Chinese stock plunge leaves investors scouring state media for clues - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-26/the-loudest-voice-in-china-s-stock-market-is-changing-its-tune <comment><USER2> From the article, a small investor: _" China's stock market is really different from other countries"_

It's different this time. I'm sure I've heard that before.

Anyway, something tangential but a little bit interesting; it seems that an accountant quoted in this story, "Yao Lina", sold all her holding in February 2012: [http://s-aint.com/store/files/Bloomberg_Business_News_Headli...](http://s-aint.com/store/files/Bloomberg_Business_News_Headlines_15.08.2012.pdf)

And also in November 2013: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-01-21/china- ipos...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-01-21/china-ipos-no-lure- as-investors-empty-trading-accounts)

And June 2015 in this article.

All Bloomberg origin, as far as I can tell.

Sure, maybe she really does binge on cycles of all in and all out, but it seems odd nonetheless. If I had to guess, if she does exist, she's a reliable source for journos who need an "ordinary chinese citizen" to tell them she's bailed out completely, and give them a good quote, always on the same theme:

 _"I have no confidence in the stock market,"_

 _"I thought the market was going nuts and someone was coming to manipulate the market... I have no confidence in the market because there are lots of speculators playing in it."_

 _...the government may take as long as five years to fix "structural" challenges in the economy that have curbed growth._

This most recent article contains an odd change of tone, though. She's still bailed out (so she says, again), but also _"China's stock market is really different from other countries. The government surely has some measures to control the movement."_ I'm sure I've heard that before; people sure that the magical government can somehow stop a market crash.

It would be interesting to work out how well her quoted comments match the official PRC government line (and unofficial government line) at the time; if she exists, is she a government mouthpiece, or just someone the journos know is always good for a negative quote about the Chinese market, from the small investor? I wouldn't be surprised if all these Bloomberg journos ever saw of her was a controlled press release of suitable comments and sources from China, for them to mine from to make their story.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's not surprising at all. There have been reports of construction companies rebranding themselves as tech companies and doing a public offerings at P/E ratios that would make the hucksters of Silicon Valley circa 1999 blush. It will be interesting to see how it affects the rest of the world. That's the unpredictable part.

<comment><USER4> How exposed to China is the rest of the world? If it's not a lot then it kind of doesn't matter as much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Look at a 5 year chart. The SSE was simply over-bought. Any trader would tell you that.

Now why was it over-bought? Part of the reason is because of the Shanghai-Hong Kong market link, which drove massive amounts of volume into Shanghai, and traders took advantage by taking on large margin accounts. When the savvy traders started booking profits, the rest were left to try cover their positions.

The Hang-Seng (Hong Kong) dropped too, but by far less because it was priced much better.

Anyhow, this has nothing to do with the Chinese economy, or even stock fundamentals. It's just that equity prices were driven up too high by traders.

[http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=000001.SS+Interactive#{"r...](http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=000001.SS+Interactive#{"range":"5y","allowChartStacking":true})

[https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=%5EHSI#symbol=%5EHSI;...](https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=%5EHSI#symbol=%5EHSI;range=5y)

<comment><USER6> The Chinese economy isn't doing that great right now, so people were puzzling over the stock market boom. But as you say, these two things are almost completely separated at this point.

Now if someone could tell me where to park my RMB savings...real estate? Stock market? Under my mattress? The real problem is that investment opportunities in China really aren't that great.

<comment><USER7> Easy opportunities aren't. By easy: click a switch and send money somewhere.

But financing is huge. A lot of people and businesses don't have sufficient access to a functioning banking system or capital markets. Invest in small businesses / people you know. You're in Beijing - move out to the places that aspire to be more like a developed city, and just rinse and repeat.

<comment><USER6> I have a job in Beijing and frankly like it; I'm not an investor or a business guy, I'm just a programmer/researcher/geek who is living the life he wants to. If I was in the states, I would just throw my money in safe investments and buy a house; here all of that is impossible (well, you can do things with the banks, but kind of dodgy). My best bet is just to transfer money back home and play the American stock and real estate markets like my Chinese friends are already doing :p

Business and investment in China is absolutely crazy: your partners are more likely to screw you over than not, and in order to win you have to be constantly on your toes. When public construction SOEs are rebranding as internet companies, you can bet the smaller hole in the walls are doing the same!

Every third-tier city wants to be like Beijing. For example, my wife's hometown in Hunan (Chenzhou) has big aspirations but very little to offer. It is just heart break waiting to happen. Apartments being built everywhere shoddily without central heating...who wants to live in those?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> That graph seems a bit sensationalist by using ~2800 as the base of its y-axis, and the stocks are still up for the year.

It looks like the stocks are down about 20% from their high, which isn't that unusual for a stock market (and probably is appropriate considering how much stocks went up this year).

<comment><USER9> A 20% plunge in the West would be a disastrous thing or at least generate thousands of news articles about it, why does HN give a double standard to autocratic states? I keep hearing about how the ruble devaluation and now this are all perfectly fine. I don't think one article from Bloomberg is so horrible. Hell, I don't even see this on the front page of google news. Where is this massive sensationalism? Hell, is this even an issue on a site where pretty much all its politics is sensationalism to extremist degrees? Interesting what we find fault with here.

There's some real stupid bias on HN honestly.

<comment><USER10> It has nothing to do with China being autocratic or not, it's simply a very volatile market. The Chinese stock market is still UP for the year, and 20% is just correction territory, it's not close to a "disastrous" thing considering how quickly and how much it has gained recently. In fact, one may even argue it's healthy.

