ACLU to police using robots: Tell us more - <AUTHOR> https://techxplore.com/news/2019-11-aclu-police-robots.html <comment><USER2> ACLU made this request in August of 2019 [0] , guess it slipped notice back then.

To be honest, they can be very unnerving o watch in action and for those who are video game fans; think Half Life series; they conjure up not so good images. Terminator series would likely be the most related that the public would freely associate with them, especially video on one of these dogs running across terrain.

by default I have little issue with them, however with the recent focus on no knock raids and such I am loathe to give the police any tool which is more in line with military use. They already abuse the transfer of purely military vehicles to their forces and their SWAT teams long lost any relationship to traditional police

[0] [https://data.aclum.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/ACLU- Publi...](https://data.aclum.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/ACLU-Public- Records-Request-Robotics-MSP.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Interesting.

My reading of most HN threads has been in favor of _more_ automation, objective verifiabilty, and technological use in law enforcement, e.g. body cams.

Also strong condemnation of shoot-first-ask-later habits, which are inarguably more appealing when a person is at risk instead of an automaton.

It would seem to be that those wanting police reform would be most interested in removing as much of the problematic human element as possible.

<comment><USER4> Most of the successful police reforms (that I'm aware of here in California) have revolved around community policing and getting back to that human element. The rest have been oversight based, like the police body cameras.

Policing without infringing on rights is a very hard problem and I don't think many serious reformers see any one solution or ideology as sufficient on its own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's important to not go down this slippery slope.

Right now robot dogs might only be used in extreme cases, but if continue to normalise this, it's only a matter of time before they're used in very morally questionable ways, such as arming them and using them to control (rightful, non-violent) protests, or being given autonomous control and letting them patrol cities and what not.

This should be avoided. At all costs.

<comment><USER6> Robots are used everywhere already. Everywhere.

This is getting press because it's kind of edgy-looking, involves police, and the ACLU.

It's not a question of if, but when and how. Implementation. The most interesting question to me is how regulation will unfold as robots become ubiquitous in public life.

At least in the United States, I suspect that it will take several rather grotesque disasters before regulatory bodies get seriously involved and get around to passing the 3 Laws.

<comment><USER7> And you know how the 3 laws turned out in Asimov's world...

Seriously though, I don't think Asimov was being naive with his choice of laws and then showing how they were then subverted. I'm sure he was aware of things like Godel's proofs and the difficulties involved with fuzzy logic and AI.

Asimov kept his laws simple so they would work in a story, but was likely well-aware that real laws could be made more nuanced and that they inevitably would still fail in the ways he described.

Implementation is going to be very, very hard to get right, if at all possible.

<comment><USER8> > And you know how the 3 laws turned out in Asimov's world...

Pretty well? If you're referring to the original book (and not the excellent Will Smith movie that deviated from the source material significantly but was extremely entertaining in its own right), the robots correctly surmised that humans lacked the wetware capacity for global-scale planning and took on that burden. The world at the end of Asimov's story is many things, but it isn't dying from an utterly avoidable climate change disaster because of a transcontinental tragedy of the commons.

(It is, of course, a fiction. But if we can't take away from the fiction "We should trust robots with global resource planning" without some critical thinking, we shouldn't take away "robots can never be trusted and will always betray humanity" without some critical thinking either).

<comment><USER9> I would assume they're referring to the original short stories published in I, Robot, which has numerous robots gone awry stories, but not the the taking over planning for all of human civilization plot that you are referring to.

That plot was from books he wrote 40 years later to unify the Foundation and Robots series. Many fans consider it a rage-inducing retcon.

<comment><USER8> I'm referring specifically to "The Evitable Conflict" ([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evitable_Conflict](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evitable_Conflict)), which I believe appeared in the original 1950 collection. It specifically includes the plot of the world coordinating machines causing some harm to come to some individuals to optimize the survival of the machines and the outcome for humanity as a whole.

I'll have to look up the other stories you referenced though; I'm unfamiliar with them and they sound fascinating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wasn't an autonomous robot, but I believe that the Dallas PD were the first police force to kill a suspect with a robot, back in 2016. They had it place a bomb on the opposite side of a brick wall from a sniper that had killed several police officers.

[https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/12/us/dallas-police- robot-c4-exp...](https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/12/us/dallas-police- robot-c4-explosives/index.html)

<comment><USER11> That strikes me as a situation where the use of a robot to kill was appropriate.[1]

However, I'd be interested in hearing the perspective of people who disagree. Maybe I'm overlooking something.

[1] I'm assuming that the police had already exhausted options to resolve the situation non-violently and that a non-lethal robot wasn't available or viable (do they make TASER robots?).

<comment><USER12> While I don't know all the circumstances of the case, I do know police in other countries manage to capture people like this without resorting to using IEDs.

Police in the states already get away with all kinds of corruption, abuse of power, violence/killings, so I think we should do as much as possible to avoid normalizing these kinds of tactics. The only comparable case that comes to mind is when police bombed an apartment block of radicals in Philadelphia:

[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/13/osage- avenue...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/13/osage-avenue- bombing-philadelphia-30-years)

<comment><USER13> I was going to bring that up. Totally agree - further normalizing the use of violence by the police should be avoided.

While not a sniper, this is the police in the UK apprehending a suspect with a machete. I've never heard of similar tactics being used in the US. And conversations with police have led me to believe they would actively avoid such tactics and instead resort to violence. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mzPj_IaMzY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mzPj_IaMzY)

<comment><USER14> I don't think US police would address the situation much differently if they had the same advantage in numbers.

You can actually watch dashcam/bodycam footage of police shootings. In situations where the suspect is armed with a bladed weapon, there's usually an attempt to call for backup and subdue them with less lethal means. It's just that there's more often 1-2 officers instead of a dozen onscene.

Also note that, in the clip you shared, at no point does the machete-wielding suspect break into a full-on sprint towards any of the officers. In the police shootings I've seen, that moment is the one when police open fire, and rightly so: human reaction time is such that a knife equals or beats a gun within 21 feet or so. This is why you see the British cops backpedaling whenever machete man turns to face them—American cops have done the same in the footage I've seen. Also consider what would have happened if machete man here actually made an honest attempt to start killing officers. He would have been successful.

And it's not like British police don't use lethal force when it's called for. Just look at what happened to the terrorist on London Bridge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Unfortunate title - I was thinking the ACLU was going to deploy a bunch of robots

<comment><USER16> Yeah, it took me a while to not read "police" as a verb.

<comment><USER17> Wow. I definitely read it as "ACLU would use robots to police" and I thought it was just a clumsier way of saying "ACLU to police the use of robots". I didn't actually realize police was a noun until your comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The ACLU should build their own robot that chases around the other robots and keeps an eye on them

</comment><comment><USER19> Cf [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalhead_(Black_Mirror)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalhead_\(Black_Mirror\)).

A fictional dramatisation of a post-apocalyptic World in which robot dogs hunt humans (IIRC).

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm interested in how robotics can be used to help in typically dangerous situations like domestic violence calls and suicide by cop calls. If a robot can help save a life then heck yeah! If they are just used as portable spy platforms I'm a little less enthusiastic...

</comment><comment><USER21> Let's not over-dramatize what these are. They're remote-controlled vehicles with a bit of pathfinding and modular add-ons. The fact they walk rather than roll is a triumph of software engineering, but it doesn't make them into droids off Star Wars.

Police have been using remote controlled vehicles forever.

</comment><comment><USER22> We learned nothing from Robocop... ..sorry I know this is serious

<comment><USER8> We seem to have learned from Robocop that turning critically injured humans into cyborg enforcers is awesome and any problems in the system will self- correct via clever word lawyering and the power of the human will. Unless I saw a different Robocop movie. ;)

<comment><USER22> Well I thought the message was to only turn really good cops into robots, someone strong enough to deal with the existential hell you're about to put them through.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.

</comment><comment><USER24> > "...the Mass State police is our only public safety-focused relationship to > date.

I totally read that first as "mass police state" probably because that's what this is. A robotic mass police state.</comment>


Brief Q&A with the founders of Slinkset (YC Summer 08) - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/08/18/slinkset-takes-niche-approach-reddit-style-aggregators

<comment><USER2> Very cool ... I use Slinkset as part of a personal site. It's great. A good mix of features without sacrificing simplicity.

Of the recent YC funded companies, I'd have to say it's in my top 2 favorites (TicketStumbler being the other).

<comment><USER3> Thanks!

<comment><USER4> _Our software currently allows for this, but we have yet to expose it through the UI. It is something we hope to get to soon, but for the time being users have to contact us to change how their site's ranking works._ \- SS

TIS mentioned story placement timing and power user points. Any more details?

What _couldn't_ I change?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good read, great to see Slinkset getting more exposure.

