Huawei Announces HarmonyOS - <AUTHOR> https://www.androidauthority.com/huawei-harmonyos-1017511/ <comment><USER2> I don't get the hate against Huawei. Not that I've seen much of it. Google are not the good guys overall, neither is Huawei. The two companies do good things and bad.

I've recently watched a talk by Jonathan Corbet on Linux Kernel Report [0]. At one point he asked the audience "Who's running Linux on their phone?". Lots of people raised their hand. He then said "Well, are you? Because a lot of companies have as much as 2+ millions of lines of custom kernel code on their devices. Huawei in particular has 2.7+ millions. If the kernel currently is at about 24 million lines of code, and you only need a small subset of that for a phone, then what you end up with is something different than Linux." It happens at approximately 30:40 in the video. I have a suspicion that HarmonyOS is just what they have now plus another 200k+ lines of code or so to change the look.

[0]: [https://youtu.be/yt29BKVfI0I](https://youtu.be/yt29BKVfI0I)

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think "hate" is the best word, but I would say the concern is that Huawei can be wielded as a weapon by the Chinese Communist Party in any way they see fit. Even if you look at it from a country-neutral perspective, it's more threatening than Google because everything ultimately serves The Party in the Chinese system in a way that is unknown to liberal democracies.

<comment><USER2> Google has more potential to harm. Imagine if they come up with a technology to replace HTTP and HTML, so that you can't modify web pages you visit. You open up a website and it's like you're looking at a video stream of it, except you can interact with UI elements but can't remove ads. Then they make your browsing history immutable and available to companies that can affect your career and finances. Of course they will leave the option to make it "private" if buy a premium account. Then they become an internet provider and ban VPNs and proxies. Then they make it required for you to consume ads for one hour per week, otherwise you loose access to the internet and your data. Then they implant an electronic device in your brain so that this happy hour of ad consumption happens against your will. Of course you will have the freedom to choose when to engage in it: 15 minutes before going to bed for a few days, or the whole hour right away. It interacts deeply with your brain, ruthlessly rewriting neural connections unlike visiual stumulation by eye. Then the government acquires this technology and they choose to inflict pain on those who disobey or has something to say. Then they learn to read the minds in a crude way. If you plan to do something about it then your brain is forced to experience the maximum pain it is capable of experiencing. It all happpens automatically. Those in control do not wear such devices.

Does anybody have any science fiction recommendations along these lines?

<comment><USER3> Not that exact set of events, but I liked Anon on Netflix, which is about an implant that records everything you see and say, which of course the government has access to. It reminds me a bit of Google Glass and GPS in Android.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lol they want contribution from open source community developers? Well their own crap Android phones are coming with locked bootloaders. They try to become American style community based company keeping their shit closed source and want contribution on other side. Huawei should be doomed. Crap Chinese companies!</comment>


I just got promoted Sweet Ok, back to work... - <AUTHOR> http://www.public.navy.mil/bupers-npc/reference/messages/Documents/ALNAVS/ALN2011/ALN11050.txt

<comment><USER2> Congratulations! THANK YOU for serving our country. You may not hear it enough, but it IS greatly appreciated.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I actually got demoted in order to go to medical school, then promoted on graduation back the same rank I left. First actual promotion since 2002!</comment></comment>


An open-source fully homomorphic encryption library - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/shaih/HElib <comment><USER2> "Fully homomorphic" means "a computation can be done on two encrypted values without decrypting them." It is an extension of _partially homomorphic_ systems, which allow some computation which cannot be extended to arbitrary computations.

A good usage case for partially homomorphic systems is public elections. Suppose given E(x) and E(y) you can efficiently compute E(x + y). Now imagine that you arrange a set of bit-fields as:

        1000 1100  0111 0111    0100 1110     0010 1001
        (random)  (check bits) (votes Alice)  (votes Bob)

In other words, the current vote tally is being represented as a number E(0x8C774E29). You can now create two ballots, E(0xBF010100) and E(0xBF010001). You can add either of those ballots to the vote tally even though you cannot read the vote tally. We can make all of these numbers public knowledge without disclosing your vote -- i.e. a public database can say "Alice's vote was E(0xBF010100)" and "Bob's vote was E(0xDB010001)" and once that encryption is performed, third parties cannot actually verify that Alice didn't vote for Bob or vice versa. So any member of the population can take the public database and confirm that the arithmetic was done properly on the encrypted vote tallies, without figuring out what the actual votes were. Then at the highest level, the tally can be decrypted to find out that Alice won the vote, without disclosing exactly who voted for her. The "check bits" form here a sum of votes as a quick check that someone didn't just add some random ballot in there to screw with the system.

Of course, you need more bits as you want to have more candidates and more voters; and there are problems with confirming that a number looks like 0x010100 and not 0x050500. But fundamentally you can get these really cool cryptographic voting systems which preserve the anonymity of your vote at the lowest level, but can be audited at the lowest level (i.e. we can potentially remove votes, say, from people who were not alive at the time of the election), the votes have perfectly auditable mathematics up to the regional level due to the public databases of encrypted votes; and then once the population is large enough to suitably anonymize the vote, you can decrypt and tally votes publicly too.

Now that's if you just have some function esum such that esum(E(x), E(y)) = E(x + y).

If you have enough to make a full set of logical gates, you could in principle do an entire computation on a set of inputs which you couldn't possibly know, so that the "cloud" could "compute" with your data without ever actually knowing it.

<comment><USER3> I never understand how one could call anything that is fully homomorphic encryption.

Let's say I have access to E(N), the encryption of some secret integer N, and want to know N.

Because of the " _fully_ homomorphic" part, given E(x) and E(y) I can compute E(x+y), E(x-y), E(x/y), etc.

So from E(N), assuming N != 0, I can compute E(N/N) = E(1). Using addition, I can compute E(2), E(3), from there.

From there, I can compute E(N mod 2), E(N mod 3), etc. Comparing them with E(1), E(2), etc, I can recover (N mod 2), (N mod 3), etc.

Once I have those for numbers whose LCM is known to be greater than N, I can use the Chinese remainder theorem to recover N. I think this is fairly efficient in terms of number of computations. If not, other methods exist. For example, one could compute E(1 << b) and from there E(N & (1 << b)) for successive values of b, thus recovering successive bits of N.

What do I overlook here?

<comment><USER4> Well, ideally you wouldn't be using tiny numbers. If you're using huge numbers, then what you're describing is the equivalent of a rainbow table technique. It's going to take an extraordinary amount of time, computations, and comparisons to be able to figure out what a value was originally, and once you do you've only done it for that one key, whose value you still don't know.

Besides, the big foreseen uses of HE is in applications where the confidential data is going to be changing constantly, so once you've finally figured out what one value was, it'll be worthless to have it because computation has continued.

<comment><USER3> _"If you're using huge numbers, then what you're describing is the equivalent of a rainbow table technique"_

Please reread what I wrote; it is not. Let's do the second variant: to determine whether N is odd or even, compute:

      e1 = E(N/N) (equals E(1)) ; 1, encrypted
      b1 = E(N & 1)             ; equals e1 iff N is odd
                                ; (least significant bit of N)
      e2 = E(1+1)               ; 2, encrypted
      b2 = E(N & 2)             ; equals e2 iff second bit is set
      e4 = E(2+2)               ; 4, encrypted
      e4 = E(N & 4)             ; equals e4 iff third bit is set
      e8 = E(4+4)               ; 8, encrypted
      Etc.

Each line is one homomorphic operation. You need ceil(2 log(N)) lines to recover N.

<comment><USER2> This is a great question! I freely confess that I'm not totally sure about the fully homomorphic systems, but you are making the assumption that you can test for equality "outside" the cryptosystem, and for at least one partially homomorphic case I know of, that's not true (viz. ElGamal).

So you're thinking of a private key cryptosystem, where the ciphertext and the plaintext have the same _length_ and E(.) is bijective, but in the case of ElGamal and public-key encryption in general, E(.) is not actually a function in the mathematical sense and instead encrypts one-to-many. (In fact if memory serves, _n_ plaintext bits become _2n_ ciphertext bits in ElGamal.)

If that's the case in general then you could indeed compute E(1) := e_div(E(N), E(N)) and e_and(E(N), E(1)), but you could not say that E(N & 1) === E(1) if N is odd, because even though N & 1 = 1 and we've got a nice property of mathematical functions which says that if a = b then f(a) = f(b), this isn't a mathematical function and the one-to-many nature foils precisely this sort of naive comparison.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the reply. I indeed was thinking of just comparing the encrypted bits.

That requires that encrypting X always produces the same bits. Reading on ElGamal on Wikipedia learnt me that it does not guarantee that; it also doubles messages in size, as you thought. That will thwart this attack for any reasonable size of the encoded messages.

One could do the comparison inside the crypto system, but that would not help either, as one cannot check the outcome of such a comparison.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is not terribly on-topic, but, if you're interested in cryptography, Dan Boneh (Craig Gentry's advisor) is currently giving a Coursera course on it:

<https://class.coursera.org/crypto-006/class>

I'd highly recommend it, it's amazingly interesting, and Boneh is very good at explaining things. I used to think that cryptography was hopelessly impenetrable, but it turns out most algorithms (well, mostly symmetric cryptography) are simple to understand. We're currently at asymmetric crypto and the math's starting.

<comment><USER6> Be aware that you will need 1 hour/day for the videos, and a couple of hours/week to read additional material and exercises.

