John Doerr's Advice for Barack Obama: Hire Bill Joy - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/john-doerrs-advice-for-barack-obama-hire-bill-joy/

<comment><USER2> Regardless of Bill Joy's qualifications, this is difficult to accept considering Bill Joy is a partner at John Doerr's firm. I'm not at all opposed to the idea of a national CTO, but this article appears to be a blatant attempt on the part of this firm to cozy up to a new administration. Any advice that primarily benefits the one giving the advice should be taken with a grain of salt. That's not to say Bill Joy is not qualified, but I have no doubt there are other equally qualified candidates available. I'm surprised this would even be posted here.

<comment><USER3> If Bill Joy is indeed the most qualified, why does it matter who recommended him? It seems natural that Doerr would make Joy a partner since Doerr thinks so highly of him.

<comment><USER2> We don't know if Bill Joy is the most qualified. My point is that we should question Doerr's agenda. If Bill Joy did become a part of the new administration Doerr's firm would likely reap huge benefits similar to the way Halliburton did when Cheney took office.

Maybe Bill Joy is such a swell guy that not only does Doerr want him as a partner but also playing a large role in our country's government. Maybe Doerr's unsolicited advice is completely impartial and in the country's best interest. I, for one, believe that to be a very unlikely scenario.

In any case, the fact is we can't take this sort of thing at face value.

<comment><USER4> Or it could be that Kleiner hired Bill Joy because John Doerr thinks he's a swell guy, and that John Doerr is recommending him for national CTO because he's a swell guy. Given that Joy only recently joined Kleiner (2005), I think this is more likely.

The reason we can't take Doerr's word at face value is just another application of Buchheit's Law: "Advice = Limited Life Experience + Overgeneralization". John Doerr does not know every highly-qualified technopreneur in the country. He knows a lot of them, but remember Joy's Law: "No matter who you are, the majority of smart people do not work for you." Personally, I think Bill Gates or Marc Andreesen may have a more relevant, feet-on-the-ground perspective, while being just as qualified technically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like the idea of a CTO advisory position and Bill Joy should be on the short list.

As to Chief Security Officer, I can't think of anyone that belongs on the list besides Bruce Schneier. In fact, can we just give the FTA and Homeland Security positions to Schneier for a few months to let him write sensible rules for security? He already has most of the rational documented.

I do not like the idea of a CIO under-secretary, or whatever. A CIO trying to pull together "cost-saving" across government agencies would be a bureaucratic nightmare. Best to have gov agencies start to operate more agile on their own.

As a side note, Kleiner's flying a Turkish flag on his new sailing toy may raise awareness about how the rich offshore money and avoid taxes (yes, I do understand how high luxury yacht taxes are and that this is standard practice). Doerr may want to be careful about not attracting too much attention to his friends that make most their income on capital gains ;).

</comment><comment><USER6> Burt Rutan is the CTO America needs. He's a true Renaissance man. And he knows about working with government.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think the CTO of the US should sell off any shares / stakes in technology companies to avoid conflict of interest.

<comment><USER5> Can someone substantiate the rumor that our beloved Treasury Secretary, Paulson, received tax exclusion when he was anointed to the position? I've read snips about this but don't know if its true or to what extent.

<comment><USER8> Yes.

[http://www.forbes.com/2006/06/01/paulson-tax-loophole- cx_jh_...](http://www.forbes.com/2006/06/01/paulson-tax-loophole- cx_jh_0602paultax.html)

By accepting the Treasury post, Paulson is poised to take advantage of a tax loophole that allows government officials to defer capital gains taxes on assets they have to sell to avoid a conflict of interest, as long as the proceeds are reinvested in government securities or a broad array of mutual funds approved by the government within 60 days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It is hard to name good candidates for such a position unless/until the job description is known. Does technology = computers? If so, Bill Joy is a great choice. But what if it emphasizes engineering, or science, or medicine (or sub-disciplines of them)? Or all of them - how many polymaths are in the market right now? And how many of them want to work for the Govt?

<comment><USER10> Paul Graham recommended Peter Norvig. That surprised me.

If the CTO delegates projects and money, then the job is ill-suited for Norvig; The problems he'd be solving aren't abstract enough.

Besides, Peter is smart enough to come up with his own projects. And you shouldn't be recommending jobs to _anybody_ smarter than you.

But it depends on the job description. And I realize this is just in jest and speculation. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Only 30,000 engineers graduate from US universities each year?! That seems low to me, but I guess I've never really thought about it.

<comment><USER12> I think it is low. I found this chart on Nation Center for Education Statistics' website that suggests its more like ~75k: [http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d06/figures/fig_15.asp?re...](http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d06/figures/fig_15.asp?referrer=figures) .</comment></comment>


Governor Brown's housing proposal could mean sweeping Bay Area changes - <AUTHOR> http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2016/05/brown-affordable-housing-development-approval-ceqa.html <comment><USER2> This would address an important element of high Bay Area housing costs: the discretionary project veto by local authorities. This is the main reason why only super-high end luxury stuff gets built in San Francisco.

In most parts of the US, there are certain local zoning laws. You apply to the local government for review of your project. This is expensive, as you must prepare detailed professional studies for the proposal.

If the project conforms to all of the zoning laws, it must receive a permit. They can only deny you a permit if your project does not comply with some specific zoning law.

In San Francisco and several other nearby cities, the local government can arbitrarily withhold a permit even when a project conforms to all local zoning laws in every respect, usually under the vague and arbitrary guise of "not fitting in with the neighborhood's character."

Since applying for a permit is an expensive and time consuming process, most developers simply don't bother to even try in San Francisco. They just go elsewhere, where their project can't be arbitrarily vetoed by local authorities despite conforming to all applicable zoning laws.

The main exception is luxury developments: since the profit margin on luxury construction is so high, it's worth the extra cost and risk associated with navigating San Francisco's permit process.

If this law passes, then municipalities will not wield the power of arbitrary veto anymore. There will still be extensive zoning regulations, of course; the difference is that development restrictions will have to be spelled out in the law, in advance, rather than made up on an ad hoc, per-project basis by local officials. This greatly reduces the risk involved in starting a development project, and makes non-luxury developments much more likely to be profitable and thus undertaken by developers.

<comment><USER3> What would stop a municipality from making zoning laws that are impossible to meet, and then just issuing waivers to those that play the political game well enough?

<comment><USER4> Hopefully the local interests who also know how to play the political game well enough but recognize the "indications that businesses and residents are fleeing the state in part because of high housing costs and the state's Legislative Analyst Office blaming excessive restrictions on development for the affordability crisis".

Profiting from pulling out the rug to newcomers only works if there are enough newcomers still willing to pay the exorbitant rents for the artificially suppressed supply. If enough people start saying "eh, the bay area is nice and all but not worth it", the NIMBYism starts to get less profitable. Sort of a pendulum-swinging-the-other-way dynamic-equilibrium type of thing.

<comment><USER5> That is exactly what the electorate wants.

<comment><USER6> I've heard before that "everybody who moves to California wants to be the last person who moves to California."

I think that applies here. Once you've got your spot, its best if it stays the way it is.

<comment><USER7> "Got mine, screw you" isn't limited to Californian real estate though. It is unfortunately very broadly applied.

<comment><USER8> It's not just "broadly applied", it's the American motto!

<comment><USER7> Let's not kid ourselves: it isn't just the American motto...it is motto of most people in the world.

<comment><USER8> I don't know about that. Ignoring the rest of the world for a moment and concentrating on industrialized nations, we seem to be the worst at providing socialized services.

<comment><USER7> I've been out of the states for 10 years now and have noticed the motto being applied in states as altruistic as Switzerland, and it definitely rules in here China, much more than in the US.