I personally think that whole notion of user-voted content and the technology behind it is still in its infancy. I see Slinkset as part of the next step in its progression.

I also had a similar idea back in the winter but didn't end up pursuing it and did something else. So needless to say their success makes me feel extra warm and fuzzy.</comment>


Are there any startups in the legal / judicial reform space? - <AUTHOR>

I'm one who would like to combine my passion with my work, wondering if anyone knows of any startups, or really any web-related companies, in the legal / judicial system reform space? I've been searching but haven't come up with much so far <comment><USER2> The only one that I can think of off the top of my head is Lex Machina - <https://lexmachina.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> cool, thanks I will check it out</comment></comment>


In search of ET: Fear of what's out there causes split among space scientists - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/In-search-of-ET-Fear-of-what-s-out-there-has-13640953.php <comment><USER2> This is not something I'm worried about. Unless FTL travel is real, the amount of resources necessary to make the trip to kill off/enslave humans makes the entire effort unprofitable. Basically, if you have the ability to travel between star systems, you already have the technology to exist effectively forever in a self contained environment. You can mine asteroids/planets forever in your own solar system for effectively unlimited materials.

Its like you are thirsty so you build an intercontinental jet plane from scratch using parts from around your house to fly to Japan to steal a single Coke from a 7-11.

<comment><USER3> Even mere humans, who've only reaped the fruits of serious scientific advancement for a few hundred years have already come up with a way to get to Alpha Centauri within 44 years.[1]

All such spacecraft would have to do to cause massive devastation is aim at Earth and not stop, though it's likely that more advanced civilizations could come up with more effective means of destruction.

Alien civilizations could have advanced scientifically for thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years. It is unlikely that we can accurately put limits on their capabilities.

[1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29)

<comment><USER2> Project Orion is a cocktail napkin estimate. The actual problem is much much harder.

But as you point out, anything that can travel between the stars can trivially wipe out all life on Earth without warning. They also know we exist already thanks to the changes in the chemical composition of our atmosphere. If they want to kill us then we're dead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _" Any predatory civilization would probably have detected us by now simply by analyzing our atmosphere, they reason. Humans, Vakoch said, have been using radar, which can purportedly be detected 70 light-years away, since World War II. Television and radio signals would long ago have signaled our presence to malevolent space ruffians, he said."_

That's how he justifies the broadcasting of signals, but take the next logical step: It also indicates either that nobody is listening, or that they're unable or unwilling to contact us, or that they're already in the process of trying. In any case, it's hard to imagine the METI messages would change anything. By that same argument. And I mean why would the intentional/contrived message be any more persuasive than all our "honest" and un-self-conscious messages to each other over the years? Anybody who was curious could have learned everything by now.

I also would like to call out the typical assumption of a "technically- advanced race of aliens" and whatnot. The aliens always seem to be technically advanced, don't they? In other words, like us, but more so. That's a mirror you're looking at, and it's how you recognize something man-made. _Homo sapiens_ is the one with the fetish for _techne_. It seems the aliens we imagine are always either similar to us (which we like) but better, or else they're dissimilar, and predictably worse/more evil (and tend to look like combinations of creatures from THIS planet that we don't like... insects and reptiles figuring prominently). That's more a mirror of our dislikes, but still a mirror. Aliens are always created in our image, and that shows an embarrassing narcissism & lack of imagination. We're just projecting our hopes & fears. Keep your mind open.

One more nitpick: _" We won't know for about 25 years, assuming the communique is sent at the speed of light."_ Pretty good assumption, given that it's not possible to send EM waves at any other speed!

</comment><comment><USER5> I haven't seen any anti-METI argument which counters this:

"Humans, Vakoch said, have been using radar, which can purportedly be detected 70 light-years away, since World War II. Television and radio signals would long ago have signaled our presence to malevolent space ruffians, he said."

<comment><USER6> Counter argument:

So if we've been using radar since WWII, and radar has been capable of signalling our presence to alien civilizations, then we don't need METI. Alternatively, if METI is proposing a signal that can reach alien civilizations in a way that TV and radio signals cannot, then the original objections to METI still stand, and the TV/radio signal argument is a red herring.

But really, it's just common sense. Everything we know about the universe tells us that complex organisms exist at the expense of simpler organisms. As a nascent space-faring civilization, we are the minnows in the ocean, and signalling our presence to the bigger fish is the kind of mistake that a minnow only makes once. What exactly is the perceived positive outcome of making contact with a more advanced civilization?

<comment><USER7> This, exactly. What METI is proposing, as I understand, is a stronger, more unmistakable signal of intelligence which carries higher risks.

Also, this is 70 years of noise, a blip on the galactic timescale, getting weaker the farther it goes. We can't stop what's gone out already but that doesn't make us obligated to keep advertising our presence forever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think the fears of some ET empire with Darth Vader (or similar) at the head is very misplaced. Just think of the economics... "let's go exploit that world 10 LY away from us that we don't fully understand and which will still takes us an insane amount of time to enslave and milk resources from!" What a scalable strategy given the size of space... one might even say it's astronomically large! The resource consumption alone would be a very speculative bet by any would-be invaders... unless they were already close at hand, but we're probably already too late to prevent that....

Naw... if there is any alien apocalypse to worry about it's that some advanced civilization saw a life friendly Earth through their telescopes, perhaps millions of years ago, and decided to seed the place with their own bio- material and without any regard to what life might be there. It won't be a marching army, but a "Terra forming" project that may well already be underway if its happening at all, I would expect.

<comment><USER9> You can't know or understand possible ET motivations or capabilities.

Humans routinely drive other species on Earth to extinction, our own cousins. We also damage our own planet's environment.

It may be logical for an ET to just destroy us the way you might destroy a harmful bacteria, which might otherwise spread unpredictably. It wouldn't be about wanting slaves or raw resources (although as someone said, Earth itself might be considered somewhat valuable).

<comment><USER8> "You can't know or understand possible ET motivations or capabilities."

True, but my argument is that their intentions fundamentally don't matter. The real costs of acting on ill-intentions through interstellar space would probably give any real life Klingons or Romulans pause.

Meanwhile we fly, sometimes even into space, drive, walk outside, stay inside, eat/drink things that we shouldn't (but enjoy), and a thousand other risks which are substantially more real on an everyday basis... and many of those risks also come with rewards that can make life much more full and rich.

I think making contact with aliens would most likely just 1) confirm we weren't alone or 2) might actually be of benefit as we exchange knowledge and ideas, and/or 3) tell us that evolution tends to creates fearful, xenophobic entities where it also develops intelligence... in that order and with no further consequence than the knowledge.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We're already sending out a signal into the cosmos (and one more powerful than the radar signals others have mentioned)- the recent sharp upswing in CO2 over the last hundred or so years [0] would look markedly artificial, which combined with the presence of oxygen (which wouldn't stay in the atmosphere if it weren't continually renewed) strongly indicates at least a complex ecosystem, if not directly implicating an industrial civilization. Detecting light reflected from exoplanets is something we can already do, or nearly so, so we can count on this being detectable from large distances by alien civilizations with access to potentially megastructure-scale space telescopes. At that point, any reasonably curious or concerned ETs could send a probe to get a closer look.

Earth, as far as we know, is an unusual planet, and obviously so. Either we're wrong, and there's Earths all over the place, or we're alone, or ET has been keeping an eye on us for a long time already; that we're "hidden" is hard to imagine.

[0] [https://www.co2.earth/co2-ice-core-data](https://www.co2.earth/co2-ice- core-data)

<comment><USER11> If you saw a sharp change in the atmospheric composition of a planet in our solar system would you think "volcanoes" or "life"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Most known cases of two formerly separated civilizations coming into contact have ended like the European invasion of the Americas. I think we'd do best to be cautious unless there is at least a slim hope we could ward of an invader.

</comment><comment><USER13> Dumb statement: "Television and radio signals would long ago have signaled our presence to malevolent space ruffians, he said." There are only 11 known habitable exoplanets within 50 light years that we know of. Assume there are 1000 within 100 light years. The odds of a super predator in that small of a sample are virtually 0. Plus, even if they had their armada on standby, it takes at least 100 years to get here. Apparently there is little intelligent life on earth.

</comment><comment> Digit-Al To be honest I think we are vastly more likely to be destroyed by ourselves than by aliens. Maybe we'd be better off enslaved by aliens; we could be the green mans burden.

</comment><comment><USER14> Sounds like a lot of scientist have been reading the Three Body Problem.

I think we should worry more about AI taking over rather than aliens. Its actually much closer to home. On the other hand the only alien intelligence which has the luxury of interstellar travel is the one which has no sense of time and that would be alien AI again.

<comment><USER11> The Three Body Problem and ASI are two songs on the same instrument: value misalignment in cases of massive power differentials.

