Welcome to the United States: Discriminated, detained, searched, interrogated - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/discriminated-detained-searched-interrogated-at-the-united-states-border-7000020045/ <comment><USER2> I'm being detained because -

A) I'm not the right skin color.

B) DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection are evil.

-or-

C) I work for a group that has been classified as an eco-terrorist organization. And due to past terrorist events my org was involved in, they want to find out what I'm doing here.

Doesn't C) explain this so much better than A) and B)?

But then there wouldn't be a story here to report on.

<comment><USER3> C) after having been actively attacked by some State special forces [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior)

edit: I keep thinking about that, and I don't know how you don't become crazy when you discover that the four or fifth biggest economy (at the time) actively attacked you. A "sane" level of paranoia doesn't exists anymore, you are actually framed by the secret services, you are in the novel, in the movie. They have allies all over the world, the rest is USSR friends you don't trust either or non-aligned third world countries.

<comment><USER4> Exactly - I don't generally support Greenpeace, but there is no doubt they were a victim of state-sponsored terrorism - the state being France. Actually, it's the only terrorist attack we've ever had in New Zealand, and it resulted in a civilian's death.

France threatened to embargo NZ goods within the EU unless we handed back their terrorists. At which point they were released and promoted.

<comment><USER3> And now some of them work in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If it doesn't already exist someone should make an Iphone and/or android app that will let you lock your phone before you go through customs, and only allow you to unlock it at a specified time and/or place. For instance 5 hours after landing at the location of your booked hotel.

That way you won't be able to divulge information held on your phone, even if you wanted to.

<comment><USER6> Overkill. Cross borders clean. I reset my phone every time I cross any border. And then resync everything I need on the other side. I have a TrueCrypt volume I download to my travel laptop. It's small but contains what I need when abroad.

<comment><USER7> Sorry, but I fail to see how an app locking you out is more overkill than wiping all of your devices every time you cross a border.

<comment><USER6> Depends on what you mean by overkill. Effort? Then yes. Security? Then no. If the data is there but inaccessible you can be detained until it is. If the data isn't there to begin with, there's no reason to detain you.

<comment><USER7> I'd call that more of an effectiveness thing than overkill. And it would be possible for an app to not unlock the phone until it enters a certain geofence, like the hotel.

<comment><USER6> That wouldn't work in the UK, where not providing plain text when asked carries a prison sentence.

<comment><USER7> The app wouldn't accept a password, just a time and location to unlock. I'm not sure if that's better, but it technically sidesteps that issue.

<comment><USER6> I said plain text, not password. And it doesn't side-step anything because when you're in front of a judge and explain why you cannot provide plain text, they'll take your phone from you, get it to the location you tell them, and if none of that yields plain text, you go to jail. Two years, they give you for that.

<comment><USER8> Who has gotten two years for that and lost the appeals?

<comment><USER6> [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/06/jail_password_ripa/](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/06/jail_password_ripa/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I fail to see how everyone is now considered to be a potential terrorist simply because some (mostly) Saudi nationals hijacked a few planes 11 years ago.

It is an affront to our dignity, especially in light of the fact that "General Aviation" (Private jets) terminals are not held to the same level of scrutiny.

[http://www.tsa.gov/stakeholders/security- directives](http://www.tsa.gov/stakeholders/security-directives)

[http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/practical-travel-safety- issue...](http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/practical-travel-safety- issues/1205769-bypassing-tsa-way-general-aviation.html)

<comment><USER10> I had the privilege of flying on a private plane this summer. "Not held to the same level of scrutiny" is a major understatement. There were no checks whatsoever, only a gate with a keypad standing between us and the airplane. We could travel with whatever we wanted on the plane. Yes, we had as many duffle bags as there were people, and no, nobody was even around to ask what was inside those bags.

It is a clear illustration of the utter pointlessness of the TSA checkpoints. The kind of terrorists who attacked us in 2001 could have used a private plane packed with C4 just as easily as a commercial jet.

<comment><USER11> Federal agents have lately been doing more searches of general-aviation aircraft. Typically on landing, when the filed flight plan had the plane coming from a state where marijuana has been decriminalized.

<comment><USER12> Doing the checks on landing doesn't address security though (rather than just drugs), so the airport checks are definitely pointless from that point of view. It's to show the public that politicians are 'tough on crime', even if they're not entirely committed to actually improving anything

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "It is an international legal phenomenon that is left much to the discretion of host countries."

Yes it is. Every country has this power, and every country uses this power as it wishes. There are plenty of countries that I have no hope whatever of visiting.

</comment><comment><USER14> > In the 2011 DHS document, the CBP says it can conduct a "brief physical > inspection," such as switching a device on, to demonstrate that it is not a > container for illegal substances, but it has the right to "search [...] the > device's contents." A device can also be detained, which can result in a > copy of the data contained on the device being stored for latest forensic > searches. And a copy of the data can be used for "evidence of continued or > future admissibility." Device detentions can are often returned within seven > days, but can be extended up to 14 days, the document says.

This means: If you don't want to give random people your data, you can simply not travel with any devices such as a phone, laptop, tablet, USB stick, SD card.

I'm speechless.

<comment><USER9> <sarcasm> Velcome to ze new millenia, ve are ze government, ve are here to help, trust us! </sarcasm>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Well, that's US-American imperialism for you: declare de-facto jurisdiction over everything, afford rights to nobody. Be that at the US border or at US- run detention facilities outside the US like Guantanamo.

<comment><USER16> We are about to launch another war from our military bases in Germany. The fatherland's moral outrage is laughable.

<comment><USER17> Explain?

<comment><USER16> Germany is enabling the US to continue with these ridiculous escapades by not closing US bases for some minuscule economic gain. If you believe these wars, Iraq, Afghanistan and soon Syria are terrible but want to keep the bases you are a hypocrite and either way as culpable for civilian deaths as any American. Many in Germany are upset about these wars, virtually none want to close the bases. Serious willful disconnect there.

<comment><USER18> The only way for Germany to close the US bases is for Germany to declare war on the US. Seriously! US bases in Germany are US territory ..

<comment><USER10> Germany does not have to allow US airplanes or vehicles to travel through their country to and from those bases...

<comment><USER19> That strategy didn't work well for East Germany as a way of shutting down the US presence in Berlin.

<comment><USER15> Actually, the US, the UK and France had contracts with the Soviets that guaranteed them access to Berlin by air. They didn't have correspnding contracts for access via streets and railways, though, that's why the Soviets could block food trucks but not the airlift.

The contracts only allowed very specific air corridors (3, to be precise), which is one of the points why the airlift was so hard to implement at full capacity.

The Allied forces had quite extensive rights in all the other sectors, and not just in Berlin. For example, military vehicles were considered extraterritorial, and had to be let in. And that's what the US and the UK did: they drove into East Germany and rather openly spied on Soviet troop movements and maneuvers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> All that's missing from US borders now are the pneumatic flechette firing motion detectors...

Think nail guns with motion detectors...

Your travel papers please, Komrade!

</comment><comment><USER20> Why worry about borders when even ex-STASI members have declared they would have loved to had (at their times) the suirvellance tools USA has right now.

Are you serious about your privacy? Never use social networks, crypt everything and never fly to or through USA.

Oh, and by the way now I can welcome myself in the one percenters. :)

</comment><comment><USER21> Has anyone created a simple, anonymous app (webapp?) to rate your experience going through customs / tsa security? It would: geolocate, allow you to choose airport, entry or exit, and then rate a few parameters of the experience with optional comment.

Would love to see data like this in aggregate.

</comment><comment><USER22> That's a massive number of travelers crossing the border and a small percentage of those have a bad intent. We often jump at the first opportunity to criticize about our "first world" rights but do we have a better solution to keep the country safe? I bet many of you don't like the cops ticketing you for over-speeding either. But it keeps the roads safe... for the remaining & from the remaining 98%.

<comment><USER23> I've never done anything illegal ( not even a speeding ticket). All my documents are clean and valid. Yet, I've been called a 'dog' that needs to be 'kicked out' by an 'immigration officer'. I am not sure how that keeps America safe.

<comment><USER22> Just because of a few bad apples (immigration officer), you think we should remove all airport screening?