<comment><USER8> China is a third-world country not comparable to western Europe. It's industrializing rapidly, but no one would ever be so naïve to think it has social services even approaching those in western nations.

<comment><USER7> China is comparable, but further down the development chain. Social safety nets and good governance tempers selfishness a bit, but can't eliminate it (e.g. Switzerland). America has less of a net and equality than much of Europe, which is why selfishness seems to be more apparent there than in Europe.

<comment><USER8> No, China isn't even remotely comparable. Just a few decades ago, it was a mostly agrarian economy. They've had massive industrialization in a very short time, but they don't the much longer-term culture of industrialization and social programs and worker protections etc. that western nations have.

And how exactly is Switzerland "selfish"? They may not be part of the EU, but they appear to have just as many social safety nets as any other western European nation. This seems like a rather silly charge to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It is a step in the right direction, but this is still just more of the same policies that screw over the middle 40% of population. This still doesn't fix the problem with housing. As someone who makes exactly the median income but likes to save it, I am legally forbidden from living in "affordable housing".

If you are poor, here is your free house. If you make the median income, you are forced to spend money exactly like everyone else. Lawmakers only care about affordable housing for the poor, no one cares about providing modest housing for the modest earner.

<comment><USER10> Serious question: why do you believe you're entitled to affordable housing in any arbitrary location?

<comment><USER9> I believe I'm entitled to the same benefits we give to the bottom 40% of the population and I believe I'm entitled to think this based on my reading of the equal protection clause of the constitution.

Creating housing where only the poor can live is not equal protection under the law.

<comment><USER10> Do you also believe you should get food stamps?

<comment><USER11> Given there exist software engineers at Google who sleep in their vans ... maybe yes if the OP's employer doesn't have free food? At least in tech, we don't have student loans. I've heard of Doctors leaving the Bay area because they were fed up of housing + commute. Have you seen the prices in MV downtown? Apartments seem to have doubled in prices. In my opinion, what happened is low interest rates allowed some big hedge funds/property management companies to buy all the properties in the prime spots ... they did a bit of renovation, tagged the places as luxury apartments and here we are. My last place, the apartment manager mentioned that some 2 bedroom apartment had 4 roommates .. that's how people afford this crap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > When Brown was mayor of Oakland, "every Oakland project I proposed was > opposed at City Council by one group of neighbors or activists," he said > last October.

If anyone wants to see evidence of this just sign up at nextdoor. There exist a group of dedicated people in every neighborhood whose sole purpose it is to stop any new development.

<comment><USER13> THIS. OMG, the anti-development mob on Nextdoor is horrifying. I live in southern Marin and you would not believe the hysterical and shameless level of NIMBYism. People in my area use the platform to try to block new single family residences from being built even on privately-owned parcels, and post to Nextdoor urging everyone to come to the planning meetings to try to block the permits. After all, the person who wanted to build the house was a developer who lived in Sacramento, not a local person, and everybody freaked. Why, there was even a possibility that he might build five or ten houses in that area further down the line (the horror, the horror).

When I posted comments objecting to the attitude, one of the local anti- development residents apparently ran a deep background check on me and posted to Nextdoor that I surely must be opposed because my family must be real estate developers and have some kind of vested interest. Actually, my grandfather started a commercial real estate company on the other side of the country, not residential real estate nor any kind of new development. But the implication was clear: try to block NIMBYism and people will actually dox you (albeit poorly), to the point they will seek out your deceased maternal grandfather's name and business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Yes, guv Brown!

At last he frees us from the shackles local governments have had on reasonable development. I do hope this passes. This, in my mind, would vindicate his governorship, in my eyes. Glad pragmatism shows through from time to time.

Some day, some day, that we may repeal prop 13.

</comment><comment><USER15> Having recently moved to the Bay Area in the last year from Texas, I've been observing the NIMBYs and I've determined that it's very nuanced issue.

I live in Dublin, CA, one of the far East Bay suburbs that is actually constructing tons of highly dense, brand new housing. And I've closely observed long time residents and neighbors debate and challenge the developers putting in this housing.

There are the obviously impractical folks, complaining about the aesthetics of highly dense townhomes/apartments and how they "ruin the hillside" with their "cookie-cutter" looks. But this is a relatively small group making a fuss. They're an easy target for the media.

But there are those with practical concerns. Increases in burglaries and auto theft because thieves target newly constructed communities first due to easy pickings [1]. Schools that become so overcrowded that kids are being taught in mobiles because the schools can't build fast enough to accommodate the growth [2]. Traffic that comes to a standstill because the two lane roads can't be expanded fast enough and toll roads become the only rapidly deployable option [3]. Mass Transit that becomes standing room only due to the influx of new residents [4].

There are solutions to these problems (more police, more schools, more road construction), but these services are often not financed by the housing development authorities. Recent attempts to get the developers to shoulder more of this cost is often the next fight these communities face. Some of these things take a decade or more to resolve.

Given all of this, it's understandable why some just go the easiest route possible and decide to block all new development. I'm not saying it's right, but hopefully this gives you a bit more context. It's not just long time residents fighting change for no reason.

* [1] [http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/04/07/dublin-residents...](http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/04/07/dublin-residents-patrolling-their-own-streets-after-burglaries-spike/)

* [2] [http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_28252721/dublin-grap...](http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_28252721/dublin-grapples-school-overcrowding)

* [3] [http://abc7news.com/traffic/new-i-580-express-lanes-now-open...](http://abc7news.com/traffic/new-i-580-express-lanes-now-open-in-east-bay/1207229/)

* [4] [http://www.ktvu.com/news/100269984-story](http://www.ktvu.com/news/100269984-story)

<comment><USER16> > Recent attempts to get the developers to shoulder more of this cost is often > the next fight these communities face.

Why would the people building the housing be responsible for these costs? If new people are moving to a community and consuming services, can't they pay for those services through taxes like everyone else?

<comment><USER17> The cost to deploy most services does not increase linearly with the tax base. Usually it's capital expenditure.

Maybe (but not necessarily!) the number of police can grow linearly with the growth in taxable property. But police cars and police stations must be acquired from scratch. Same with sanitation workers vs an expanded water treatment plant, bus drivers and buses.

Some of those costs can maybe be amortized via debt issue (bonds), but the cost of servicing those would still be borne by the community overall and not necessarily the newcomers' taxes alone.

When a new development is proposed, it's the developer who's there in the moment, hoping to make business and a profit. The prospective-and-still- hypothetical newcomers are not yet there to make a case that housing be built for them. So it's not insane that the developer be put in a position to minimize negative effects of new building.

This isn't a perfect system, and it's certainly one that can be abused by nimbys as everyone now knows. In particular things get unintuitive for (usually older) folks who are house-rich but cash-poor ... accommodations might leave them with a house worth more, even as a fixed income prevents them from absorbing, say, increased taxes. But, since Proposition 13 passed in 1978, California has been pretty clearly biased towards disproportionately helping out those sorts of people though. Can't say we weren't warned.

<comment><USER16> > Some of those costs can maybe be amortized via debt issue (bonds), but the > cost of servicing those would still be borne by the community overall and > not necessarily the newcomers' taxes alone.

This seems like another way of saying money is fungible. Suppose there is School A used by current residents and School B we propose to build for new residents. The annualized cost (labor+amortized capital) of a School is $X/year, which registers as a tax burden on current residents. Building School B doubles the total tax burden, but in response to a doubling in population, so per-person taxes are unchanged. (assuming that new residents pay taxes at or above the average rate, which is certainly true in the Bay Area).