I joined the course but couldn't keep the pace.

That being said you can still access the material without doing the exams to do the course at your own rhythm.

<comment><USER5> Hmm, each week of lessons took me roughly 3 hours a week for the whole course. Doing them at your own pace is also very good, though, as you're pretty much getting the same benefit, but not as much motivation.

<comment><USER6> Yes you are right, i should clarify that this is my personal experience, with zero previous knowledge on cryptography, and pausing the video continuously to investigate the topics and do some calculations.

<comment><USER5> I didn't have any prior knowledge either, I guess this is due to each person's method of studying. I generally don't go in very much depth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The README has lots of really cool words and names and things. But it doesn't say what homomorphic encryption is or what it is good for. Could someone enlighten me?

<comment><USER8> TL;DR: It allows you to edit encrypted stuff without decrypting it.

For example, if you had a book of everyone's salaries, you can ask Bob to add $5000 to it. Normally you'd have to give him the key, but with homomorphic encryption you can just perform operations without decrypting it and having Bob know everyone's salaries.

This becomes really powerful for stuff that you need to work with lots of data without knowing the contents of - cloud computing, for example.

<comment><USER9> Think Google without the privacy issues.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I skimmed some docs, and I can't find the list of operation that can be done with that. Is it numerical stuff like addition/multiplication? Is it text editing?

<comment><USER11> Any algorithm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's basically this, [http://eurocrypt2010rump.cr.yp.to/9854ad3cab48983f7c2c5a2258...](http://eurocrypt2010rump.cr.yp.to/9854ad3cab48983f7c2c5a2258e27717.pdf) , I think. I wonder what the performance numbers are.

<comment><USER12> This is not quite true: the mathematical problems upon which they base their security, though related, have some important differences. Most significantly, the problem upon which this new implementation is based (Ring-Learning with errors) is theoretically much more time and space efficient than the problem upon which your linked implementation is based (approximate GCD).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> While I greatly applaud the effort of implementing such a complex crypto scheme, I'm afraid I will have to wait years before using something like this. Who wants to be the early adopter of a cryptographic library?

</comment><comment><USER14> Holomorphic encryption is a very interesting concept especially in a cloud setting. One could perform some operations on encrypted client data. But I don't know if it's mature enough.

<comment><USER15> I doubt it. A quick look at the papers referenced shows a huge cost factor.

<comment><USER16> Yes, in general. Special cases can be fast enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> For those trying to compile it, you'll need to install the last version (6.0.0) of NTL (the Ubuntu package from 13.04 does not provide this version).

</comment><comment><USER18> could you use something like this to make an anonymous bitcoin protocol?

<comment><USER19> Check out Zerocoin, though I don't think it uses homomorphic encryption <https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Zerocoin>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I thought homomorphic encryption wasn't secure or complete due to the fiaso that happened on SE earlier this month?

<comment><USER21> The SE thing was someone _claiming_ a company was doing homomorphic encryption when they really weren't.

(Here's a link for others: [http://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/3645/how-is- cipher...](http://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/3645/how-is-ciphercloud- doing-homomorphic-encryption))

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> OK, I read this as homeopathic. I need some sleep

</comment><comment><USER23> GPL? That doesn't encourage too many uses of this code. Especially for commercial purposes.

<comment><USER24> Feel free to write your own version and release it under a more permissive license then.

<comment><USER25> While it seems ridiculous to complain about which FOSS license is being used, it's a legitimate observation since there are certain app stores that disallow GPL'd code entirely.

It'd be nice if the author was willing to change the license but it's not something one can reasonably demand.

<comment><USER26> It would also be nice (actually nicer) if those app stores would allow GPL code.

<comment><USER27> It's often the other way around, the GPL disallows distributing the software under the very restrictive terms of those app stores.

<comment><USER26> Sure, but it would be entirely possible for Appstores to make their terms less restrictive, I don't blame people for using licenses like the GPL which are designed to push people in that direction.

<comment><USER27> I don't think it's very likely app stores will change their terms in the direction of complying with the GPL.

I don't blame people using the GPL either (except possibly people that use it for libraries), nor people that publish apps on the various stores, I was just clarifying a point.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Child With Missing Cerebellum Shows Power of Human Spirit - <AUTHOR> http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2011/02/14/child-with-missing-brain-shows-power-of-human-spirit/ <comment><USER2> I'd prefer if there were a less preachy version of this article. Its certainly scientifically interesting, but the abortion angle is out of place on HN.

<comment><USER3> If you click on the Amazon link to the book, you'll see that it's a book about how much worse off the world would be if 'animal rights activists' succeed in convincing the world that an animal's life is equal to a human's life. I'm assuming this is either the site of that author, or the site owner is endorsing the book. In either case, it seems like more of the arguments in that book (based on the reviews/summaries on Amazon) are appealing to emotions in a way that is reminiscent of the religious arguments against evolution ("Those darn scientists are trying to say that I'm nothing but a monkey! I was made in _God's_ image damn it! Not some monkey's!"). Even the title of the book, "A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Boy," is meant to evoke an emotional reaction.

After stumbling across this nugget of insight into the author, I'm not at all surprised that the article is so preachy and attributes the boy's success to the "strength of the human spirit" rather than our own shoddy understanding of how the brain works. The title would be better reformatted as, "boy proves that brain work in ways that we did not previously know," but that's not a title that will fetch you as much ad revenue as it winds it's way through Facebook.

<comment><USER4> I went the other way, and looked at the site itself. It's for a religious think tank.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No cerebellum, missing part of his brain stem... makes me think that perhaps our mammalian brain + prefrontal cortex is so adaptable, that the older parts aren't strictly necessary. ie they're vestigial. Though I expect that they are specialized and actually do a better job of their tasks.

In the bigger picture: where there's life, there's hope. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Nature's imagination is greater than your imagination.

<comment><USER6> Playing devil's advocate...

He's only three. At that age, _nobody_ is "human" in the fullest definition of the word. Full cognitive abilities don't develop for several more years.

The plasticity of the brain, especially young ones, is well documented. It's not surprising to me that functionality could be offloaded to the parts of the brain that are present (although the extremity of this case may be surprising).

I'll be interested to see where he's at when he's 6 years old, and again at puberty.

<comment><USER7> Human is a word which points to a member of the human race, its not a pointer to a fully cognitively conscious self aware - whatever you are getting at.

<comment><USER6> Obviously this is a matter subject to some philosophical debate.

In my mind, the term you are looking for when you say "human race" is actually _homo sapiens_. This is a biological term denoting the species.

When I used the word "human", I intended to communicate a more metaphysical idea. Perhaps a better choice of words would be "person", but somehow -- and this seems to be all subjective -- that seemed setting the bar too low. I thought that the word "human" might convey the idea of "person", but also implying a certain level of functioning.

For example, I'd expect more evolved cognitive skills (starting with the persistence of objects, eventually moving through symbolic logic, and so forth) from an entity described as a "human", as well as certain emotional skills, such as empathy.

Back to my original point, none of those attributes I mentioned would be expected at all in a 3-year-old _homo sapiens_ , so this would be a more interesting story in several years when the boy reaches an age at which we'd expect those skills to have developed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I still wonder at what may be lost if/when we have the ability to eliminate genetic or birth defects.

Just like emerging through the "trough of sorrow" doesn't seem essential to a strong business yet still seems to do something like what my dad called "building character", I wonder if these ever-present difficulties contribute, somehow, to making people stronger. And even, perhaps, more caring of each other.

"But there's enough troubles already..." yes, yes, I know. But first, it's not a response to the argument. Second, though: what about when those troubles, and then the ones left after that, are eliminated? I've long liked "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect" <http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/> in part because it shows what might be wrong with just such a world.

Would Abraham Lincoln still have been who he was if he didn't have Marfan syndrome? Or what if he was never born because of prenatal screening? If we could eliminate manic depression, would we ever have another Emily Dickinson? Would Van Gogh still have show us the world in new ways if he didn't have epilepsy?

Eugenics has promise. It also holds terror beyond simply how it has been practiced in the past. We're already seeing the dangers of monoculture in agribusiness. Could a similar molecular 'cleanup' of the human genome pose similar dangers?

<comment><USER9> I don't have an answer for you but might I make a suggestion? Maybe you should spend some time with some severely disabled kids. Even in the best of circumstances (wealthy parents with lots of support living in a developed nation, etc) disabilities can cause immense suffering, for the people diagnosed with the conditions, for their families.

When making a decision it's often a good idea to weigh the benefits(genetic/developmental conditions providing troubles to overcome, character building) versus the costs (the profound difficulties these conditions can place on individuals families). You've touched on some of the benefits but let's make those more explicit. I don't think you have really any idea of the costs.

After carefully considering this issue, if you come to the conclusion that people being born with genetic disorders is a desirable aspect of life then there are immediate ways you can show everyone you aren't full of shit. For example you could adopt several children with severe mental retardation who require 24hr care and will for the rest of their lives. There are many children out there who are desperately in need of loving families and you could make a tremendous impact on their lives _right now_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Original video: <http://bcove.me/z8h3m3e3></comment>


Carbon Nanotubes Finally Outperform Silicon in Transistors - <AUTHOR> http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/end-of-mosfets-carbon-nanotubes-finally-outperform-silicon-in-transistors/ <comment><USER2> I don't doubt that eventually our chips will be structured carbon circuits on a diamond substrate. I find it amusing that should a sentient AI arise post transition, it could reasonably think of itself as a carbon based life form :-).