Your grief is reasonable but what recourse do you suggest?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> article starts with a general overview, then explains the numbers (a really small sub section of travellers get into trouble at the border, most for very good reasons like warrants).

and then the article takes a u-turn and focuses on a special case. someone associated to an eco terrorist association. what the fuck.

ever seen what happens in frankfurt if one of the border agents suspects you of smuggling? off you go. they trawl the airport, pick you out of the crowd. they even show this in some reality tv shows, hope you like being on camera.

how about you travel a bit more? any major country has border control, they all are very, very similar.

and what the hell are the mini james bonds in here doing that needs them to truecrypt their shit and wipe their phones? you have HN, github, whatever accounts, you code in public but you need to hide your files? the fuck are you storing on your hds that is not public knowledge? travelling with your porn collection?

<comment><USER10> "the fuck are you storing on your hds that is not public knowledge?"

Personal emails to my fiance? Personal photographs that I am not posting all over the Internet? Business secrets, maybe things that I had to sign an NDA for? How about this: if you have nothing to hide on your hard drive, send me a disk dump and let me look through. If you do not want me looking through it, why should I feel OK with the CBP looking through mine?

"travelling with your porn collection?"

Suppose someone only has one laptop (shocking!). Would it be that crazy to think that they might be traveling with their porn collection?

<comment><USER24> i went through 2 passports in the last 6 years, ran out of space.

travelling with company laptops and now additional iPads. never, ever, did anyone want to search my HD. and this is Russia, China, Japan, SKorea, US, Brazil, Argentinia, plus 80% of Europe. none, ever.

and even if. good luck with some powerpoints, pdfs, word docs. emails are in gmail, work is JIRA/confluence/google docs, etc. NDAs talk about preventing willful sharing with competitors, etc. Reasonable prevention measures, like locking your computer. Border Patrol requesting access? go ahead. unless you're a nuclear physicist working on the next gen thing, what the hell is so important to hide from a border agent that right now wants to search YOU, not your precious employer.

and porn - the internet is for porn.

<comment><USER10> You asked what sort of things I might have on my hard drive that I do not want strangers to view. I gave you answers. Your solution is to store all those things on Google's servers, and then still let CBP look through them if they ask. You go ahead and do that, I will be over here using dm-crypt and PGP to keep my private things private.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Braintree vs. Stripe vs. Paymill vs. Amazon Payments - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
What payment system(s) do you use and why? The info we have gathered so far indicates that Stripe and Braintree are the best options (eg, price, support, ecosystem etc.).
Background: we are looking into a payment system for https://www.recurvoice.com (located in Belgium, Europe).
Thanks! <comment><USER2> I have used both Braintree and Stripe in various systems, the quick and simple takeaway was that Braintree had a great program but had lengthy verification processes for us as a company (this was a couple of years ago). Stripe was up and running in no time and now my go-to CC processor.</comment>


Feeding cows seaweed cuts 99% of greenhouse gas emissions from their burps - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/cows-seaweed-methane-burps-cut-greenhouse-gas-emissions-climate-change-research-a8368911.html <comment><USER2> An earlier HN post about the same topic: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17036221](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17036221)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a perfect example of why "sin taxes" like the proposed tax on meat[1][2] to fight climate change are a bad idea.

You need to tax the externality (greenhouse gas emissions), not an activity which currently causes such emissions, because then you don't have any incentives left (such as in this case) for industries to reduce those emissions.

1\. [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/11/meat- tax...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/11/meat-tax- inevitable-to-beat-climate-and-health-crises-says-report)

2\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_tax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_tax)

<comment><USER4> Some externalities are hard to tax. For example, consumption of red meat probably increases cancer risk [1]. We can't introduce a tax on cancer, but we still want to reduce the occurrence of cancer, so all that's left is taxing red meat.

[1]: [http://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red- meat/en/](http://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/)

<comment><USER5> What about letting people make their own choices without trying to social engineer them, which is essentially forcing our values onto them?

<comment><USER6> "But temperance also can be created by coercion. Taxing is a good coercive device. To keep downtown shoppers temperate in their use of parking space we introduce parking meters for short periods, and traffic fines for longer ones. We need not actually forbid a citizen to park as long as he wants to; we need merely make it increasingly expensive for him to do so. Not prohibition, but carefully biased options are what we offer him. A Madison Avenue man might call this persuasion; I prefer the greater candor of the word coercion."

\-- The Tragedy of the Commons

I recommend the whole paper as a good think on the unintended consequences of not biasing the options of people away from collective irresponsibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice, so we should just farm manatees? :)

Joking aside, for the more curious, the article mentions work by Australian scientists exploring the idea in 2015: _The red macroalgae Asparagopsis taxiformis is a potent natural antimethanogenic that reduces methane production during in vitro fermentation with rumen fluid_

> > [http://www.publish.csiro.au/an/AN15576](http://www.publish.csiro.au/an/AN15576)

</comment><comment><USER8> I've been seeing this same story for what feels like a decade now. Anyone know why this hasn't been implemented yet?

<comment><USER9> >Anyone know why this hasn't been implemented yet?

The same story for anything. The market pressure to precipitate this change isn't there yet.

<comment><USER8> Is that really true though? There's plenty of market pressure for green products generally. If you could label your meat as being "low emission" or something, I think a lot of consumers would prefer that. I certainly would.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So the clarification is "from their burps". What does it do to the greenhouse gas emissions from their farts?

<comment><USER11> or getting the seaweed there, or growing enough seaweed

<comment><USER12> Growing and delivering the seaweed is among the smallest problems to solve. The animal agriculture industry already involves growing and shipping billions of pounds of feed. This is just a different type of feed, and it is seemingly only needed in tiny quantities, so it will be dwarfed by other expenses related to raising cattle for consumption.

The only thing missing is a profit motive...without taxes and regulations that internalize those external environmental costs, there's no motivation for cattle producers to add even this small cost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What happens to the molecules that would have become methane: what do they become instead?

<comment><USER14> Methane is just CH4. I suspect it's not produced anymore on the partial- seaweed diet.

<comment><USER15> But it then it is diverted to other pathways. It could become meat, milk, or manure.

I don't think there's a lot of aerobic activity going on in the rumen, so at least we know that it isn't immediately turned into CO2 (even if that would have been a win, methane is 10 times worse a greenhouse gas).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Really interesting, and potentially highly relevant to New Zealand where our many cows and sheep make up about a third of our emissions. Since cows produce quite variable emissions it sounds quite credible that some out of the box thinking like feeding seaweed could actually work in cutting emissions.

> ([https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/science/greenhouse- > gases/...](https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/science/greenhouse- > gases/agricultural-greenhouse-gases/methane-emissions)): Measurements of > methane emission rates on sheep and dairy cows have repeatedly shown that > the variability of emissions between individual animals is large (e.g. for > young sheep grazing the same pasture, emission rates varied from 9 to 35 > g/day per sheep). While this variability may one day be exploited to reduce > methane release by selecting for low-emitting animals, it is not well > understood.

<comment><USER17> this news has made the run once a year since I was in high school

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257589662_Methane_p...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257589662_Methane_production_and_theoretical_consumption_in_UK_livestock_production_Is_a_realistic_balance_possible)

so there's something to it that doesn't add up. either the economics of producing enough algae make it infeasible, or other factors come into play like milk/meat taste or even what to do with pastures if they aren't used for pasturing, it's not like you can grow stuff there.

<comment><USER9> Basic economics. There's no reason why farmers should switch to more expensive feed even if its better for the environment or cows. At least near term they will end up selling the same meat for a higher price to compensate for the feed, will sell less meat due to the price, ultimately hurting profits, and the plan will be scorned until it's abandoned. It doesn't even matter that seaweed is cheap and resource-light to farm, nor does it matter that only a small amount of this compound needs to be put in the feed. Shareholders will not tolerate more overhead unless forced.

This is the perfect place for government action to incentivize switching to this kind of feed, be it subsidy or tax break. Pollution is sadly profitable, and corporations need to be either fined for polluting or incentivized for reducing pollution; shareholders rarely see beyond quarterly profits, let alone the great economic consequences of pollution a century down the line.

<comment><USER16> Perhaps this is why we might lose the battle on climate change. Its the ultimate tragedy of the commons and we are genuinely all in it together.

It takes not government action, but global action. Why would producers in e.g. Germany put up with a carbon tax (or a methane tax) if producers in the US have their fingers in their ears, denying that climate change is a thing at all?

I believe the only way action will ever happen is if a global enforcement agency imposes environmental taxes on the world and backs it up with force. Its hard to even imagine what the world would look like as something like that comes to pass.

At the same time its a good thing to be preparing some solutions, e.g. carbon capture, seaweed eating cows. Just in case the world comes to its senses and decides to actually deploy/enforce said solutions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Unless we start farming seaweed not sure how we can feed all the cows we eat seaweed.