In an indifferent universe, two optimizers optimizing different things will be in conflict. Can we build machines that optimize what we want to optimize? Can we align our optimization with aliens before it becomes optimal for one of us to annihilate the other?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I figure it's all moot anyway. We are probably alone in the universe. Fermi's paradox is a thing.

<comment><USER2> I don't think we're alone. But I do think we're kind of trapped in our Solar System along with everybody else. Interstellar travel is so outrageously expensive that by the time you have the technology to do it you necessarily have the technology that makes it unnecessary.

An interstellar journey means you need a ship that can survive indefinitely in deep space, where you don't get free energy from solar panels or have easy access to comets to mine for materials. An in-system habitat has to be a solved problem before you can even consider building one. But at that point you have effectively unlimited living space, energy, and materials so why bother?

Even if your sun is turning into a red giant you can move your habitats to the optimal distance to sustain life. It's really hard to imagine a time when Humans have used up the entire mass of the other planets in the solar system and need to look outward for resources. You could build an almost unimaginable number of O'Neill cylinders using only the mass of Jupiter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Being enslaved by evil aliens is among the worst of fears. The risk isn't death or annhilation; it's being denied the mercy of a short (100 years) existence, in bondage and suffering.

I fully support a careful approach to combing the cosmos.

Edit: May I ask why this is being downvoted?

<comment><USER17> I didn't downvote you, but this seems extraordinarily unlikely to me. Why would our extraterrestrial overlords want to use _us_ as slaves? They travelled a long way to get here, surely they should have robots or a genetically engineered underclass or something. We're in the process of making human labor obsolete ourselves. The only scenario I can imagine where this makes sense is one where the aliens have interstellar travel but lack decent genetic engineering, and they're interested in exploring/building/mining in places that are inhospitable to both their own biology and robotics but not our biology (like a planet whose gravity would crush them that also has an EM field that would fry circuits without exceptional shielding). This seems like a stretch to me. I feel like wiping out a potential future threat is a much more reasonable incentive, with exploitation/study of an already existent biosphere being a runner up. Most of the things they could want humans for would be more efficiently accomplished by phytoplankton and krill. You're right that nigh-perpetual enslavement is the most horrifying possibility, it just seems implausible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What possible resource does Earth or human civilization possess that ETs advanced enough to pose an interstellar threat would be interested in?

<comment><USER19> I sort of agree, but to be fair a nice habitable planet could be a really rare and valuable resource in and of itself, assuming there are any life forms out there with biology similar enough to our own to find Earth desirable.

<comment><USER2> Also assumes there aren't a bunch of Earth-like worlds that are otherwise uninhabited that would be much easier to colonize than one with potentially hostile/poisonous natives.

<comment><USER14> or that the potential alien invaders are not adapted to a completely different environment than earth's

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Not discussed by the article, but I wonder...Is it more terrible to find out that nobody's out there? Nobody's listening?

<comment><USER21> Or how about this: find out that somebody's out there, but not evolved enough to be listening? This I find likely. Fixes Fermi paradox too, since this doesn't assume high probability of random life on some planet evolving as far as we did in those billions of years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> brb, hiding behind Jupiter

</comment><comment><USER23> I will never understand people who are afraid of the unknown.

<comment><USER24> I will never understand anyone who would randomly pick a mushroom from the forest floor and start nibbling on it.

<comment><USER23> Eating mushrooms in the wild is not even remotely similar to inviting contact from other sentient species.

<comment><USER24> Was that what the parent comment said?!? I thought it was something about not understanding fear of the unknown. And then like I thought, hey is there a metaphor that might show how sometimes that it would be wise to have some little bit of wariness about the unknown at least? And then I said ah hah, there is and I wrote it down. I'm pretty sure it went something like that.

<comment><USER23> You can be cautious around something without being afraid of it.

<comment><USER24> sure - and people might play semantic games about what words really mean but at some point these concepts blend into each other. hence [https://thesaurus.yourdictionary.com/caution](https://thesaurus.yourdictionary.com/caution)

Another word for caution noun

        Careful forethought to avoid harm or risk:
        calculation, care, carefulness, chariness, gingerliness, precaution, wariness. See fear

I guess most people would admit a relation between the concepts, caution seems to me to be admitting there might be something to be afraid of. So to clarify my earlier metaphor with a concrete meaning: I will never understand anyone that acts like there can never anything to be afraid of in the unknown.

And I mean the perfect lack of knowledge is impossible, yes if I definitely did not know anything about something I would not be afraid of possible problems with that thing - how could I?

But we always know a bit even about the 'unknown' even if the thing we know is that there might be something in that unknown thing that would be dangerous to life, as many things in the Universe are like extreme heat, cold, releases of kinetic energy, too much water, or the presence of elements of one sort or another in more abundance than is healthy for us, or life that is similar to life on this planet since much of life on this planet is focused on killing other life on this planet for various reasons. I'm walking in an unknown environment on this planet I might still be afraid because I don't know what large carnivores it has, but I do know it might have large carnivores.

<comment><USER23> I see where you're coming from. I maintain that caution and fear are different, even if they're related.

My original post was probably too broad to be useful. This topic requires nuance that I didn't express.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Anybody not in any social networks? - <AUTHOR>

By social networks, I mean friends' friends type of things like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn... I'm not in any of them, so are the few people in my project. What about you? And why don't you? <comment><USER2> I am not on MySpace, Facebook etc... I have email, IM and a telephone for networking. I know there are a lot of interesting people out there that I'll never meet but who has time for all these 'friends'?

</comment><comment><USER3> I think in terms of startups, that social networks are "the last war" (meaning: generals are always fighting the last war, rather than the war they currently face).

</comment><comment><USER4> I've got a Facebook page, but have never really used it. I just don't get the point. I've seen the MySpace pages of various performers I like, but don't quite understand what is "social" about it (compared to band websites). Don't know nothin' 'bout no LinkedIn.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm on Linked In, but only for the networking opportunities. It's not generated a ton of leads, but it has helped me a couple times.

I spend about 30 seconds a week on it, so it's not like I'm really active with it.

</comment><comment><USER6> social networks focused on entertainment will have a limited shelf life, as the tend to focus on short term attention and on teens.

Linkedin is a slightly different case. It is like a useful business directory.

The next wave will be vertical SN's.(few billion dollar ideas there), and networks with a strong mobile component.

I have started to dump all my entertainment focused social networks. I keep an account on facebook, but only use it to keep track of people. I hate their stupid applications.

</comment><comment><USER7> i used belong to facebook and myspace but i just dumped all that because i used to waste hours on those sites instead of coding and adding no value to my life, i will say that social networks are pretty useless 70% of the time.

<comment><USER8> I'm finally starting to find LinkedIn kind of useful ([http://micahelliott.blogspot.com/2008/04/sponteneous- recomme...](http://micahelliott.blogspot.com/2008/04/sponteneous- recommendations-on-linkedin.html)), when the various features are used holistically, and profiles near completeness.

Some others (facebook) I just sign up and experiment to learn how the user interactions and features play out. In general, I'm not too interested in being a part of their microcosms. But if massive amounts of users like to spend time using them, we should probably understand how and why.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Isn't the WWW just a huge social network? CAUGHT YOU ON ONE!</comment>


BlazingDB Origins, oh and we just raised $2.9M from Nvidia and Samsung - <AUTHOR> https://blog.blazingdb.com/blazingdb-origins-oh-and-we-just-raised-2-9m-from-nvidia-and-samsung-99cd581e66c7 <comment><USER2> Great to see more competition in GPU+DW space! Some questions:

1\. How does BlazingDB compare to MapD ?

2\. How do you skip ingest - are you using Apache Arrow like Dremio as an efficient data representation format?

3\. Do you have any benchmarks, or maybe where would you see BlazingDB on this list? [http://tech.marksblogg.com/benchmarks.html](http://tech.marksblogg.com/benchmarks.html) using same hardware as MapD ?

4\. Can you run your solution in a cluster? :)

<comment><USER3> 1) We are focused on the data lake. We love MapD, they are doing kick ass stuff, we are focused more on operating on information from disk and from cloud storage services like s3 or hdfs implementations.

2) We read parquet files into our own caching system. We often use arrow apis though do not rely on arrow for our data representation.

3) We have made client side benchmarks but have not performed a standardized replicable benchmark for people to validate yet. We have been a VERY small team to date and are going to make that available as soon as we can. You CAN launch AWS marketplace blazing instances to see how it performs.

4) You sure can. A large part of BlazingDb's focus is on distribution. You can add nodes during runtime.

<comment><USER2> Could you elaborate on the GPU + data lake part? Memory transfer lag to and from GPU is significant in comparison to GPU computing power. Data lake may mean mutliple heterogeneous data sources with or without schema. How is coping with it helped by a GPU?