It's meaningless in this case to distinguish who is paying for which schools - you could say "newcomers are paying the entire cost for School B" since the marginal revenue increase equals the marginal cost, or you could say that the costs of servicing both schools are "borne by the community overall". But in the latter case, in order to claim that current residents are contributing to new infrastructure, you have to acknowledge the reciprocal contribution of new residents to _existing_ infrastructure: increased tax revenue helps to pay off the bonds that built the _current_ schools, and that will eventually be sold to renovate and rebuild them. Either way it balances out.

<comment><USER18> The annualized cost of a school isn't fixed though. Firstly, the capital cost of the older schools may well have been paid off. Secondly, the cost of building one is going to be pushed up by the fact they're competing with expensive premium housing for land, builders, etc. Thirdly, they're also going to be competing with existing schools for teachers and it's not like teachers from outside the area are going to be able to afford to move there unless they're paid an awful lot.

<comment><USER16> > Firstly, the capital cost of the older schools may well have been paid off.

In the long term nothing is "paid off"; you have to keep up a regular schedule of renovations and renewal projects, or things fall apart. Which is what's currently happening to a bunch of US infrastructure. :-(

As for cost differences, property tax revenue scales with rising land values, so land costs should be a wash (ignoring prop 13 insanity, which from other replies seems like it might be the real issue here). And expensive housing / high cost of living for new teachers is caused by high _demand_ for housing without a corresponding increase in supply. So existing schools would already face that problem, but increasing supply by developing new housing should help to mitigate it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I would rate the probability that this actually passes as somewhat less likely than an asteroid wiping out all life on Earth in the next year. That said, it sounds like a major step in the right direction toward actually addressing the root of the housing crisis.

<comment><USER20> I have no evidence one way or another on whether this will pass, so I'm curious as to what you're basing your assessment on.

The local NIMBYs have virtually no power at the state level, so I don't see how they could block this.

Whereas real estate developers, construction companies, and construction trade unions do have lobbyists in Sacramento.

<comment><USER21> I'm not sure that real estate developers are super-excited to build projects with 20% on-site affordable units, though maybe! I think it's clear that their preferred model would be to allow them to off-site their affordable housing requirements, but maybe this is a compromise they could live with.

<comment><USER22> 20% affordable is standard in many places, especially since affordable isn't really that affordable.

<comment><USER21> Note the difference between "affordable" and "on-site affordable."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Interesting but Sec 3 (c) does have an out with regards to planned existing zoning or general plan, then of course design reviews are another ninety days.

I am quite sure that if the groups have been so successful they will simply be able to delay the process regardless. There will certainly be cities who will sue the state to throw the law out.

Finally, never discount political retribution towards developers who do go this route. While protected in developments that follow this proposed law all their other developments directly and indirectly related will face more scrutiny

Still got to celebrate a Governor whose solution doesn't involve taking away property rights but attempts to allow those with them to use them as they want.

<comment><USER24> This will have some effect in San Francisco (some neighborhood development plans and zoning regs are so low density all projects require approval). But a lot of projects (like "the monster in the mission" to replace an old Burger King and empty warehouse with housing) would not be able to be blocked under this law. They follow the existing development plan so they require no exceptions.

Even out here in Sunset, all the land is zoned 40ft or 60ft. If you include a basement, thats 4-6 stories when most structures are 2. If you weren't subject to massive delays and reviews, it would certainly be profitable to tear down some of these single-family homes and build 4-6 story apartment buildings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Note: Gov. Jerry Brown(CA) not Gov. Kate Brown(OR)

</comment><comment><USER26> This will be awesome if it happens. I don't have much hope though.</comment>


Ruby vs PHP performance - <AUTHOR> http://izumi.plan99.net/blog/index.php/2008/01/17/ruby-vs-php-performance/

<comment><USER2> I find it funny that the 31 lines of code in the example can be easily reduced to 8:

      def merge(a, b)
        c = []
        c << (a[0] > b[0] ? b.shift : a.shift) until a.empty? || b.empty?
        return c+a+b
      end

      def mergesort(a)
        a.size <= 1 ? a : merge(mergesort(a.slice!(0,a.size/2)),mergesort(a))
      end

Language Power > Language Speed

<comment><USER3> I also thought what was humorous was if you were using python, you wouldn't use a python sorting algorithm for numbers. I realize it is just an example, but if you want something realistic, use the built in sort which is nicely optimized, or write your own method in C if it is non-trivial.

      >def realsort():
        t1 = datetime.datetime.now()
        for x in range(3000):
            numbers[:].sort()
        t2 = datetime.datetime.now()
        print t2-t1
      >realsort()
      >0:00:00.128081

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would assume that one reason PHP seems faster in practice is that much of the typical grunt work of a webapp (what he calls the "web environment") is done in C for PHP and Ruby for Ruby.

</comment><comment><USER5> C++ version is a disaster. It is literally two orders of magnitude slower than it should be.

</comment><comment><USER6> The dude compared the performance of a couple of array-related functions in various run time libraries for 4 languages, with all those functions (probably) written in C. Although I still consider this exercise useful.

</comment><comment><USER7> The merge sort test is probably spending most of its time allocating/deallocating arrays. I would say it's similar to the b-tree shootout.

[http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/benchmark.php?test=bin...](http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/benchmark.php?test=binarytrees&lang=all)

</comment><comment><USER8> Comparing languages for speed is a really odd thing to do. It's much like trying to compare the intelligence of people. Give a very narrow context, it may be sort-of-do-able, but it's not a very useful picture. The problems with PHP, is _not_ its speed.

<comment><USER9> It may be an odd thing to do, but it's a common thing to do. People are prone to premature optimization, and that includes selecting a language. The perception that the language that's otherwise optimal is too slow has resulted in a number of projects being written in a suboptimal language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I once wrote a compiler and a VM for a custom language and without much optimization it performed almost twice as fast as PHP. Not that I'm good at VM's but probably PHP is really bad.

</comment><comment><USER11> Ruby seems to be more than fast enough, but Rails and ActiveRecord is slow.

</comment><comment><USER12> I find the debate about languages follows in a long line of others, first going back to analog vs digital, vinyl vs CDs, film Vs DV, MS PC's vs Apple, blar blar.

It would appear to me that most of this is driven by prejudice and stems back to people like what they know, where they feel comfortable, and upstarts that think they know better (the new kids on the block) have less bias, less invested and are evangelists of the new because it's cool and they have a chance of caving out a bit of respect if they can attain expert status in that new field where they would have had no chance with the old fashioned.

I like php, simply because i find it easy to grasp, almost intuitive, but most importantly is the community, who have within the documentation left their own solutions and many tips are gained from this for me, along with a few other resources I can normally find most things in PHP, thousands of classes already written and open source, code examples etc.

I also do a fair bit with AS2 and this is a great platform but the community is no where near as advanced, and the language can act very strange sometimes, plus is also very tight and unforgiving.

I see no speed issues with PHP, no security problems (as often claimed) if you code sensibly and I like it. so there.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is needle debate. There could be 2 girls. Both with perfect bodies, wombs and breasts but only with one of them is you sexual experience much better. You don't know why is it so, you can't explain it ... because it's just the chemistry. One love slow comfortable movements, other is like a rabbit :) Did you ever seen the rabbit in action? Love PHP and give Ruby a chance.

<comment><USER14> SURREALIST TROLL STRIKES AGAIN

<comment><USER13> THX</comment></comment></comment>


First Apple Silicon Benchmarks Destroy Surface Pro X - <AUTHOR> https://www.thurrott.com/apple/237225/first-apple-silicon-benchmarks-destroy-surface-pro-x# <comment><USER2> > a Mac Mini-like device with an Apple A12Z system-on-a-chip (SoC), 16 GB of > RAM, and 512 GB of SSD storage—delivers an average single-core score of 811 > and an average multi-core score of 2871.