The question I have not seen addressed is how we'll pattern the circuits. The ability to convert silicon into N-type and P-type material by doping is so "simple" compared to trying to induce the formation of CNTs of a particular geometry with the precision needed to develop a particular circuit. We are at the 'Bell labs' point where we can make individual (and volumetrically large) transistors out of CNTs or Graphene. But as we know from history, the revolution didn't really get underway until we could pattern a complete circuit on a substrate in the form of an integrated circuit. I'm still watching for the folks who come up with that breakthrough.

<comment><USER3> > _I find it amusing that should a sentient AI arise post transition, it could > reasonably think of itself as a carbon based life form_

The best of everything (X) ends up carbon-based. Life forms, computers, space towers, etc. It's just due to the carbon atom having a bunch of unusual properties.

(X) - whereas "everything" is an exaggeration used to make a point

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure if that sentiment isn't carbon chauvinism, given that the best _we know so far_ has been carbon-based.

I'm sure the universe in its infinity has plenty of surprises in store for an species that has yet to leave their home planet.

<comment><USER5> There's no reason to expect far-flung corners of the universe to have different chemistry. We already know what the periodic table is for those unexplored regions of space, and they don't have anything cheaper and more versatile than carbon.

<comment><USER6> Maybe I'm underestimating the field, but I suspect there is still a lot to learn about chemistry in extreme environments (ultra hot, dense, etc), which would be most of the universe. Some experimentation is possible on Earth, but how much could we really learn about, say, liquid water if all we could produce were a few molecules in very restricted environments? I guess that's all kind of irrelevant until we're ready to try building transistors inside the Sun.

<comment><USER5> We already know enough about chemistry and physics to rule out the possibility of building transistors inside the sun, or any other useful permanent structure inside a star. At the opposite end of the spectrum, we're already commercially exploiting temperatures on par with deep space and extremely low pressures. Yes, there's a lot we don't know about the properties of things or conditions that are hard to keep around in large quantities in the lab. But we're not going to discover complex life or be able to engineer complex and cost-effective machines in conditions where there's so much energy that molecular bonds can't stay intact or where there's so little energy that nothing gets done at better than a glacial pace. There's surely interesting stuff left to be discovered in those fields, but we won't magically stumble across a plasma-based computing substrate that is better than what we can already do on Earth.

<comment><USER7> I'm not this confident on our knowledge of the high pressure environments inside stars.

We can rule-out unexpected simple chemistry on other planets and in the outer space, but the inside of stars is too different an environment.

Also, we surely can not rule-out anything from complex chemistry on any kind of environment. Macromolecules and non-repeating crystals are very badly understood.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm sure that people will be able to create very fast carbon nanotube transistors (CNTFETs) in the future but that isn't currently the problem. Generally when you're creating normal silicon transistors (MOSFETs) one out of every billion or so is bad, meaning you have to fuse off some block of cache or maybe an entire core but multi-billion transistor chips are possible when you do stuff like that.

My understanding of the state of the art of CNTFETs right now is that only having one out of every 10 be bad would be a significant advance. So making 10 transistor circuits is maybe feasible but nothing larger. And even the 8086 had 20,000 transistors.

There's a lot of work that has to be done before CNTFETs are ready to be used in computers.

</comment><comment><USER9> Silicon is not the best transistor material ever. For example, gallium arsenide can run at a switching frequency of 250 GHz thanks to faster electron velocity and higher electron mobility. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium_arsenide#GaAs_advantag...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium_arsenide#GaAs_advantages)

<comment><USER10> You can create some pretty high frequency transistors (BJTs) with Indium Phosphide (InP) (ft > 600GHz, fmax > 1THz). See page 33 of:

[http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/Faculty/rodwell/publications_and_pre...](http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/Faculty/rodwell/publications_and_presentations/publications/2012_10_15_Oct_rodwell_CSIC_talk.pdf)

...for examples of some 600 GHz circuits, and:

[http://www.semiconductor- today.com/news_items/2014/OCT/NORTH...](http://www.semiconductor- today.com/news_items/2014/OCT/NORTHROP-GRUMMAN_311014.shtml)

...for a >1THz circuit using InP HEMTs.

<comment><USER11> Wow that's crazy.

I wonder how you even test a 1THz amplifier. Also what kind of natural noise might exist in those bands

<comment><USER10> >I wonder how you even test a 1THz amplifier.

Most likely using a mixer or some other non-linearity to down convert into the frequency range of your spectrum analyzer.

<comment><USER11> And how do you get the 1THz signal in the 1st place? Maybe upconvert as well?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> wav-part Paper : [http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/2/9/e1601240...](http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/2/9/e1601240.full.pdf)

Previous Discussion : [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12429779](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12429779) (39 days ago, 42 comments)

</comment><comment><USER12> This is a really important advancement in circuits. We were reaching the physical limits of silicon and it was only a matter of time before we would have to find an alternative to continue the upward trends of transistor performance.

<comment><USER10> There are quite a few materials which outperform straight silicon, but it is hard to compete with the gigantic amount of existing silicon infrastructure, except for very niche applications.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-electron- mobility_transis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-electron- mobility_transistor)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I thought it was innterconnect loss and heat dissipation that is keeping processor clocks slow, not intrinsic transistor speed.

</comment><comment><USER14> Even if the science becomes feasible, this domain in encumbered with too many patents.

<comment><USER15> That'd explain why the military is funding it - patents don't apply to them!</comment></comment>


Japan wants foreign entrepreneurs, but what's missing? - <AUTHOR> https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/11/25/business/japan-foreign-entrepreneurs/ <comment><USER2> Does Japan _really_ want foreign entrepreneurs? It's always been very conservative and while they may be polite to foreigners, that's very different from allowing non-Japanese to expand a business there. I think it's ingrained in the culture, and some of these bridges Tokyo is building might be too little to catch up to SK or Germany.

<comment><USER3> > Does Japan really want foreign entrepreneurs? It's always been very > conservative

My understanding is they're also very financially conservative, I think it was pinboard who was talking about his experience as an independent entrepreneur?

<comment><USER4> I also remember this guy's perspective: [https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in- japan](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan)

<comment><USER3> Ah yes, that's who I was thinking about, I confused patio11 and pinboard (sorry to both).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Japan is a pretty good cautionary tale for Britain (and to a lesser extent to the US) on how shutting yourself off from immigration tends to go.

Japan was expected to become the next global superpower in the 1980s, and instead has seen closing in on three lost decades.

It's only now trying to catch up, politically, culturally and economically.

<comment><USER6> Yet China is a global superpower and shut off from immigration

<comment><USER7> china has a billion people. they don't need immigration. japan's population is declining

<comment><USER6> The solution to people not having enough children is to have more children, you could enlist people from abroad to help with the effort, but you could also try to raise the birthrate using the existing population.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In their immigration policy there is no path to permanent residency or citizenship. With so many other options around the world, why would immigrants move to non English speaking country with not so friendly immigration policies?

<comment><USER9> > no path to permanent residency

[http://www.immi- moj.go.jp/english/tetuduki/zairyuu/eizyuu.ht...](http://www.immi- moj.go.jp/english/tetuduki/zairyuu/eizyuu.html)

> or citizenship

[https://www.justlanded.com/english/Japan/Japan- Guide/Visas-P...](https://www.justlanded.com/english/Japan/Japan-Guide/Visas- Permits/Japanese-citizenship)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's a taboo subject, because the Japanese aren't very open to non-locals.

<comment><USER11> Have you been there lately? They are actually quite many non-local workers these days. Not sure they are treated well though.

<comment><USER12> My father works for a japanese oil exploration company, and has been for about 25 years.

He just got back from a trip to give a presentation in Japan...first thing I hear when he gets back is how badly racist the Japanese are.

I know it's just an anecdote...but it's been his experience in general over the years.

<comment><USER13> That is probably enough info to ID him- you may want to edit that in case of unintended negative repercussions for him...

<comment><USER12> Fair point, I've updated it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> NHK English documentaries are very up front about problems:

Death of a Dream: Vietnamese Workers in Japan [https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/4001336/](https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/4001336/)

</comment><comment><USER15> You need to know Japanese, streamlined beauty standards, you need to work crazy hours and it looks bad if you have switched companies in the past.

Get past these problems and non-japanese start to love it. They are not as racist as many people make them out to be, most are just extremely frustrated that english and being chubby isn't enough to be accepted.

</comment><comment><USER16> Well damn, this is _exactly_ what I wanted.

I've been studying Japanese for years (taking the JLPT again in December).

I want to start a computational filmmaking startup, and Japan has some of the best writers and media exports the world has to offer.

I really need to stop worrying and pursue this...

<comment><USER17> You totally should.

It's been a dream of mine to go spend time in Japan since I was quite young. The dream has morphed; I have a serious relationship now, a good career and a place to call home that I don't want to leave permanently. But the dream lives on and we're planning to go there for six months in a couple of years to learn the language intensively.

Don't let your dreams stay dreams.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm a foreigner who has started a number of companies in Japan over the past 25 years. Right now is a great time to be starting a company here.

BTW, shameless plug for my podcast: [https://www.disruptingjapan.com/](https://www.disruptingjapan.com/)

However, the idea of trying to get someone to move to Japan to start a startup is kind of odd. Ideally, you should be near your customers.