<comment><USER3> So depending on your sources, e.g. if they are compressed or not, the GPU can greatly speed upi/o by compressing and decompressing directly on the GPU. This is particularly meaningful when you can store it in compressed state when you transfer to the GPU and decompress for use after its on. It doesn't solve most of the problems of working with hetergenous sources. That being said gpus definitely allowed us to speed up how we get data out of Apache parquet and we anticipate we will be able to benefit from their speed when adding more compressed file formats.

<comment><USER4> What types of compression do you use? I did some work on streamvbyte, and it seems relevant.

<comment><USER3> Right now we support RLE, RLE Delta RLE, Delta RLE, Dictionary, Bitpacking. Many of these are combined together. It does look interesting I am checking it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This actually looks pretty useful. I'm adjacent to you (DL on hadoop/spark competing more with the just launched amazon sagemaker among other things) and was curious about your go to market strategy.

Like us you're kind of strattling the line between the hadoop ecosystem and GPUs. Mesos does this as well.

It seems like most folks in the GPU space still don't get Hadoop or S3 as a data source yet though (despite it being the dominant source of data warehousing S3 or otherwise).

How are you guys coping with this? Have you found a different experience than me?

It seems like a lot of the big data companies are at least adding some sort of gpu management as a checkbox now so the spaces will likely converge with or without the MPI crowd.

The other trend I'm seeing is you have folks like MapD and Kinetica trying to run the whole stack themselves. I'm not sure how well that will go overall (especially given how you can't really have _everything_ in 1 warehouse typically). Could you comment on this? Are you going to try this as well after integrating?

I hope to see more companies in this space actually exploring this intersection.

Many make the mistake of boiling the ocean and doing nothing well though. Due to that it ends up being consulting. How will you guys over come that? Reworded, what is the initial focus vs the long term strategy?

<comment><USER3> People in the GPU space and slow storage systems like hadoop and S3) To caveat, I saw slow compared to something like storing your queryable data in system memory. The answer is that your clients are not normally GPU people. They are aware of GPUs and know they can be used for certain things but real clients normally have lots of data and they don't fire up a million instances to let it sit in a $10/GB storage solution. So we are able to help people that are already leveraging these kinds of storage technologies out of necessity.

Other playrers taking the whole stack) When you say other players are trying to run the whole stack themselves it depends on what you mean. From my understanding Kinetica is an in memory solution for example. How do you query a 100TB data set? Or a 1PB dataset? They are instead going after a specific kind of problem so I wouldn't consider any of us to be trying to run the whole stack. This is usually left up to behemoths and none of us are that in the GPGPU database space yet.

As far as where our focus is. We want you to be able to use blazing to accelerate query workloads more and more on data where it lies how it lies, You can ingest into blazing for maximum performance but the big difference between us and some of the other gpu players is that our focus is on working on datasets that leverage multiple understores (e.g. hdfs, s3, azure file share) and use multiple file formats. Right now the only two file formats we operate on natively are Simpatico (our own file format) and Parquet. Others have to be ingester but we are working on adding more file formats tha we can interact with efficiently in place without the need for ingestion.

As far as trying to take over the whole stack. Blazing wants to be a lean but powerful development shop. We want to focus on our core competencies and leverage other brillliant technologies when possible to avoid having to manage everyrhing. We don't want to build new file systems. And we think that there is a really big value proposition in helping people analyze data where it already lies.

As per your last question.

This is not our first pajama party when it comes to startups and something we have seen is that early on it feels very similar to consulting when you are establishing product market fit. You adjust your product to the immediate needs of the people you are interacting with. That road can be a troublesome one if you end up spending all of your time configuring other toosl and products and not developing your own. Keeping a tight handle on the funnel early on will help ensure that you have enough resources to work on your main value proposition and also increase the likelihood that the few engagements you do take lead to long term revenue and licenses (if that is how you make your money).

In the long run my main strategy is try to do as little as possible. Try to do it really well.

<comment><USER5> Great response thank you! I won't lie: We definitely have similar issues (I think any infra company runs in to this)

Re: Kinetica. They are doing visualization as well as things like machine learning.

I like your guys' approach a lot better. I see a clear bridge from the mass market commodity storage to something useful actually leveraging GPUs. That's why I commented. Best of luck to you!

<comment><USER3> Ok I see your point there. It does feel like that is quite a bit to manage. Our approach would be to perhaps try and show you how it could be used in these different kinds of workloads but would never try to undertake them ourselves. I'd probably sooner tear out my eyes than make data visualiation software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would love to see performance numbers for a GPU data warehouse on a benchmark like TPCDS. My concern is that GPUs are very fast for a few operations, but that these operations aren't the bottleneck for realistic queries, so the overall performance will not be good. I did a TPCDS-based benchmark on Redshift-vs-Snowflake-vs-BigQuery a few weeks ago [1], it could probably be run by BlazingDB without too much trouble since the data is already in GCS in Parquet format.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15434272](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15434272)

<comment><USER7> TPC-DS has some incredibly complex queries that might be too complex for a database that doesn't have very extensive syntax coverage

<comment><USER3> I just glanced at about 15 of them and did not notice anything we did not support. There seems to be alot of nesting and whatnot but nothing here really jumps out at me. I have not looked at the full set yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Congrats Rodrigo and team! We at MapD look forward to continued collaboration with you guys on the GOAI project and elsewhere!

<comment><USER9> Thanks Todd! We always appreciate the support and and also look forward to collaborating on GOAI and anything else that might come up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> How fantastic to hear about a cool project that starts in Peru and is held together by remote contributors. It's exciting.

</comment><comment><USER11> Congratulations on your raise! I can see many applications for this in healthcare and government. Would love to hear more about how others are implementing BlazingDB and the problems they are solving.

</comment><comment><USER12> Congrats on the raise. Nice to see all the progress on fast distributed SQL systems. We use MemSQL and BigQuery and the detachment of compute from storage is compelling when used correctly, especially with the cheap and fast cloud storage available now.

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't know much about how this would work or make sense, but is there a benefit to using a GPU based database with something computationally demanding like machine training / learning that uses GPUs too for computation?

<comment><USER3> So if there are already gpu nodes being used for a machine learning workload then having blazing running on the same cluster woud allow you to share those resources. So you could run blazingdb on the same cluster as a machine learning workload and have it either feed that machine learning workload or accelerate some other sql analytics workload. This would allow you to keep your hardware in a state of greater utilization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> What a neat and inspiring origin story. Congrats on the financing. I look forward to hearing more news from you folks.

</comment><comment><USER4> How is overall throughput on GPU systems? It looks a lot faster than the last time I looked at GPU bus interfaces; how well does this pull in data from external sources?

Viva Peru!

<comment><USER3> Depends on what you mean by throughput. In terms of ram bandwidth on GPU this is very high. PCIE is a different matter. That is still the big limiter on many boxes. Ensuring you have enough cpu pcie lanes to drive all of the graphics cards you want to connect is important. If you are on open power you can use nvlink which is much faster. As far as pulling from external sources we do so using the parquet file format directly or you can ingest csv, json, and xml into our own native file format.

<comment> ben-schaaf AMD's EPYC offering (or Ryzen) could help fix some of the PCIE bottlenecking. If I remember correctly the EPYC can have 128 lanes, while XEON is limited to 32.

<comment><USER3> Good Point. I tried to convince someone very recently to go this route so I could piggy back and test on it as well :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What is the benefit of shipping data to the GPU for execution if the data is on S3 or HDFS? Won't most of the cost of the query be I/O?

<comment><USER3> Sure the very first time you run a query. But with multi tiered caching the data you frequently access sits closer and closer to the gpus so that alleviates that bottlekneck over time to an extent. Also what is a fantastic way of improving i/o? Compression and decompression. Our own file format compresses and decompresses using the GPU. We are working on doing the same for some of the Parquet decompression steps. I/O is almost always your main concern here, but you can improve upon it greatly by leverage processes that might not have been computationally feasible before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Congrats guys. How do you compare in performance against a time series database like Druid?

</comment><comment><USER17> Congrats Rodrigo and team! Great to see the progress!!

</comment><comment><USER18> You do know there is a BlazegraphDB also?

</comment><comment><USER19> Congrats Rodrigo! Go BlazingDB!

</comment><comment><USER20> Congrats Rodrigo and the BlazingDB team, You guys has come so far since the TechCrunch, Great Job! I really felt the chemistry the culture and the talent in your team when I met you guys in TechCrunch Battle Field!