> compared to Microsoft's Surface Pro X, which has the fastest available > Qualcomm-based ARM chipset and can run Geekbench natively—not emulated—it's > amazing: Surface Pro X only averages 764 on the single-core test and 2983 in > multi-core. Right. The emulated performance of the Apple silicon is as good > or better than the native performance of the SQ-1-based Surface Pro X.

I'm so confused. The title is that the apple arm chip _destroys_ the Qualcomm chip in benchmarks. And then the author concluded that the benchmarks show apple doing at least as good if not better.

But... Am I interpreting these numbers correctly? Looking at the numbers it seems to show apple having faster single core performance and Microsoft surface having faster multicore performance. If my understanding is correct then I can't figure out how the author concluded the apple performance is as good or better.

One point the author emphasizes is that apple is getting these performance numbers despite the overhead of emulation. I'm interested to see what the native performance is given the close performance benchmark numbers with emulation. However to conclude that these specific benchmarks show apple destroying the surface chip does seem to me like a bit of reality distortion.</comment>


Show HN: I Made 30 Triangles in 30 Days - <AUTHOR> http://winkervsbecks.github.io/a-triangle-everyday

<comment><USER2> This is actually pretty dang neat. Raised my eyebrow at 3d triangle, but it wasn't what I expected, and I really like the laser pulse.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very nice! You must have learnt a lot about animation that month.

</comment><comment><USER4> What a fun idea. Well executed. "Lerping Triangle" is really interesting.</comment>


The Demographics of Innovation in the United States - <AUTHOR> https://itif.org/publications/2016/02/24/demographics-innovation-united-states <comment><USER2> How about this article re-titles itself 'the politics of innovation in the United States'

The article first sets out to tell you that out of the entire population the innovators are those that they have chosen, which amounts to 3%, of 1% of 1% of the total. 900 Innovators in the entire US. If they changed that number to say 1 in 100 people were innovators (probably closer to the actual), then cut out children you end up with about 1 or 2 million innovators and the demographics of that set begin to look a lot different.

// most ppl believe anything that comes from a 'study'...

<comment><USER3> >are those that they have chosen

That's a little unfair to the authors. Quoting the article:

> _In total, 6,418 innovators were contacted for this report, and 923 provided > viable responses. This diverse, yet focused sampling approach enables a > broad, yet nuanced examination of individuals driving innovation in the > United States._

You can read the report for further elaboration, but basically, they counted the ones they could and acknowledged possible sample biases.

Biased sample? Possibly. Can we blame the authors for not holding a gun to the ~6000's heads? Probably not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> aaand drumpf wants us out. :: let the downvotes begin.

<comment><USER5> The "Drumpf" insult is xenophobic.

Kind of hard to take the high road against Trump when you're making fun of his family's original, more ethnic sounding last name.

It's also hard for us adults to take you seriously. It's like saying "rethuglicon" instead of Republican.

<comment><USER6> "Trump" was a name chosen because it refers to a card belonging to a suit of higher rank than the other suits, i.e. which beats the other suits in a card game, originally a modification of the word "Triumph". Used more generically, to "trump" someone means to defeat them. It's like renaming yourself "Winner", except not quite so transparently cheesy. (Of course, Donald Trump doesn't exactly mind being transparently cheesy. Here's the beginning of the bio on his personal website: "Donald J. Trump is the very definition of the American success story,...")

Using his family's original name instead isn't inherently racist or xenophobic, but it is intended to be an underhanded attack on Trump's ego. It certainly is petty, a schoolyard insult instead of a policy discussion. As you say, it is similar to the way prominent Republican party officials and conservative pundits sometimes talk about the "Democrat party". A subtle little jab every time, like "I'm not going to even dignify you enough to say your name correctly."

Overall, I'd recommend against stooping to that level. Trump is the master of childish slap-fights and dick measuring contests. To quote George Bernard Shaw, "I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it."

<comment><USER5> > "Trump" was a name chosen because it refers to a card belonging to a suit of > higher rank than the other suits

Absolute speculation.

More likely, it's because "Drumpf" was too Germanic and the family was trying to avoid this exact kind of ribbing.

And let's be honest - it's implicit here that the word "Drumpf" itself is funny. Why? Because it sounds funny to the Anglo ear. It even looks funny. It's like laughing at the surname "Wang."

> Overall, I'd recommend against stooping to that level. Trump is the master > of childish slap-fights and dick measuring contests.

You're not like, arguing with Trump.

You probably really trying to convince your fellow citizens not to vote for him. I haven't made a decision, and will probably sit this election out unless I hear something compelling, but I just immediately tune out anyone saying "Drumpf," "repug," or "Obummer." ymmv.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Traffic Spike from Shark Tank appearance - <AUTHOR> http://siteanalytics.compete.com/citikitty.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> First spike is original appearance. Second spike is re-run.</comment>


Simple Parse Server Dashboard Demo - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhcxR6btIqw <comment><USER2> Join the Community on Slack [http://bit.ly/1SxTVIi](http://bit.ly/1SxTVIi) :)

<comment><USER3> Great! Looking forward for updates!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looks really cool! Do you have a roadmap for fully functional parse hosting? Any plans for analytics and migration tools?

<comment><USER4> Yeah we are working very hard to provide fully automated migration process from Parse.com to ParseGround. Analytics are almost here, you'll see them in few weeks in one of the next videos.

If you join the waiting list now, you will be able try it by yourself till 27th of March :)

Thanks for the comment!

<comment><USER3> Cool! Looking forward for updates!

</comment></comment></comment><comment> rafi-shgn Love the OST. can you send the tittle :D..

</comment><comment><USER5> I'll check it out for sure

</comment><comment><USER6> Cool :)</comment>


How the Gun on the Original Duck Hunt Game Worked - <AUTHOR> http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/12/how-the-gun-on-the-original-duck-hunt-game-worked/

<comment><USER2> A friend had what I think was a Telstar Marksman in the late 70s. It was a console that had the usual Pong-like games built-in, and also came with a light gun for a target shooting game. It didn't take long to figure out you could "shoot" the ball in all the games, even the supposedly non-shooting ones. It was a fun way to annoy your friends.

</comment><comment><USER3> I always wondered why a box flashes around the ducks whenever I took a shot. Now I know.

Although I certainly perceived it every time, not just when there were multiple targets (which is what the article claims). I don't recall perceiving the black frame, though.

<comment><USER4> This is related to the TV refresh rates. The system was designed for TVs that refreshed 30 times per second, the standard in japan. However the standard in either USA or Europe (I don't remember which) was 24 refreshes per second. This led to the flash of the screen being visible in some TVs

<comment><USER5> Japan and the US used NTSC at 30 frames per second, much of the rest of the world used PAL or SECAM at 25 frames per second.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Now its simpler I believe. The screen is scanned by an electron beam, the gun senses the bright pulse when the beam passes the point its focused on, the game correlates pulse to screen position.

<comment><USER7> This is how the GunCon (Time Crisis) gun worked -- comparing the observed beam refresh with a feed of the video signal.

Unfortunately, this method requires a CRT, so these guns don't work with LCD or plasma displays. That's why modern light guns, like the GunCon 3, use a Wii-like system that triangulates position based on infrared LEDs attached to the display.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_gun#Cathode_ray_timing>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> AVGN made a great video on light guns and other NES accessories.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kBMscW_dVg> \-- I believe there was another part about power glove.

</comment><comment><USER9> I always wondered about this as a kid. I'm surprised by how simple it is.