<comment><USER19> _To produce feed that the cows enjoy, the researchers cut a small amount of red seaweed with cattle feed and molasses._

You only need to add a little seaweed to the cows' regular food.

<comment><USER18> Yep and I guess if it is only California dairy cows then that wouldn't be a lot either. Time to think about farming seaweed :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> But does it change the taste of the meat? This is the real question and a deal breaker for many.

Grass fed meat is gamy than grain fed/finished, so I can imagine seaweed imparts an fishy taste to the fat and probably to the milk also.

<comment><USER21> Taste was my first thought as well, but rather than fishy, I would think if anything it might almost act as a tenderizer, adding natural sodium and umami to the meat. That does assume that the cows are eating it in a quantity where it makes any difference, but if yellow flowers can change the color of the milk, I don't know why seaweeds wouldn't do _something_ to the taste.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I am not sure if the word inhumane can be applied to animals but reading about innovations in meat industry usually makes me sad. I am not advocating that everybody should become a vegan, but cutting one's meat consumption by let's say 75% (eat meat every other day and cut your portions in half) shouldn't be that hard.

</comment><comment><USER23> IANA Biologist etc, but isn't the problem their gas emissions from the other end of the cow? Isn't this like some new tech eliminating all the carbon emissions from using the radio in a car, cool but not the problem?

<comment><USER24> "...90 to 95 percent of the methane released by cows comes out of their mouths, while 5 to 10 percent is released in the form of manure and flatulence."

[https://ideas.ted.com/methane-isnt-just-cow-farts-its- also-c...](https://ideas.ted.com/methane-isnt-just-cow-farts-its-also-cow- burps-and-other-weird-facts-you-didnt-know-about-this-potent-greenhouse-gas/)

<comment><USER25> I guess farting out of your mouth is a side-effect of having two stomachs.

<comment><USER26> Four stomachs!

[https://www2.kenyon.edu/projects/farmschool/food/milkbio.htm](https://www2.kenyon.edu/projects/farmschool/food/milkbio.htm)

<comment><USER25> Today is truly a great day for the expansion of my trivial knowledge!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This just feels like propaganda from the meat industry. For every bit of scientific research touting the demerits of industrial-scale farming, the meat industry is incentivized to fight back.

<comment><USER28> That's great though! If the action that the "meat industry" takes is action that reduces its environmental impact, then we win!

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Also, we'd get seaweed flavoured beef! Wins all around.

</comment><comment><USER30> I wonder if it affects the flavor of the milk.

<comment><USER31> For sure it does. People in Europe pay a premium for "high mountains cow milk" ("Alpenmilch").

I had the impression that US milk has no taste but always thought it's just in my mind. But when I was in Colombia I met a guy from Switzerland who studied in Canada and said:"Oh wow, the milk here really tastes good like in Europe. Not like in Canada." So the milk in Europe and North America must indeed taste different. It is not just in my head.

<comment><USER32> Milk is pasteurized differently in the US vs Europe. I'd bet that has the most impact on taste.

<comment><USER30> Are you referring to UHT (shelf-stable) vs. "normal" pasteurization? Both types are available in the US and Europe but probably to different degrees. In southern Europe I definitely encountered more UHT than in my native Germany.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Can't a cow just eat what it wants?? Why put it on some superficial diet ?? is it not equal to saying all humans should eat one type of food to reduce global warming ?

<comment><USER34> Sorry to break it to you, but we force cows to do all sorts of things they'd rather not.</comment></comment>


Here are the most infuriating details of Amazon's HQ2 deals - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90267287/here-are-the-most-infuriating-details-of-amazons-hq2-deals <comment><USER2> 33 million break for 700 jobs for 2019? Does that go away after 2019 and also the jobs number increases?</comment>


No, Soundcloud Won't Be Forced to Shut Down Due to $44M in Operating Losses - <AUTHOR> http://dancemusicnw.com/no-soundcloud-wont-shut-down-44m-losses/ <comment><USER2> It's a bit provocative to compare Amazon's chart against Soundcloud's... Everyone knew Soundcloud is losing money, but unlike Amazon in the last years, that seems like a lot of money for a company their size and in their ecosystem. I wish them the best but it doesn't look good...

<comment><USER3> Amazon is in retail, a notoriously difficult industry. Even today, it does less than 20% of Walmart's net sales and has less than 10% as many employees. People wrote the same style of articles about it for years and years. Amazon is still around because it was growing and could keep raising capital. It did so through two recessions, no less.

That doesn't mean SoundCloud won't tank. But it will tank because it hits a wall in terms of growth without a potential revenue model that works at a large scale.

<comment><USER2> I wonder, was Amazon losing money at the same scale? The graph in the article shows revenue is huge in contrast to loses, while it keeps growing while losses are stable. For soundcloud, increase in revenue means an even bigger increase in losses. That said, I don't know how it was for Amazon at the beginning. It is clearly that in the last years Amazon was willingly operating at losses, because it needed AWS to be competitive enough to dominate that market, so it was clearly an investment in the future rather than a struggle, from it's strong online retailer position which was making lots of money...</comment></comment></comment>


China Is Trying to Give the Internet a Death Blow - <AUTHOR> http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/25/china-is-trying-to-give-the-internet-a-death-blow-vpn-technology/?utm_content=buffer850a7&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer <comment><USER2> What a terrible website. It's so full of ads that I couldn't even read the article. Please avoid posting links to such trashy sites.</comment>


Freeciv-web WebGL 3D engine competition - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/freeciv/freeciv-webgl-competition <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone! Feel free to post suggestions about how an open source project like Freeciv-web can encourage developers to help create a 3d engine for an open source project!

<comment><USER2> There's always the open source PlayCanvas Game Engine. Why re-invent the wheel? [https://github.com/playcanvas/engine](https://github.com/playcanvas/engine)</comment></comment>


What No Fan Has Seen Before: Remastering Deep Space Nine to Maximum Quality - <AUTHOR> https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/314653-remastering-deep-space-nine <comment><USER2> Remastering means you take the master and digitise it again using better techniques. Taking a dvd and upscaling it is not remastering.

<comment><USER3> Not necessarily. Digitally animated movies (where the original project files are lost) have been remastered. A proper remaster would involve going frame by frame and smoothing errors from upscaling.</comment></comment>


Remind HN: Make Backups for 2FA - <AUTHOR> My phone died unexpected yesterday morning (unrecoverable random hardware failure). This means that if I hadn't bothered to make backup codes a few years ago for my google account, I would have been locked out of signing in through the authentication app (installed only on my phone) and through text-based authentication codes, because I use project fi and I don't have another compatible phone that I could put my sim card in.<p>Just a reminder of the frustrating situations that some of you might find yourself in if you use 2FA the same way I do. <comment><USER2> I actually use an older iPhone that sits in a drawer as a secondary 2FA device. Just scan the barcode on both devices and you have a good backup to help recover accounts that don't provide printable codes.

<comment><USER3> I do similarly and also print out barcodes/recovery keys and put them in a safe place in case all else fails. Echoing some wise words from this post [1], insure your backup solution can be restored. I tend to test the QR code on my primary phone, print out a few copies for safe keeping, and then read the QR code from the printout into Ng backup phone.

[1][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13551905](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13551905)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When my phone dies, I sync my 2FA keys to another one.

[https://www.authy.com/blog/how-the-authy-two-factor- backups-...](https://www.authy.com/blog/how-the-authy-two-factor-backups- work/)

I have an old Android phone in a drawer to pop my SIM into until I get a proper replacement.

</comment><comment><USER5> I keep all my 2FA stuff in 1Password, with all my crazy long passwords and random answers to security questions. Unfortunately doesn't work with Authy (used by Cloudflare) so that's separate, but they allow recovery via your phone number anyway. I also do some extra daily backups of my 1Password database, GPG encrypted and stored online, just in case.

</comment><comment><USER6> 2FA recovery codes are one of the few things I print out just because of the implication when the backup failed like in your case.

<comment><USER7> Is this enough redundancy? I can see a natural disaster wiping out your residence and losing both the paper copies and your phone.</comment></comment>


Hansel and Gretel Marketing - How Barneys Entices Customers to Come Back - <AUTHOR> http://www.picwing.com/blog/?p=1366

<comment><USER2> This and other sales tricks are explained in Cialdini's "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion".

I really like that book because it made me feel more conscious about those tricks, even though it's mostly stuff "everybody knows".