</comment><comment><USER21> Secret source. Sorry, you don't get my data. The world has moved on.</comment>


When Holt-Winters Is Better Than Machine Learning - <AUTHOR> https://thenewstack.io/when-holt-winters-is-better-than-machine-learning/ <comment><USER2> Terms could be defined on first usage in the body (RSS).</comment>


Ask HN: Blockchains - <AUTHOR>

More and more noise seems to be appearing about blockchains. I see the small benefit of use in transactions between organisations, but am struggling for the case for private blockchains and some points of cryptocurrency in general. I don't know if this is the best place to ask, but everything online is full of jargon and is inaccessible to me.
I have a few questions:
- What are the benefits of using a private blockchain (should I be thinking of it as a replacement to a General Ledger?)? Is this just another name for a ledger with auditable history?
- Can a blockchain exist without mining or without a currency/coin? Will all private blockchains need a "coin"? (eg the Goldman Sachs coin or ABC plumbing coin?)
And another couple of broader questions
- What keeps people interested in a blockchain (and currency) once all of the easy mining is done eg, for people joining later?
- I see that transaction costs for bitcoin keep rising, is that related to the size of the blockchain?
- I thought bitcoin was supposed to be decentralised – doesn't a group of centralised developers have the ability to change everything about the currency? <comment><USER2> Disclaimer: I work full time on blockchain tech. My answers in order:

I've never heard the term private blockchain and therefore not sure what you are referring to. If you mean a blockchain that is exclusively mined and used by a single entity, I don't see the point. Perhaps people are piggy backing on the "blockchain" buzzword while creating something that is quite different?

A blockchain cannot exist without a currency/coin. Blockchains need a reward mechanism for miners who "protect" it and a cost for submitting transactions to prevent spam.

What keeps miners interested after all mining is done is an open question. As long as there is a reward for mining, there will be miners but if that reward drops too low, we could see the network's hash rate drop substantially (miners quitting their job) and the blockchain would become more vulnerable to double spending attacks (a single miner intentionally "undoing" a large number of blocks).

There is no fixed transaction cost, each miner is free to decide how much they "charge" to mine transactions. I wasn't aware that transaction costs had kept rising. Keep in mind that as the BTC/USD price fluctuates constantly, the average transaction cost in USD might change often while remaining the same in BTC.

In theory, the Satoshi client (original bitcoin) developers could release a new Bitcoin software which changes the Bitcoin consensus rules and anyone downloading this new release would be participating in a new "altcoin" which would be separate from the original Bitcoin. They could send or receive Bitcoins to people using the old software. For the Bitcoin protocol to change in a significant way, a large number of people would have to agree on the new rules.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, thank you very much for your answers.

Part of my questions were piqued by this blog post ([https://blog.ethereum.org/2015/08/07/on-public-and- private-b...](https://blog.ethereum.org/2015/08/07/on-public-and-private- blockchains/)) which defined a private blockchain as a "blockchain where write permissions are kept centralized to one organization". I think that it might be the case of people piggy backing on the buzzword and that people are using blockchain as a sort of computerized ledger.

So, generally speaking, a coin with a larger number of loyal miners will be more resilient than another with less loyal miners?

I think I made a mistake with the rising transaction costs - in USD they have risen with the price of BTC but have been rebased a few times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'll try and answer your last three questions in order. I'm not an expert though, only a casual observer.

 _\- What keeps people interested in a blockchain (and currency) once all of the easy mining is done eg, for people joining later?_

What keeps me and many others interested is the utopian vision of traditional banks and currencies being disrupted, and bitcoin becoming the de facto global currency of choice.

 _\- I see that transaction costs for bitcoin keep rising, is that related to the size of the blockchain?_

Raising the transaction fee gives miners incentive to verify your transaction before others. It's not directly related to the size of the blockchain.

 _\- I thought bitcoin was supposed to be decentralised – doesn't a group of centralised developers have the ability to change everything about the currency?_

It is decentralized. There is a group of developers overseeing the Bitcoin protocol, but for any change to be made, there must be consensus.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh that first answer is very interesting - my thoughts at the moment is when/if is this technology going to be included by governments alongside their currencies. Eg each currency being "digitised" alongside standard paper currency. Doing some background reading, this reads as the opposite of the goal of bitcoin/blockchains.

I feel as if a more achievable goal would be not to have a blockchain as a currency or reserve currency, but rather a settlement mechanism shared between banks and individuals (who don't have direct access to ACH etc). That means the coin would be the vehicle of transmission and record. Is this a common viewpoint?

<comment><USER3> The blockchain offers many possible uses. What you describe is one. As for bitcoin, it's meant to replace fiat. It's not controlled or manipulated by any authority. What you describe sounds more like Ripple.

The blockchain is one part of the Bitcoin (with a capital B) protocol. The digital currency part (bitcoin with a small b) is what makes the blockchain run. The two are inseparable. That's my understanding.

EDIT: Ripple is an extremely revolutionary project in its own right. If anything, it's too far ahead of its time. Or maybe not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Is this just another name for a ledger with auditable history?

Yes.

> Can a blockchain exist without mining or without a currency/coin?

Yes, but the interesting ones use currency/coins because you can use incentives other than the legal system to secure the database.

> What keeps people interested in a blockchain (and currency) once all of the > easy mining is done eg, for people joining later?

Securing databases without using the legal system in order to outmaneuver some issues intrinsic to legal systems.

> \- I see that transaction costs for bitcoin keep rising, is that related to > the size of the blockchain?

It is related to many things. In bitcoin's case, the primary cost is the consensus algorithm, ie the network has to "outpay" any potential attacker.

> I thought bitcoin was supposed to be decentralised – doesn't a group of > centralised developers have the ability to change everything about the > currency?

This is a nuanced topic, we could go in depth about "what does 'decentralized really mean", or even worse, "what does 'bitcoin' really mean" but I find this too hard to think about.</comment>


Vmware (A division of EMC) to buy Suse Linux from Novell - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1620044120100916

<comment><USER3> In the 90s it was difficult to imagine Novell ever fading away in the enterprise server market. There was no alternative comparable to Netware and NDS. Microsoft completely killed them off with NT Server and then Active Directory with Win2k. We had around 50 clients running Netware, and within 12 months of Active Directory being released, we had switched almsot all of them over to Windows (usually with Linux servers alongside for web stuff).

Some customers were so desperate to move over that we actually installed and rolled out preview releases of Win2k - since it allowed them to manage their network using the GUI and it was a total cost reduction.

Novell simply never responded. They were still stuck on DOS when Win2k provided a familiar GUI and much easier management. In our bespoke rollouts, even we recognized that Win2k wasn't the best at everything, which is why we would almost install some Linux or BSD servers as well (with Samba) (we did so much of these hybrid installs that I ended up writing NDS drivers for Squid, Apache and a bunch of other open source apps - I think that same code is still being used today). Running Windows also meant that you had one unifying network protocol - TCP/IP, instead of IPX/SPX on the network and TCP/IP on the outside.

RFP's from government and large corporations flooded out with requests for Windows rollouts to replace Netware. It was amazing how quickly this happen. A lot of consultants made a lot of bank at that time ripping Novell out of the enterprise and replacing it with Windows, and often Linux as well.

By the time Novell picked up SuSE, it was too late - they had blown the massive lead they had in the enterprise server market and never regained it. Sorta sad what happen to them, since Netware was a great product for its time.

Enterprise Windows, and to an extent, enterprise Linux, owe a lot to the poor strategic decisions Novell made (or didn't make)

I hope Ximian find a good home, there is no mention if they (and Mono etc.) are part of the Linux deal. I wouldn't be surprised if the second buyer is IBM, but Microsoft have also poured a lot of money into Novell the past 5 years, so it could be them.

<comment><USER4> Hmmm ... I had no difficultly imagining that Netware would die a hard death in the early 90s. My memory of the exact details are a bit fuzzy at this remove (I might be e.g. confounding versions 2 and 3), but its fatal flaw was no memory protection. And as I recall, at least early on, the entire directory structure was in memory (this was an issue for my company in provisioning them for document imaging storage).

So if you wanted to run any 3rd party software on your Netware servers you were making a _big_ bet on both its stability and safety (in not scribbling over the rest of Netware, including most especially whatever memory it was using to keep track of files and directories, no matter whether it had all of the latter in memory or not).

As soon as NT became stable enough (which didn't take very long at all as these things go, that group really had its act together from launch to 3.51 SP1) the value proposition was pretty clear and simple: run Netware for file and print services or run NT for both plus whatever other server software you might want (NDS was never a big issue for the sorts of systems I was involved with so I don't know the story there).

So as I recall the bleeding started before Win2K, although I can see becoming critical with the release of Active Directory.

Of course, all this assumed that Novell wouldn't make the proper strategic decisions in time, but it didn't take too long to realize they just didn't have what it took in that area.

<comment><USER5> > My memory of the exact details are a bit fuzzy at this remove (I might be > e.g. confounding versions 2 and 3), but its fatal flaw was no memory > protection.

You are correct, Netware 3 ran everything in Ring 0, which also made it so fast. Memory protection was added in Netware 4, but you can still opt for running applications in non-protected address space all the way up to Netware 6.5 (latest, and almost certainly the last version).

<comment><USER4> Interesting.