</comment><comment><USER10> Anyone else felt like punching the smug SOB (heh) grinning dog that would pop up every now and then?</comment>


Is The World in a Technological Inflection Point? - <AUTHOR> https://www.chaino.com/pulse/this-article-is-imo-extremely-important-at-this-time-the <comment><AUTHOR> The world is experiencing an inflection point. It will emerge 10 years from now very different from the world we are in now. This article sheds a lot of light on the world that will emerge on the other end. Thank you, Vivek Wadhwa!</comment>


The Definition of "CEO" - <AUTHOR> http://www.drewolanoff.com/post/31795058

<comment><USER2> Wow, what a cool guy. Very transparent, very smart. I have a new respect for blip.tv as a company.

He brings up some interesting points around 13:00 regarding Blip's five founders. Does anyone know of any other companies with that many founders?

A good quote: "We're good about having intellectually honest discussion... it's not about ego, it's not about the position we had when we entered the room. I really don't like conversations where people go into rooms with their positions laid out and are totally unwilling to move just because that's the way they came into the room." (around 15:00)

</comment><comment><USER3> That was a great interview. I really liked his point about how North American culture is so accepting of failures, which ends up leading to a greater chance of success and innovation. I never really thought of it that way, but it gives a new appreciation for something I know I sometimes take for granted and even look at as lacking compared to the appeal of foreign cultures (grass is always greener on the other side, right? :) Thanks for posting that one!</comment>


Google tells users to drop IE6 - <AUTHOR> http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/40785/140/ <comment><USER2> Oh how I wish I could do that. The majority of people (college students) who access my webapp do so on IE6 because: \- They're accessing it during class time or hogging the computer labs/library throughout the day and IE6 is the only browser on the majority of the machines on campus. \- IE7 is on a smaller percentage (a quarter perhaps) of machines within the campus - still a hefty percentage - no alternative browsers anywhere. \- Their home laptops have never been windows-updated and still run IE6, or those that have WU'd run IE7.

The only times Chrome, Safari or FF hit the app is when the computing students use it - and they tend to not be my demographic because they don't store every detail of their life on social networks whereas the IE6 loving social-studies students do.

</comment><comment><USER3> IE6 will still be around 5 years from now...solely due to corporations not upgrading their shit.

<comment><USER4> Would be nice if we could solely blame corps for this as its a relatively easier problem to solve. Unfortunately, "joe home user", even with genuine Windows installs, do not update their PCs. The little update notifier just sits there and joe user takes no action.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> well, what do you expect? for years, ms did the same for FF from their msdn and some other product pages, didn't they? For years, incompetent developers did the same too, ignoring FF. There is a new competitor in town, and actually, they are probably right with their claims (that IE6 is weak), anyone disagree with that?

</comment><comment><USER6> It would be nice to see Yahoo does the same thing.

</comment><comment><USER7> If Google's site as a whole would tell everyone to upgrade their browser, then we would actually get somewhere in killing IE6.

Gmail is a small and fairly tech-savvy minority of Internet users, while google users overall are most Internet users, including those that might still be using IE6.

</comment><comment><USER8> If Google's really serious about this, why not have a yellow bar or something on EVERY Google page viewed by an IE 6 user? I think most of us would thank them for it, if it worked.

</comment><comment><USER9> One word: "Freaking Awesome!"

</comment><comment><USER10> I can finally quit supporting IE6 sometime soon. I am so happy!

<comment><USER11> Hopefully this will be the KO hit to IE6 cruft.

<comment><USER12> It won't be. Gmail isn't as popular as Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail. The death knell for IE 6 will be when Windows XP disappears from the desktop.

<comment><USER13> bingo.

While I'm sure there are some people running with gmail/ie6 (aside from those at work) - I would be guessing it's in the minority - most of the people I meet with gmail addresses are using another browser. (Most of the people I meet with hotmail addresses are using ie6)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


To Help Smokers Quit, Pay Them - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/well/live/to-help-smokers-quit-pay-them.html <comment><USER2> While this may work, I don't want this coming out of my tax dollars. It's been well known for 50+ years that smoking causes cancer.

If someone wants to smart smoking and subsequently gets addicted, they should take personal responsibility and quit.

</comment><comment><USER3> Perhaps this is covered behind the paywall, but...

I am very skeptical.

In the short term, people already pay themselves when they quit by not having to purchase expensive product. Why is paying them "more" going to help?

In the long term, smoking causes cancer. Even the threat of a painful death does not seem to be enough.

Does the article suggest where this money to pay will come from?</comment>


Chrome to force .dev domains to HTTPS via preloaded HSTS - <AUTHOR> https://ma.ttias.be/chrome-force-dev-domains-https-via-preloaded-hsts/?reddit <comment><USER2> This is from September but maybe its posted again now because the change is/has shipp(ing/ed) to users?

Personally, I prefer to go the other way and use a local environment subdomain with local stuff anyway (ie local.foo.company.com rather than foo.dev).

<comment><AUTHOR> I noticed users on reddit reporting this was rolling out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I always use .local: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.local](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.local)

<comment><USER4> Could run into the same issue there as well. The only reserved tlds are:

.localhost .example .invalid .test

The rest are up for grabs.

For the life of me, I can't figure out why .test would make the list and not .dev (or some equivalent) but it is what it is.

<comment><USER5> Linked Wikipedia article points out towards the top that RFC 6762 reserves .local for mDNS (fka Zeroconf/Bonjour) multicast DNS lookups on a local area network. (Which is why you probably don't want to use .local for non-multicast DNS lookups as you may break mDNS applications.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Previous discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15268701](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15268701)

</comment><comment><USER7> Chrome forcing anything sounds a bit scary.

I hope google do not repeat Microsoft mistakes.. with this "forcing" ..</comment>


Yo + Potato Salad = Potayo - <AUTHOR> http://potayo.com/

<comment><USER2> They should have gone with Yotato. Clearly a better name.

<comment><USER3> Disrupt potayo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> :) This is awesome</comment>


"Too Cheap to Meter": A History of the Phrase (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://public-blog.nrc-gateway.gov/2016/06/03/too-cheap-to-meter-a-history-of-the-phrase/ <comment><USER2> Does anything, ever, get too cheap to meter? Data transfer has gotten several orders of magnitude cheaper since the days of paying long-distance rates for 300 baud modems, but metered data plans are still very common.

"Too cheap to meter" may depend on the meter costing a lot. Perhaps electric meters were a significant fraction of the expense of a power hookup at some point.

<comment><USER3> > Does anything, ever, get too cheap to meter? Data transfer has gotten > several orders of magnitude cheaper since the days of paying long-distance > rates for 300 baud modems, but metered data plans are still very common.

I'm not sure there's still capped broadband anywhere in mainland europe, even the UK mostly stopped doing that.

IIRC some Japanese providers cap upload, in the 100s of GB, that's basically just network maintenance.

Residential bandwidth is effectively too cheap to meter, but US ISPs found they could keep nickel-and-reaming their captive audience, why would they stop?

<comment><USER4> I'm not quite sure what you mean by "that's basically just network maintenance" \- could you explain?

<comment><USER3> There's little reason to limit the bandwidth, but at the same time you want to avoid straight abuse (especially when there are connections up to Gbps). So you put on a high cap on upload as that's usually a minor activity for residential users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Interesting. It's still unclear whether Strauss was assuming Jevon's Paradox would not strike, or whether he was expecting / hoping for our ability to move beyond energy (or at least electricity) scarcity.

<comment><USER5> You have to think given the context he believed (or at least claimed to believe) in post-electricity scarcity. It's hard to imagine that anyone would seriously think electricity demand wouldn't rise significantly as the efficiency of producing it grew. In fact, I can imagine a stronger effect with electricity than with many other things.