</comment><comment><USER3> "The tactic works pyschologically to make her feel indebted"

I've had similar feelings toward free offers and I'm sure it's a common occurrence.</comment>


Why Good Developers are Promoted into Unhappiness - <AUTHOR> http://www.softwarebyrob.com/archive/2007/07/06/Why_Good_Developers_Promoted_into_Unhappiness.aspx <comment><USER2> This is a much repeated notion, but I've never worked anywhere good developers are promoted into management. Tons of bad developers end up in management, though...

<comment><USER3> Am I right in guessing you've worked for smallish organizations? I've seen some amazing programmers promoted, mostly as a mechanism to pay them more. I've even seen one forced to quit after not accepting repeated promotion attempts.

IMHO the single most important advice for any hacker who wants to be happy is to avoid large organizations, even Google. Large organizations are the plague, a small company is good medicine, and your own startup is the cure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a good article. I've been through something very similar myself. I spent about 5 years as a manager, and I don't really want to do "spreadsheet" management again. I want to own my project, and I don't mind being the lead with a small team, but I never want to be the "status updater" again.

This reminds me of a phrase that irritates the $^%^ out of me - "Better a good programmer than a bad manager." Of course, it's true - better a good anything than a bady anything, right? But here are the two phrases that nobody seems to say...

"Better a good manager than a bad programmer".

and finally...

"Better a good manager than a good programmer?" or is it "better a good programmer than a good manager?"

In many organizations, I'm convinced that the second is true. Bad managers do have the ability to ruin a team, and so you need to make sure that you have a decent level of talent there. But for a lot of companies, especially small ones working on innovative things (read: startups), the top techincal talent is vastly more important.

In other words, if you have someone who could be a great technical contributor _and_ a great technical manager, you're better off with the technical contributions.

</comment><comment><USER5> Rob's piece is an excellent reflection on keeping to ones integrity, and finding a balance in the role that best fits one's passion. I've been around managers who are proud of their job as a over-the-shoulder screaming maniac, and managers that sleep during meetings. Until designs and projects are clearly defined, and individuals feel capable to independently fulfill the task, bad managers, pigeonholed managers, appear to be the corporate solution.

</comment><comment><USER6> Perhaps this is a case of "the grass is always greener on the other side."</comment>


U+9940AW - <AUTHOR> http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/9940/index.htm <comment><USER2> Looks like fileformat.info incorrectly lists characters in the CJK Unified Ideographs block as invalid, except for the first, U+4E00. Bit embarrassing, but not exactly front page material.

<comment><USER3> Can you go into a little bit more detail? I'm curious but not quite following.

<comment><USER2> The submitted page says "U+9940 is not a valid unicode character.", but displays all the information about the character as usual. This is not the case for [http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/4e00/index.htm](http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/4e00/index.htm) which is the first character of the CJK Unified Ideographs block that U+9940 is part of. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CJK_Unified_Ideographs_(Unicod...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CJK_Unified_Ideographs_\(Unicode_block\))</comment></comment></comment>


New Job, Mandatory Overtime? What Would You Do? - <AUTHOR> I was recently (December 2018) hired as a full-time software at a fairly large and well-known company. Things were going quite well at first, shortly after I joined we lost two key development resources - one senior developer was fired, and the other gave his 2 week notice just after Christmas, and was let go instead of being given a chance to finish his project. We have monthly deliverables, and losing two key resources in the middle of a release cycle is obviously going to have some negative consequences. After we (obviously) missed our January deliverable goal for 2 of the 5 projects we were realsing, management called a meeting with the entire development team, chewed us out for missing these deadlines, and informed us that we would be required to work 3 hours of mandatory overtime each day until we are "caught up". There is no clear definition of when we will be "caught up", and from our meeting is is clear that the problems started many months before I joined the company. According to the one in charge, we are nine months behind where we should be at this time.
My question is this - if you found yourself in this position, being forced to work 15 hours/week of mandatory overtime seemingly indefinitely - what would you do?  I've made my thoughts on the situation well known at work, but there doesn't appear to be any change.
Management doesn't seem to understand that they're going to lose their entire team and moist likely cause the entire department to get shut down.  Literally every single developer on the team is currently lining up interviews and getting ready to jump ship. Is this our only option? Has anyone been in this situation before that can offer some insight? <comment><USER2> Start looking for a new job. Never go down with a ship you don't own.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's the current thinking of... well, basically the entire team. I genuinely like the people I work with, and I kind of don't want the entire department to fail, but management seems incapable of making good decisions. Seriously, our top developer gave two weeks notice, and offered to finish up his project that was due in two weeks before he left. Management got angry at him for "abandoning" the team and told him to just go home and they'd pay him for the two weeks! This is 100000% why this project didn't go out on time, and now we are being forced to work overtime to make up for their blunders. As you can probably tell, I'm very frustrated about this...

<comment><USER3> "I genuinely like the people I work with", if they all plan to leave, there isn't any team left. "I kind of don't want the entire department to fail", that's the responsibility of management and will be on them, not you. Don't try to save an organization with incompetent managers. Like others said, run from this place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Another question... would you guys just wait until you have another offer in hand and give your 2 weeks notice, or would you let management know that you're planning on leaving if things don't change?

I'm leaning towards just giving my notice when I have a new offer, because I don't really trust management enough to see that I'm trying to be fair and help them out... I imagine I'd get a big "FU, don't let the door hit you on the way out" if I even hinted that I was going to leave if things don't improve.

</comment><comment><USER4> TL;DR: My advice to you is to get out fast. As more people leave, the further behind the company will get, and the more pressure and blame will be placed upon those who stay.

This is sounds suspiciously like my last employer (before I started my own business). I had started in November, and just a couple of days before Christmas, management announced all Christmas vacations were cancelled, and we were expected to be at work on Christmas Day. They relented after every single person under the CIO (including Jewish, Islamic, and Hindu faiths--hey, company paid vacations unify world religions!) said the company would have their resignations within minutes unless they reversed their decision. They did.

But within the next couple of months, they started having rounds of layoffs. First, senior management (including CIO). Then down the line. Unbeknownst to everyone, the owner had put the company up for sale, and the Christmas thing was to try to get people to quit in order to avoid unemployment tax hikes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for taking the time to reply, I really appreciate it. Your advice is in-line with my current thoughts and plans, I'm just trying to figure out if there's any alternative or anything I haven't considered. I'm already well on my way to moving on, but hearing that I'm making the right decision will help push me into taking action sooner.

<comment><USER5> My suggestion - for the future of course - save up an "FU" fund - 6 months of your current salary (gross or net is up to you). Having such a thing available makes these kinds of decisions more bearable (not easier - just bearable) no matter how long you've been at a company. The more you can save, the better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Run</comment>


Minecraft developers (Mojang) announce second game - <AUTHOR> http://www.scrolls.com/

<comment><USER2> The most impressive thing, imo, is that he got scrolls.com. :P</comment>


Hololens pre-orders starting tomorrow, ships in 30 days - <AUTHOR> http://mspoweruser.com/hololens-pre-orders-starting-tomorrow-ships-in-30-days/ <comment><USER2> Hololens really does sound like an absolutely extraordinary and revolutionary product. I'm genuinely excited to try it.

...And then I see mention of Skype, which is a product that -- since its acquisition by Microsoft -- has gone steadily downhill in terms of its form, functionality, stability, security, and essentially every other metric. It's hard to find anybody who doesn't loathe it. There's some serious cognitive dissonance in trying to contemplate Hololens and Skype simultaneously.

Actually, I had the same reaction when Hololens was first announced. "OMG, the future is here! Thank you Microsoft!" I thought, and then immediately spent the next 6 hours tracking down an idiotic standards-compliance bug which existed in every version of Internet Explorer up until IE 11.[1]

I could go on at some length, but suffice to say that I am routinely _astonished_ by Microsoft's R&D capabilities, yet virtually every interaction I have with their actual software leaves me with a dire impression. (Except for Excel, which for some reason Just Works for me). So as much as I want to have high hopes for Hololens, I fear that crappy software will let it down.

Please, Microsoft -- prove me wrong!

1: window.location.origin, if you really want to know.

