huge scale but _was_ a lot to the two people that had to spend it. In the case of Ubisoft, you have the opposite case: A hell of a lot of money burnt up because it really didn't matter much to the people who had to spend it.

<comment><USER10> A few points:

* The worth of something to an individual isn't an intrinsic value; it's either a use value (they'll consume it) or an exchange value (they'll buy it, and perhaps sell it at some other point).

* I don't assign monetary value to my time out of habit, but sometimes quantitative tools are useful for analysing decisions. That's how economics works: it's about analysing choice.

* You persist in talking about generic FPSes. I am specifically not talking about generic FPSes.

* You can empathise with one group of developers all you like, but I can guarantee you there are lots more, and larger, groups of developers elsewhere that you are explicitly choosing not to empathise with. It sounds like you're making a moral argument, but I would posit that the utilitarian balance of your position is unsound.

* I'm cheap enough to regret mistakes, because if you don't regret mistakes, you won't learn from them, and you'll end up losing far more than $20.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I love this game! I got this as part of the MacHeist bundle (I know I know, but the bundle was too exquisite) and it is seriously one of the most fun games out there!

Would totally buy it again, and possibly will now, just to pat them in the back!

</comment><comment><USER13> Yay. my sorry grad student salary can't justify $20, but i'll throw down $10...

I've been wanting to try it our for a while.

</comment><comment><USER14> The cost of filling out my cc or paypal info exceeds my personal cost of spending $20 dollars. I would literately pay $20 just to avoid the hassle.

On a related subject matter, recently I spotted something a bit off on my Verizon bill. I get phone/cable/internet from them on one bill, but I noticed an odd charge. I had to dig through the bill to find the one page that mentioned a charge from payment one on behalf the internet commerce company.

In short, it was definitely a fraudulent charge and apparently they can bill you, via Verizon, TimeWarner, At&t, etc. automatically! It has happened to a lot of people, there is nothing you need to do for them to start billing you.

In fact, you HAVE to preemptively call your ISP to tell them to lock your account so that 3rd parties can't aoutmagically bill you!

However, why can't we have legitimate charges which are this easily billed? Why can't I sign up once for an advertising project or something, and then it divides X amount of dollars every month to websites I visit?

Or something like that. Ideas?

<comment><USER15> 1) Sure, find a non-paypal way to send me 20 dollars plus your credit card number and I'll fill it out for you.

2) That's called "cramming" and you should report it to the FCC so that (hopefully, someday) they can put those guys out of business.

3) That's called "micropayments" and people have been talking about it for over a decade. There are major technical and political problems to implementing it and, ultimately, I think most people would prefer to get ads on their web pages than having to pay a penny to view it.

<comment><USER14> _2) That's called "cramming" and you should report it to the FCC so that (hopefully, someday) they can put those guys out of business._

Already done it, apparently the (scam) company was started by an ex-high level At&t insider. But yeah they sure did find a way to take 20 dollars from me without me having to do anything.

And yes it is micropayments, I guess I'm just surprised and angry that the closest I got to micropayments was a scam.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Quick question -- if I donate a few £ to the guy, can I link it with my Steam account?

I'm kinda losing patience for games I can't manage through steam. Am guessing that Steam won't take licence keys for copies not bought through their services though, which I think is a missed opportunity to get more people using Steam.

<comment><USER17> No, you can't link it to your Steam account. Valve maintains a list of games you can register to your account from a CD key here:

[https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7480-WUS...](https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7480-WUSF-3601)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't understand this. As a consumer buying a video game, I'm trying to maximize my entertainment per dollar. Why would I ever pay more than the minimum amount? Maybe the HN crowd will pay a little more out of a sense of camaraderie, but I don't understand why a typical gamer would.

<comment><USER19> To encourage the developers to make more games that you like. Because your inbuilt sense of fairness makes you want to reward them for something whose value to you is more than the minimum amount. Because some bit of your brain always acts as if other people might be watching, and you don't want to appear mean. Because playing the game, or reading the 2dboy blog, or something, has made you feel like you have some sort of personal connection with the developers, and you want them to do well. Because you want to trade off giving them more with keeping more for yourself, and at very low prices too little of what you pay goes to them rather than Paypal.

(For example.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> My son has been wanting to buy W.O.G. for a long time and brought it up today. I hadn't looked at HN yet, so we went direct to 2dboy.com and to our delight, found the sale. We ended up buying to copies for a total of $16. Way to go guys, I hope you make a bundle.

</comment><comment><USER21> Thanks for posting this. Glad to pick this up and support the designers and the model.

</comment><comment><USER22> I remember they had lot of press (or at least Linux press) releasing their Linux version. I think they are quite good in marketing or being very lucky (Now you HN people know what luck means :) ).

</comment><comment><USER23> I was curious whether 1 cent would work.

It did.

<comment><USER24> IIRC, PayPal takes a commission on the transaction, around 30 cents if I am not mistaken. I think this means that the developers actually _lost_ money in your case. Correct me if I'm wrong!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Seems like a bad idea to me. Sure, somepeople will pay more than $1 (or whatever the paypal minimum). But most will pay the minimum.

<comment><USER26> I just bought a copy. I'd considered it before but it wasn't worth $20 to me.

Even $1 from a person who would never have bought it before is a net win - they probably don't have many expenses associated with sales (support etc) so it's pure profit, with the additional benefit of marketing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I haven't been able to download a copy of the game from their servers in an hour, guess the sale is working :)

</comment><comment><USER15> If I hadn't already bought it twice (once on PC, once on the Wii) I'd certainly buy it now. Great game.

</comment><comment><USER28> Has anyone been able to download the game?

<comment><USER29> Am doing now, got a 503 with FF but plugged in address to wget and am getting about 160kBps, 2 mins to go.</comment></comment>


Namespacing the web for your photos - <AUTHOR> http://blog.theopenphotoproject.org/post/10537443380/namespacing-the-web-for-your-photos

<comment><USER2> Seems to me like they are reinventing UUIDs.