<comment><USER9> I'm certainly not suggesting its some great depression, but clearly its note and newsworthy and this article reflects that. Why the protesting about the article? What exactly is the problem? In autocratic regimes state media's job is rally stocks and, yes, the lack of which is very telling, which is what this article is about.

Again, what exactly is the problem here? If this was any Western economy, HN'ers wouldn't be falling over themsleves trying to dismiss it as sensationalist, especially when you consider the endless parade of anti-US sensationalism that often dominates this site and its collective narrative.

<comment><USER11> Because Western economies have been in dire straits for over a decade. A drop like that would be significant and unlikely to reverse. The West has no economic growth engine to fall back on.

China has had so much astronomical growth that this drop doesn't undo all of that overnight.

If it continues, and it may very well, then you have a story.

Also, it's not good to create fear in the general public which is another reason to downplay this. If it's met with hysterical headlines, then the event of a crash in the global markets will be a self fulfilling prophecy. Markets react to group psychology and FUD in the general public.

<comment><USER12> I just read that China has 21 trillion in their banks from people saving. It feels to me China has so many resources that they are unstoppable. Banks lend 10x the assets they have so that is 210 trillion available to lend. Not to mention the assets that the government has itself. There are so many state or partially state owned businesses that they can sell parts of. Even the debts of creating whole cities, it just doesn't seem to me that there is going to be any sort of damper on what China does. Especially with everyone wanting to throw money at them to get into business there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Anyone care to speculate how that might impact real estate (short and long term), particularly US markets that have seen heavy Chinese investment?

<comment><USER5> Probably not too much. These are just trading losses. The SSE is still up quite a bit for the year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> A month ago, the amount of borrowed money invested in Chinese stocks was over $300bn. Margin calls will be exacerbating this drop in prices: [http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2015/05/23/2003...](http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2015/05/23/2003618925)

</comment><comment><USER15> Surely the times are interesting[0][1].

[0] [http://i.imgur.com/C77vR9t.png](http://i.imgur.com/C77vR9t.png)

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

<comment><USER16> The true insult is "May you live in boring times."

<comment><USER17> History is usually not that fun for the people who living through it. With the exception of the greatest minds in science, history is usually about people dying violently or at least suffering a lot.

Boring times don't sound so bad to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The stock market is up 35% since March. I don't understand what's being reported.

<comment><AUTHOR> That the bubble has likely popped in Chinese equities.

$2 trillion - roughly 20%-25% - has been shaved off their markets in just two weeks or so. One of the largest, fastest stock market drops in world history in sheer dollar terms.

To put that in perspective, about 8%-10% of China's household wealth just disappeared in two weeks (80% or so of all investors in the market are individuals). The stock market run has been helping to bail out a lot of homeowners that had previously bet on the real estate market continuing to go up perpetually. If both crash at the same time, it's going to hammer China's fragile economy (that has shrinking across the board already: exports, imports, PMI, electricity usage).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> _" China's stock market is really different from other countries"_

Yeah, just add an opaque, government overseeing and controlling all information of Chinese stocks. Nothing to see here folks.

</comment><comment><USER20> The graph is quite misleading by not being logarithmic - it makes the gain seem smaller than it really is, and the loss larger.

A logarithmic graph will show that this drop is minor compared to the rise before it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well here's the five year:

[http://i.imgur.com/3vMDYlx.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/3vMDYlx.jpg)

That's the setup to an inbound market disaster if I've ever seen one. Especially given China's falling corporate earnings and all the other blatantly negative signals in their economy right now. This market run occurred solely due to margin, and not due to growth; the outcome was always obvious ahead of time.

<comment><USER21> Wow! That market doubled in the past year? I knew it was hot but I didn't know it was that hot. It will be interesting to see where this goes.</comment></comment></comment>


$10 Laptop is Huge Disappointment ($30 and not a laptop) - <AUTHOR> http://www.tomshardware.com/news/India-10-laptop-launch,6961.html

<comment><USER2> Hehehe, I had forgot completely about the Z80 computers. Let's put it this way: _every_ home has a TV. Add mesh networking and you can actually wire-up whole cities with 20 bucks devices. This is soo cool.

Ok, I'm not saying this is what it does. For what we know, it could be completely crap. But, just imagine:

\- You have 30 dollar box - so you can put about as much brain-power in it as a router.

\- For really poor countries, LCD screens are a waste when you have TV. So, you just throw in a TV-out, which was cheap 20 years ago.

\- From my experience in wiring relatively "wild" places, if you have boxes plugged in a power socket, the people will put the actual wire the place themselves. That's if you don't have OLPC's mesh networking.

This stupid-looking white box could do most for developing countries then anything else in the last 10 years. Except of course mobile phones.

<comment><USER3> I wonder how many families in India have a TV.

<comment><USER4> I'm in Canada and I don't. I'll admit it's not the majority, though.

<comment><USER5> I bet you have a computer though. I also didn't have a TV for about 6 months, I never bothered to buy a new one after my last one broke. But I would guess that anyone that doesn't have a computer already is VERY likely to own a TV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> old-gregg I don't understand why is it a _huge_ disappointment. My fascination with computers started with an old programmable calculator my dad brought home once. And its price was more than $10 which was still OK for Russia in early 90s.

I could have died of happiness back then if I could put my hands on a $30 worth of 2009 hardware in that little plastic box.

<comment><AUTHOR> When I first heard about this I wondered what a 10$ laptop could be. I pictured a TI-86 graphing calculator with network access, and a VGA or TV out. Thinking back on what I did with my graphing calculator in high school I pictured a whole new generation of software hackers vs code monkeys that might start coming out of India and other developing nations.