<comment><USER3> I love that MS tries to push the boundaries with new tech and ideas, but I absolutely loathe them because of their fake marketing of the products they actually do end up creating. Let me take this moment to remind everyone of the Kinect teaser [1]. Now watch the Hololens teaser again [2]. They couldn't deliver the Kinect as advertised 6 years ago, and the fact is they won't be able to deliver the Hololens either as advertised. $3000 is a lot of money to put on a lie.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2qlHoxPioM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2qlHoxPioM)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aThCr0PsyuA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aThCr0PsyuA)

<comment><USER4> I am not a gamer, but I bought an XBox 360 and Kinect because it had the messenger app and my parents 10000 miles away can see their grandkids who are always running around. And it worked really well. Then one day, they dropped support for messenger. Now, if you want to have the same functionality, you have to get an XBOX One that integrates with Skype. Several people complained in Microsoft forums about taking away a functionality they explicitly paid for. They were greeted with a link to the legal Terms of Service. That is it. I am not going to get something from a company that does this bait and switch.

<comment><USER5> Ouch, I'd not heard about that particular bit of functionality removal.

<comment><USER4> They removed a perfectly working functionality. At the time of removal they said it was because they wanted to bring in Skype to XBOX 360. But skype never came to Xbox 360 and it came only in XBox One. This entire feature that is touted in this video [1] is not available in Xbox 360 now. And I bought an XBox 360 because Microsoft's marketing material said it is available.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I tried the hololens at the Microsoft store on fifth avenue. I got 3 five minute demos: a 3d modeling app, a wristwatch marketing presentation and the robots attack video game. The device is really quite amazing. Being wireless seems like a big deal to me. The limited field of view is certainly an issue, but seeing objects suspended in front of you is surreal and futuristic. With cardboard and oculus I got motion sickness. Holo lens didn't cause vertigo, but it made me feel like I had eye fatigue. I don't know a better way to describe it. The possibilities for these devices are amazing, I hope they live up to the expectation.

To me the killer app for these would be football replays and extra overlays beyond TV.

<comment><USER7> This. "The limited field of view is certainly an issue".

I hope this is eliminated in future versions. The Epson Moverio has this issue too and it is very awkward seeing a rectangle of available AR. I haven't tried the Hololens yet but I hear it is still there.

p.s. The Virtual Reality NYC meetup is actually hosted inside Microsoft each month. They have given any talks or demos on the Hololens since I have been going. I hope this will change with this announcement!

[http://www.meetup.com/Virtual-Reality-NYC/](http://www.meetup.com/Virtual- Reality-NYC/)

<comment><USER8> I think the FOV limitations are a result of decisions made based on current tech capabilities. While I'm sure they could've made something with much wider FOV (and I believe earlier prototypes had this) it would mean being tethered to a more powerful computer or a bulkier/more expensive headset.

When faced with this, it looks like they went with limited FOV in order to keep it standalone and relatively ergonomic. I think this makes sense because processing power and software will continue to improve and allow wider FOV with equally good performance. They just chose to keep the ergonomics and lower the FOV in these early units to keep performance good. With better chips and software, wider FOV will be akin to raising the resolution on a game when you get a new video card.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Whoever wrote that piece need a serious spanking.

My mind is just blown with the possibilities of a software-layer on our real world, slowly growing from this initial piece of hardware. I want to be a part of this.

And then they put THAT picture, with the selling-point being games, 3D tours and Skype. This is just horrible.

Do they even care?

<comment><USER10> My impression was that they were overselling, if anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've a very strong vision of holoprojections. From sitting through numerous meetings with remote teams, where tele- or video-conferences just doesn't work.

People lose focus, even through video interaction. How incredible would it to be to walk through an office and interact with colleagues, that simply aren't there (not an American Psycho reference. They are there, any you can see and talk to them in the physical whole, they're simple not _physically_ there).

How would this change things? Initially, perhaps not a lot, 10 to 15 years out. Physical interaction would still be deemed prime. And this vision is sans-headset (office decoration firms get busy preparing multiple remote sites). Beyond that timeframe, would it be so normal to have a strong business relationship with someone never physically met? What would be the impact of 'hanging out' over lunch to develop relationships. That seems a bigger challenge.

But to put that in perspective, it is only 400 years since Shakespeare's death, that's 10 generations of people that live until 40, or more realistically around 7 generations of hereditary lifespans where the youngest generation is in physical/educational contact with the eldest generation. That's not a long time for transfer of ideas for revolutionary ideas to happen.

Will we all be on a tropical beach developing VR apps? No. Old nature dies hard. This is an augmentation, not a replacement.

</comment><comment><USER12> Better source would be the copy of the original text at Reddit: [https://www.reddit.com/r/HoloLens/comments/484llx/microsoft_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/HoloLens/comments/484llx/microsoft_hololens_launch_games_apps_detailed/)

</comment><comment><USER13> The Hololens technology looks really exciting. I can't wait for a consumer version. That said, this release looks like it is analogous to the Oculus Rift dev kit, we are years away from a consumer version. On the positive side, most the shortcomings of the device look like that can be solved with a little bit of time. The field-of-view will improve with processing power and battery life, and room scanning and tracking will improve with a cheaper and smaller sensors.

</comment><comment><USER14> The most realistic part of the video was the instructor helping the woman fix the pipe under the sink. Not to over the top and actually useful. But for this plumbing task and similar tasks, it seems a cheaper headset could be made.

Would be a great opportunity for lower cost, more focused product to be "good enough" instead of being overly ambitious but out of reach for most people.

<comment><USER15> _more focused product to be "good enough" instead of being overly ambitious_

I don't think you appreciate how difficult that use case is and it ends up being the same level of difficulty as doing basically anything else in AR.

<comment><USER14> You are right I am certainly no expert in AR (or VR) but seems having a person circle something on a screen is easier than projecting 3d images that you can manipulate?

<comment><USER15> _but seems having a person circle something on a screen is easier than projecting 3d images that you can manipulate?_

Well it is, that's basically what ScopeAR does, but they use 3D based markers and animated objects.

The Hololens video however is showing that the new element (circle something) is being "glued" to the object without a specific image tag - which means you have to have both an accurate scan of the environment and 3D object glued to it. Very hard to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> They seem to have a new football themed promo video up [https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en- us](https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en-us)

Funny, they show football players, all I can see is future generals guiding their troops in the field with this.

</comment><comment><USER17> If it still has that very small FOV then I cannot see why anybody would buy it for that high price.

[https://www.google.hu/search?q=hololens+fov&tbm=isch](https://www.google.hu/search?q=hololens+fov&tbm=isch)

<comment><USER18> It's a devkit, not for general release. Microsoft has already addressed why the FoV is narrow, and it has to do with battery life and power needed to process the scene. So the wider FoV will come when battery tech and processing power catch-up.

I've used a Hololens, yes the FoV is off-putting, but the technology itself is incredible. If I had $3K to throw around, or if I were a big enterprise looking to invest for various research using Hololens, I'd say it would be worth it.

<comment><USER19> > battery tech

> catch-up

So... never?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > HoloLens Developer Edition will be available for $3000.

Wow. I'm a 23 year old Software Engineer living in the Bay Area and making six figures. I have plenty of disposable income yet I still find this expensive. If they aren't targeting me, who are they targeting? I don't think a senior executive at an Investment Banking firm will develop apps for their prototype in his free time.

<comment><USER21> Agencies, game companies etc.

The price point is designed to stop people like yourself grabbing it thinking it's going to be a full experience day 1.

But it's cheap enough where anyone who'll be in the position to develop anything of quality to grab it without thinking twice.

<comment><USER22> This. Games companies who are spending $100K a year for a _single_ developer isn't going to be worried about $3K for a holo lens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > As expected, the development edition will come with Skype which will allow > users to "interact in the holographic world"

will it _require_ Skype?

</comment><comment><USER24> Better link: [https://blogs.windows.com/devices/2016/02/29/announcing- micr...](https://blogs.windows.com/devices/2016/02/29/announcing-microsoft- hololens-development-edition-open-for-pre-order-shipping-march-30)

</comment><comment><USER25> Isn't Meta supposed to launch its new thing on the same day, and cost an order of magnitude less?

[https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/1015392929212465...](https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153929292124655)

<comment><USER26> Looks like Wednesday: [https://www.metavision.com](https://www.metavision.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Hmm. I thought they canceled this project.

When I demoed it months ago, it was so not ready for primetime. The AR area was pathetic, and it used IR lasers for scanning.

The AR area is self-explanatory: when the size is not much bigger than a postage stamp, your project makes a great tech demo, and a really shitty customer product.

The IR laser is problematic in multiple ways:

1\. If it's the same module as found on the kinect, it's a 90mW laser, which is a hell of a lot of power on a battery platform. Expect much reduced power in scanning mode.

2\. IR means the device is useless outdoors and near windows. Think of anyplace where the Kinect fails: so too will this.