While UUIDs are not as "nice" to look at, they contain the same information (origin, unique ID) as mentioned by the OpenPhoto guys.

Except v5 UUIDs which solely rely on random numbers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Granted it's not groundbreaking but it's attempting to make UUIDs "better". For computers it doesn't really matter what an identifier looks like (minus memory to store long strings, maybe). For users, it does matter.

Long UUIDs are just an artifact we've grown accustomed too. By no means are they the ideal solution.

The type of namespacing OpenPhoto does doesn't apply to everyone either. Sometimes you do need a UUID that isn't namespaced. Sometimes you don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What are the access controls? Trivially guessable urls make the usual "security through... hey look a pony!" more unsuitable than usual.

<comment><AUTHOR> The access controls are stored in the database as well. If the viewer is not logged in then they see public photos. If they're logged in then they see public photos plus photos they've been given access to.

<comment><USER3> Whose database? Are you a service for syncing photos between third-party photos services (in which case it's thier acls that matter), or another attempt to become a centralized photo service (in which case why talk about openness?).

Nice API != decentralized.

<comment><AUTHOR> Some more context. It's completely decentralized. Here's how.

The source for OpenPhoto is on Github (mobile and web clients) _. Anyone can install the software on any server they want. The user then connects their instance of OpenPhoto to their personal cloud account (think AWS or other).

There's no central repository or database. If you spin up an OpenPhoto instance then I'll never know about it personally unless you send me a link to it.

So the API is self contained as well. Your OpenPhoto instance has it's own API and is an OAuth provider. You can use the mobile app to point it to your host and it will take you through the OAuth flow requiring you to log in to your site. We determine the "owner" by email address as part of the setup flow.

_ <https://github.com/openphoto/frontend></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How would you measure if a job is meaningful? - <AUTHOR> I've grown impatient and a bit disgusted by how most job and contracting ads are focused on what stack is used and what benefits are offered.
It feels like these ads are not treating tech workers as creative people to whom doing meaningful work is important.
I've been working on a simple tool to help alleviate the situation a little, yet I'm curious: how would you gauge if a job is meaningful, if the "why" and "how" of it are worthy of your attention?
What do you expect from an employer or a client in order for you to feel valuable and meaningful in a position? <comment><USER2> 80000 Hours has one very thorough approach: [https://80000hours.org/career- guide/](https://80000hours.org/career-guide/) [https://80000hours.org/career- guide/most-pressing-problems/](https://80000hours.org/career-guide/most- pressing-problems/)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, I think I can get a few pointers from this</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Entrepreneurs, please help us by taking the Global Startup Survey 2013 - <AUTHOR>

Are you a current or recent entrepreneur? Please help us understand your experiences around fundraising and mentorship by taking this quick 5-minute survey: http://j.mp/glbss2013<p>You can take the survey anonymously. <comment><USER2> Just took the survey.</comment>


San Diego Hackers: Django Meeting This Wednesday - <AUTHOR> http://djangosd.jottit.com/2009-05-06

<comment><USER2> Anyone know of any similar Python/Django meetups in Orange County? Meetup.com has not been very helpful here. Any Orange County hackers have anything going on or want to start something? I can't be the only one here.

How about collaborative workspaces?

</comment><comment><USER3> I'll be there. I'm actually the guy that's going to talk about combining Django and XMPP to make this fun little app: <http://wikipediagame.org>. See you on Wednesday!

</comment><comment><USER4> Good to see there are other people from san diego on here!!

</comment><comment><USER5> Awesome, I work here in SD during the week and have just recently gotten into Python/Django for a side project. Looking forward to this!

</comment><comment><USER6> Even though I'm not much a Python hacker I think I will definitely attend this event. Anyone other HN people going to be there?

<comment><USER7> I'll be there. Looking forward to it...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Slightly OT. people still remember and use jottit? Awesome!</comment>


Userinfuser: Open Source Gamification Platform - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/userinfuser/

<comment><AUTHOR> Gamification is a bit of buzz word at the moment. Has anyone used this opensource project? Does anyone have any other suggestions of projects like this?

<comment><USER2> Check out <https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges> as well.</comment></comment>


Illinois Ponders Pension-Fund Moonshot: A $107B Bond Sale - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-26/illinois-ponders-pension-fund-moonshot-a-107-billion-bond-sale <comment><USER3> Illinois is bankrupt, and the worst thing that you can do when you are bankrupt is pretend that you aren't. If I were a resident of the state I would strongly consider moving somewhere else as your taxes are going to explode, and services will likely be cut. The tax base is already shrinking which will cause a negative feedback loop destroying property values and new business formation.

<comment><USER4> > Illinois is bankrupt

No, it's not. Bankruptcy is a legal state, and one which is not open to US states.

It's not even insolvent, which "bankrupt" is often incorrectly used as a synonym for. It may have a projected future insolvency, but that's a different issue.

<comment><USER5> Insolvency means your liabilities exceed your assets, or you can't pay your debt as it comes due. If you're a state like Illinois that has a constitutional restriction on reducing future pension obligations through a change in the law, then you're cooking the books if you don't count them as liabilities. And if you do, Illinois is almost certainly insolvent under the first definition. And since it's not able to pay its bills in due course, it's probably insolvent under the second definition too.

<comment><USER6> isn't the US then the same by your reasoning? we should flee the US as well.

<comment><USER7> The US can always pay its debt because it is denominated in US dollars - <USER2> can print sufficient US dollars to meet its debt obligations. States do not have this ability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Reminds me of this: [https://ianayres.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Mortgage...](https://ianayres.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Mortgage%20Your%20Retirement\(1\).pdf)

Take out a mortgage in your 20s to finance your retirement so can diversify over a long time period.