The problem is from the picture it's missing the keys. So it's hard to think of someone hacking a way on the thing when there is no way to input new data while waiting for a bus. If we are thinking about a cheep computer then a commodore 64 for 10$ could be easy to build but that's not what they are doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Skeptics argued that it can't be $10, as even a screen would cost more than that.

I wonder why a $10 laptop can't be, essentially, a wristwatch or a calculator instead of an iPhone or a netbook?

Linux will run on almost anything, a membrane keyboard (even a mobile phone 12-key pad using SMS text style input), and a small amount of memory... could you get enough hardware to run linux and have some kind of UI for ten bucks?

<comment><USER7> Digital photo keyrings are around $10: eg [http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/2023270/art/vtec/digital- pho...](http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/2023270/art/vtec/digital-photo-frame- keyri.html)

One guy hacked one (different model), and found its CPU was a 6502 (same as Apple 2e). I don't think linux runs on that, as no memory protection. [http://spritesmods.com/?art=picframe&page=1](http://spritesmods.com/?art=picframe&page=1)

<http://picframe.spritesserver.nl/wiki/index.php/Main_Page>

Getting cheaper all the time - how long til it disrupts PC/windows/intel?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> KFC has a cheap laptop too. I think its $4.

<http://kids.kfc.com/></comment>


Being 37signals for free - <AUTHOR> http://wisdump.com/business/being-37signals-for-free/ <comment><USER2> Companies are able to thrive by developing and running such "simple" systems because of characteristics of the typical consumer and the reality that even "simple" systems tend to be more complex and difficult to implement/run than they appear from the outside.

The typical person lacks the time and skill to install open-source clones of web applications. The typical person does not even have a server on which to install those applications!

Running a high-quality, reliable service is difficult. There will always be nitty-gritty pain-in-the-butt performance and reliability issues with anything that gets popular and thus needs to scale. Solving those problems requires compensation of some sort.

These factors are what enable companies like 37signals to exist even if/when they are cloned by an open-source project.

Then there also is the continued innovation that happens while the clones are busy playing catch-up, and the loyalty happy customers feel towards their craftsmen toolmakers.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the author answers his own question in this post:

"There are tons of new 'Diggs' popping up because development time is much shorter with online websites and applications than what we are used to seeing with desktop apps."

Yes there are a ton of Digg clones but none of them are Digg. Cloning something doesn't make it popular, it just makes it a clone. If you copied 37Signals products, even if copied them perfectly, it still wouldn't hurt them much. The people who are using that software don't have the time to host their own solution, and they don't want to mess with ads. Besides they are already using the 37Signals products, you would have to have something that made your product better to get people to switch.

We all know how much better OS X is over Windows and look how hard it is to get those people to switch. The same thing applies here.

<comment><USER4> You've completely omitted the real reason people stay with Digg: network effects. The more people using a Digg-like site, the more valuable it is. Digg clones don't have the traffic, so of course they can't compete.

Switching from Windows to Mac is more of an issue of legacy. If all of the software you like using works only on Windows, and if all of the people in your organization only know Windows, it's going to be difficult (costly) for you to switch.

How are these related to 37signals products? Not very. There are no network effects involved, so that's out. And while you may have a legacy with 37signals, it's such a new product, your organization could probably afford to switch to a competitor without much cost.

The question posed in the article is a good one, then, since if you could match feature for feature and you could do it for cheaper, you'd beat 37signals at their own game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm pretty sure that the project management software activeCollab was written to be a free Basecamp. Up until now, it's been open source and peopele have been installing it on their own servers. (Interestingly enough, the next major release will be split into a free and commercial version, somewhat like Basecamp.)

<comment><USER6> This article is from April 5, 2006. I think you're right. The developer of activeCollab is doing this. I think it says somewhere on the activeCollab web site the developer originally got started because of that exact blog post.

<comment><USER7> and interestingly enough, it seems that activeCollab found it much harder to clone than initially thought.

from the web site, "activeCollab is still under heavy development, but you can download activeCollab 0.7.1 and give it a test run."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A whole lot of of work went into making those 37signals apps seem simple.

If you think you can bang them out in a weekend or two then you're either the best programmer I've ever met, or you're in for a heckuva surprise.

</comment><comment><USER9> Originally I was going to pose the question: Why do people want to cut other people's source of revenue?

But the answer came back to me just as quickly: Because they can.

But can they? One theory for the startup world might be: No matter what your product is, you need to have barriers to entry.

I'll think on it.. It seems to be worth considering how one might actively place barriers of entry so that others can't just copy you.

</comment><comment><USER10> Making something simple is away harder and takes way longer than making something complex.</comment>


Scientific publications should be anonymous - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1512.05382 <comment><USER4> It's amazing that none of the commenters so far seem to acknowledge that competition for prestige is one of the forces that fuels research. Take that away people will be less aggressive about pursuing and investing their time in valuable areas of inquiry.

There are downsides to competition but there are considerable upsides also. The bet we make in our culture is that the upsides outweigh the downsides, and based on history it seems to be true.

<comment><USER5> I think making publications anonymous when initially published and add names later would work.

<comment> Ar-Curunir there's been work on writing stylometry, namely detecting authors by style of writing. Now academic papers might be a combination of enough authors that the results are not easily classifiable, but still, just stripping author names is not enough.

<comment><USER6> You can also tell quite a bit based upon the citations. I've been able to guess at who was the original author based on how the paper was written/structured and the citations.

<comment><USER7> You can also guess who writes reviews. There was this one guy who got pissed off at me at a conference for nonchalantly discussing who I thought the reviewers on our paper were... whatever man, it's my review now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a hilariously bad idea.