I'd pay $1000 for this, not the $3k they're asking. The tech just isn't there. I just hope this doesn't cause an AR desolation in the community the way VR had done for 10 years.

<comment><USER28> > I'd pay $1000 for this, not the $3k they're asking. The tech just isn't > there. I just hope this doesn't cause an AR desolation in the community the > way VR had done for 10 years. reply

And so the high price works exactly as intended. Microsoft KNOWS that this isn't ready for prime-time, so they put this price tag on it to make sure that it isn't buyed by someone just enthusiastic who is then dismayed when it is "not ready for prime-time" (as advertised!). They've stated multiple times that this is the reason for the price tag.

<comment><USER27> Cost is only a part of the problems with this platform.

IR scanning is inherently erroneous. I simply can't be:

1\. Outside 2\. Near windows 3\. Near IR flood sources 4\. Reflective/glass areas

It just doesn't work on any of those areas. That's the huge unsolvable problem with this platform. And no, frequency shifting to a different wavelength still has the same problems (the sun is a great wideband emitter).

Even if their platform was brought to the best their hardware could bear, it still would fail.

EDIT: For those of you giving -1's, how about you comment and explain why you are doing so. I'm providing a technical argument why this platform will fail, based on my experiences with this headset and my work in computer vision.

<comment><USER29> "That's the huge unsolvable problem with this platform"

Unsolvable problems tend to be unsolvable. I can solve this with three words: Use it inside. And on the next version (which, let's be honest, they're targeting a "next version" for general release, not this one), they use lasers instead of IR.

If you want to use it outside, it might be unsolvable for the current release, but it's hardly unsolvable for the platform.

<comment><USER27> The IR emitted is a structured laser light at IR frequencies.

They're already using "lasers". The problem with using any sort of structured light is that your frequency can't be in the same band of any sort of flood lights (sunlight, ballasts, IR camera lights). It's also why X-Rays work well: it's a structured light (kind of) and can be used because we won't have a flood of XRays everywhere.

The problem isn't with "IR": they should not be using a structured light solution. It's just not durable enough for 3d scanning applications. It's also why I've worked on a SLAM-like 3d scanner. Understanding geometry, corners, edges, and gradients are much more versatile in scanning, because it is _passive_. Our very eyes don't send out beams of light, and yet we manage a very accurate SLAM-like map inside our own heads.

The problem with the Hololens is that until they switch to a vision-only system, they're going to be plagued with problems regarding IR sources (or whatever freq they choose).

Source: me (3Dollar scanner, amateur radio operator, OpenCV reprap implementer)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The Minecraft Hololens demo from last year is pretty awesome.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEL8XDQFrlI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEL8XDQFrlI)

<comment><USER31> Yeah, but it was fake. The POV is very small and is a deal breaker: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11195008](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11195008)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Does anyone know the resolution? There doesn't seem to be any numbers out, but roughly, it's very much likely less than 4K, probably 1080p and not too unlikely less, right?!

</comment><comment><USER33> > HoloLens Developer Edition will be available for $3000

Seems a bit steep. Hopefully this doesn't represent the retail price.

<comment><USER34> Since when does early dev kit pricing have anything to do with retail pricing?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Stupid Windows always asks to update and resets all the apps to defaults(i.e its own apps). It will be much worse and more irritating if microsoft wins in this space. F __c* you Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER36> where are the realistic demos? I only see polished marketing commercials...

</comment><comment><USER37> But isn't it a google glass with color?

<comment><USER38> not even a little...

Google Glass was a notification system that sits above-ish your one eye.

Holo Lens is trying to be full AR.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> It's clear that Microsoft is not targeting the same audience as Oculus and HTC. 3000 USD for a developer edition is a bold statement.

I guess hololens will "fail". A few big companies will buy them and develop random software to impress clients. But i'm pretty sure we will not see much else.

</comment><comment><USER40> I think Microsoft has bet on the wrong horse.

When I play games I want to get OUT of my reality. I don't want every game being painted onto my lounge room.

It might be a great experience if you have a lounge room as stylish and clean and spacious as Bill Gates or Satya Nadella, but I have a small cluttered lounge room and I have no interest in playing games projected into that reality.

I'm holding a fistful of dollars which I am trying to throw at Sony as soon as they'll take it from me for immersive VR.

<comment><USER41> I don't think Microsoft really see this as just a gaming device. I saw a presentation by some members of the hololens team that really emphasised the devices use right through the product design process. I think they see it as a productivity device for design studios and businesses that happens to have some game applications.

And honestly, I think they're on to something. Using an HTC Vive with the tilt brush app really emphasises just how intuitive 3D design work can be in VR. The robot repair demo features a really eye-opening moment when you're looking into the innards of an exploded-view robot. It's such an intuitive way to work with 3D models, and so obvious that it will eventually become commonplace.

The biggest problem with the Vive demos is that you're fully immersed. Hololens addresses that.

<comment><USER42> See for example ScopeAR (a YC-backed company, YC Summer 2015 I think) for some use cases:

[http://www.scopear.com/](http://www.scopear.com/)

video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=o_cD_jVaWJo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=o_cD_jVaWJo)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> >HoloTour which will offer "users 360-degree panoramic displays of places like Rome and Machu Picchu.

For $3000 now days you can visit half the world.</comment>


Solving Ballistic Trajectories – Dev Curious - <AUTHOR> https://blog.forrestthewoods.com/solving-ballistic-trajectories-b0165523348c#.3xdegc5ec <comment><USER2> I read:

 _A common problem in video games is to calculate the angle to launch a projectile to hit a target. It's so common I've written code to solve it on literally every game I've ever worked on._

And thought:

      Ballistics as a service.

Has Hacker News warped my brain?</comment>


Japan's Anti-Crime Orange Balls - <AUTHOR> http://www.sobify.com/japans-anti-crime-orange-balls/ <comment><USER2> It's an interesting concept, but makes that assumption that first, all the clerks are capable of throwing a ball, and second, that they can actually hit something they throw at.

Without wanting to be sexist, many girls who haven't been involved in sports tend to throw a ball as if they have one foot stuck in a bucket and could only be certain of the ball eventually hitting the ground.

IMHO, a better system would have a fixed sprayer at the door activated by a two stage trigger that first requires the clerk to press switch and then sprays when the door is opened.</comment>


The FCC has repealed a 42-year-old rule blocking broadcast media mergers - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/11/16/the-fcc-just-repealed-decades-old-rules-blocking-broadcast-media-mergers/ <comment><USER2> >In his remarks Thursday, Pai said it was "utter nonsense" that his agency's decisions on media ownership would lead to a company dominating local media markets by buying up newspapers and radio stations.

>"It will open the door to pro-competitive combinations that will strengthen local voices," he said, and "better serve local communities."

How?

I'm not quite sure how the combination of a more consolidated industry and the removal of local studios results in stronger local voices.

<comment><USER3> The use of words and phrases like "utter nonsense", or "absurd", or "it's offensive to even suggest..." is rampant in Trump administration officials' hyper-defensive interactions with the public -- especially if there's even the slightest adversarial questioning of policy elements on merit. It's like some sort of winking signal that rational discourse is no longer to be tolerated. I don't know if this is somehow coordinated, these administrators all have chips on their shoulders, or they're simply following the model.

<comment><USER4> I think it's an important point, but I think it extends far beyond and predates the Trump administration.

It happens all over the political spectrum to a degree, but the GOP and its supporters have really embraced it and have been using that kind of rhetoric for a long time (and it's worked very well for them in terms of framing and dominating debate): Consider talk radio, such as Limbaugh, which goes back to the 1980s or early 90s; Fox News hosts, such as O'Reilly and Hannity; and the Wall St Journal opinion pages. Look at the rhetoric used by Cheney and Rumsfeld in the Bush administration, or, for a specific example, the GOP congressman who yelled 'you lie' during an Obama State of the Union speech. Over-the-top, hyper-aggressive attacks on the other side is their common rhetorical tactic; they are demonstrations of aggression, for their supporters and for anyone who might disagree. (That's not meant to be partisan; I believe those are the facts and it would be false to say the politically correct thing, 'everyone does it equally':)

It's much broader than politics too. It's in reality TV, but by far the biggest example is Internet discussion boards. It's a continuing problem on HN, though my impression is that it's improved significantly here (thank goodness!). Certainly that predates Trump!

It's an obvious tactic in an argument: Act so aggressively and angrily that the other side is intimidated, and at worst no serious discussion is possible. It ends the discussion.