<comment><USER9> Taking out a mortgage and buying stocks on margin are different things. The author is recommending using margin. Taking out a mortgage and having money available to invest requires that you first own an unmortgaged house, or have significant extra equity in a house. And if you have that in your 20s, well, you are already really far ahead.

<comment><USER10> Right, but the mantra in the personal finance circles is "Mortgage Your Retirement" because you are borrowing all the money you will need to retire -- say $2m, investing it in the S&P 500 and paying that off over time. If the market goes up than you're that much closer to paying it off and retiring. The authors recommend only 2:1 leverage so only a 50% decline would wipe you out. The problem I personally have with this is the declining marginal utility of money. Losing everything (or a large portion) to squeak out better returns isn't worth it.

There was someone on Bogleheads who posted about trying this, exhausting their student loans and credit cards, but unfortunately when they started it was Fall of 2007. The guy had pretty bad luck, but I'm sure it's worked for other people especially those who don't know it (e.g. "I bought options on Google in 2006!") [https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5934](https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5934)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is there a term for a fund that takes money from people (let's call them "investors"), promises to pay them back that money plus abundant interest in the future, and doesn't actually have enough (or any) money to pay all of these "investors", so it resorts to borrowing money to keep payments going a little longer?

<comment><USER12> "Technically not insolvent"?

"Extend and pretend"?

"Fool me once, shame on you..."?

"Greater fool theory"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why would anyone invest in these bonds? By doing so, you're essentially investing in the State of Illinois as your hedge fund/bond manager (depending on the returns promised).

Usually with a muni-bond, they are using the money for some sort of public infrastructure and then paying the interest either from fees gained through the use of that infrastructure (like a bridge or power plant) or through taxes.

Here though the state is flat out saying, "we're gonna invest in the market, which you can also do, and hope we get better returns than you do so we we can skim some off the top".

<comment><USER14> States are sovereign and can't go bankrupt.

If they are general obligation bonds, you'll make money and sell them to the next investor. If they are revenue bonds, you get dibs on the tolls, tax, etc.

<comment><USER15> > If they are revenue bonds, you get dibs on the tolls, tax, etc.

This did not work out for Puerto Rico bond holders.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What will stop legislators from siphoning off this chunk of cash? How much will be lost in infamous Illinois corruption? The system is already $129B in the hole; this smacks of desperation.

<comment><USER5> Is corruption the main problem? When I moved to Illinois in 2009, I was shocked to see it had public services like New York but taxes lower than Virginia or Georgia. State income tax was like 3% until recently. Obviously that wasn't going to work.

<comment><USER17> IL is a bit distinct in how it funds things: At the state level its per-pupil education funding is the lowest in the nation. Medicaid rolls are also lower than the national average as well. If you are looking at the state level, it's a fairly lean operation, ranking quite low in terms of government employees per capita (see: [http://www.governing.com/gov-data/public-workforce- salaries/...](http://www.governing.com/gov-data/public-workforce- salaries/states-most-government-workers-public-employees-by-job-type.html)) -- just 49 FTEs per 10,000 residents. There are deep-red stats with nearly double that figure.

So how does IL do it?

For starters, local property taxes pick up the slack. We have some of the highest in the nation. Further compounding this, we have hundreds of local governmental layers like townships that fall somewhere between a town/city and a county that provide services, have elected offices, pay employees, etc. It's services are all heavily localized because the state's involvement is limited. It's also grossly inefficient.

IL needs a progressive income tax, pension reform, and needs to consolidate services at either the county or city level. Even Chicago, with all its graft and political machinery, was smart enough to jettison townships decades ago. I honestly have no clue what the redder, more conservative, more tax-conscious part of the state cling to them.

<comment><USER18> _For starters, local property taxes pick up the slack._

Yup, and now it's not deductible anymore past the first 10K thanks to the new GOP tax laws.

People rushed to their county tax offices to prepay as much as they could before the end of 2017, but it's a lot of headache and effort for a one-time small relief.

<comment><USER19> Most people in IL don't have property taxes that exceed the SALT cap; the median homeowning family wouldn't exceed that cap in property and income taxes combined, right?

<comment><USER18> Most people, sure.

I'm in DuPage - highest property taxes in the state (closing in on 2.25%). So a $400K home will easily get you up near the 10K mark...and that's not even counting your income taxes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> We really need to prevent the short-term game played by politicians, where they promise rich pension benefits, do not contribute enough to the pension funds and kick the problem down the road for someone else to solve.

The only possible solution I can see is to move from a defined-benefit system (eg. pension) to a defined-contribution one (eg. 401K). Everything else seems it can be gamed.

</comment><comment><USER21> Out of curiosity what's the difference between a public pension, where all funds are invested into a 401K like device, vs. each member in the group having their own 401K? I know that's not how Illinois' pension worked, but wouldn't the former be superior as the highest principle results in a proportionally higher (raw) return vs. an individual's?

<comment><USER14> Pensions are awesome when funded. Illinois stole from its future by underfunding it.

<comment><USER21> Sure, but my comment was supposing a hypothetical. Say you're a new state, Zion, and you have the two options available to you:

1) Simply let your employees invest in their own retirement via a 401k.

2) Pool everyone's money together and invest into a super 401k.

What I'm asking is if (2) is better than (1), or not. Surely _someone_ has tried a variant of (2) before.

I agree though, that funded pensions are awesome. Since some organizations clearly have trouble with that, I was just wondering if there was a simpler way to ensure liquidity in the fund.

I'm aware that money is already pulled together with a pension, however my understanding is that pension funds are generally "managed" where most people who use a 401k put it in some sort of index fund where it's pretty passive as it tracks the market in general.

<comment><USER22> 2) is how most 401k's work already.

e.g. Fidelity has target date funds, and everyone in the 2050 target date funds has their money in one pool which Fidelity manages as a group.