Japan is a wonderful place to live, but there is much more they can do to make things attractive to Japanese entrepreneurs, which will, in turn, make it attractive to everyone, including foreign entrepreneurs.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've been dealing with setting up a corporation over the past few months and have some quick (5am) comments on a few of these points from the article. Hopefully this is helpful to anyone considering doing business in Japan.

> Tokyo One-Stop Business Establishment Center (TOSBEC)

This resource is great and underutilized in Tokyo in the international business scene from my experience. I've been doing my part to recommend it far and wide, as it is very helpful with solid English support.

> Corporate bank account

I finished setting up my corporation in Japan in April, and it is now essentially December and I do not have a corporate bank account yet. Getting denied many times from various banks, always being told that they cannot tell us the reason why due to "policy". also, it can take anywhere from three to five weeks to process your application. My accountant, lawyer, etc cannot quite figure it out for certain. It recently came down to a few potential factors around me not being on the business manager visa (on another work visa), even though we've seen success doing it as that before. Banking has been my biggest holdup thus far.

> Private office

to secure a visa from your own business, you need a private office. You must have a private door, with your company name listed on it. there are multiple businesses which support this around the city, but you will pay at least 600 USD per month for a shoebox office with no windows or AC control, if you want to be in a reasonable neighborhood. There is also a semi-requirement that your bank must be within 5 km of your headquarters, AKA your office. So if you will be going there frequently, which you probably will be since online banking here is practically useless, you will not want to be traveling far.

So, you will be spending 600 USD per month on an office. You will also be spending 2,000 to 3,000 USD per year on an accountant to handle your corporate taxes. the standard rate for setting up a corporation, is around 4,500 USD to 5,500 USD. If you can't read Japanese kanji forms, which is all you are going to find that many banks and most government offices offer, you're going to need to pay a translator. If you are sponsoring your own visa, you need to deposit at least 50,000 USD into your bank account to support your visa. This money can be used elsewhere after it has been deposited, but is still a hurdle for some.

You are looking at a minimum of 15,000 to 20,000 USD for setting up a corporation over your first year, assuming you follow the standard path (excluding the 50k deposit)

I've been doing my best to document everything along the way during this process, and it is not over yet. Feel free to reach out to me directly if you have more questions or a curious about more details.

<comment><USER19> After 'working' with Canadian immigration for a couple of years to get my status secured I gave up. Any country that doesn't value what its immigrants bring to the table deserves to be ignored.

Given that your route seems to be full of friction why do you persist? Is there some unique element to your business that requires you to be in Japan?

Consider me impressed. Canada was easier than what you describe and yet, I couldn't stomach it after a couple of years of being given the run-around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> After having done this myself, I figure that even for a Japanese native this must be tedious without having done it at least twice before.

When we closed down our company... a native helped us submit the paperwork to close out our local bank account with an online bank. It took SIX MONTHS of sending the same form back and forth with corrections to finish it, haha.

</comment><comment><USER21> I think I remember writing about this before, but it's also unclear what comparative advantages a startup in Japan offers you outside of two things: easy access to the Japanese market if you think their consumers/businesses will be the largest market for your product, and world-leading expertise in robotics (and some other things). I guess you can also live in some huge, nice cities without absurd cost of living too. Not sure if those are worth all the operational and cultural difficulties for most people, relative to other places.

</comment><comment><USER22> Work culture for me honestly

</comment><comment><USER23> Regarding the out-of-print book mentioned, Making Common Sense of Japan, there's a scanned pdf of it on Library Genesis.

</comment><comment><USER24> It is missing acceptance.

</comment><comment><USER25> Let them release my man Carlos Ghosn first.

<comment><USER26> This is a fair point. Carlos seemed like he did some really questionable things as head of Nissan, but it all seemed to be things that should have only been pursued in a civil case, not criminal. Instead, it seems like Nissan has used Japan's criminal justice system to punish him, and in quite a harsh way too. The guy is most likely guilty of some things, but the punishment he's experienced has been really out of proportion, and that's not going to be attractive to others who might look at Japan as a place to start a business or get involved in corporate politics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Like others have stated, the Japanese are very much xenophobic to outsiders. The idea of bringing a business to Japan seems unique but you aren't going to get any community support like you would in western countries.

Personally I view Japan has a oddity. A first world country that short of some tech and Toyota/Honda produce little to nothing for trade. Everything is imported which could land you into the red if the powers at be stop playing nice in trading with Japan.

<comment><USER28> > A first world country that short of some tech and Toyota/Honda produce > little to nothing for trade. Everything is imported

Japan does not export "some tech and Toyota/Honda". It exports a LOTS of vehicles, vehicle parts, integrated circuits, machines, etc. Japan is the 4th largest exporter in the world.

Also, a country that doesn't export much cannot import much, or else how could the country afford it?

edit: typo

<comment><USER29> Not mention Japan's massive cultural exports, e.g. Godzilla, Nintendo, anime, samurai and ninjas, you could go on and on.

<comment><USER16> If you look at the list of most valuable media franchises, Japan is king.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest- grossing_med...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest- grossing_media_franchises)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest- grossing_vid...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest- grossing_video_game_franchises)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Functional JavaScript: Closure - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fogus.me/2013/06/18/functional-javascript-closure/ <comment><USER2> The book is on sale here: [http://shop.oreilly.com/category/deals/velocity- celebration....](http://shop.oreilly.com/category/deals/velocity- celebration.do?code=CFVLCTY&cmp=tw-velocity-dotw-velocity-celebration-promo) (50% discount)

<comment><USER3> That seems to be the ebook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As it says on the site, Fogus is "a core contributor to Clojure and ClojureScript". I wonder why he didn't just write a book on ClojureScript instead. Isn't ClojureScript already a way to write functional javascript?

<comment><USER5> I am writing a book on ClojureScript. [http://joyofclojure.com/2nd](http://joyofclojure.com/2nd)

<comment><USER6> Nice! I hope "Thinking code" and "Data-orientation" parts will get more attention (and space), versus ClojureScript and "weby" stuff, in case there will be a trade-off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> $12 is cheap. I also made sure it went through your Amazon referral link fogus, thank you for writing it. :)

<comment><USER8> I did the same thing. I have been waiting for this book. For a variety of reasons, I have been spending more time coding in Javascript and a little less in Clojure, and I hope this book helps make that a happier experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The Joy of Clojure is my favorite programming book, so this is a no brainer for me.

</comment><comment><USER10> So far I've been disappointed by the "functional X" books.. Probably because I've read SICP and much of the "functional" books just repeat the same patterns over and over.. i.e. memoization, closures, map, reduce, etc. Still, I'm a sucker for these books and I'll gladly buy it. Hopefully I'll learn a thing or two.. and if I do so, I'll be more then happy to share the word about it! : )

</comment><comment><USER11> Thoroughly enjoying your book, thanks for writing it! It was also great to get a DRM-free copy through O'Reilly. Please write more :)

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm a back end java guy who's getting more into JS. Bought. Thx, Fogus.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm currently reading it and enjoying it a lot. Congrats!

</comment><comment><USER14> Congrats, I have been waiting a while for this!

</comment><comment><USER15> The otherwise beautiful 'official site' has a very curious 'feature' right at the bottom: a glossary of choice words which, on click, pop open a window alert with their 'definition'. It gets even more bizarre: at least two of those items return "glossary entry for [xyz] not yet available".

<comment><USER5> And? Actually one definition, 'recursion' reloads the page and the other 'laziness' has no definition... yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Thank you for creating this book!

</comment><comment><USER17> How does this book compare to Doug Crawfords book?</comment>


Gestures with multitouch in Ubuntu 10.10 - <AUTHOR> http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/455

<comment><USER3> _The design team has lead the way, developing a "touch language" which goes beyond the work that we've seen elsewhere. Rather than single, magic gestures, we're making it possible for basic gestures to be chained, or composed, into more sophisticated "sentences"._

This sounds very interesting! Both to develop and to use.

</comment><comment><USER4> Shuttleworth definitely blogs about some compelling ubuntu stuff - <USER2> seriously needs to add some visuals.</comment>


Displaying mathematics on the web - <AUTHOR> http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/displaying-mathematics-on-the-web/

<comment><AUTHOR> There's not much content in the blog entry itself, but its purpose was to begin a discussion about how things could be better, and that discussion is well underway in the comments. I know many HNers are interested in this, so you might want to contribute...</comment>


The best Flappy48 on the App Store - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/app/id868075324

<comment><AUTHOR> It's the most enjoyable of flappy48 out there!</comment>


APOD: A Crumbling Layered Hill on Mars - <AUTHOR> http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap161005.html <comment><AUTHOR> [http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1610/MurrayButte_CuriosityKr...](http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1610/MurrayButte_CuriosityKremer_2329.jpg) for the full resolution pic.</comment>


Ask HN: Back end Engineers, where did you start? - <AUTHOR> Based on the thread
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14677303<p>I wish to know how to start and develop Expertise as a Back End Engineer. <comment><USER2> I guess they begin at the bottom and work their way up, but towards the back end... that's a start anyway. /s</comment>


Military-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961 - <AUTHOR> http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html <comment><USER2> The 1964 movie "Seven Days in May" touches on this topic, [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_in_May](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_in_May)

 _" President Kennedy had read Seven Days in May shortly after its publication and believed the scenario as described could actually occur in the United States. According to Frankenheimer in his director's commentary, production of the film received encouragement and assistance from Kennedy through White House Press Secretary Pierre Salinger, who conveyed to Frankenheimer Kennedy's wish that the film be produced and that, although the Pentagon did not want the film made, the President would conveniently arrange to visit Hyannis Port for a weekend when the film needed to shoot outside the White House."_

</comment><comment><USER3> "As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow."