<comment><USER5> Consider The Onion's 2013 Point/Counterpoint article on the Iraq War:

* Point: This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism

* Counterpoint: No it won't. It just won't. None of that will happen. You're getting worked up over nothing. Everything is going to be fine. So just relax, okay? You're really overreacting.

[https://www.theonion.com/this-war-will-destabilize-the- entir...](https://www.theonion.com/this-war-will-destabilize-the-entire- mideast-region-and-1819594296)

<comment><USER6> That article was from 2003, not 2013.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This rule was repealed for one and one purpose only. Allow Sinclair Media, a pro-Trump media organization, to buy up local TV stations and blast propaganda news during your 9'o'clock news hour. Here's a great article covering the motivations of Sinclair. It is time to fight back and get rid of Ajit Pai

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/us/politics/how-a- conserv...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/us/politics/how-a-conservative- tv-giant-is-ridding-itself-of-regulation.html)

<comment><USER8> If a media outlet wants to buy stations and supply more conservative friendly news, how is that any different from Jeff Bezos buying the Washington Post and supplying liberal friendly news?

For those who would want to counter that buying many local stations outweighs buying a single outlet in the Washington Post, I would bet WaPo reaches as many or more people as all local stations put together in the US through their massive social media and generally online presence. Not only that, while local stations only air news at a set time each day, WaPo articles are persistent and ubiquitous.

The scale of outreach and influence for a site like WaPo is really tremendous when you think about it.

<comment><USER9> One: you have a long row to hoe before asserting that the Washington Post supplies "liberal-friendly news." They may (I would say _do_ ) have a moderately liberal-friendly editorial board. Much as the WSJ may (and again, I would say _does_ ) have an extremely conservative-friendly editorial board. To conflate the editorial board and _reporting_ is, frankly, either disingenuous or bordering on it.

Two: you have an even longer row to hoe to tie together buying _one_ paper and buying _as many TV stations as one can to blanket an area_. We all know about what Sinclair's up to--given the levels of handwringing put out by the folks on Pai's side of the aisle about the (non-existent, but whatever) suppression of right-wing speech, maybe the notion of choking off differing voices under the Sinclair umbrella rings just a little bit hollow?

<comment><USER8> See my edit.

When you dismiss suppression of conservative positions, I say that I would be shocked if I ever saw a liberal outlet advocate or even try to reason about the case against Sanctuary Cities.

It's an example of suppression because if I even tried to bring up the debate I would be ridiculed and accused of being a racist. We can't debate the issue, and so anyone who would want to advocate for such a position is suppressed.

<comment><USER10> My local paper, a Hearst rag, did that.

There's a balance between state and local rights and laws and federal law. My city has an obligation to enforce local law and isn't responsible for the shitshow of Federal immigration policy.

By meddling in federal matters, local police poison their relationship with the populace and become less effective.

The conservative position on this topic is strange, as they generally resist federal meddling.

<comment><USER11> The conservative position on this topic is strange, as they generally resist federal meddling...unless it benefits their agenda

<comment><USER12> It's not exactly new, and hangs in blinking neon signs over the runup to the civil war.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _A major beneficiary of the deregulatory moves, analysts say, is Sinclair, a conservative broadcasting company that is seeking to buy up Tribune Media for $3.9 billion._

Sinclair requires its TV stations to air segments with a conservative bent: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/business/media/sinclair-b...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/business/media/sinclair- broadcast-komo-conservative-media.html)

Edit: Check out John Oliver's segment on this topic. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc)

<comment><USER14> The best part of that is when Sinclair's _Terrorism Alert Desk_ ran a piece about burkinis. They require all their stations to broadcast it.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc&feature=youtu.be&t=15m47s)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The ghosts of Pulitzer and Hearst thank you - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_Spanish–Amer...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_Spanish–American_War#Hearst_and_Pulitzer)

</comment><comment><USER16> The conclusion of this paper from 2001 supports revoking the rules, or at least that the rules aren't necessary for their stated goal of providing diverse opinions:

"A Tale of Three Cities: "Diverse and Antagonistic" Information in Situations of Local Newspaper/ Broadcast Cross-Ownership"

[http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?ar...](http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1286&context=fclj)

From the conclusion:

 _This Article examined whether three existing newspaper /broadcast combinations in major markets provided information about the 2000 presidential campaign from "diverse and antagonistic sources." The results show clearly that they did provide a wide range of diverse information. In other words, the Commission's historical assumption that media ownership inevitably shapes the news to suit its own interests may no longer be true (if it ever was).

The September 2001 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking demonstrated the Commission's interest in solid empirical evidence about newspaper/broadcast combinations. The evidence of the study reported in this Article suggests that the prohibition on newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership has outlived its usefulness._

<comment><USER17> > The conclusion of this paper from 2001 supports revoking the rules, or at > least that the rules aren't necessary for their stated goal of providing > diverse opinions

Hmm... From reading your quote, it sounds to me like it's saying that the rules are working properly. What these changes are going to allow is a single company with a known one-sided agenda to buy up _all_ media in several markets. How will that work out?

<comment><USER16> The study looked at three cities where the newspaper and radio station were owned by the same company ("cross-ownership"), due to having been grandfathered in when the FCC rule was created in 1975.

The FCC revoked multiple rules, but one of those prevented cross-ownership. The stated goal of all of the rules was to encourage a diversity of views. At least with respect to the cross-ownership rule, this study found it wasn't necessary for a diversity of views to exist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So:

> One long-standing rule repealed Thursday prevented one company in a given > media market from owning both a daily newspaper and a TV station

> Another rule blocked TV stations in the same market from merging with each > other if the combination would leave fewer than eight independently owned > stations

> The agency also took aim at rules restricting the number of TV and radio > stations that any media company could simultaneously own in a single market.

Now, let me first say that Trump and Ajit Pal have been, are and will be a disaster for media and broadband regulation. That out of the way, let me say this:

These rules were crafted in an era when we had:

\- Local newspapers

\- A limited number of more broadly distributed papers (state, national)

\- 3 Broadcast TV networks (4 including PBS) where local stations were affiliates.

\- The importance of radio for entertainment and news

\- Limited market penetration of cable TV and far less channels and content choice than we have today

So compare that to today:

\- We can have a virtually unlimited number of TV channels through cable and the Internet

\- Radio has a vastly greater array of options through satellite radio (eg Sirius) and the Internet (eg podcasts)

\- Newspapers are a dying breed, replaced with online news distribution.

\- The barrier to entry to creating, promoting and getting an audience for, say, a local issue blog is comparatively cheap now. Previously it either wasn't possible or was orders of magnitude more difficult.

So it would be foolish to say the the media landscape hasn't changed drastically in 40 years.

Now the devil is in the details here. So if there can be less than 8 independent stations in a market, how many can there be? 6? 4? 3? 2? Because there's a difference.

Honestly there's far more scandalous and outright dangerous things to get outraged about with this administration.

<comment><USER19> > Radio has a vastly greater array of options through satellite radio (eg > Sirius)

Satellite radio is _one_ provider since the XM/Sirius merger. Broadcast radio is vastly more consolidated in ownership and in operation within each of the small number of ownership groups.

Radio may provide a greater _illusion_ of choice with more stations in the dial, but there is less _actual_ diversity in control.

<comment><USER20> The rationale that seems to be put forth now is that there's so much competition between mediums that it's ok to allow monopolies of each one of them.

I think this is absurd of course, but that's the argument that's always made implicitly or explicitly.

It's also scary as hell because ISPs have disproportionate control.

And once they're granted all sorts of freedoms to screw over consumers, it's going to be a lot more difficult to take it away from them.

All Pai has to do is set the ball rolling and it won't stop.

I don't really see a political landscape in the near future where you have anti-monopoly laws being enforced. All the current corporate monopoly whores will have to die of old age first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Someone needs to go wake up Teddy Roosevelt. As rude as it would be to wake him up, we need someone to recognise that the amount of consolidation the country is reaching is incredibly dangerous. This teetering near Deus Ex level amounts of consolidation. Yes, the current aims at Google and Facebook are nice to see. But, the deregulation of media companies is allowing anti- consumer practices. Even the video game industry is starting to receive backlash for its "non-gambling" practices and the lootbox.

Pardon for the rant, that kind of seems everywhere. But, allowing something like this to form is dangerous, especially with how strong lobbying is now. With facebook actively suppressing certain ideologies, the soon to be larger media companies will now have no issue writing off conflicting ideas as well.