As the author notes, there is no way to make conference presentations anonymous. But the problem is much bigger than that. Even most informal conversations between scientists involve promoting and discussing one's own ideas and work.

How could hiring or awards work? It is simply not possible to make such decisions on meritocratic basis without individual credit for ideas. The only consistent way I could see that working is to make such applications anonymous, but at a certain point anonymity will inevitably break, if only for in-person interviews or once people are actually hired.

More broadly, complete anonymity is impossible, and incomplete attempts towards anonymity would only reinforce existing old-boys networks within science. Authorship would become a matter of gossip and innuendo, which would make it even harder for new-comers to break into science.

<comment><USER9> You may be right. This may be a hilariously bad idea.

But if you are right then it is a shame that you are right. What is the goal of science? Shall we say truth? But what are the goals of scientists? You can say that it is truth, but perhaps it is fame/prestige/success, call it what you will. And what about ever-present human bias? And what about discrimination based on ethnicity or gender. I'm no bleeding heart, I assure you, but these things are real.

Humans have spent most of our evolutionary lives not being scientists. The suggestion to render part of the scientific process anonymous to mitigate the our human failings, though idealistic, is an _admirable_ idea. That this admirable idea may also be a hilariously bad idea is sad really.

You know what? It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Another commenter here wonders what it would be like if we could flip a switch and make the process of scientific discover both anonymous and wiki-based. But why should it be all or nothing? How about a scientific enclave (or more than one!) that adhered to these principles? Well it turns out that at least in mathematics there are precedents! Bourbaki[0] was the pseudonym of a collective if I'm not mistaken and nCatLab[1] is a wiki-lab for collaborative revisable work in math, physics, and philosophy.

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

[1] [https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/HomePage](https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/HomePage)

<comment><USER10> I don't entirely agree with your arguments that anonymity would be a good thing. Or even that it's sad that we can't have it. Although I do agree that it's helpful in some situations.

You say anonymity would prevent people pursuing science purely for fame. However first of all, science is a hilariously difficult area to become famous in. And secondly, wanting to be recognised by your peers is not in and of itself bad, if it causes someone to pursue science then it might even be considered admirable.

I think discrimination against authors is a lot more worrying, but the situation is better than it once was since it is now no longer possible to prevent someone from publishing their work. If nobody would read it if they knew who the author was, or if it's conclusion is so outrageous that it might damage the author's reputation, it's also possible to use a pseudonym.

I vehemently disagree that it's a sad reality that we can't have full anonymity. A scientific process that is completely anonymous is either unnecessary or if it's necessary then that would be very _very_ sad.

<comment><USER11> "science is a hilariously difficult area to become famous in"

There's fame, like Einstein had, and there's fame like how everyone in your specific field knows who you are. For a comparison, there's "president of the United States" but there's also "Mayor of Albuquerque".

The former is very hard to get. The latter, more common, and more achievable.

Here's an example of how anonymity would hurt. A lot of pharmaceutical research is done in industry. While some of the research is kept proprietary, especially early on, other parts are published. It's a lot of work to publish. It may include talking with company lawyers so that confidential information isn't revealed. Why might someone go through this extra effort?

One factor, of course, is the altruistic goal of advancing science. Another factor is the more egocentric desire to finally be able to tell others - <USER2> are often friends - the cool things you've been working on. A third is the knowledge that layoffs come, and a paper is a form of advertisement for future employment.

The latter two disappear if all publications were anonymous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> With anonymous publications special interest groups can drop an unlimited number of publications without exposing their network of shills. So while the proposal might help with some things (which I doubt), it makes others worse.

<comment><USER13> If the 'shills' are wrong, then the peer review should take care of them.

The whole problem that this proposal is trying to eliminate is a combined problem of discrimination (for various reasons) and cargo-cult/groupthink; calling someone a 'shill' is an example of at least the first of these issues.

If the peer review process cannot successfully refute claims in a paper, and has to resort to name-calling, that is a sign that the reviewers are either incompetent or lazy (, and that there may be fundamental flaws in the peer review system).

<comment><USER14> > and that there may be fundamental flaws in the peer review system

There are.

One problem is that there are too many papers to be reviewed, another is that the papers generally do not include complete datasets. Also, where large volumes of data are involved it is common to perform computational transformations on that data to extract something; the source code and build process are not always described in such a way as to make the executable reproducible.

And those are just some of the problems with peer review, others include more human problems such as insufficient remuneration for the reviewer, reviewers who have too much at stake to give an unbiased review (whether too positive or too negative), too few reviewers with the necessary expertise, etc.

Even with competent and committed reviewers the system is flawed; unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any alternative.

<comment><USER13> I agree with your description of other problems with the current system, and think that anonymizing authorship will serve to force them to be solved. Many popular journals currently look at the author's position and previous works to filter out the unpopular and/or unprestigious authors; anonymization would eliminate the bias against young, innovative, and/or unconventional scientists, and force the journals to improve their process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In our previous work, Anonymous et al. (2002, Nature), Anonymous et al. (2003, Science), Anonymous et al. (2009, Cell), we established the validity of our approach and we outline the details of our methodology necessary to repeat these kinds of experiments. Here we use this approach to address a novel question, ...

<comment><USER16> Could you elaborate what is your point?

For example, if 2000 scientists (that may or may not work together) use "Anonymous et al." name then how anything inside an article will make someone choose a particular scientist's papers from a list of papers in a journal?

Obviously, if you're reading an article; you may recognize the work (science is very specialized: if you understand the article; you'll probably recognize the author (the group) even if all references/names are removed anyway -- but you need to read the article).

The suggestion doesn't remove all bias but it can remove some. There is no silver bullet that would make people rational.