There are 401k's that allow investing in individual securities (or so I'm given to understand) but that's not the norm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Sounds like it's time for a change to the state constitution. Everything is a negotiation:

"Because the state's constitution bans any reduction in worker retirement benefits, the government's pension costs will continue to rise as it faces pressure to pay down that debt, a squeeze that has pushed Illinois's bond rating to the precipice of junk."

</comment><comment><USER24> I wonder if you could implement communism/socialism this way. If the supposed immortality of governments/pensions allows one to moneypump financial markets as easily as 'borrow at low interest, buy and hold and reinvest forever', what stops governments from asymptotically approaching 100% ownership of capital?

<comment><USER25> My gut says that eventually prices will reflect a major player like this. Eventually it will get harder and harder for a government to borrow money to pump into other investment systems, or the other investments will get more and more expensive giving a lower yield. Couple this with the fact that the government still needs to deficit spend occasionally (or at least politically it's nearly impossible not to run a deficit) , means that they can't just buy and hold, but will inevitably have to cash out some of their holdings.

<comment><USER15> If done at the central bank level, you can simply print the money necessary to acquire equity investments. Japan's central bank does this, and is slowly consuming the Nikkei.

To answer the original post above, there's nothing stopping the federal reserve from delivering communism/socialism this way except political will and leanings. The federal reserve mandates are to keep the country at full employment and keep inflation low. What better way to do so besides "seizing the means of production" through printing fiat.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-18/boj-s- etf...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-18/boj-s-etf-buying- is-said-to-raise-concern-among-some-officials)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> California's pensions are in trouble as well: [http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/politics- colu...](http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns- blogs/dan-walters/article148181774.html)

</comment><comment><USER27> Ha ha ha. Not falling for that one, Illinois. You just want to take my money and find some way to never pay it back.

If I really want that bond yield, I could just follow whatever investment strategy you had in mind on my own, thanks. Any tax advantage is more than offset by the additional returns that I'll get to keep for myself instead of handing over to retirees, and my expectation that the fund administrator will be as crooked as the boundary of a Julia set.

Suck it up, accept you're "Detroit bankrupt", and amend your constitution now, or wait until after the state is "Puerto Rico bankrupt" and all the responsible parties are collecting their pensions from prison.

The smart move here is to not be able to touch Illinois with an eleven-foot pole. Do not buy these bonds. Do not move to Illinois. Do not keep your money where Illinois can get to it. Maybe even get some vaccinations to avoid unnecessary illness.

</comment><comment><USER28> Public pensions. And people still argue that we should have those over 401ks.

<comment><USER29> Because investing in education and enacting policies to support raising families and future generations isn't popular for some reason, so we'd rather entrust our retirement funds in the hands of some politicians and fund managers, and if they end up making corrupt and stupid decisions, we can still raise taxes in the future, or divert funds from education and other social welfare to pay for the pensions.

<comment><USER30> > Because investing in education ... isn't popular for some reason

That's contradicted by the spending facts of the last several decades.

The US invests more per pupil when it comes to primary and secondary education, than any other nations except for Switzerland, Luxembourg, Norway, and Austria. So there's the US - 330 million people - competing with hyper rich, tiny, Luxembourg - 600k people - on education spending per pupil.

Our teachers are also among the best paid in the world.

We've dramatically over-invested into classical education. Far too many people have run up immense student loan debts, when they should have acquired a trade skill instead at a small fraction of the cost.

Germany is the model that the US should be following, rather than just blindly spending more on a traditional education path (which is not working out well).

[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/why- ger...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/why-germany-is- so-much-better-at-training-its-workers/381550/)

[http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/global_learning/2017/05/the_u...](http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/global_learning/2017/05/the_us_education_system_meets_the_german_dual_education_model.html)

<comment><USER12> Our teachers are, in many cases, very poorly paid. (Administrators, on the other hand...) If US teachers are paid _better_ than in other countries, that's pretty appalling.

<comment><USER22> The US bureau of labor statistics says that the average teacher salary is $58k/year (with over 2 months of time off) while the average non-teacher salary is $61k/year (average PTO less than two weeks) with at least a bachelor degree.

<comment><USER31> Don't forget the present value of a teacher's pension.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This sounds like a horrible idea.

<comment><USER32> Illinois is well into "all ideas are horrible" territory.</comment></comment>


Hypertree - JavaScript Tree Animation - <AUTHOR> http://thejit.org/Jit/Examples/Hypertree/example1.html <comment><USER2> This sort of tree animation is a powerful way of exploring structured data like this--I've used it on call graphs and seen it used for social network data and RDF before. Remarkably smooth animation here.

</comment><comment><USER3> (1) There is some nice geometry going on here. The tree appears to be embedded in hyperbolic space (is that what "hypertree" means?), visualized using the Poincare disk model. Edges of the tree are drawn as geodesics. Node-to-node moves are accomplished via translations of hyperbolic space.

One result of this is that you can demonstrate to yourself that a rotation in hyperbolic space can be realized as the composition of translations -- which is not true in Euclidean space. Pick three nodes, repeatedly click on them in order (1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, etc.), and watch how the space slowly rotates.

(2) There is a bit of a problem with the UI details, at least in my browser (Firefox). The clickable area for each node appears to be roughly a square whose top is the horizontal diameter of the red disc representing the node. Thus, clicking in the upper half of a red disc accomplishes nothing. And trying to click in the center of a disc gets you what you want about half of the time.

</comment><comment><USER4> Implemented on the front page of Directed Edge

<http://www.directededge.com/>

<comment><USER5> Yes, thought the examples they give are all with static data. It took a fair bit of massaging (and using undocumented features) to get it work with dynamically querying data. The connection code is here for the curious:

<http://www.directededge.com/js/wikiviz.js>

<comment><AUTHOR> that's really pretty code!

minor nitpick (and that's from someone that doesn't have as much js under his belt as you do, so please feel free to ignore)

Your bracketing style has one risk, if you should ever drop a complete line before a code block it will still be valid. That has bitten me once. Nowadays with version control such mistakes are a lot easier to spot though. Old habits die hard :)

Pretty code, really I'm going to have a good look at it later because this is roughly the kind of thing I had in mind while I was searching for a tree visualizer.