<comment><USER6> I would expect the demand for energy to be more insatiable than any other commodity because all commodities require energy to create. The only two end- user forms of energy readily available are electricity and fossil fuels.

I imagine that electricity consumption will rise with supply in the same way any life multiplies up to the capacity of its food source.

<comment> swagasaurus-rex Is the end result life that consumes the majority of the energy produced (dyson spheres come to mind) to create massively more monolithic and efficient economies, converting enormous amounts of raw material into civilization?

What would make this different than the postulated grey goo scenario, whereinstead man and machine are the ultimate exponential replicators?

<comment><USER7> In grey goo, man is dead. In this scenario, we're alive, well, and taking over the solar system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Which arena of science hasn't said something like this.

In the history of computing there were quotes from prominent people such as "there will never be a need for more than five computers in the world" followed about 30 years later by something like "there is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home".

<comment><USER5> While that's true, neither of these are great examples.

Watson probably never said the former.

And, while Olsen said the latter, it was in the context of a centralized computer turning lights on and off and so forth. To be sure, we're arguably starting to get there today (the many issues with smarthome devices notwithstanding). But it's a very different approach (distributed vs. centralized--for better or worse).

<comment><AUTHOR> Ed Yourdon also said a variant of the latter.

<comment><USER9> They were right, at the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Adm. Strauss was talking to science writers.

From the field, writing to colleagues, C.G. Suits (GE's director of research at Washington's Hanford site - quoted in 'Power from the Atom - An Appraisal', _Nucleonics_ , Feb. 1951) told a different story:

"At present, atomic power presents an exceptionally costly and inconvenient means of obtaining energy which can be extracted much more economically from conventional fuels.… This is expensive power, not cheap power as the public has been led to believe."

[https://www.ieer.org/pubs/atomicmyths.html](https://www.ieer.org/pubs/atomicmyths.html)

<comment><USER9> Yes, the real purpose at the time was to keep an infrastructure and population of engineers and technicians to draw on for military uses.

Nowadays we use fusion research grants for the same purpose. Unlike fission, though, there will never be a tokamak fusion plant keeping your lights on.

</comment></comment><comment> the-dude Soda refills in American diners.

</comment><comment><USER11> Excerpt:

"Transmutation of the elements,–unlimited power, ability to investigate the working of living cells by tracer atoms, the secret of photosynthesis about to be uncovered,–these and a host of other results all in 15 short years. [...]"

This is an interesting quote.

Not sure if all of those things are indeed possible, but it's an interesting quote nonetheless...

</comment><comment><USER12> "The problem with free money is that it affects all the other money in a bad way. I may be a dreamer, but I do not see the same problem with almost-free energy. I see a revitalized money economy where all things that are technically possible, even fantastic things, become more feasible because human ingenuity is ever-increasing. I see reduction in cost of living, cost of manufacture and cost of fossil fuel extraction that is so pervasive its positive effect may exceed any economic strategy ever devised. And on that day far in the future when the last hydrocarbon is extracted, it will be just cause for a quiet celebration. We'll already be well into the next great thing. What would the future hold, and what wonders could we achieve— if energy was simply not an issue?"

My letter to candidate Trump, 2016 [https://archive.org/download/20160422TrumpEnergyLetterSC/201...](https://archive.org/download/20160422TrumpEnergyLetterSC/20160422%20trump%20energy%20letter%20SC.pdf)

<comment><USER13> I'm curious if you thought he would read this?

<comment><USER14> Generally when you write a famous person you hope for but don't expect a reply.

<comment><USER9> A tweet, anyway?

But the question wasn't about getting an answer, it was probably about whether the writer really believes the President reads _anything_ , never mind unsolicited advice.

President Obama is known to have read some items addressed to him, like most previous Presidents. Is there any evidence that the latest has?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Teaching rigorous distributed systems with efficient model checking - <AUTHOR> https://blog.acolyer.org/2019/04/17/teaching-rigorous-distributed-systems-with-efficient-model-checking/ <comment><USER2> Model checking is great! I, too wrote a simple C# model checker to test some tricky serialization code inside Microsoft. It's now open source: [https://github.com/ahelwer/FiniteModelChecker](https://github.com/ahelwer/FiniteModelChecker)

It requires a fair amount of boilerplate (see the examples in the tests directory) but it is so, so much more powerful than manually coding a bunch of unit test cases that it was worth it (and it unearthed a tricky bug!)

I think a great project would be to write a spec in TLA+, run its model checker in simulation mode, then use the generated event traces to execute corresponding event traces in this (or some other) model checker, all the while translating the program's state back into values understood by TLA+ for checking against the TLA+ spec's invariants. Would be a nice lightweight method of enforcing correspondence between spec and code.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you let your students model their distributed system with pure functions where each function takes the current state and an event (for example a received message, or a timeout) as inputs and produces a new state together with the actions to be taken (sending of messages), then it's possible (and rather easy) to build the state space in a simulator and verify it. It might explode, but then again, Alloy shows that most bugs in these algorithms already show themselves after the first few steps.

<comment><USER4> > If you let your students model their distributed system with pure functions > where each function takes the current state and an event (for example a > received message, or a timeout) as inputs and produces a new state together > with the actions to be taken (sending of messages)...

If they were going to do that, they should have just used Erlang instead. That's precisely the OTP model.

<comment><USER3> Iknow. Honestly, I think it's THE RIGHT WAY(tm) to do distributed systems. So, I wonder why they are not teaching this.

<comment><USER5> Cloud types are pretty nice too [1], and they expose a familiar branch/merge model for anyone that has any familiarity with version control systems. Which should be every developer at this point.

I doubt there's one true distributed systems model, but there are some good ones which overlap, and some which excel in different domains.

[1] [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/publication/cloud-t...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/publication/cloud-types-for-eventual-consistency/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> After reading this post on HN about TLA+ a couple of days back, I started learning it: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19661329](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19661329)

And now I see this, and I'm already having second thoughts. Prima facie, what I like about DSLabs is it's not so steep learning curve as it's written in a mainstream OOP language. Can anyone who has worked on both TLA+ and DSLabs share thoughts?

<comment><USER7> While I haven't used DSLabs, I did suffer a similar bit of indecision recently trying to decide between Alloy[0] and TLA+[1]. In the end I don't think there is a correct answer, and there are probably more similarities than differences between any two specification languages. In my case I read both Software Abstractions and Specifying Systems (part 1 at least). Each took about a week; which is probably less time than I spent trying to decide between them.

I happen to agree with the argument made by proponents of both TLA+ and Alloy that model checking and specification is better accomplished when detached from an implementation language, but I think you would benefit most from simply starting with one of them (DSLabs or TLA+) and decide later if you'd like to learn the other.

[0]: [http://alloytools.org/](http://alloytools.org/)

[1]: [https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/tla/tla.html](https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/tla/tla.html)

<comment><USER8> I started learning TLA+ in October (or so), and after getting reasonably acceptable (as in, can write PlusCal without many issues, and can write and read basic plain TLA+) I'm starting to learn Alloy now. It offers a different approach that seems to suit different domains (say, less "temporal" focus)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anyone know if the solutions and/or lecture videos are available? After a quick search I think the answer is no but thought I'd double check.

<comment><USER10> UW CSE student here; that's the course website:

[https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse452/19sp/](https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse452/19sp/)

DSLabs' code is enclosed in our GitLab instance though, as far as I'm concerned.</comment></comment>


Amazon Poised to Upheave Healthcare - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/swlh/amazon-poised-to-upheave-healthcare-an-industry-at-the-ready-90950c24545 <comment><USER2> I think people overestimate Amazon's ability to truly disrupt markets. Not saying they aren't going to be a big player in pharmacy, but size - no matter how good you are - inhibits total domination.