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> An article which argues that this speech has been "completely misunderstood.":

[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history_less...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history_lesson/2011/01/beware_the_militaryindustrial_complex.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> This is also shown in the documentary "Why We Fight". Very powerful.

<comment><USER5> When I was a student (Cadet) at West Point the Social Sciences Department (colloquially known as "SOSH") sponsored a viewing of that film and invited the director, Eugene Jareki, to come and conduct an open forum discussion after the viewing. Probably one of the highlights of my time there. After the Q&A some of the cadets who were SOSH majors stayed to ask a few one-on-one questions and I got to ask him (and I'm paraphrasing here) whose responsibility it was to fix this obvious problem - a problem so obvious that the United States Military Academy's Social Sciences Department chose to show this film to a bunch of people about to fight these wars. (Granted, there is a statue of Ike that sits outside the Jefferson Hall Library[1]...so maybe there was some Old Grad hero worship going on.) His response was that he hadn't really considered who's responsibility it should be beyond the obvious (all of ours), and that he didn't mean to convey that responsibility on this generation of war fighters, but that he did have faith that younger people would be able to affect some change here.

That was a number of years ago. I suppose he meant the long game of when the young people grow up.

As an aside, the namesake of the documentary comes from the propaganda films made during WWII.[2]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower_Monument](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower_Monument) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_We_Fight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_We_Fight)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The US presidency is perhaps the greatest bait and switch ever pulled. So much is spent fretting over who gets the office, when there is very little direct power to be had without some backing from congress.

<comment><USER7> In no way is it a "bait and switch", but I wholeheartedly agree that too much emphasis is given to the president and not enough emphasis on voters communicating with state and federal legislators during the legislative sessions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Okay, disclaimer up front: I have spent almost my entire working career as an engineer in the MIC. And this speech, in particular, is something I have spent a lot of time thinking about.

> America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive > nation in the world.

Still true today, although the "rise of the rest" means that the US is not the absolutely dominant-in-all-arenas country it was a few decades ago. That's fine with me personally, as that rise of other countries has meant improved living standards and less poverty for many areas.

> we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely > upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on > how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

"With great power comes great responsibility". No argument with President Eisenhower on this one. Power must be used with great discretion and for good purposes.

> Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or > readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and > abroad.

A point that seems to have been largely forgotten in recent years.

> A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms > must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may > be tempted to risk his own destruction.

As you would expect from the man that led the most powerful single fighting force in history to that time, Eisenhower understands the value in deterrence. Our arms are indeed mighty. We are developing weapons systems that are the result of integrating applied expertise in just about every technical field. And then we are making huge systems of systems where those weapons systems work together.

> Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any > of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War > II or Korea.

It's 1961. He's talking about a system that has completely changed in seven years (since the end of large scale hostilities in Korea in 1953). What happened during that time? The Department of Defense got its legs underneath it (it was only 13 years old in 1960), the Cold War became the dominant ideological conflict shaping the world, the "Sputnik Shock" resulted in large investments in aerospace, and the space race was on. I wonder what Eisenhower would have made out of the massive changes in the 14 years since the September 11 attacks.

>In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

The core idea of the speech. I think that Eisenhower's warnings weren't heeded. The systems he oversaw had a number of positive feedback loops in their design. The biggest feedback loop in Eisenhower's time was the cold war. What were the Russians doing? Did they have advantages in technology? Could we counter their weapons systems? Their computer systems? Efforts to answer these questions continually brought technical people and money into the system, which reinforced the system, driving the system even harder. This feedback loop remains largely unchanged, only the language used ("information dominance") and the targets referred to (terrorists, other large nation states) change.

> But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; > we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast > proportions.

It is a world so vast that no one can really tell you exactly how big it is. The Pentagon cannot even accurately account for how the money that it takes in is spent. And it's large at even the smallest scales. You can work in the same building as someone (even a fairly small building) and have zero idea what they're working on, because you don't need to know.

> Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of > the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful > methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Something to think about in the current climate of pervasive surveillance.

> Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, > we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy > could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.

Don't worry, Ike, the MIC will eventually give birth to the internet, which will make it even MORE difficult to discern signal from noise and will result in a US citizenry that doesn't believe in evolution or anthropogenic climate change. That extends to the elite that runs the country.

> As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- > must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease > and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow.

Similarly, I wonder what Ike would have made out of climate change deniers? I doubt, from this language, that he would have been a denier.

Eisenhower was right on pretty much all points, but I think that by the time he noticed this, it was already too late to stop. Perhaps if the USSR had collapsed a few decades earlier, there might have been some reason dial down the gain on the feedback loop driving the growth of the MIC.

<comment><USER6> >> Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.

As best i can tell, the first two have largely been ignored, while the last one is shouted from the hilltops all days, every day.</comment></comment>


Xiaomi's $45B Valuation Seen 'Unfeasible' as Growth Cools - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-25/xiaomi-s-45-billion-valuation-seen-unfeasible-as-growth-cools <comment><USER2> The article doesn't dig into some important possible reasons why the growth may be slowing down. When a company is shipping at a large scale (~80 million devices a year), macro factors must be playing a role -- may be the # of phones shipped in the Chinese market is lower this year than expected?, or slowdown in consumer spending? or some other macro factor. The reason I say this is because the thesis presented in the article ("No Loyalty") isn't well substantiated. There are way too many counter anecdotes available where super loyal 'mi-fans' (thats what the loyal fans of this company are called) have stood in line for hours to purchase the latest phones (a la Apple).

Their growth has been quite phenomenal -- infact, they are probably the fastest company to reach $1B in revenue _ever_ \-- which isn't a small feat. But as size grows, doesn't growth inevitably slow down (for almost every company)?

Also, as another commenter has pointed out, they really are a _internet of things_ company, more than a smartphone company. Seeing them _just_ as a smartphone is missing the big picture.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think viewing Xiaomi purely based on its smartphone sales is a bit shortsighted. I don't own a Xiaomi phone but I do have 3 Xiaomi air filters, several smart plugs, wifi router, digital thermometer, digital scale, etc. When I buy a new TV, it'll certainly be a Xiaomi TV along with a Xiaomi router which allows me access to the Xiaomi streaming service. The stuff they're doing with smart home devices is probably what's going to drive their valuation in the future.

<comment><USER4> They have horrible brand recognition in the US. To most American consumers, they may as well be a no-name brand.

I think it is safe to say that you are an exception of sorts. You've surrounded yourself with products from a company most people don't even know exists.

<comment><USER5> Xiaomi doesn't make their products available to American consumers, so that's not surprising.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder where people buy Xiaomi devices. They are not on Amazon. We run a large website about phones and sell other brands all day via affiliate programs. But never were able to find one via which we can sell Xiaomi phones.

<comment><USER7> Xiaomi only sells them in their online shop and only in specific regions like China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and I believe India. There are no retailers of Xiaomi phones and everybody buys them online at their shop.

There are some grey market importers for other countries, but even those originally have to buy them online at their shop in a country where Xiaomi sells.

<comment><USER6> Ah, so they dont tackle the US at all? Why that? Surprising that I hear so much about them regardless.

<comment><USER8> My impression is that Xiaomi is unapologetic about copying other products without licensing the associated patents &c., but is sticking to markets where they won't be sued for it. Samsung, which did the same thing, has been embroiled in extremely expensive legal wrangling for years.

Moreover, most US phones are sold under the cheap-up-front-with-2-year contract model, something Xiaomi doesn't do as far as I know. Getting phones sold through cell carriers takes a lot of wheeling and dealing. More generally, scaling out to new countries takes lots of work on regulatory compliance, advertising/sales, customer service, etc. which they might not be ready to tackle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is their management that terrible? As an outsider I would assume the opposite for their valuation/potential. They make reasonably good quality stuff that gets replaced almost annually.</comment>


Not a geek - <AUTHOR> http://mattgemmell.com/2013/07/12/not-a-geek/

<comment><USER2>
        If you insult my text editor,
        I will punch you in the face.

It's very akin to:

        If you touch my Charizard,
        I will punch you in the face.

Or:

        If you delete my FF7 slot from that card,
        I will punch you in the face.

Or even:

        If you talk to me about D&D4.0,
        I will punch you in the face.

And quite possibly:

        If you suggest Nickelback to me,
        I will punch you in the face.

Or absolutely:

        If you play that opening again,
        I will punch you in the face.

And surely:

        My surfing Pikachu!!! Noooo!
        I'm going to punch you in the face!

And arguably:

        If you prove that theorem like that again,
        I'm going to fail you from this class.

Questionably:

        If you mention "God" in this (philosophy) class again,
        I'm going to throw a book at you.

These are the marks of a geek. "Geek" is not some description that someone falls under by virtue of prestige or credibility. A geek is so every day, and that person defines him or her self in terms of those things he or she is willing to punch you in the face over, should you transgress the sacred nature of those artifacts or things involved in their geekdom. There are invisible lines drawn throughout our subcultures, and geeks defend them, like trolls.

Geeks are most often trolls, the otakus, the DMs, the ones who not only play this game, but in very many real senses suffer the mental and social disparity of living it. They really listened to that obscure noise-jazz album continuously for weeks on end. They really played that RPG for 37 hours straight. They really read all the manuals back to back over the weekend.