<comment><USER5> The code was only partly written by me, but actually we're not really JS wranglers -- we're C++ guys so we just kind of apply our C++ coding style to similar languages (JavaScript, Java, etc.) when we're working with them to the extent that that's possible.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


32TB of Windows 10 internal builds, core source code leak online - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/23/windows_10_leak/ <comment><USER3> Looks like there's some debate as to whether or not this has been exaggerated: [https://www.betaarchive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=37282](https://www.betaarchive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=37282)

So far I haven't seen any links to source code.

Quote from one of the admins:

> Yes I have no idea where they got the 32TB stuff. We had a big leak of Win10 > builds yes, but these were all Windows Insider stuff that were collected > over time available to all Windows Insider members at one time or another.

Edit: BA's official statement: [https://www.betaarchive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=37283](https://www.betaarchive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=37283)

<comment><USER4> Hiya - I wrote the article. What's happened is that the Beta Archive folks have now deleted (or in the process of deleting) the private material that was uploaded to the BA FTP. There most definitely was non-officially-released internal Microsoft files in the archive, regardless of BA's intentions, such as the Shared Source Kit, the ARM64 Windows Server build, the Mobile Adaption Kit, and various prerelease versions of Windows.

We've updated the story to explain why things aren't what they seem. Essentially, the files at the heart of the matter were there (we screenshotted them and saved copies of the forum posts) at time of writing, and they were removed later on Friday.

In terms of the 32TB: that's the full decompressed dump of Windows files uploaded to BA. From what I understand, Microsoft hasn't released 32TB of public Insider material, so obviously there's extra sauce in the mix.

That includes, yes, copies of officially released Insider builds plus confidential private stuff that should never have left Microsoft, let alone turned up in BA. We make this clear in the story - I'm starting to feel the headline could have been better to make this clearer rather than grabbing the biggest figure. I am beginning to regret this.

BA can twist and complain all it likes - but stuff that was confidential within Microsoft ended up in their FTP archive (and some is still in there, such as the ARM64 stuff). The next stage of this story will be to uncover how exactly did this material escape Redmond.

C.

<comment><USER5> Clarify the 32TB and 8TB figures please. People with access to the archive who successfully downloaded the confidential stuff did not get nearly that much.

Do you consider windows installation images to be "compressed files" in this context?

<comment><USER4> Compressed, it is ~8TB. Fully expanded it is ~32TB. I think the bigger issue is not the final size, but that internal Microsoft material - <USER2> source code - has escaped into public FTP. That, to me, is the main thing, right?

C.

<comment><USER5> >Compressed, it is ~8TB.

But what data does this 8TB refer to specifically? Is this the source + all the windows builds from a plethora of sources? Did you download 8TB of data from BA and expand it to 32TB or was this a figure provided to you by one of the raided hackers or their associates?

>think the bigger issue is not the final size, but that internal Microsoft material - particularly source code - has escaped into public FTP

Happens regularly, although usually it's MS employees leaving stuff in public FTPs or inside released ISOs, updates, whatever. redmond\ domain is huge and the (accidental or not) leaks never stop.

<comment><USER6> It's ~8TBs of deduplicated Windows installation media. The Shared Source Initiative material only amounts to ~1.2 GB, if that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a gross exaggeration. As far as I can see, what "leaked" was the "shared driver source kit" that nearly any hardware vendor (like chipset manufacturer) can get; basically anyone who puts up a few thousand bucks and signs an NDA.

</comment><comment><USER8> If nothing else, it would be interesting to compare code quality of this with leaks of much earlier Windows source files.

</comment><comment><USER9> Does this mean an individual could actually get their hands on the fabled Enterprise LTSB edition and thus actually have control over updates?

<comment><USER10> All I did was change a registry setting (or maybe it was a gpedit) to prevent automatic reboots. That was enough for me though, as I didn't appreciate my running apps being shutdown during the night.

<comment><USER11> Can you maybe recall exactly what u did to stop your computer to automatically shutdown(and up)?

I "resolved" the issue by dual booting. The second os(prev ubuntu, going to deb) changes something that takes away win ability to automagicly turn on my machine for updates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The unstripped binaries are a huge benefit for non-black-hat developers too.

<comment><USER13> Microsoft actually provides symbols for most windows components through its symbol server.

<comment><USER14> The private symbols in these builds could actually be very useful. The article alluded there were private symbols. So, even if only 1% of the overall windows code was leaked, if there were, say private symbols for the heap allocator of the kernel, for a practiced reverse engineer that is pure gold. Not as good as code, but a hell of a lot better than having to figure everything out and name functions and symbols themselves.

<comment><USER15> What kinds of private symbols aren't served by the symbol server?

<comment><USER16> All of them. The server serves public symbols. Private symbols have structure info and even local variable names, which are very useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This will make Windows less secure in the short term, but as good and bad actors find bugs and Microsoft patches them, they will end up with a hardened product. Their OS is now effectively open-source.

<comment><USER16> It's only some core kernel and driver code, lower than 1% of the codebase.

<comment><USER18> Yup. It's the Windows Shared Source Kit, which is already mostly public. Many of the big security firms and government agencies already have licences to the full source code anyway.

The only thing this really gains anyone is it possible some non-public debug symbols might have been left in some builds. Not earth shattering.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40366823](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40366823)

Dead man's switch?

</comment><comment><USER19> Given the other article I read today about US companies bowing to Russian requirements to review source code, I wonder if MS has also already given away code that can be studied for security gaps.

<comment><USER20> Microsoft indeed make their sources available for review by major customers including governments. From what I heard this is done under NDA and reviewers are forbidden from taking the code away from MS facility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I guess Microsoft really were serious about going open source.