Also, this year at the BK conference, Warren didn't seem super optimistic that Haven was going to make any real impact in the near future.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haven is attempting to cover so many lives, from the onset, that I think they can't treat it like a true startup.

The whole "move fast and break things" mantra isn't as applicable to healthcare, where the consequences of failure can be more dire.</comment></comment>


Soros fund management backs electric-vehicle charging startup - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-28/soros-fund-management-backs-electric-vehicle-charging-startup <comment><USER2> Why is this even a thing?

<rant>

Because the electric utilities don't understand, and can't/won't adapt to, the electrification of transportation.

BEVs from skateboard- to class 8 truck- size are

a) an unimaginably vast opportunity for electricity distributors. They're going to get ALL THE GAS STATION BUSINESS in the next generation.

b) a time-shiftable load. For the BEV energy business to be viable at scale the time-shifting technology is mandatory. They need smart ways to spread out the electric load. If every good doobie battery car owner says, "I'll tell mine to charge at midnight" guess what happens when they all start drawing 8kW at midnight? The peaking generators have to kick on and the power gets really expensive. And "frequency control ancillary services?" They get costly with sudden large loads.

Tesla's already figured out a localized approach to the load-control: I now tell my car what time I need it rather than when to start charging, and it picks the time to start charging. But for load-balancing work at scale is going to require, basically, real-time capacity auctioning.

In Norway, the electric utilities use the FM radio text channel (the one that announces songs on fancy radios) to announce current electricity rates, and their meters pick it up and use it. That's a start.

If the electricity distributors won't build this smart grid, I guess third- party companies have to step into the breach. It's a lot of hands in the cookie jar.

</rant>

<comment><USER3> > an unimaginably vast opportunity for electricity distributors. They're going > to get ALL THE GAS STATION BUSINESS in the next generation.

This isn't at all obvious. Putting aside the fact that it's not exactly obvious when non-ICE cars will take over the majority of the market from ICE cars (I wouldn't bet on it happening before my yet to be born children get their drivers licenses), it's definitely not obvious that electric cars will be the ones to do it. I've driven both battery electric cars and hydrogen cars, and hydrogen cars offer a far superior driving experience. Charging an electric car simply sucks. It's also not clear how you'd expect to manage charging stations at scale. It take 75 minutes for a full charge on a Tesla, nobody enjoys waiting that long for their car to charge, and the amount of Superchargers you'd need across the country/world would be insane if a majority of cars were electric. Hydrogen cars don't have that problem, and they don't have the same hard constraints on range.

You can say that hydrogen car tech, or the infrastructure, isn't there yet. But it's not there for electric cars either. If you want some evidence that hydrogen cars have serious potential, Elon Musk described them as "mind- bogglingly stupid".

<comment><USER4> Hydrogen has a few issues of its own which are slowly, but surely tipping the scales in favour of BEVs, namely:

1\. The fuel is relatively expensive and will be for the foreseeable future.

2\. Likewise the fueling stations.

3\. Not to mention the vehicles themselves - this is true for BEVs as well, but while it's possible to make a cheap BEV, the same doesn't hold for hydrogen cars due to the cost of tanks, pumps and plumbing.

4\. A hydrogen station's failure mode is a giant fireball.

Sure, hydrogen wins on charging time now, but that advantage is diminishing.

Meanwhile battery tech is getting both better and cheaper. Who knows, perhaps the next gen of EVs, arriving around 2025 will have ranges comparable to what a normal human being can stay behind the wheel without rest?

<comment><USER3> Due to the current efficiency of electrolysis, hydrogen could easily become less expensive than gas. Which is already quite cheap.

BEVs were equally expensive when they first came onto the market. There's no reason to think hydrogen cars won't be able to match them on price in the future.

A gas stations failure mode is also a giant fireball, so is a BEV and ICE cars failure mode. We seem to be doing fine despite that.

I'm not predicting that hydrogen cars are going to replace BEVs. Just that they obviously have the potential to do so, that they better align with the existing value propositions of ICE cars, and that to say the future is 100% confirmed BEV is simply wrong.

<comment><USER4> > Due to the current efficiency of electrolysis, hydrogen could easily become > less expensive than gas.

I did the math and while it's possible, it's still not the case today. Even worse - hydrogen is _more_ expensive per mile driven.

> There's no reason to think hydrogen cars won't be able to match them on > price in the future.

I'll give you one then: expensive parts in the form of platinum catalysts and generally higher complexity, since all hydrogen cars which don't rely on combustion of hydrogen are actually hydrogen-electric hybrids with a buffer battery - something necessary due to the low power density of fuel cells.

> A gas stations failure mode is also a giant fireball

But would be rarer if we had enough cases to compare. Petrol being a fluid doesn't combust as easily - its NFPA flammability rating is 3, while hydrogen's is 4.

Sure, natural gas is also highly flammable, but has less than 40% of the energy density.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm so tired of these charging companies. Especially since I have to "sign up and use our app" for all of them instead of just present my credit card at point of charging because they are all trying to corner the market.

Can we please just get a state government to start installing charging stations in all public lots so these charging companies have to give up their dreams of being a monopoly?

<comment><USER6> Even worse, many use incompatible sockets. (As a CHAdeMO car owner, it'd be nice if Tesla switched from CCS…)

<comment><USER7> Question for anyone who works in the EV space - why can't EV owners just get an adapter like I do for wall outlets when I'm travelling? Are the currents too high? It seems like an obvious aftermarket gizmo for someone who lives in an area with competing charger designs.

<comment><USER8> The charging standards also have software protocols the car must support. And some chargers will refuse to charge your car if it's the "wrong" brand. Tesla's chargers in Europe have CCS type 2 combo plugs but they won't charge non-Tesla vehicles whereas Ionity's chargers will charge anything that can plug into them.

CCS: [https://www.charinev.org/index.php?id=170](https://www.charinev.org/index.php?id=170)

CHAdeMO: [https://www.chademo.com/](https://www.chademo.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > The Mountain View, California-based company helps commercial vehicle > operators go electric by providing charging infrastructure and fixed prices > to charge their vehicles.

I imagine that commercial power rates are less variable than residential rates. Nonetheless, providing fixed-cost charging, could get complicated across different states/regions/timezones.

<comment><USER10> Commercial power rates are much _more_ variable. Large users are billed based on half hourly rates so are directly exposed to wholesale fluctuations. I'm sure their fixed rate charging offer includes a forecasting and trading module that makes decisions about when to charge if there is any fleet flexibility. So a vehicle that passes through the depot at 60% charge during a low power price period and which has schedule slack might charge but not if the power price is currently very high. The degree to which power price fluctuations can be used depends on how much control you have over charging time. If you run your vehicles down to 20% and they then have a fixed time slot in which they must charge before returning to service, then obviously you're just a permanent price-taker and must simply put up with it.

Capital costs are currently sufficiently higher than charging costs that strategically over-provisioning yourself with fleet in order to reduce your average charging cost is not worth the money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> [https://archive.md/qlMqm](https://archive.md/qlMqm)

</comment><comment><USER12> Having watched Jeff Gibbs/Michael Moore produced 'planet of the humans' last week I'm not enthusiastic about the way EV's are currently mass produced or the ways the energy they rely on is created.