You passed your classes with excellent marks. Bravo, well done. To each her own, but that does not make you a geek because you passed social expectations.

By-passing social expectations is what geeks do; and it is coincidence that others praise them for it and hate them for it all the same. And that doesn't matter. I use vim, and that's the only thing I'll punch you in the face over.</comment>


Inside A Storage Allocator - <AUTHOR> http://www.flounder.com/inside_storage_allocation.htm

<comment><USER2> This really made my head hurt. Good thing there are other people that take care of this stuff for me.</comment>


Ask HN: How does one break into journalism? - <AUTHOR> Journalism seems to be an ever-increasingly competitive field to enter. So, I ask the HN community, how would a recent college graduate without a journalism degree and relevant work experience work towards getting a job as a news reporter? <comment><USER2> It's actually pretty easy: just do the job. Open your own blog and write. Cover whatever beat you are interested in. You'll have almost no audience at first, which is normal, but ignore that. Write as if you had your dream job.

Then, you can start submitting some of your writing to more serious blogs and news organizations. Work your way up slowly. For instance, to make it to the New York Times, start with being "reprinted" in Business Insider, then HuffPo, then NYT.

PS: be aware that there is very little money in journalism. As in, ridiculously no money at all. You can work really hard day and night and make $30K/year. Or write a php website and make 4 times more.

</comment><comment><USER3> That doesn't sound like a good idea. Journalism is already one of the college majors with the highest percentage of joblessness after graduation, and you want to compete with those unemployed graduates without the degree or a body of work? Why?

</comment><comment><USER4> Are you prepared to not make much money? If so, you can get work, but you need to prepare yourself for what your life will be like.

</comment><comment><USER5> Oh, that's simple to answer -- acquire a journalism degree. I say this because many people with journalism degrees as well as experience are unemployed right now, because of big changes in the publishing business brought on by online content and other factors.

As to:

> How does one break into journalism?

My advice is to prepare yourself to go in the front door like everyone else.

</comment><comment><USER6> Email me: cyrus.farivar [at] arstechnica.com . Serious!</comment>


Show HN: Revboat - startup Q&A community  - <AUTHOR>

Right now, a freshly configured question2answer.org  installation for people involved in startups. <comment><USER2> Great, yet another Q&A site...

I would recommend asking yourself: What does Revboat offer that other Q&A sites fall short on?

Also, you NEED to hire a designer. The current design is offensive to the eyes.

<comment><AUTHOR> hmm, do you find the basic <http://www.question2answer.org/qa/> theme as bad?

What do the other ones not offer? I like the idea of having due-diligence on startup questions... like what YC partners do..

<comment><USER2> First of all, build a custom theme. Downloading a pre-built Q&A PHP script and throwing it up on your server takes virtually no skill/work and visitors can sense this lack of effort within milliseconds of the first page loading...

Also, how is your site better than the YC area of Quora, for example?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you want to work on it, drop me an email. What's the YC area of Quora?

<comment><USER2> I don't have your email... you can contact me through my site if you'd like: <http://connorbaskauskas.com>.

<http://www.quora.com/Y-Combinator>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I know of two active stackexchange sites for startups: <http://startups.com> and <http://answers.onstartups.com>

To compete I think you'll need a better design and really good content. Just seeing one "test questions" is not a good first impression. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> What do think about the idea of pivoting, and making it a board to display YC/Seedcamp-like questionnaires?

<comment><USER3> The current design is going to turn people away. The kind of people who would use a startup, seedcamp, etc questions site are the kind of people that expect good design and UI. It needs a lot of work.

What about turning it into a boating questions site?

<comment><AUTHOR> Simplicity is not stupidity. This board is pretty basic too. Q&A is a crowded space.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> <http://revboat.com>

</comment><comment><USER4> sorry to kill your spirit but what are you doing?</comment>


Ask HN: US Visa without degree - <AUTHOR> Is this possible at all? Has anyone done it? I'm a UK Citizen who is self taught with 5+ years experience developing web based software.<p>I may have the option of starting a part-time master's degree in computer science... Would this help even without an undergrad? <comment><USER2> It is possible if you go for an L-1 visa where a degree is not a prerequisite.

If you work for a subsidiary of a US company outside of the US for at least one year then you can transfer on the L-1 visa to their US office. Just be aware that you can't switch companies like you could on an H-1B. However, L-1 visa holders can still apply for a green card. Once you have that you're free to change employers.

One technicality: If you work for a big company (like Google) then you're basically guaranteed to get the L-1 after one year since those companies typically hold the so called L-1 blanket. Otherwise it's a more involved process where you might get rejected.

I have friends who are currently on an L-1 in SF through big companies (= L-1 blanket holders) and getting it was basically a formality.

The L-1 also has the advantage that there is no annual cap like there is on the H-1B. You get it or you don't. No lottery. One big startup that I interviewed with opened up an office in Vancouver specifically for H-1B rejects to get them to their main office in SF through the L-1 one year later.

More information on Wikipedia: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-1_visa](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-1_visa)

<comment><USER3> Could you please tell the name of startup you applied for, and some more such startups?

<comment><USER2> Sure. Just write me an email and I'm happy to share more information.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you want to be a founder, consider this state level program: [http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2015/03/30/cu- boulder-...](http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2015/03/30/cu-boulder- program-seeks-bring-national-and-international-entrepreneurs)

Various states who have launched or are considering launching have different requirements. CO does require either an undergrad or masters' degree, so work experience wouldn't count. MA is Masters' only.

Keep in mind that the H-1B itself does offer work equivalency, but it's 3 years work experience → 1 year of academic training, which means that 5+ years is unlikely to meet the USCIS test requirements.

</comment><comment><USER5> I did it, it cost CND$2.5k in lawyer fees, and I needed a stack of reference letters and proof that I had 7 years experience in my field to show degree equivalency. I applied as a management consultant for IT hardware/software dev. I was able to renew on that basis as well. Good documentation, a truthful story, and a good lawyer. Yes you can but you need a matching job offer from the US and evidence that you aren't displacing a US citizen for the job. Sounds rough but it was actually pretty easy for me.

I don't have a degree or a diploma.

<comment><USER6> What type of Visa do you have? I'm assuming seeing as you paid CND, you are Canadian and have a TN? TN is much easier to obtain than something like a H1B which has a yearly cap and has a different and much more lengthy process.

<comment><USER5> yes you are right.... I had it in my head it was an h1b... it was a TN. It was a about 9 years ago. So yes, I can tell you about a TN and I don't have a clue about the H1B sorry for the mix up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you want to go as a developer you need a degree at least the equivalent of a US bachelor degree.

If you are going to start a masters for this specific reason I would strongly recommend you get confirmation that the degree you're going for qualifies.

You'll also need a US company to sponsor your visa application.

</comment><comment><USER8> IANAL but legally, Yes as they say "Bachelors degree or Equivalent" for H1-B visa. Not sure about other visa classes.

The problem is in trying to prove the "Bachelors equivalent". I personally know a friend from Bangladesh who did that successfully by using a good lawyer/law firm.

</comment><comment><USER9> Depends. Do you want to a work Visa? I think you will need a degree if you want an H1B or something like that.

</comment><comment><USER10> For H1B 3 years work experience equals 1 year of college.</comment>


Former Facebook insider on why it felt like a religious cult - <AUTHOR> https://finance.yahoo.com/news/former-facebook-insider-why-felt-000000995.html <comment><USER2> tl;dr "A more open and connected world. Done is better than perfect, Get in over your head. Move fast and break things." were the mantra of the cult. Nothing particularly new or damning here.</comment>


NPR's 404 Page - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=404

<comment><USER2> NPR is the best thing that has happened to radio and media. All Things Considered, Fresh Air, On Point, and Car Talk are some of the best programs on radio.

<comment><USER3> please don't forget Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Greatest news quiz show ever.

<comment><USER4> You forgot the best one... this american life

<comment><USER5> That's PRI not NPR, which is relevant because NPR famously rejected the show (then had to license it from PRI because it's so good).

I once heard Ira Glass talking about why he didn't make it on NPR... he was hosting the national phone-in show for a few months, and they would have expert panels discussing things like the Cold War. One day, some national security expert -- evidently trying to play the folksy card -- responded to a question by saying, "Well, it's like my grandmother says, blah blah blah". Glass' immediate instinct was to say, "Oh really? Tell me more about your grandmother!" He always wanted to go for the marginal, overlooked thing. I love that story.

One other point before I get off this NPR binge: has anyone else noticed that Ira Glass' vocal mannerisms have been picked up by the new generation of NPR journalists? This is really annoying. It's like a whole generation of singers imitating Bob Dylan. Listen, people: it was cool when _he_ did it; _you_ are making asses of yourselves. The worst offenders are the people on that "Planet Money" team; I can hardly listen to them. Ok, rant over.

<comment><USER6> Which is funny because Ira Glass specifically warns against that. Talk like yourself. But then again, maybe we imitate masters to learn before we figure out which ones of the things we're imitating are right, and which are just effects we're cargo culting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _After three years of searching for the Apollo 11 tapes, NASA concluded that the footage of the first manned moon landing is probably lost forever._

How come I never knew that Apollo 11 footage was lost?

<comment><USER7> I'm wondering why my comment downmodded; I'd like to know in what way I may have violated community guidelines, so I don't again. I suppose my comment was not useful, is that it?