</comment><comment><USER22> Looks like the page where the source kit was listed was altered since the screenshot that's in the article was taken. I hope the files surface somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER23> Can't imagine this was due to a hack of their systems. Seems more like an (ex)employee took a data dump and released it. Or it could be spear fishing.

</comment><comment><USER24> If you develop WINE or ReactOS do NOT look at any of this code.

</comment><comment><USER25> Can someone with access take a more comprehensive screenshot of the contests?

</comment><comment><USER26> Throwaway account for obvious reasons. Does anyone have a link to the leaked data?

At this point avoiding links is pointless as the source code will be essentially public knowledge in matter of days/weeks. Damage control is the only strategy left. The sooner security researchers outside Microsoft can start analyzing and reporting vulnerabilities, the better.

<comment><USER27> Not understanding why this comment needs a throwaway account?

<comment><USER28> Maybe he doesn't actually want it to research purposes, and actually wants a quick and easy way to find it for other less noble purposes.

He never actually stated he wanted it for security, just left it easy to imply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> It seems that the "leak" was what you need to develop a driver. You can sign up for MSDN and get that, right? Does that come with the $3000/year it now costs to subscribe to MSDN?

</comment><comment><USER30> I must be possible to determine when this code was collected by matching the files to version control time stamps.

I wonder if that could be used to narrow down who pulled the code during that window.

</comment><comment><USER31> Just imagine if the source code for SMB was let loose.

<comment><USER32> They're disabling it later this year, so I wouldn't go that far.

<comment><USER25> Just the outdated SMBv1 of course, SMB is still very much supported and in constant development.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Links or it didn't happen.

</comment><comment><USER34> Looks like the WINE developers are going to have the time of their lives.

<comment><USER35> Quite the opposite. WINE developers will have to go an extra mile to avoid getting anywhere even remotely close to the proprietary source code, otherwise they may get sued for copyright infringement -- even if they didn't intentionally copied any of the code.

<comment><USER36> 1\. How would Microsoft prove that they saw the code?

2\. If microsoft sued wine devs it would be horrible for Microsofts public image. They won't do it.

3\. I hope the WINE devs don't listen to you.

<comment><USER37> > 1\. How would Microsoft prove that they saw the code?

Get the court to order discovery on all of your computers. They could probably also get subpoenas for the source code hosting sites to reveal relevant access logs. Or someone could admit to reading the source code someplace public, like a bug tracker. Or they could argue that the choice of variable names and minor details of algorithm details are too close to be coincidence. A jury convicted Google because of rangeCheck, after all.

> 2\. If microsoft sued wine devs it would be horrible for Microsofts public > image. They won't do it.

No it wouldn't, particularly not if they had a strong case (e.g., someone bragging about it). If you think MS looks bad for suing people for stealing the code, then you'd have to think the FSF looks bad for suing people for violating the GPL and stealing the code of, say, Linux.

> 3\. I hope the WINE devs don't listen to you.

I hope they don't listen to _you_. The repercussions are quite large--it's not unimaginable that shutting down the WINE project could result from a lost case. These cases do happen, and defendants do lose (Oracle v. Google is a notable recent one, and that's based on IMHO fairly weak evidence). There's a reason that projects that do major reverse engineering for interoperability have rather elaborate procedures for doing so.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h > you'd have to think the FSF looks bad for suing people for violating the GPL

I agree with your, but there are people who argue this.

<comment><USER38> And I'm one of them. We don't want to alienate the already small number of people who develop Free Software. I would rather see companies who violate the GPL comply rather than seek damages. Actually bringing a suit, in my mind, is basically the nuclear option.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> America better get its act together about computer security.

<comment><USER40> As opposed to whom? Britain? Germany?

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> A new bold step in Microsoft's Open Source endeavors!

</comment><comment><USER42> I guess windows 10 is now open source!</comment>


An Infinitely Large Napkin [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://usamo.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/napkin-2016-07-19.pdf <comment><USER2> This is a draft which is being updated often, the latest version will be linked from here: [http://www.mit.edu/~evanchen/napkin.html](http://www.mit.edu/~evanchen/napkin.html)

That site also contains a description of what this book is and why it exists.

(I know this because I saw it linked from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12429349](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12429349) "learn advanced math without going to university" thread the other day)

</comment><comment><USER3> I read the opening two pages but I'm not sure what this really is. A higher math text book? It looks great though!...

<comment><USER4> Page 4 has a "Preface: Why this exists"</comment></comment>


The sad state of VoIP from browsers - <AUTHOR> https://www.mizu-voip.com/Support/Blog/tabid/100/EntryID/12/Default.aspx <comment><USER2> What about SIP.js? [http://sipjs.com](http://sipjs.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> SIP.js is fine for specific needs, but it doesn't run IE, Edge and Safari and also it doesn't solve the problems listed in the blog post (the many incompatibility issues, server side configurations, codec, TURN setup to bypass corporate firewalls)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: how do you commercialize something like 2048? - <AUTHOR>

Today I went for a talk, and before it started I saw two people with their laptops playing 2048.  Also a tonne of twists on the game have sprung on HN.<p>I was wondering how would the author make money out of this sudden popularity?  Perhaps charge for the mobile platform version? <comment><USER2> Well, he could put ads on the page but most of the target audience would be using some sort of adblocker. Which brings another question... aren't people overly sensitive to the display of ads? They want good quality content, but don't want to pay for that same content and at the same time block the author's alternative of not charging for it (by using ads) I would understand if we were still in the 90's and there were pop-ups everywhere, but nowadays I find most of the ads non-obtrusive.

Sorry I went off-topic. Another way to monetize would be to make an app out of it for the mobile devices.

<comment><USER3> A lot of sites have flash ads with sound or video. And don't always have mute controls, or for that matter any way to tell which tab it's coming from. I stopped going to That Other Tech News Site [1] after this happened to me with one of their ads.