Wikipedia claims " _In 4.x and earlier versions, NetWare did not support preemption, virtual memory, graphical user interfaces, etc. Processes and services running under the NetWare OS were expected to be cooperative, that is to process a request and return control to the OS in a timely fashion. On the down side, this trust of application processes to manage themselves could lead to a misbehaving application bringing down the server._ "

If true, memory protection without preemptive multitasking is still basically unacceptable (just not something you can base a healthy _server_ ecosystem on; we had enough "fun" of that sort with non-preemptive 16 bit Windows client).

The article also notes that TCP/IP was a second class citizen at best until Netware 5.x in October 1998, "during a time when NetWare market share dropped precipitously...."

In general it notes Netware's kernel had a big speed advantage which became less important as systems steadily became faster (and I suspect its tunable caching became less useful).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So what could be VMware's plans for SuSE Linux? I am not familiar enough with their strategy to be able to speculate on this question, but I am curious - <USER2> certainly does not look like an "obvious" acquisition to me.

Keep in mind that SuSE Linux was not profitable under Novell - IIRC the SuSE venture finally broke even in the last FY, so it's not like VMware are buying SuSE to rake in the Enterprise Linux revenue.

<comment><USER6> VMware's newer products for enterprise virtualization (VSphere, 4i) are built on top of the SuSE Linux kernel... so my guess would be a purchase to essentially own the underlying OS kernel they build their product on top of. IIRC, their older products were built using Red Hat instead, they made the switch a couple years ago.

<comment><USER7> When I was in one of the vSphere training classes the instructor informed us that the hypervisor is completely homegrown and that only the Management Console (which is a VM that provides CLI access) runs on top of a Linux kernel.

<comment><USER8> That was my understanding - that Linux instance is really a special purpose guest running "alongside" the other guests on top of the hypervisor.

<comment><USER9> If you watch ESX boot, the Linux kernel starts first - the 'VMkernel' is started via the vmkmod.ko module.

Not saying that VMware Inc are wrong, but Linux runs VMkernel. VMkernel may them 'subsume' its parent kernel somehow but I'm not sure how they'd accomplish this, nor do VMware like talking about how this is achieved.

<comment><USER8> The way someone explained it to me is that the Linux kernel loads the hypervisor "under" itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm using openSuse 10.1. I got 11.3 but it was awful. I don't know how they messed up. I went back to 10.1.

Either way, Ubuntu didn't find my video card. but Suse did (it's a 1920x1200 Dell laptop). I don't know why Ubuntu didn't.

Suse is easy to configure and it's amazing to think how much a Sun box would have cost that did what this can do (my Dell M70 cost just £200 second-hand).

</comment><comment><USER11> Does anyone know if this includes any the Unix source or copyrights that Novell had as well?

<comment><USER5> I don't think it does - it is just the SuSE venture that is being sold to VMware. I would imagine that the copyrights are held by the "rest of Novell".

<comment><USER9> Would they keep the Unix-like part of the business together?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Who gets mono?

<comment><USER9> The best buyer for Mono would be Microsoft.

There is a massive truckload of .net developers who create iPad and iPhone apps using Mono (particularly via Unity3D) and even more who would if Mono had better promotion.

They'd also be able to get .net into the browser as a standard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why one need all this shitload when there is kvm?

      -rw-r--r-- 1 root root  64K 2010-08-20 23:44 kvm-amd.ko
      -rw-r--r-- 1 root root  86K 2010-08-20 23:44 kvm-intel.ko
      -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 478K 2010-08-20 23:44 kvm.ko

qemu-kvm and libvirt based stuff with a community support?

<comment><USER14> Vmware is one of the few software I have ever bought, I am pretty hardcore open source otherwise.

Vmware works very well, has top notch clone/backup/rollback feature, can automatically install tons of different OS. That's a real time saver.

I use kvm at work where we don't have vmware licenses, and while it does work nicely, there is still no working rollback that I know of, and the network configuration is a PITA in general. Vmware frees me from all that hassle that I frankly don't want to deal with.

<comment><USER13> Have you ever seen a crashed ESX Server with no community support, tons of home-brew utilities with wired command line arguments which throw a bizarre error messages to you that even google know nothing about? I did. ^_^

The idea is about reducing complexity and reusing community-tested solutions, not creating a new layer of complexity with a coded in a rush, badly tested poorly documented closed-source layer.

btw, if I use native lvm I can get a lot of flexibility.

edit: some BS removed.

btw, there is still no x86_64 xen-host for a modern kernels.

<comment><USER14> I feel sorry for your experience, it just does not match mine. Note that we are not talking about the same products - I mainly use vmware workstation/player/fusion (I deal a lot with cross platform issues in some medium-size open source projects).

Concerning things coded in a rush, I cannot say about vmware, but libvirt and the associated tools certainly are far from mature in my experience, at least for an end user.

<comment><USER13> I had once a system which runs 64-bit FreeBSD, RHEL and Solaris on one Core- Quad box with Fedora 13. It used for testing mostly while FreeBSD instance was used as a Windows VPN server (mpd5) and OpenVPN.

Btw, there is an issues with last updates of qemu-kvm in Fedora 13. beware.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tesla released video of a car driving itself - <AUTHOR> https://www.tesla.com/videos/full-self-driving-hardware-all-tesla-cars <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12748863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12748863).

<comment><USER3> For what it's worth, I don't think you should have merged these stories. This is about the video, which was released a full day later. Curious to hear people's take on the video without wading through the old comments. You also now have people who wont notice that there's something new to discuss.

<comment><USER4> Agreed, I watched the video and came here to see related comments. Now I need to wade through the other topic that I read yesterday, searching for new ones related to this post. In short, I'm off to Reddit to find a post about the video.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can we please leave the comments here? I just want to see what people have to say about what I saw in the video...

</comment><comment><USER6> I want to be optimistic, I really do.

Winter is here, however, I'm looking forward to roads covered with snow, slush, ice, and animals. I'm looking forward to winds in excess of 30mph driving snow across the highway, limiting visibility to a hundred feet or so. I'm looking forward to inexperienced folks driving on ice and snow and being a good 20mph below the rest of the traffic.

People can barely handle these roads (a two day snow storm last week put dozens of cars and semis in the ditch); I'm not sure how a Tesla will handle them. What will it look for when there are no lines on the road to be seen? How will it know the difference between slush, powdered snow, and plowed snow (which is only slightly less hard than a concrete barrier)?

I'm sure the answer is currently "don't allow automatic driving", but these kinds of conditions can reign over half the year in the mid-west; what value is a self driving car which _can 't_ half the time?

<comment><USER7> What is the value of a "computer" that does math barely faster than a human? What is the value of a motorized vehicle that is slower and more expensive than a horse?

Remain optimistic.

<comment><USER6> What is the use of a laserdisk system? What is the use of Moller Sky Cars? What is the use asbestos?

For every successful technology, another ten technologies have fallen by the wayside due to cost, complexity, or unknown unknowns. I firmly see self driving cars in that category until a fundamental shift in our ability to program occurs.

My ultimate fear is that the programs that will be responsible for making hundreds of decisions every second are still being written by people like us. Not NASA engineers, who will spend millions of dollars verifying all of their code; who spend years writing a few thousand lines of code to an incredibly tight spec.

Instead, they are people who are looking at data and going "that's our integration testing right there." Who write big, complicated bits of code which takes several seconds to render text on our screens and think "Yeah, that's good enough." Who look at accidents their cars have been in and go, "That's totally the driver's fault," instead of saying, "Here's how we will stop that from ever happening again."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great demo. Curious if there were outtakes. It occurred to me when it parked itself that cars will probably want to distinguish subtle differences in parking spaces (like handicapped, loading, etc.)</comment>


"Linux Is Eating My Ram" Myth Busted - <AUTHOR> http://www.cloudways.com/blog/linux-ate-my-ram-memory-myth-busted/

<comment><USER2> Just go straight to the source: [http://www.linuxatemyram.com/](http://www.linuxatemyram.com/)</comment>


Ask HN: Alternatives to Google AdWords for advertising digital goods? - <AUTHOR> I am currently selling some digital goods on a popular marketplace, but lack of analytics and policies that I, sometimes, don't agree with - made me think to sell it on my own, and I am wondering if AdWords is still the best tool to advertise digital goods? <comment><USER2> Depends on the product. But typically Adwords is the go to platform for ease, scalability and success.