<comment><USER8> Yes. Only you know why you hadn't seen the coverage of the lost Apollo tapes. So, your comment was about as useful to the conversation as, "where oh where did I put my car keys?"

<comment><USER9> If his question were taken literally, then that might be a good explanation. But it seems pretty obvious that he is asking why it isn't more widely known that something so important was lost.

Two potentially instructive responses might be "The lost Apollo 11 tapes have been all over the news and everyone except you knows about them" or "NASA only recently admitted this embarrassing fact and it was released on Sunday morning to minimize media coverage."

<comment><USER8> BTW, I didn't downvote until his comment was briefly at +2; it wasn't a _bad_ comment, just a vague/rhetorical/possibly-paranoid comment I wouldn't want to encourage.

If he had clarified that he was wondering why it hadn't gotten more coverage, I would have pointed out I remembered a bunch of coverage a few years ago -- coverage that even yielded a Wikipedia article, <[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes>](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes>), with a 3+ year edit history.

Instead, he seemed genuinely interested in why someone would have disliked his comment, so I gave a likely answer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> yes 404 pages can be cool. see [http://www.instantshift.com/2009/03/24/creative-404-error- pa...](http://www.instantshift.com/2009/03/24/creative-404-error-pages-around- for-inspiration/)

there, now I am ontopic so i can afford to rant: why is this interesting?

</comment><comment><USER11> That's way way better than leaving someone feeling like they've been thrown in the dumpster!

</comment><comment><USER12> So now...the quest to find a page that will give us a 500 error message ^_^

</comment><comment><USER13> what is special about it?

<comment><USER14> "It's a shame that your page is lost, but at least it's in good company; stick around to browse through NPR stories about lost people, places and things that still haven't turned up." Followed by: Amelia Earhart, Jimmy Hoffa, Waldo, etc.

<comment><USER15> Not helpful for the person who's trying to find the missing page, but entertaining.</comment></comment></comment>


RSpec Best Practices - <AUTHOR> http://betterspecs.org/

<comment><USER3> I can't believe this line is considered good practice:

        collection.should have(2).items

It illustrates what I believe is wrong with RSpec: the assertion style is completely disconnected from the API that is being tested. There's no way you can tell what methods are being called on the `collection` object without being intimately familiar with _this specific_ RSpec matcher.

So what does that line actually do? Apart from calling strange methods like `items` on strange objects like `have(2)` in the end the test passes iff `collection.length` equals 2. Compare RSpec with classic test/unit assertions:

        collection.should have(2).items

        assert_equal 2, collection.length

The second line is just so much more obvious to me.

On the other hand I really like the RSpec way of grouping tests and structuring test cases. My favourite test cases are written with minitest/spec (a lightweight test/unit-compatible clone of RSpec) and test/unit-style assertions.

<comment><USER4> In fact RSpec team is in the process of changing the default to the new expect matcher syntax ([http://myronmars.to/n/dev-blog/2012/06/rspecs-new- expectatio...](http://myronmars.to/n/dev-blog/2012/06/rspecs-new-expectation- syntax)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This would've been good when I was just starting with RSpec. A couple things I'd like to add:

        Mock or not to Mock

Mock and stub relentlessly. Ensure that the object you're testing the behavior of sends the right messages to its collaborators but put the tests for those messages in the unit test for the collaborator. This keeps your tests isolated and fast. As long as you adhere to "Tell, Don't Ask" you should simply be able to assert that your method is sending messages to other objects without relying on the behavior that those methods perform.

        Create only the data you need

        describe "User"
          describe ".top" do
            before { 3.times { Factory(:user) } }
            it { User.top(2).should have(2).item }
          end
        end

The author advocates not creating dozens of objects but why make any at all? This seems like a place where setting expectations is a better course of action. There's no reason to test ActiveRecord query methods like this - <USER2> assert that the filters that you want are being set by the method and call it. I usually do something like this (using rspec-mocks):

        subject.should_receive(:popular).and_return(subject)
        subject.should_receive(:by_create_date).and_return(subject)
        ...

This lets you know that the class method is performing the filtering you want without actually fetching data from the db. Much like validations, this is the kind of thing you can rely on either the Rails team or the db adapter writers to get the actual filtering right without having to test this over and over in your app. Having your unit tests (business logic!) actually hit your persistence layer like this is the kind of thing that makes test suites slow!

<comment><USER6> _This keeps your tests isolated and fast._

No, _writing good tests_ keeps your test isolated and fast. Creating lots of mock objects distracts you from writing good tests, because what you're testing is your ability to 1) write mock objects that conform to the ad hoc interfaces you've produced and 2) maintain those mock objects when those ad hoc interfaces change.

If you want to know if your code works, you still have to test if it all works together.

<comment><USER7> But if you're having to create lots of mock objects, that's a huge signal that your objects are tightly coupled, and that not only are you writing a bad test, you've written a bad subject-under-test.

Yes, you still have to write integration tests. But the discipline of testing your objects in isolation and outlining the objects they collaborate with is a major benefit of using test doubles, not a downside. If you can't reason about your objects in isolation, how can you expect to reason about them in aggregate?

<comment><USER6> _If you can't reason about your objects in isolation, how can you expect to reason about them in aggregate?_

I don't _use_ my objects in isolation.

Maybe I can mock up some factory which creates model objects outside of my persistence mechanism, but what value is that? I care that when I create an object in response to an action from a real user the persistence mechanism produces the correct object.

I happily bulk load testing data into my persistence mechanism for testing purposes, but I see almost no reason to mock it for tests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I _really_ don't like the idea of "no controller tests at all" as a best practice.

If you're having to mixin Rack::Test::Methods to write your "full-coverage" integration spec, then you're really writing a controller test. It should go in a controller spec without all the horrid mixin hacks.

<comment><USER9> I test at controller level that things aren't accessible (security) and at integration level that the appropriate things are accessible and error messages are correct when not (functionality).

<comment><USER8> Yup, the _real_ best practice is to use your judgement and choose the right test for the job.

If it's something that you can see in a browser (and the results are visible too), then it's a candidate for an integration spec.

You really shouldn't be integration testing stuff like security. For example, testing a user can't submit a form they can't see (which is where horrible Rake::Test::Methods mixin hacks start appearing).

You also shouldn't (imho) be integration testing side effects that aren't visible to the user. For example, if an action ends up in an audit log that the user is never going to see, there's no point firing up an integration test to do that. A light-weight controller test can do that just fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not a ruby dev, but that first example seems to fly in the face of the whole semantic DSL that RSpec is attempting to accomplish.

<comment><USER11> RSpec isn't aiming to be used as plain English; that's more of a Cucumber thing. I appreciate RSpec for that.

<comment><USER12> Personally I don't like the first example. I also don't believe it resembles cucumber at all.

It's certainly more closer to a documentation string (the ones you see in python or common lisp).

In any case given the following:

        describe 'if the user is an admin' do

versus

        describe '#admin?' do

Ignoring the fact that the author is ignoring BDD here, I certainly like the first one more, even if the user part is a bit redundant.

Nevertheless, what the author has done is commendable but there are few cases there that I just can't agree with. I don't see anything really wrong about them, it's just that in real life things can get complicated.

<comment><USER13> To be honest, I think both styles are good practice, but it totally depends on the context. For example, if I want to describe how the "#admin?" method is working, I'll use

        describe "#admin?" do ...

but if I'm describing a different method, that does different things depending on whether the user is an admin or not, I'll do the following:

        describe "#some_other_method" do
          describe "if the user is an admin" do
            ...

So you can mix and match both styles, depending on what exactly you're describing (and it's context).

If you're looking at the OP more closely, it even says this is only recommended for "describing methods".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I typically go one step further in the "mocking http requests" and write a simple class that does nothing but make the http call and translate input/output. From there you can stub/mock that object as appropriate. That way you have a _very_ simple interface to mock/stub against and don't have to worry about things like webmock. Well, at least until you start testing your http service interaction classes, but at least those are simpler and have relatively clearly defined uses.</comment>


The Question Is Whether We Live in a Democracy or a Corporate State - <AUTHOR> https://promarket.org/the-question-is-whether-we-live-in-a-democracy-or-a-corporate-state/ <comment><USER2> It always struck me that one of the weaknesses of the argument for small government is that business will fill the void and be far less accountable than politicians.

<comment><USER3> Isn't the entire argument based on the belief that businesses would do a better job than politicians at being a government? And that "the invisible hand" is an acceptable replacement to accountability?

<comment><USER4> Small government doesn't mean no government. You still need government in place to make sure that rules are enforced and monopolies don't form and to help bridge moats so that companies have to actually compete.

<comment><USER5> What people who support small government tend to mean is a government that doesn't interfere with free markets and doesn't regulate business (and probably for the Federal government to be dissolved or weakened considerably.)

They seem to want to get as close to anarcho-capitalism as they can without actually not having states.

<comment><USER6> A weaker Federal government would mean stronger state governments. It would incentivize states to compete, and we all know competition is good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think it is clear that we live in a corporate state. Great interview. I think I will buy the book Goliath because what the interviewee said resonated with me.