<comment><USER22> I completely agree with you, however I find this bit a little mysterious:

> With facebook actively suppressing certain ideologies

The only ideologies I've heard of Facebook suppressing lately are Neo-Nazi and alt-right groups following the Charlottesville stuff. I don't take issue with these ideologies being suppressed.

Am I missing something?

EDIT: Apparently so because someone just went through my history and down- voted all my comments...

<comment><USER21> I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.

Evelyn Beatrice Hall

Suppression of opinion implicitly violates the Bill of Rights.

<comment><USER22> I do not consider Nazi ideology an opinion. Their ideas are purely based on maintaining a power dynamic. There's no logic or legitimacy to their ideas, and thus they are not opinions. They change the ideology as needed to maintain power and promote their own strength.

For a historical viewpoint, simply look at how often the German Nazi party would change what classifies as being a Jew or "undesirable". It was only ever about putting fear into people and maintaining control. They had no real opinions on why these people were undesirable - those could be made up after the fact.

If Nazism was an opinion, I would be willing to defend it. But it's not, and it thrives when it's given the legitimacy as such.

EDIT: To try and tie this back to the topic at hand, are blatant lies still "opinions"? What about death threats and hate speech? My point is simply that we already make distinctions about what kind of speech is free, so I feel that Facebook instituting policies that align with these existing rules makes sense - even though I feel that they are becoming too large to be the de-facto source for information on the Internet.

<comment><USER23> Friendly reminder that downvotes should be reserved for comments you don't want to see on the site, not for comments you disagree with.

<comment><USER24> Friendly reminder that PG said the opposite. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> FCC working for monopolists - that's already not news. How can this garbage be stopped though? It's like the sickest plutocracy in the works.

<comment><USER19> There's a political party that has stated opposition to this kind for consolidation and resisted industry pressure to remove this regulation, and one which has stated it's support for this kind of deregulation and actively pursued it.

There's times when the relationship between public posturing, voting, and policy results in murky and opaque, but this isn't one of them.

<comment><USER25> _> There's a political party that has stated opposition to this kind for consolidation_

Someone like the Pirate Party? It never made it in US somehow.

And for the reference, previous FCC approved Charter + TWC merger, despite being better in general than the current horror.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> this is in line with the current republican structure. they want to dismantle any regulations, minimize government and let the pieces fall where they may.

The problem is that this isnt the 1850s anymore.

<comment><USER27> Make America Gilded Again

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> "greater consolidation" == "easier establishment of monopolies" (probably)

</comment><comment><USER29> Don't you think it's about time we removed all the unnessecary independent voices from media so we can stop confusing people? The Russians and Chinese are doing it; we need to catch up - we've got to have unity in our messages. /Sarcasm

</comment><comment><USER30> Another horrible idea from the worst Administration any of us will ever live through.

</comment><comment><USER31> It's a perfect storm. Kill net neutrality and then restrictions preventing local media monopolies.

People have been manipulated by their chosen media like no other time in history, and I can't see where we go from here.

Enterprises will have the singular ability to control what vast swaths of the populace hears and believes. At best it's a continuance of recent trends, and at worst the failure of the republic.

</comment><comment><USER32> Those fuckers are gonna kill the web, aren't they?

</comment><comment><USER33> Non-paywall article here: [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-media- regulation/u-s-r...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-media- regulation/u-s-regulator-votes-to-loosen-media-ownership-rules-idUSKBN1DG2R9).

In my view, the media ownership rules were indefensible. _First,_ they were not driven by the sort of legitimate economic concerns that usually drive anti-consolidation efforts. They were not (at least, not primarily) justified, for example, on the basis of media companies being able to exercise market power to charge too much for advertising. Instead, they were justified by the government's desire to influence the content of media. A well meaning desire, perhaps, but still a fundamentally illegitimate exercise of government power.

 _Second_ , the broadcasting-license tail was wagging the merger dog. The FCC's purpose is to address the "tragedy of the commons" that might result if people could use public broadcast frequencies freely without concern for others. It's not an antitrust agency, and has no expertise in that area. It has overextended its authority over broadcasting licenses to exercise control over mergers in industries it has no jurisdiction over (in this case, newspapers).

<comment><USER34> This is a very underrated comment.

The second point, that the FCC is not the correct body, was something I had never thought of before. Why is the FCC trying to make anti-trust rules? The FDA doesn't make anti-trust rules for companies it oversees.

<comment><USER35> Curiously enough, one of the other controversies in the news right now is the DOJ - which normally enforces anti-trust rules - supposedly telling AOL that they'd have to sell off either Turner Broadcasting or DirecTV if they wanted to merge with Time Warner due to competition concerns. Apparently this was an evil attack by Trump on the media, nothing whatsoever to do with the issues caused by one company owning both a major pay TV provider and a major provider of content.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> cox communications must be salivating to finish dominance on the atlanta market

</comment><comment><USER37> Pai should be in jail. This is absurd. The guy is lying to everyone's face from a government function. When has ever a consolidation not lead to a monopoly and when has a monopoly not been abused?

</comment><comment><USER38> I hate mergers and think they're dumb, but maybe this is for the best. Isn't the problem with internet news is that it comes from everywhere, enforcing a kind of chaos of truth and a race to the bottom? Maybe we should have near monopolies in media, so that a certain laziness pervades and people don't care about ratings?

<comment><USER39> I upvoted you not because I agree (or disagree) with you, but because I think you politely presented a well-reasoned opinion and shouldn't be in the grey.

<comment><USER40> I didn't downvote, but I don't see it as well reasoned. It's essentially the "two wrongs make a right" fallacy[1]. In this case, increased media consolidation has nothing to with how fake internet news is.

In fact, I'm of the opinion that further media consolidation will move us further from low-bias information sources and towards more MSNBC / FoxNews extreme partisan news sources. It will likely continue the convergence of entertainment and journalism which only serves to dilute the little media literacy that we still have in the USA.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The political mood on media regulation has shifted, at least from where I sit, in the the past weeks. Twitter blew its hearing. Facebook and Google failed to salve the wound by sending deputies.

The belief I'm sensing is that the only way to check these companies is through competition from traditional media, including ISPs. If Google and Facebook and Twitter are running roughshod with our data, this thinking goes, maybe the solution is letting others challenge their data monopoly.

You and I see the problem with this. It's harder to evade Comcast than Google or Facebook. But every day, that becomes less true. In any case, this is the first step in Silicon Valley's price for what is broadly seen as its arrogance.

<comment><USER42> This is about local TV stations getting gobbled up by a single company, Sinclair. I don't see what Twitter/FB/Google have to do with this.

<comment><USER41> > _I don 't see what Twitter/FB/Google have to do with this_

Why are "religious rights" and low taxes in the same envelope? Because they're the same constituency. There is no underlying sense to it other than political sense.

Media mergers of the kind Sinclair or TWC have pursued, or are pursuing, have traditionally been argued against by Google _et al 's_ lobbyists. There just isn't another organized constituency who cares about local radio. But the precedents from local radio spilling into ISPs? Now there's a worry.

Those same lobbyists now represent politically wounded clients. When the cats are away, the mice come out to play.

<comment><USER43> You mean Google, a company that was founded in the late 90s, is responsible for an FTC rule originating 42 years ago?

Your entire premise is incredibly flawed; religious rights and low taxes may be part of the same constituency, but opposition to media mergers is not a strict left or right issue.

<comment><USER41> > _You mean Google, a company that was founded in the late 90s, is responsible > for an FTC rule originating 42 years ago?_

So nobody who wasn't around when the Constitution was written can be instrumental in defending it today?

> _opposition to media mergers is not a strict left or right issue_

Pardon me, I did not intend to imply it is. My point was in coalitions not always have logical sets of views.

There is no organized coalition against local radio consolidation. For a while, nobody bothered defeating it. Now Sinclair has. Opposition is needed. Unfortunately, nobody cares about local radio. At least not enough to organize.

The only ones defending the old rule--at least when it's come up in New York, California or Arizona, or the limited D.C. circles I'm privy to--are companies fearing its creep. The dominant constituency amongst those companies are the tech majors.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Raymond Merrill Smullyan, the paradoxical logician, leaves us - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Smullyan <comment><AUTHOR> For more information about Smullyan, just read some previous discussions here on HN:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=smullyan&sort=byPopularity&pre...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=smullyan&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

<comment><USER2> A news report of his death: [http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mathematician-puzzle- maker-raymond-...](http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mathematician-puzzle-maker- raymond-smullyan-dead-97-1605912)</comment></comment>