<comment><USER17> The authors in their paper propose a different approach to citing articles, which is to cite the article name instead of the author. This criticism, while humorous, is off-base from what's actually being proposed.

This is not an example that the authors gave, but you might write something like "On the Origin of Species (1859)" instead.

This joke also misses the point in that a follow-up anonymous article would not, to match the author's intent, reference the authorship of previous work. The whole point is for each article to stand on its own, so referencing yourself pseudonymously as the author of a previous article does not achieve the goal.

I don't want to be "that guy" who takes the humor too seriously, but I worry from the comments so far that people will conflate the humor and the actual proposal. The overall aim and proposal of the article is to find a way for papers to be judged individually on their own merits, rather than on the merits of their author, the author's institution, the author's nationality, or the paper it was published in. This is a worthwhile goal even if we cannot see a serious means by which to achieve it.

To be fair to the jokes, while reading the article I was unsure if it was satire. I'm still not completely sure. I believe the authors are sincere in their belief in anonymity as promoting merit, but I remain unsure whether they think their proposal is realistic, and whether or not they are making some kind of meta-point about the state of scientific review by observing how far away the current review process is from one that would be (as best as we can make it) unbiased. That is to say, upon reading the paper, the idea of implementing their anonymity proposal seems ridiculous - and this realization may be partly the point of the paper, to get the reader to realize how many different points in the editorial process depend on the author's identity rather than the material's merit. It does not strike me as satire, because the work takes itself seriously, but it may seem like satire because of how large the gap is from where we are to a meritorious review system.

"Ha! It would be ridiculous for work to be reviewed, published, and promoted purely on its own merit, rather than based on the legacy of the author."

On the other hand, it's hard to say how well a fully anonymous system would work. Human biases often serve a useful cognitive function in allowing some filtering operation to be performed more efficiently, albeit with less accuracy. A random lunatic who claims to have invented a perpetual motion machine is likely to be wrong. It's possible that devoting equal review time to all claims and all papers would lower the sum value of scientific output. If the volume of scientific material is too great to comprehensively review, from any given observer's standpoint, then a system that relies on identity as a heuristic and is slightly less meritorious may be strictly better than an anonymous system that is slightly more meritorious, for example. Society might have a different goal for the output of the scientific process, which is to maximize the discovery/promotion/publication of useful scientific output - <USER3> that is a different goal than judging individual work fairly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> In a twist of irony, this paper itself is not anonymous.

Jokes aside, while many suggestions and rationale for them make sense, I wonder how it is going to be implemented in practice. Many scientific areas are narrow enough for people "in the know" to figure out who the author is.

I use authors' names all the time to see what else they published, if I need some more information on the topic.

It may be useful to enforce anonymity for the submission process but once accepted, publish it with names.

<comment><USER13> > _' In a twist of irony, this paper itself is not anonymous.'_

How is this ironic? If anything, it might be seen as poignant.[1]

[1] [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irony](http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/irony)

<comment><USER19> Poignant? I half-suspect you're trolling. It's ironic because one might assume that a paper that argues for anonymity to itself be anonymous, but it's not. Irony: when things are the opposite of what's expected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It is really useful to know the authors because if you come across a researcher who has been looking at the same types of problems as you, then you read all their previous work to gain much better context of the domain. Plus then you look at all the coauthors and look at their work, and you can find some really interesting vein of knowledge that way.

<comment><USER21> That seems more a criticism of search engines than of anonymous publishing. What you need is a search engine that can find similar work. Being written by the author is just a heuristic in a search for something different, even if probably helpful.

<comment><USER11> "A sufficiently advanced search engine" should be the new "sufficiently advanced compiler."

I'll give an example of how difficult that is. I am researching the historical development of graph canonicalization for chemical information. I have bits and pieces from published papers, but did those people work together or independently?

The papers include institutions, so I know two of the people (Gluck and Morgan) worked together at DuPont before Morgan went to the Chemical Abstract Service. The latter then cites a presentation Mooers gave at an American Mathematical Society meeting in 1958.

But what was the relationship or key insight from Mooers?

A key detail came from an autobiographical essay from 2001 at [http://www.asis.org/History/12-lynch.pdf](http://www.asis.org/History/12-lynch.pdf) , which contains the following:

> I was party to a conversation in which Harry Morgan [CAS] and Calvin Mooers > discussed the issue of a canonical connection table. Mooers, in the light of > the counter-example raised against the work of Dave Gluck, suggested a > permutational approach to the design of an algorithm, which would overcome > the objections. Harry Morgan (1965) then devised the method that bears his > name and that has been a keystone in chemoinformatics since that time.

That reveals a closer connection than seen in the papers. But what was this counter-example?

I then read [http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=ht...](http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=AD0460819) which says:

> The presentation of counterexamples, such as the arbitrarily numbered planar > graph in Figure 5 devised by Dr. Lehman of the Walter Reed Army Institute of > Research, have necessitated revisions to canonical ordering techniques such > as those used by DuPont and the Chemical Abstracts Service.

And there is it - the counter-example. But notice the use of institutional names, not published papers?

How is a search engine supposed to make those connections?

I can totally understand the argument that people should be referring to unique names, instead of a choice of names, to make this sort of thing easier for mechanized search. But that's not how people work. Why are they using institutional names? Because those components, like canonicalization, are part of a much larger system, which is more coupled to the institution than a single person.

Hence why there's this marvelous publication (for a historian) which is a survey of the chemical information systems in the US in the early 1960s. [https://books.google.com/books?id=B0ArAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA172&ots...](https://books.google.com/books?id=B0ArAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA172&ots=TP5X6xlSJM&dq=survey%20of%20chemical%20notation%20systems&hl=de&pg=PR1#v=onepage&q&f=false) . Indexed by institutions and people.