Unfortunately, most of my friends who are Democrats think that the corporation loving candidates are OK.</comment>


Tell HN: Weak rootkit.com passwords storage - <AUTHOR>

Just received following email. Not sure about affiliation between hackerdom.ru and rootkit.com, but either passwords on rootkit.com were stored in plain text or something easily crackable (I am using simple passwords for places I do not care about). In any case too bad for such name have so weak password storage.
From: email@example.com Hello,
you have been registred on site rootkit.com. This site was hacked recently, and all data about users(including passwords) are freely available in the Internet. To protect yourself, you should change the password on this site. If you are using word "[HERE MY PASSWORD IN CLEAR TEXT]" as password on other sites you should change it too.
--- Alexander Bersenev(Russia) <comment><USER2> Yes, related to the HBGary/Anonymous incident...The whole database was posted online.</comment>


Sony to Apply for Terrorism Assistance from the Government - <AUTHOR>

If Sony can get the hack made into an official terrorist attack they may be eligible for US Government emergency assistance. Also, instead of taking responsibility for their own incompetence they can shift the blame to the NSA/FBI for not stopping a terrorist cyber attack. <comment><USER2> Overall this is BS, Sony should know better, they have had big hacks before so they should have been one of the better secured companies. By all accounts though it sounds like they didn't learn anything from the Playstation hack or any of the others.

At the same time, no company will ever be impenetrable, just like no government is. History has proven that with the number of spies caught on all sides in so called top secret programs. So I do understand Sony wanting US government assistance, but it should not alleviate them from the liability given their total lack of security over people's personal and private data they were entrusted with.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sure, go cry to mommy.

Or grow up and may be have some ethics and security in place?</comment>


One day of TDD, and other thoughts on testing - <AUTHOR> http://devver.net/blog/2008/09/one-day-of-tdd/

<comment><AUTHOR> I am guessing HN has quite a few people in the TDD/Agile side of programming. I am curious to hear about how people got into it. If it was a jump into the deep end or a slow progression.

For me it seems to have been a slow progression over years. Initially doing testing because I didn't actually have access to the real hardware. I still get mad when testing gets in the way occasionally but thinks it helps more often than not.</comment>


Seven Myths of Formal Methods Revisited - <AUTHOR> http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/4425

<comment><USER2> This is dated 1999. It seems that agile methods have become more popular over that time, and upfront approaches (like formal methods) less so. One could interpret that unpopularity as the failure of formal methods... or as suggesting an untapped vein of problems that are too complex to solve without formal methods. Popularity != Merit (see Knuth: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3390760>)

[myth 2] No program was proved [...] [The] process of formal development of the TD helped a lot in finding omissions, ambiguities, inconsistencies and incompletenesses in the informal descriptions.

[myth 4] [Mathematicians'] solutions were so short and tricky that nobody else [...] could read them. [...] If specifications are not written using the same style it is almost impossible for implementers and testers to read them efficiently and effectively.

BTW: It's striking how lisp combines aspects of agile and formal methods, in terms of hacking and a mathematical-like approach, combining both good and bad aspects.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd not like to see an ATC system or any avionics that weren't subject to a formal method approach.

Imagine an AI that wasn't at least constrained by formal method. It honestly does not bear thinking about.

And then, imagine were it possible, time travel without formal method. Shudder ...

<comment><USER4> Do you take the plane much?

The overwhelming majority of these systems are verified using rigorous but non-formal methods (tests and code reviews). An application of formal methods here or there is so exceptional that it's publication-worthy (for instance <http://www.springerlink.com/content/h33p602vh34634v8/> ). The currently applicable standard (that has been applied in the design of all the planes you have taken), DO-178B, does not even _mention_ formal methods, so that when you want to apply them in substitution to the rigorous mandatory process (instead of just applying them in addition to it and doubling your costs wrt your competitors), you need lengthy explanations.

Things are changing, but they are changing slowly (I think you want this culture to be conservative, in fact). The next revision of the aforementioned standard will mention formal methods (but certainly not make them mandatory).

<comment><USER3> Things have indeed changed, then.

I used to write software destined for avionics (assembler stuff in the 80s) and that was required to apply formal considerations.

I think that conservatism in certain avenues of software implementation is essential and one can't even truly be considered an engineer (or software engineer, whatever that currently means) without exposure to formal discipline.

Edit: I've never considered _myself_ to be an engineer of any kind nor have I claimed to be one.

<comment><USER5> Out of interest, what formal methods were used then? I remember there being some CPU designs in the 80's (e.g. VIPER) that had been formally verified but that all seemed to die out in the 90s.

<comment><USER3> Good point -- VIPER isn't essential and one could argue that an assembler of any kind isn't guaranteed to give rise to totally engineering quality results (ADA and Eiffel were probably better for that at the time) but there were things like VDM, Z notation, ASM's, etc, BNF and Model Checking approaches.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for taking the time to provide your point of view. My initial comment was harsher than it should have been. I have no excuse, but if I had one, it would be that I see many academics in the field of formal methods act and speak as if these were used everywhere they could be useful, which is vexing when one's job is precisely of doing what is necessary to transfer them.

The Z notation / B method community is still strong (though they seem a bit defensive when met at conferences). I only know about VDM because some of the syntax in Caveat is inspired from it (Caveat is the tool whose application is described in the link I provided. It was developed at the lab I work at, but before I was hired).

Just in case, here is what we are now working on. One description is "successor to Caveat", but it's more than that. For one thing, it's Open Source (type "apt-get frama-c" or equivalent in most Linux distributions). It allows to combine techniques that range from static analysis to formal verification of functional properties using Hoare logic: <http://frama-c.com/try_out.html> (automatic analyses) <http://frama-c.com/jessie/jessie-tutorial.pdf> (verification based on Hoare logic)

<comment><USER3> You are welcome. I found your comments very interesting. Not harsh at all. Many thanks for the additional links above. I found them well worthwhile reading.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Australia Plans to Make Encryption-Cracking the Law, and Tech Firms Are Worried - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/australia-plans-to-make-encryption-cracking-the-law-and-tech-firms-are-worried-1543991851 <comment><USER2> All these Australia encrytion bypass laws articles are being ignored. Try replacing 'Australia' in the subject line with 'China', 'North Korea', 'Iran' or 'Russia'. It'll get loads of views and user interaction, trust me.

<comment><USER3> Ignored how? This is a recent development. The new law in Australia requires that tech firms build-in a backdoor for the government. Don't think for a moment that big companies won't comply because they will. This affects Americans, too. Like GDPR, rules that apply to Big Tech in one country will have ramifications everywhere.</comment></comment>


Bain:The financially sustainable university - <AUTHOR> http://www.bain.com/sustainable-university/interactive.asp <comment><USER2> There are some tired old canards here.

The main job of the technology transfer office seems to be, in a lot of places, preventing graduate students walking out the door with their inventions and developing it.

So often I have seen faculty members who have lost a year or more thanks to fights with the technology transfer office which has no appreciation at all for the risk/reward aspects of technology and imagines that it could get (say) Microsoft to buy the rights for something for a big fixed fee and some royalty and then wind up putting it on the shelf after it fails to get 20 random "best and brightest" people to turn it into a product or even reproduce the result.

Also I have close experience with University IT and I can say there have always been scattered centers of incredible incompetence in University there have also been centers of excellence which survived despite the system. Those have been systematically squeezed out by centralization efforts while managing to reproduce the incompetence plus a lot of overhead spending, scandals, lower pay, worker burnout, etc.

After this policy which predictably creates failure now they will reproduce the incompetence in some foreign land and then once the locals learn to cringe at certain accents, move the jobs to some other country which the locals won't recognized, etc.</comment>


The Economics of Police Militarism - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/economics-police-militarism

<comment><USER2> Being European, I've never heard of a legal system where debt from legal procedures accumulated for being unable to pay it. America Land of the Free indeed, as long as you can afford the freedom. Unfortunately the bad ideas propagate - my country's government has recently created a similar system of fees for legal services, but here at least the lawyers and judges associations have protested it as immoral; and, at least in principle, fines should be proportional to the capability of people to pay them.</comment>


How heat from the sun could help clean up steel and cement - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614733/how-heat-from-the-sun-could-help-clean-up-cement-and-steel/ <comment><USER2> > There would, however, be limitations on where and how this technology could > be applied. Concentrated-solar plants generally only work in very sunny > areas, and you can't ship heat over long distances. So industrial companies > that want to take advantage of this process may have to build new plants > near these solar thermal facilities, or vice versa.

> "The middle of the desert is not typically an industrial hub," says Julio > Friedmann, a senior research scholar at the Center for Global Energy Policy > and lead author of the report.

Aluminum was made in the Pacific Northwest because of cheap and abundant electricity from hydroelectric dams.

Move to where the resource is. That may turn out to be the desert.

[https://www.nwcouncil.org/reports/columbia-river- history/alu...](https://www.nwcouncil.org/reports/columbia-river- history/aluminum)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest#Economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest#Economy)</comment>


How Under Armour founder Kevin Plank is taking on the industry's biggest players - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/15/AR2010011503033.html?hpid=artslot

<comment><USER2> ... and he told almost nothing new.</comment>


Almost all the ice covering the Bering Sea has melted - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/bering-sea-ice-melt-global-warming-climate-change-alaska-a8338656.html <comment><USER2> We are fucked.

With each year the amount of evidence of the ecosystem damage that global warming causes becomes harder and harder to ignore.

The abnormal temperatures experienced this past month are a global phenomenon by now. I've been to three continents this year and all are experiencing climate anomalies that used to happen once or twice in a century.</comment>


Where to See Silicon Valley (2010) update request - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulgraham.com/seesv.html <comment><AUTHOR> This has been my guide for the last two weeks. I'm craving some recent knowledge. Apple Park for example.</comment>