In addition, poorly designed ads (or, for that matter, JavaScript) can leak memory and peg CPU to 100%.

Sometimes your bandwidth is limited, e.g. I'm writing this from a public wifi connection. And if you're on 3G / 4G connection and paying by the megabyte, do you really want video ads? I think not...

[1] [http://slashdot.org](http://slashdot.org)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Have each number tile replaced with a product, EX: Trident pays $X to have its product be the 2 tile or each tile is a different Trident product.

</comment><comment><USER5> 2048 was based off of Threes, which is already commercialized: [http://asherv.com/threes/](http://asherv.com/threes/)</comment>


How to explain gradient boosting - <AUTHOR> http://explained.ai/gradient-boosting/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> Gradient boosting machines (GBMs) are currently very popular and so it's a good idea for machine learning practitioners to understand how GBMs work. The problem is that understanding all of the mathematical machinery is tricky and, unfortunately, these details are needed to tune the hyper-parameters. (Tuning the hyper-parameters is required to get a decent GBM model unlike, say, Random Forests.) Our goal in this article is to explain the intuition behind gradient boosting, provide visualizations for model construction, explain the mathematics as simply as possible, and answer thorny questions such as why GBM is performing "gradient descent in function space." We've split the discussion into three morsels and a FAQ for easier digestion. Written by Terence Parr and Jeremy Howard.

<comment><USER2> > _" The problem is that understanding all of the mathematical machinery is > tricky and, unfortunately, these details are needed to tune the hyper- > parameters."_

You don't need to understand anything about the math to run a random, or grid, or bayesian optimization, or whatever search of the hyperparameter space.

<comment><AUTHOR> True, people use a grid search, but I am always very uncomfortable using things as black boxes. How does tree depth affect generality etc...? Effectively using a model means understanding your tools, in my view, but easy to get started w/o the math as you say!

<comment><USER2> For example look at this tutorial about a regularization hyperparameter:

[https://medium.com/data-design/xgboost-hi-im-gamma-what- can-...](https://medium.com/data-design/xgboost-hi-im-gamma-what-can-i-do-for- you-and-the-tuning-of-regularization-a42ea17e6ab6)

Id think this is much more useful than anything about the math. How much can you deduce thats described there from the math, isn't this all just figured out by playing around with it?

<comment><AUTHOR> The main point of this article is really to explain how gradient boosting works and why. The math is really there to show what the algorithm looks like in its general form. The Discussion of parameters was really just a bit of motivation. Think of this as a good explanation of why it is performing gradient descent in function space. That tends to be very hard to explain.

<comment><USER2> I just disagree with the claim that understanding the mathematical machinery is necessary for tuning hyperparameters. I doubt it is even helpful.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Nokia re-enters U.S. market: $50 Lumia 710 for T-Mobile launches January 11th - <AUTHOR> http://www.bgr.com/2011/12/14/nokia-re-enters-u-s-market-50-lumia-710-for-t-mobile-launches-january-11th/

<comment><USER2> What about the Lumia 800? Any ideas if that is going to show up?</comment>


List of Printers Which Do or Do Not Display Tracking Dots - <AUTHOR> http://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-display-tracking-dots <comment><USER2> It's scary that companies feel the obligation to do the government favors without any actual legal mandate.

(Because if they don't... who knows; their printer shipment could be delayed at customs, their accounting practices could receive extra scrutiny, there could be a witness that says the CEO was seen at the scene of that murder. Who says the US is not a police state?)

Also, why not get one of these yellow-dot printers and just have your printer driver add additional yellow dots to it? Then when you counterfeit money, the Secret Service will go after someone else. BRILLANT.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd rather have one of the printers listed as having yellow tracking dots and yank out the color cartridges.

Its easier to disable a security measure you know than praying there isn't a security measure you don't know.

There is still a chance of a redundancy but I believe it is somewhat lower - as normally companies would do the bare minimum to comply with a directive like this one.

<comment><USER4> > I'd rather have one of the printers listed as having yellow tracking dots > and yank out the color cartridges.

The trouble is that, for one dubious reason or another, a lot of modern laser printers will refuse to print without a complete set of cartridges that report that they contain sufficient toner. Whether the colour in question is actually required and whether enough toner is physically present do not seem to be relevant.

<comment><USER3> That is easily solvable - clog/duct-tape the exit nozzle or tamper with the cartridge test (a lot of the substitute cartridges already disable this)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd like to see a list of actual crimes solved or prevented through the use of these tracking dots.

Because I'm guessing that would be a fast read.

<comment><USER6> On the other hand, I'd like to see a list of actual privacy violations or other problems caused by these tracking dots. I'm guessing that would also be a fast read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can someone clarify for me:

1) Why do manufacturers do this? Is it for their own internal warranty control / tracking, or is there a broader federal mandate motivating this?

2) The dots are only useful in after-the-fact analysis, correct? If I print something and then there's reason to suspect me they can print something, compare, and verify, but there's no mechanism to find the initial document and find the printer, correct?

<comment><USER8> It was intended as a tracking mechanism against counterfeit currency.

<comment><USER9> That's the explanation I've heard given in the past, although I don't know if it's the official one given. The East German Stasi also used to mark typewriters so that they could tell who wrote subversive articles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Does this apply to international printer models as well?

I'm actually a bit spooked by this and it must be illegal somewhere. Well done EFF for publicising this.

I won't be registering my laser printer any time soon.

</comment><comment><USER11> Nitpick here, this is a list of color laser printers only.

<comment><USER12> As I understand it, only color laser printers have the resolution to print these yellow dots at such a small size.

<comment><USER11> Ah, thank you for explaining that. I had thought I had heard about this in other printers as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If we know where the yellow dots go, just print a yellow rectangle over them.

<comment><USER14> What if I don't want a yellow rectangle there?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> By providing this list, they are making it super easy for the secret service to give the "no dot" manufacturers a call/visit (which is who asked for the dots to be on there in the first place if I am not mistaken).