Take away the latter, anonymize everything to just published papers, and the structure for understanding things collapses.

<comment><USER22> > How is a search engine supposed to make those connections?

I can't tell you how exactly, but if current word embeddings can do stuff like "Paris - France + England = London", I don't see why future systems shouldn't be able to resolve the relationships between institutions, people and publications you mention, in a similar fashion. I am not saying that it will be easy, your example requires much more "one-shot learning", but I could in principle see how an automated system might do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One positive reform for transparency in medical research is the requirement to register clinical trials. Quoting from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_trials_registry#Creat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_trials_registry#Creation_and_development) :

> For many years, scientists and others have worried about reporting biases > such that negative or null results from initiated clinical trials may be > less likely to be published than positive results, thus skewing the > literature and our understanding of how well interventions work.[2] This > worry has been international and written about for over 50 years.[3] One of > the proposals to address this potential bias was a comprehensive register of > initiated clinical trials that would inform the public which trials had been > started.[4] Ethical issues were those that seemed to interest the public > most, as trialists (including those with potential commercial gain) > benefited from those who enrolled in trials, but were not required to "give > back," telling the public what they had learned.

> Those who were particularly concerned by the double standard were systematic > reviewers, those who summarize what is known from clinical trials. If the > literature is skewed, then the results of a systematic review are also > likely to be skewed, possibly favoring the test intervention when in fact > the accumulated data do not show this, if all data were made public.

This is public information, and (quoting [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClinicalTrials.gov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClinicalTrials.gov) ) "A 2013 study analyzing 8907 interventional trials registered in ClinicalTrials.gov found that 23.2% of trials had abstract-linked result articles and 7.3% of trials had registry-linked articles. "

To be truly anonymous would mean hiding this link, which would be a backwards step.

</comment><comment><USER23> I need to be blunt on this. This is just not gonna happen. As nice as it may sound. It's like wishing for world peace.

Time and energy is better spent choosing specific issues to solve the issues the paper brought up. A universal band-aid of "just get rid of the author names" won't fly.

Talk to any academic. You'll find a few sympathetic ears, but for the most part it's the way it's been for 300+ years.

</comment><comment><USER24> There are some interesting points here, but I don't think the author adequately addresses research funding transparency concerns. Many funding sources require researchers to include a grant number in any publication. This would effectively deanonymize at least the Principal Investigator and their work related to the grant, since that is public information.

On top of that, many fields are small communities, and everyone knows what everyone else is working on and which methods they use.

</comment><comment><USER25> Anonymous publication is in all probability impractical, but the concept also has serious flaws. Identifying authorship is important not only to give credit (or blame) where it's due, but also for historical reasons, to know how research developed among particular threads in a given disciplines.

Naming authors is necessary to verify results, e.g., when authors admit to faking results (not a rarity), other articles by those authors are suspect as they should be. Publishing anonymously makes it hard or even impossible to know the legitimacy of reports especially as time since publication gets longer.

While anonymous publication is highly unlikely to happen, IMO there are a few things that would materially improve the process. I think _peer review_ and perhaps editing itself _should be_ done anonymously. That way much of the "politics" is eliminated because anonymous review would have to accept/reject a manuscript _only on its merit_. In line with principles of full disclosure, an accepted paper would be published under its authors' names.

It might also help to reduce political pressures associated with publishing. One change to consider is encouraging reports of research findings or results, but discouraging premature "conclusions", i.e., when effectively authors' speculations. In many fields data is lacking or inadequate to support conclusions, it's hard to say what data mean until there's enough such that clear patterns emerge. Constraining the urge to be the first to reach a conclusion could reduce unnecessary competitiveness in research communities.

Contributing to the community is important in science, but contribution has a value that needs to be recognized or rewarded if we are to see it continue. Publishing a scientific report is an accomplishment to be proud of, certainly not selfish to enjoy being known for having done something worthy.

</comment><comment><USER26> Even anonymous papers aren't fully anonymous. Not only are any mentions of previous work a dead giveaway, but knowing the topic lets you narrow down to the research groups are currently working on the issue. Not to mention writing style. If your field is small enough you might be able to identify the writer just by his mannerisms.

</comment><comment><USER27> If names and affiliations are hidden, how will applicants to graduate school find potential supervisors?

<comment><USER19> Psychic powers?

<comment><USER28> If science could get those to work, the idea would pay for itself...

More seriously - science isn't just about papers. There are also conferences, conference proceedings, books, institutes, funding programs, research labs, industry collaborations, and awards.

Anonymity makes all of those hard to do.

<comment><USER19> Conversely, those all make anonymity hard to do. As in, somewhere between impractical and impossible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> How do you find good researchers to hire and get them through the tenure process?

The trouble here is that opportunistic anonymity is not enough. You need _guaranteed_ anonymity, that even if someone tries to leak information about the connection between a researcher and their work (intentionally or unintentionally), it won't work. Otherwise social pressure will be in favor of those leaks: e.g. faculty who do hiring will take their knowledge of what researchers are really working on in account when they look at researchers to collaborate with.

And I don't see a tractable way to achieve guaranteed anonymity.

</comment><comment><USER30> My academic wife's impression of the idea is that while eliminating bad heuristics can be good, there are also good heuristics that come with name recognition.

In particular, it's often difficult in social science to know if the research methods were _really_ done correctly. More prestigious authors tend to be more rigorous than unknown authors.

So the point of eliminating as many bad heuristics as possible (regardless of how feasible it actually is) might throw out a size-able chunk of the baby with the bathwater.