[https://youtu.be/Zk11vI-7czE](https://youtu.be/Zk11vI-7czE)

<comment><USER13> That documentary completely and/or intentionally missed the point so they could churn out video clickbait. I wrote more about it the other day here [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22950172](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22950172)

<comment><USER12> There are some damning facts about Green capitalism there (Blood and Gore etc) and the platform Moore appears to have moved to with Gibbs is that there are too many people on the planet, and burning more wood and coal to create electricity isn't solving pollution problems. The materials EVs are created out of need some serious changes to be a lot cleaner before ramping up out of the current niche market.

<comment><USER12> I really hope the Gibbs film shakes up the entrenched 'green energy' cabal, they badly need a wakeup call.

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

I haven't watched this episode of Rising yet but looks like a good follow up discussion

[https://youtu.be/Bop8x24G_o0](https://youtu.be/Bop8x24G_o0)

<comment><USER14> > The central thesis of the film is that various people and organizations in > the United States claiming to promote green energy have actually been > promoting biomass energy, largely meaning burning trees instead of fossil > fuels

Wood would appear to be 0.98% of the US's fuel mix, vs 1.58% solar, 6.51% wind. So, this seems like, er, a dubious claim? Maybe they're just really bad at promoting it.

<comment><USER12> A major part of the film is about biomass and wood consumption for power. Have you watched it?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Superhuman AI in heads-up no-limit poker: Libratus beats top professionals [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/early/2017/12/15/science.aao1733.full.pdf <comment><USER2> One of the researchers on this team gave a great talk at NIPS this year about this work and explained how playing an imperfect information game like poker is fundamentally different from playing a perfect information game like chess or go. A perfect information game has no path dependence --- once you arrive at a state, it doesn't matter how you got there. You only need to consider the current state of the game to figure out the best move to play.

In an imperfect information game this is no longer true. Now you need to consider counterfactuals --- how would the opponent have played if I had done something different earlier?

They illustrated with a toy game they called "Coin Toss". The idea is that Player A flips a coin, but Player B doesn't get to see the result. Player A then gets to choose whether to end the game there or continue playing. If they end the game, they get $1 from Player B if the coin is heads and lose $1 from Player B if the coin is tails. If they decide to continue playing, then Player B gets to guess whether the coin is heads or tails. If Player B guesses correctly, they get $2 from Player A, and otherwise lose $2.

If you spend some time thinking about the strategy, you can figure out that the best strategy for Player B is to guess heads 25% of the time and tails 75% of the time. But if you change the rules to the game for Player A, so that they get $1 if it's tails and lose $1 if it's heads, then the best strategy for Player B reverses as well --- now Player B should guess heads 75% of the time and tails 25% of the time. Yet nothing about Player B's situation has changed --- the only change happened prior to Player B's involvement. Yet this nevertheless changes Player B's strategy because Player B must consider how Player A would have acted given that the coin landed heads vs. tails.

So to solve these imperfect information games, you have to be very careful to model these sorts of counterfactuals. If you mess up you will leave yourself with an exploitable strategy --- that is, someone can devise a strategy that causes you to lose the game.

Link to the paper here:

[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1705.02955.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1705.02955.pdf)

<comment><USER3> I'm going to read the paper carefully and think hard, but going in to it I still have philosophical issues saying imperfect information is 'fundamentally' different.

Sure, the specific learning algorithm may not generalise from board games to poker. But to claim that Go is perfect-information is more theoretical than practical.

In practice, the 50% of moves your opponent makes are unknowns. Nobody can assess the entire game tree, so the fact that it is theoretically knowable isn't actually relevant in a game. Neither computers nor humans can compute it. Once the tree can be reasonably computed, between high level players the game is over (bar the occasional blunder).

<comment><USER4> >> Nobody can assess the entire game tree, so the fact that it is theoretically knowable isn't actually relevant in a game.

That's not the point though. The point is that you only need to consider current state when considering your next move in Go or Chess. This is not the case in an incomplete information game, since the sequence of moves that led to the current state contains a lot of information. That's not the case in Chess or Go. Basically, Chess and Go satisfy the Markov Property, while Poker does not.

<comment><USER3> The current state in Go is the state of the board, the current state of poker includes some historical data. This difference is only significant to humans because we have quite poor memories.

An AI has perfect recall, and the fact that a variable is temporal really doesn't make a difference to the theory.

(Coincidental aside, this is an issue in Go as well due to the ko rule; but it isn't a major part of the game such as in poker.)

<comment><USER5> Which AI architecture has perfect recall, in a way that actually makes use of this information? Pretty sure AlphaGo etc does not make use of memory at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder about an AI being as reluctant to go bankrupt as is a human. Maybe that reluctance is abstracted away by the betting evaluation.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, that's a major flaw in their research design. In their 120k-hand competition they reset the players' bankroll after each hand in order to have the same number of hands for each trial. This dramatically changes the payoff for aggressive play. The humans were too cautious against the bot, as their experience was in an environment when going bust could end your session.

In real play, going bust* doesn't just lose your current stack, but also all future possible winnings. In their experiment, going bust only loses that stack. Kind of like being a soldier rather than a general, or founder rather than a VC.

* Yes, you can buy in again, but eventually you've exhausted your bankroll.

<comment><USER8> I don't believe this meaningfully affects a top HUNL cash player, who tend to have auto-rebuy set anyways and at least think that they're bankrolled for most games they play. If anything, it might help them a bit by letting them continuously play at the stack size they have the most experience with.

<comment><USER7> Bankrolled to what extent? The analysis after the experiment showed that the bot pushed small edges far harder than the humans did. Little else differed. That's consistent with my theory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's some previous discussion of the "beats top professionals" part of this here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13534778](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13534778) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13358138](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13358138)

Note that this shouldn't really be a surprise - it's very likely that the best HUNL AIs were as good or better than the best humans maybe 5 years ago. The recent developments over the last couple years are more about widening the gap and increasing the confidence in the results. I haven't fully read this paper yet but my impression is that it's mostly about architectural and abstraction improvements, and possibly just chucking more hardware at it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Interesting research, although people familiar with poker would not consider Jason Les, Dong Kim, Daniel McCauley, and Jimmy Chou "top professionals". They may be very good at HUNL but they are definitely not the "top".

Many people will look at this and say, "computers have solved poker" without understanding that this is applicable to heads up poker only. Full ring game poker, where there are an uncertain number of non-GTO players still to act behind, is an entirely different beast.

I'd also be interested in knowing how deep the stacks were in the human vs computer matches. The complexity of the game is directly related to how deep stacks are. A 10 big blind hu match, a 100 big blind hu match, and a 1,000 big blind hu match are all three entirely different games with entirely different decision trees.

</comment><comment><USER10> Video of an interesting panel from AAAI-17 with the heads of the two teams who built human-level heads-up no-limit programs.

[http://videolectures.net/aaai2017_bowling_sandholm_poker/](http://videolectures.net/aaai2017_bowling_sandholm_poker/)

They use very different approaches (deep learning versus clever game-tree pruning). It's not clear how to tell which of them is the stronger program. Both teams seem to think that theirs is stronger, but I think only Libratus (the pruning-based approach) has beaten top poker pros in a tournament.

<comment><USER7> > beaten ... in a tournament

They didn't play a real tournament with cash at stake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Recent reddit AMA on this

[https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/7jn12v/ama...](https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/7jn12v/ama_we_are_noam_brown_and_professor_tuomas/)

</comment><comment><USER12> The demo of this at NIPS was awesome!

</comment><comment><USER13> One interesting error in their paper: 27o (two-seven offsuit) is actually the worst hand _in a 10 player game_. 23o (two-three offsuit) is the worst hand heads-up.

<comment><USER14> Author of the paper here. This actually depends on the stack sizes. At 200BB deep, 27o is the worst hand, though 23o is not far behind.</comment></comment>