They could always use the lego printer <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1397675>

<comment><USER16> If the Secret Service is relying on the EFF to figure out which printers don't have tracking dots then they might as well just give up and go home.</comment></comment>


Step 1) Install pyre2 2) import re2 as re 3) 10x faster regex - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/axiak/pyre2 <comment><USER2> If you're not familiar with re2, you may be familiar with a couple of other little projects that the author, Russ Cox, is involved with: Go (<http://golang.org/>) and Plan 9 (<http://swtch.com/plan9port/>).

Also, here's a great bit of technical history behind Russ' re2 implementation, and why pyre2 will never be completely compatible with Python's re (without fallback):

<http://swtch.com/~rsc/regexp/regexp1.html>

<http://swtch.com/~rsc/regexp/regexp2.html>

<http://swtch.com/~rsc/regexp/regexp3.html>

<comment><USER3> Google Code Search was his intern project: [http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2006/10/search-worlds- public-...](http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2006/10/search-worlds-public- source-code.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What kind of licensing does this have?

It would be interesting to see if this could make it in Python 3.2 (It's supposed to include the Unladen Swallow stuff, so might as well take more awesomeness from Google.)

<comment><USER5> It won't. It doesn't implement the entire regular expression language Python supports.

<comment><USER6> Could a regex library parse a regular expression and decide reasonably quickly which engine to use?

<comment><USER5> Probably, but python-core has no interest in maintaining multiple regular expression implementations: [http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python- dev/2010-July/101606...](http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python- dev/2010-July/101606.html) (this thread starts talking about regex, which is a backwards compatible enhancement to re, but also covers re2)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I tried using pyre2 and experienced runaway memory usage. I was using re.split. The behaviour went away when I switched to the standard re module. (without changing my code.)

Did anyone else experience this?

The code in question was:

(a, b) = re.split("\n\s*\n", text, maxsplit=1)

Thank you for any insights you may have regarding this.

</comment><comment><USER8> Could this be uploaded to pypi, so that it is available via pip ?

pip install pyre2 -E /tmp/testing

<comment><USER9> If you read the readme under installation, you'll find that it is.

pip install re2 -E /tmp/testing

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm curious. How much of a speedup in regex when using DFA instead of NFA? I believe most regex implementation use NFA but there are well known algorithms to convert NFA to DFA. It should be worth the try.

<comment><USER11> The problem is that in the worst case, converting an NFA to a DFA gives an overhead of 2^n, while keeping it as an NFA only incurs an overhead of m (where m is the regex length).

So, in the worst case (ie, under algorithmic complexity attacks), the NFA implementation is O(m * n), while the complexity of the DFA implementation is - I believe - O(2^m * n)

<comment><USER12> And fortunately, if re2 can not handle one of the regexen that you throw at it, then it will pass it down to Python's original re module (NFA_based). Perfectly seamless.

<comment><USER11> Both re2 and Python are NFA based. The difference, I believe, is that re2 doesn't support backtracking, which changes the worst-case time from linear growth to exponential growth on the input length. (For the snobs, that means that re2 regexes are regular expressions. Python's aren't.)

<comment><USER13> The difference is that re2 avoids backtracking in most cases where Python's normal regular expression engine would use it. And by avoiding backtracking, avoids the possibility of exponential slowdowns.

<comment><USER11> Isn't that what I just said?

<comment><USER13> No. "Doesn't support backtracking" suggests that it doesn't support features that re backtracks for. In fact it does.

Also it is technically possible for re2 to (although it doesn't currently do this) add backtracking to its current strategy. If it did this, then it could offer all features of re, but would frequently be much faster. However I would not permanently rule that possibility out.

<comment><USER11> I'm talking about the C++ re2 engine, not the Python wrapper.

<comment><USER13> So was I.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


This Porsche Magazine Ad Brings the 911 to Life as a Floating Hologram - <AUTHOR> http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/ad-day-porsche-magazine-ad-brings-911-life-floating-hologram-170495 <comment><USER2> > Pretty cool! Perhaps not "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi" cool, but impressive > nonetheless.

this sums it up well.</comment>


Show HN: Pilvy VPN – An Easy to Use VPN Solution - <AUTHOR> https://www.pilvy.com/products/vpn-server <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone! I've been working on a new VPN solution for a few months, and decided it's time to ship something, even if it's not finished yet. It's a VPN server with minimal UI clients for desktop and and command-line clients for major platforms. Currently, it speaks a custom binary VPN protocol over TLS/TCP, but will adopt a Noise Protocol Framework based one later. I'm building it for companies that need a turnkey remote access solution for their employees with some "enterprisey" features but without the price tag. It's currently in beta, but I'd love any feedback on what you'd like to see in a simpler VPN solution :)</comment>


My First Exec Experience - <AUTHOR> http://darylyeo.com/exec/

<comment><USER2> Great write up, I never considered using Exec for moving. Certainly would be easier than going through the pain that is renting and returning something from U-Haul/Enterprise/etc.</comment>


Vermont has passed single-payer universal health care - <AUTHOR> http://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2013/11/health-insurance-problems-keep-arising-vermont-offers-ray-hope

<comment><USER2> Every single single-payer system has ended up costing far more than even the most pessimistic estimates predicted. It will be interesting to see if Vermont can do better. Costs have been rising so fast in the US that I can imagine this might be the outlier.

</comment><comment><USER3> How does this affect physicians?

</comment><comment><USER4> As a business owner, I support this b/c it makes my life simpler. I produce products with plant, equipment and human labor. My core competency is not and should never be understanding the intricacies of health insurance.</comment>


Live small, be happy? The next new big thing - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20150420-why-small-is-the-new-big-thing?ocid=fbcptl

<comment><USER2> already submitted 5 days ago, with discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9412956](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9412956)</comment>