</comment><comment><USER31> Double blind reviewing is mentioned, but is glossed over as "not ready yet". This is what we should be focused on improving. The big problem seems to be that editors have more oversight than the reviewers and can see who the authors are.

Most of the top journals and conferences already enforce double blind reviewing, so in principle nobody knows who anyone is. The submission requirements ask that you do not reference yourself directly in your work so that the reviewers can't infer anything.

On the other hand it's often obvious who a submission is from if you know the people in the field, so that goes out of the window. This also doesn't stop political rejection, where the reviewer has an interest in the research and claims "Oh this has already been done".

I also have no doubt that certain big names in academia would kick up a huge fuss if their work was rejected.

> However, the speaker should choose a sufficiently different title from her > publication.

What's the point of that? So I give a talk, I have to come up with a different name for my work and then when I tell people "You can read about it in my paper here" I've given the game away. Or do I have to make everyone play hide and seek trying to guess which paper is mine?

</comment><comment><USER32> This (anonymity) is impossible in my opinion. Research projects can be so focused/narrow that anyone who is following the conference proceedings/papers could narrow down at least some of contributing authors in some papers fairly easily.

</comment><comment><USER33> Biases arise if people are allowed to cite other papers even when the publications are made anonymous. The importance of a paper can be estimated from their citations. For example, an important work cites another ground- breaking work. Besides, novel research idea and topic is rare and serves as a signature to the authors and their affiliations. Because researchers often verbally share their research results with others (through the internet), every people will recognize them and their works finally.

My feeling is that as long as the whole open system makes scientific progress, and suppresses malicious or false scientific results, it is fine.

</comment><comment><USER34> So let me get this straight. In order for attribution (credit to researchers) to work correctly, we should require them to publish anonymously?

I don't think there is a free lunch here. Either you are using publication record to determine who should get paid or tenure, and then you will have problems with bias, or you are not doing that, and then the authorship of the papers doesn't really matter too much.

<comment><USER35> The author can have a list of papers (verified by journals) that he has published. He can show the list to the hiring/tenure committee.

<comment><USER13> The author or journal could also provide a cryptographic means of verifying the identity of the author.

<comment><USER36> It'd have to be the author.

Otherwise, we're putting a lot of trust in journals as the gatekeepers of the true identities of their content creators. That seems like a fine opportunity for corruption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I agree, and I also think science should be done on something closer to a wiki than a PDF.

Unfortunately, there is no switch to flip that can make this happen. Making the change would require a cultural shift across a majority of scientific disciplines, and the cultural leaders are the ones who are being accused of benefiting from the status quo.

<comment><USER38> Of course, but this is people's lives and careers. If you've spent 60 hours a week for the last 40 years on something you aren't about to hand it over to some randomer on a wiki.

<comment><USER37> That is precisely the cultural shift I am talking about. If you are doing science, the thing you spend 60 hours a week doing should be "trying to understand the world better." Once you have achieved some new understanding, you should want to share that understanding with others.

What you're talking about are things like pride and profit, stubbornness and renown. My point was that the current science culture is currently as much about fame and pride as it is about understanding. In order to have any sort of anonymized, wiki-based science, we would need to ask people who have become famous and respected by doing things one way to start over in a new way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> There's a reason that "first authors" are also called "corresponding authors".

It's so that you can get in touch with them if you have questions or, more critically, if you want to collaborate with them.</comment>


Persistent-memory error handling - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/Articles/684288 <comment><USER2> Like "clugstj" wrote in a comment, how is this a different problem than the one which mmap()ed files have always had?

If this really is a problem which must be solved, why can't it be solved in the same way in which RAM solves this problem, i.e. with ECC? Or with something like Forward Error Correction (support in dm-verity added in Linux 4.5).

<comment><USER3> The real issue is that a memory error reboots your entire machine.

That probably isn't the right granularity anymore.

A memory error should probably kick off a signal to the application. If the error isn't caught, then it should probably kill the process.

Memory errors should probably not cause a reboot unless they actually hit a kernel page.

<comment><USER4> This is already possible for ECC RAM:

[http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/...](http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/white- papers/xeon-e7-family-ras-server-paper.pdf)

So even an application can recover from unrecoverable ECC errors.

But it's not feasible to solve this in applications, since there are many scenarios where such storage should simply be transparent.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Nuclear Chess, an explosive chess variant - <AUTHOR> http://karlb.github.io/nuclearchess/

<comment><USER2> The rules as stated are ambiguous. If there's no check, then there's no checkmate, so what's the win condition? Experimentation indicates that you win when your opponent's king is removed from the board. Is it a draw when both kings are removed on the same turn?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes and yes. Thanks for the feedback, I'll make that more clear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice, but its really hard to win even at "easy", or maybe its just hard to unlearn the normal way of thinking for chess. Good fun though.

<comment><AUTHOR> I probably should make the current "very easy" the default and relabel the difficulty levels. Thanks for the feedback!

<comment><USER3> Finally won a game on "easy". I also found the right moves to win every time on "very easy".</comment></comment></comment>


Did China Overplay Rare Earth Hand? - <AUTHOR> http://the-diplomat.com/2010/11/17/did-china-overplay-rare-earth-hand/

<comment><USER2> Free market routes around political interference[1]. Footage at 11.

[1] Sort of, so far as Japanese mercantilism can be considered a free market.</comment>


A 50-year-old design came back to haunt Boeing with its troubled 737 Max jet - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-fi-boeing-max-design-20190315-story.html <comment><USER2> Boeing want's to keep the type rating and rest of the infrastructure, but the airframe is getting old. They made a small tweak, moved engines forward, and gained significant fuel savings. The tweak caused instability. The fixed it with automation that introduced complication.