There are better platforms where it suits product niches. E.g. B2B or ubiquitous consumer offers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Facebook</comment>


Ask HN: How do you keep the state information of the projects you're working on? - <AUTHOR>

Let me clear what is state information of a project:
* Any information that have to remembered or written and then retrieved when one resume its work on a project (for example, on the next morning when arrives at work, or at the evening when start to work on the side project).
* For example, when you open the project/solution how, where and in what form do you keep the information what to do next, the context information of the current task in order to resume the work on it. The project/task management systems are not designed to handle things on this level of detail so I can't use some existing as a base for my projects. I have tried to accommodate a software like FreeMind (mind mapping) or ThinkingRock (Getting Things Done), but it just doesn't work.
* What I need (and I think plenty of conscious developers will be happy about similar system) is something that can be used to hold information in form similar to a logbook. I have read some articles about developer/programmer logbooks and the general idea of the engineer logbook, but since then I'm still failing to implement something that suits my needs.
* The system can be used not only for pure development, but also for more academic projects that involve more R&D although there are commercial projects with even more R&D portion (reading and trying things from multiple books, articles and papers).
* The information about the progress of the project have to recorder somehow in order to look for references, code, reasoning for certain decisions, notes, etc.
Do you know some software that can do the job...or I have to start writing it by myself ;-)
Thanks in advance <comment><USER2> I use a wiki. As I dump thoughts onto it I generate documentation, "ToDo" lists, possible new features, critiques of existing features, problems I have to solve, solutions to problems I have solved, and links to other ideas and projects.

Then I have a script that pulls the "To Do" and "Problems" sections into a prioritized work-list, and I'm off and running.

</comment><comment><USER3> Been meaning to try this, but haven't gotten around to it: <http://people.msoe.edu/~bovorasr/>

S/w to create your own logbooks.</comment>


Native Code Considered Harmful - <AUTHOR> http://developer.telerik.com/featured/native-code-is-bad-for-you/ <comment><USER2> So Java and C# are native code these days?</comment>


StartupPlays - Cutting Edge Strategic Plans for Startups - <AUTHOR> http://startupplays.com

<comment><USER2> They lost me at, "Finding and Hiring Startup 'Rockstars'".

<comment><AUTHOR> Was it the word rockstars?</comment></comment>


Swift wtf - <AUTHOR> http://swiftwtf.tumblr.com

<comment><USER2> It would sure be useful if the author posted OpenRadar links for each of these bugs... s/he _is_ filing bugs with Apple, right?</comment>


Boosted's Electric Skateboard (YC S12) - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/05/boosted-board/ <comment><USER2> I can't wait to see what kind of vehicle Boosted start working on next now they have this done.

Electric bicycles are a good, existing market (especially in Europe), but there are already some good options there and I suspect their prefer something where their R&D is more directly applicable (bicycles are heavier and human power can take a bigger proportion of the propulsion load). OTOH, it might be possible to engineer an add-on solution for existing bikes that would work well.

Electric scooters seems like a good bet. The form factor is similar, and I'd imagine many of the technologies can be directly transplanted. I think a folding electric scooter could be more practical than a longboard for many people.

There are of course more exotic options. The self-balancing electric unicycle (which was on HN the other day) was interesting, and I'd hope there are other things waiting to be invented.

Anyway - I'm very excited about the increased diversity in transport options.

<comment><USER3> There's an interesting electric scooter that just launched a few months ago called the URB-E: [http://urb-e.com](http://urb-e.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Last time an article about Boosted Boards frontpaged HN, commenters raised very valid concerns about the legality of it. While it's still a niche thing it'll fly under the radar, but if this thing becomes super popular, it's pretty certain a law will pass to end the fun.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4506979](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4506979)

Other than that, as a longboarder who sadly can't longboard to work in downtown SF because of slight hills on my commute, I'd love to get one of those. If there are Boosted Boards employees/founders reading this: do you offer the possibility to come to your office and try one out? At a third or half the price it'd be a no brainer, but at $2000 I' m certainly not buying one without having tried it first.

<comment><USER5> There was at least some effort to legalize them in California:

[http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2014/03/11/california-bill- would...](http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2014/03/11/california-bill-would-pave- way-for-electric-skateboards/)

Though the CA DMV seems to classify them as motor scooters:

[http://www.chp.ca.gov/html/motors.html](http://www.chp.ca.gov/html/motors.html)

It doesn't seem like the law is a serious concern at any rate, although I didn't research other states. If the question is if you need a motorcycle license or not, it seems like the industry is in a good position.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm excited to see the number of players in the electric skateboard market. I'd like to see costs come down though, it seems like all of them are in the $1200-$2000 range with not much differentiation. I suspect the one who can bring costs down while maintaining quality will be the winner in this market.

I'm not sure what Boosted is bringing to the table honestly, compared to brands like [Evolve]([http://evolveskateboardsusa.com/](http://evolveskateboardsusa.com/)) that have been out for a while now and have better specs at a significantly lower price.

<comment><USER7> Boosted is using Loaded longboards which are high-quality longboards. As a longboarder, it gives me confidence that the board will be fun to ride as opposed to being just a plank of wood on wheels. On the other hand, those Evolve boards look decent. The costs of all of these are really too high for me right now, so I'll admit I haven't seriously looked into it.

<comment><USER6> I don't have an Evolve board but I'm considering one. I'd suggest giving them a look (much longer distance on one charge). I think I'll end up with either an evolve board or a onewheel. I do wish it was possible to test them out first to see how the ride really feels but I'm sure I would end up pretty happy with anything.

<comment><USER8> If you want to try a Boosted board, email us at community@. There are different boards, and some are better for different riding profiles. Happy to help you decide.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The cost is totally prohibitive, even for the early adopter market. Boosted - I was working on this problem (far less successfully than you - hat tip) and came to the conclusion that you have to give people a low starting cost and the ability to upgrade over time. Give me brushed motors, NiMH batteries and cheap trucks to start with for closer to $600USD. Once you've hooked me on the product (and I'm confident you will) offer me upgrades to LiFEPO4 batteries, better bearings, brushless motors, RadiKS wheels, etc. Up-front pricing will not win this market!

</comment><comment><USER10> I've used mine every day since I got it. It's hard to describe how amazing the riding experience is.

<comment><USER8> Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Boosted boards are 6.8kg. The Marbel board is even lighter at 4.5kg(!), so it's even easier to carry, and the range is greater as well (16km instead of 9.6km):

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1664522105/marbel- the-l...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1664522105/marbel-the-lightest- electric-skateboard-in-the-wor)

<comment><USER12> That Marbel board has a nice form factor, interesting to see the different choice of material for the deck. It's great to see some competition in this space. Hopefully someone will put a spring bushings option on one of these products.

<comment><USER13> It actually looks like they made it this way to hide batteries in the middle cavity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I can't understand why these things are so damn expensive.

You can get a longboard skateboard for $100-$300 or so. I'm sure you can spend more but that's a good starting number. That's for the board, the trucks, the bearings and wheels. [http://www.daddiesboardshop.com/longboards/complete- longboar...](http://www.daddiesboardshop.com/longboards/complete-longboards)

It seems like a decent, 1000W+ motor can be had for less than $200. [http://www.e-fliterc.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=EFLM40...](http://www.e-fliterc.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=EFLM4060A)

Controllers are around $100 each, I'm not sure if you could use a single large one or if you'd need a pair of smaller ones. [http://www.e-fliterc.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=EFLA10...](http://www.e-fliterc.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=EFLA1080B)

One of these packs would be enough juice to get you moving, but it might take two to get you the range you need. [http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__45145__Turnigy_na...](http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__45145__Turnigy_nano_tech_A_SPEC_G2_5000mah_6S_65_130C_Lipo_Pack.html) So call that $300 in parts.

Okay so $200 for the board, $400 for the motors, $200 for the controllers, and $300 for the batteries. We're now at $1100. After that what's left? I can think of:

A charger? $200 max [http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__11597__iCharger_3...](http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__11597__iCharger_3010B_1000W_10s_Balance_Charger.html)

Controls? Figure what, $100 for the radio unit and the receiver and whatnot. Probably much less.

Last are all the brackets and driveline parts. I figure you could machine the motor brackets out of aluminum for less than $50 per pair in quantity, the pullies are only $20 each in quantity and the belts aren't terribly expensive either.

So that's $1400 worth of parts if you're buying them at retail. If you're making quantities of these things of at least a few hundred you're going to be getting better deals than that bringing your cost down to $1200 or $1000 each.

If I'm not completely full of shit here (and I recognize I might be, this is 15min worth of googling) I guess I can't understand why these things cost $2k to buy.

<comment><USER15> You're not accounting for literally any costs besides parts. R&D, assembly, testing, support, shipping, insurance, marketing, administrative, taxes... I actually doubt that they are spending $1200 on parts because if they were, they would be taking a massive loss on a $2000 retail price.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, sure but I'm also accounting for parts at RETAIL. I'm not talking to manufacturers and getting wholesale pricing.

I get that there's R&D and all the other things you've mentioned. I guess I didn't realize all that was going to cost $600-$1200 per board. I've always made the assumption that when you're not talking about software that your material costs dominate your price.

Given all that it would seem to make sense for someone moderately interested in an electric longboard as a hobby to build their own. If they're going to charge themselves for their time, obviously not as it would be a $20k device. But if you're interested in it anyhow it sounds like you can get a 50% or more discount.

<comment><USER16> You're also forgetting... they have to make a profit on this! You're also paying for the near-or-at six-figure salaries of the engineers that have worked on this for a few years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Great product. I was on the pre-order list at $1299 and was disappointed to then get an email a month ago saying the price went up to $2000.

Outside of that, awesome job on the product. Looks great.

<comment><USER8> I'm sorry about this. I wish we had a way to keep the price that low. If you'd like to try one for a bit, email me at community@

<comment><USER17> I'm not in the Bay Area and am in Phoenix? Would this still apply?

<comment><USER8> We'll figure out a way to make it happen. Email me at community@ and we'll set you up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Anyone know how waterproof this thing is? In the north west more than half my walking commutes are in the rain.

<comment><USER19> They're not supposed to be used when it's wet outside.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Seems like it needs anti-theft. Maybe a Bluetooth wheel lock if it is away from a paired device?

</comment><comment><USER21> The article title is a tad too linkbaity (plus slightly misleading, given its final sentence), so we changed it to the caption from the photo.</comment>


They Still Make and Sell New Dot Matrix Printers - <AUTHOR> http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=631&name=Printer-Dot-Matrix-Printers <comment><USER2> An awful lot of systems are still setup to use carbon copies as the method for generating the 'official' copy of a document. If you want to print onto a form that uses carbon paper, you have to use an impact printer.

A market need still exists, it's unsurprising that someone is filling that need.

<comment><USER3> I think part of the surprise is not that the need is being fulfilled, but the fact it is a need at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Never underestimate switching costs. For the kind of organisation that plans IT purchasing five years in advance, a $500 dot matrix printer is a bargain.</comment>


Knowing When To Quit (and When to Stick It Out) - <AUTHOR> http://posterous.com/#spaces/thirdyearmba/posts/72355838

<comment><USER2> This post is unfortunately more a sad commentary on what Posterous has become.

(The link goes nowhere but a front-page advertising "Spaces". I have no idea how to proceed to the article.)

<comment><USER3> Link to the actual post: [http://blog.thirdyearmba.com/two-ways-many- entrepreneurs-scr...](http://blog.thirdyearmba.com/two-ways-many- entrepreneurs-screw-up-executio)</comment></comment>


Ignorance and Hubris at the FTC - <AUTHOR> http://wertago.com/blog/?p=367

<comment><USER2> Fighter pilots have traditionally painted small flags or the like on the sides of their aircraft to commemorate the planes they shot down. I've long thought D.C. bureaucrats should do the same with their desks for the companies they've killed.

One interesting and important point made in this essay---note that I'm paraphrasing and extending the thesis a bit---is that to the extent the FTC blindly stops Google from buying companies there will be that many fewer companies spawned, since M&A are about the only way most startups can cash out nowadays.</comment>


An Unexpected Twist Lights Up the Secrets of Turbulence - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/an-unexpected-twist-lights-up-the-secrets-of-turbulence-20200903/ <comment><USER2> Video of the actual research, showing the knotted vortex using their exotic hydrofoils: [https://youtu.be/Ja886GtHlcE?t=8](https://youtu.be/Ja886GtHlcE?t=8)

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't understand why they are not using bio-luminescent plankton to visualize this stuff.

Maybe it is too hard to make it perform on demand?</comment>


The Superfluid Universe - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/is-dark-matter-subatomic-particles-a-superfluid-or-both <comment><USER2> > _" It is impossible to be interested in cosmology today without being > interested in dark matter", says Stefano Liberati_

Mr. Liberati seems to think dark matter is as real and proven as the air we breathe, but forgot that so far it is only one of ideas proposed to explain the speeds of visible bodies. I am sure one can study other ideas that do not depend on the concept of electromagnetically passive matter at all, like different gravity formula or EM mechanisms. Perhaps he meant to say it is impossible to get a grant or get attention without being interested in dark matter, or something like that...

</comment><comment><USER3> How's it compared to superfluid vacuum theory?

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

<comment><USER4> They're pretty much entirely unrelated.

In [http://arxiv.org/abs/1507.01019](http://arxiv.org/abs/1507.01019) the authors lean on research into axions as extensions to the Standard Model and on Bose Einstein Condensate research in ordinary matter, and proposes a temperature (~ 1 mK) below which the light axion-like gas condenses into a superfluid.

It's firmly rooted in General Relativity and is proposed as an ordinary matter field in the GR sense. The field content feels and generates curvature just like all the fields in the Standard Model. Its non-removable vacuum background is the standard four-dimensional smooth connected Lorentzian manifold.

Superfluid vacuum theory (SVT) is a family of emergent gravity theories that aims to replace General Relativity by proposing that a superfluid with lattice spacing at Planck scale is part of the non-removable background and the dynamics of gravitation take place in the superfluid. At low temperatures, and at low particle energies, the superfluid reproduces GR.

This approach to emergent gravity was tried with non-superfluid fluids historically, and those attempts failed in the face of detailed study of objects in our sky that are bright in extreme UV and higher frequencies.

Emergent gravity theories tend to get more complicated (e.g., SVT theories have variously introduced mechanisms to suppress dissipation effects, and introduced rotation and/or phase transitions in the background superfluid) when they have to match recent successes of General Relativity. When you have to keep making substantial changes to your theory to match observables predicted using GR a century ago, it's a bad sign.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a pretty amazing and compelling idea, it feels odd that no one has thought of it before - the article mentions some previous models, what were they?

<comment><USER6> How this article failed to mention Grisha Volovik at all is beyond me. He is be far the most prominent proponent of this school of thought who isn't a cosmologist. The obvious problem with all these models is that the condensed matter theories don't obviously require Lorentz invariance.

[http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Droplet-International- Monogra...](http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Droplet-International-Monographs- Physics/dp/0199564841)

<comment><USER6> raattgift's comments earlier are almost certainly more correct than mine. I didn't read Khoury's paper throughly. My apologies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> > _First predicted in 1924 by Einstein and the Indian physicist Satyendra > Bose, this whole class of ultra-cold superfluids is now known as Bose- > Einstein condensates._

No, this whole class of ultra-cold superfluids (referring to fluids similar to superfluid helium) were not "first predicted in 1924", as Mrs. Hosenfelder erroneously writes.

It is the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) that was predicted in 1924, not superfluids. A Bose–Einstein condensate is a state of matter where dilute gas of weakly interacting bosons of cold enough temperature turns into condensate, a different phase of matter.

A superfluid was first discovered in liquid helium in 1937-1938 experimentally by Kapitza and independently by Allen and Misener. Liquid helium is no weakly interacting gas, but nevertheless the explanation of its superfluidity in terms of Bose-Einstein condensate was proposed soon after the discovery. Later on it turned out that superfluid helium is no ordinary BEC, but needs quite a different description (interacting particles in liquid). As Balibar writes,

 _" 65 years later, the connection between superfluidity and BEC is still a matter of debate and study"_

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/1935151_Looking_bac...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/1935151_Looking_back_at_superfluid_helium)

See also [https://www.eng.fsu.edu/~dommelen/quantum/style_a/nt_sfnebec...](https://www.eng.fsu.edu/~dommelen/quantum/style_a/nt_sfnebec.html)

[https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/superfluidity- helium-3...](https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/superfluidity-helium-3-and- helium-4.640281/#post-4097603)

There are also other superfluids that are not BEC, like superfluid helium 3. It is fermionic condensate, not BEC.

I remember from my studies of physics that all this was quite a common knowledge in the circles of cold temp physics.

I wonder why Mrs. Hossenfelder, a physicist herself, neglects to reflect this basic knowledge in her article. Perhaps she is now more of a pop-sci blogger than a scientist?</comment>


My Life as a Woman with Color Blindness - <AUTHOR> https://www.thecut.com/2018/02/my-life-as-a-woman-with-colorblindness.html <comment><USER2> > I've lived in Wilmington for ten years, and I've seen everything in this > city a thousand times, but every other second I was gasping. Have you ever > passed the same store day after day and thought, "They really need to > replace that sun-bleached sign," then they do, and it's the same logo, same > colors, except it's new? That's how the whole world looked — like the entire > city of Wilmington was brand new.

This reminds me very much of my experience wearing glasses for the first time, to correct myopia. The whole trip back from the doctor's, my 11-year old self was just looking around at the ordinary residential neighbourhoods we were passing, and thinking "I never knew the world was so... beautiful!"

The article as a whole gives me a new appreciation for the huge variety of colours around me, for all the neat little details that I have the ability to see but take for granted every day. (I'll probably lose that appreciation in a few hours when I forget the article, but hey, it's a start.)</comment>