Type ratings, airport dimensions, etc. create legacy that puts limit to what kind of aircraft designs are economically viable. If you could start from the scratch and design new aircraft and airports in tandem , would probably have much wider wingspans and lifting bodies. Airports would need different design to move passengers and arrange aircraft.

<comment><USER3> The airframe isn't getting old. In fact there's nothing left of the old airframe but the general shape of the windshields.

It's the type rating approval process that got old and caused all this.

<comment><USER4> How exactly is the approval process at fault here? Nobody forced Boeing to make a plane that has the same type rating.

<comment><USER5> It would cost some number of $B and years to get different type rating.

If you want to call that "forcing" is a matter of taste, but it's certainly a very strong and involuntary incentive.

<comment><USER6> Boeing made the decision to maximize profits by retrofitting an older model. There's nothing involuntary about it.

They've released newer model planes that have gone through the review process fine, correct?

<comment><USER7> FWIW, according to Wikipedia Boeing had intended to design a new plane but were forced into re-engineing the 737 by market forces:

> In 2006, Boeing started considering the replacement of the 737 with a > "clean-sheet" design that could follow the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.[12] In > June 2010, a decision on this replacement was postponed into 2011.[13]

> On December 1, 2010, Boeing's competitor, Airbus, launched the Airbus > A320neo family to improve fuel burn and operating efficiency with new > engines: the CFM International LEAP and Pratt & Whitney PW1000G.[14] In > February 2011, Boeing's CEO Jim McNerney maintained "We're going to do a new > airplane."[15] At the March 2011 ISTAT conference, BCA President James > Albaugh was not sure about a 737 re-engine, like Boeing CFO James A. Bell > stated at the JP Morgan Aviation, Transportation and Defense conference the > same month.[16] The A320neo gathered 667 commitments at the June 2011 Paris > Air Show for a backlog of 1,029 units since its launch, setting an order > record for a new commercial airliner.[17]

> On July 20, 2011, American Airlines announced an order for 460 narrowbody > jets including 130 A320ceos and 130 A320neos, and intended to order 100 re- > engined 737s with CFM LEAPs, pending Boeing confirmation.[18] The order > broke Boeing's monopoly with the airline and forced Boeing into a re-engined > 737.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX#Background](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX#Background)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Really it's worse then that. The 737Max is a good example of technical debt. The plane more or less is the same fuselage as a Boeing 707 (with material modernized). Boeing went back to the well one time too many instead of doing a cleanroom design for it's narrow-body fleet.

Boeing has hinted several times that they want to look at a Blended Wing Body (BWB) design for the next generation of planes. That time may be now.

<comment><USER9> It's hard to think of many other legacy systems that have been around since at least the 60s like the 737 MAX has. The NYC subway system is one that immediately comes to mind.

<comment><USER10> The engines on many light single-engine aircraft (e.g. Lycoming O-360). While variants and modest improvements have been made, it is still the same 1950s engine at the core.

Safety requirements have evolved massively since then, but if you keep making the same engine with modest changes it can grandfathered. Kind of makes you wonder if grandfathering should have a limit (e.g. 50 years?).

<comment><USER11> > Kind of makes you wonder if grandfathering should have a limit (e.g. 50 > years?).

That's not grandfathering. Grandfathering is "This engine was built before we made the law, so you can keep using it until it breaks."; what you're describing is just blatant selective enforcement.

<comment><USER12> What's it called when the thing was designed before the law, and therefore allowed to be manufactured for eternity?

<comment><USER11> "Criminally[0] negligent duty-derelictive non-enforcement of safely regulations"?

0: or not-technically-criminally if they planned ahead well enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For those who might be interested: the 737 type certificate data sheet. Revised 64 times since 1967 and covering original, Classic, NG, and MAX.

[http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgMakeMod...](http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgMakeModel.nsf/0/179cdacd213801658625832a006b2e37/$FILE/A16WE_Rev_64.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER7> I would be interested in an organizational investigation of Boeing, the FAA and the airlines similar to the investigation of NASA after the Challenger disaster.

I keep reading comments that it was just corporate greed or just regulatory capture or Boeing should've just built a new plane. But I suspect it's not that simple, and that there are lessons to be learned beyond what the crash investigations uncover.

For example, from reading the Wikipedia on the 737 Max it sounds like Boeing was pressured by the airlines into producing the Max after Airbus was able to ship a more fuel efficient 320.

Usually you expect competition to lead to better products so it would be somewhat ironic if the competition from Airbus is what forced Boeing's hand on producing the Max. Without that pressure maybe Boeing could have told the airlines to back off while it produced a new design.

<comment><USER14> I'm no airplane expert but I find the trend lines of the industry interesting and one trend has been how fuel prices and long lead times on fuel efficiency has lead to formerly continental planes now flying intercontinental. AirBus has really done this well and airlines love to be able to reuse resources. With the MAX there is a sense that airline execs are spooked by a new plane since it requires a ton of new training and maintenance outfitting. So Boeing, possibly smartly, tried to create what these airlines would pay for (a fuel efficient airplane) that would marketable be super similar to a very popular plane. But this lead to rushing the process and making too many affordances and hiding the differences from airlines and training material for fear of spooking business execs worried about cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The 737 is not uncomfortable because it is narrow but because it is not tall enough. The circular fuselage makes it so.

The much smaller Embraer 195 is vastly more comfortable than the 737 because it is shaped according to the passengers.

A clean sheet design for the 737 would have a big positive impact for the industry. Today it is another reason to take the bus.

</comment><comment><USER16> "The change, however, affected the plane's aerodynamics. Boeing discovered the new position of the engines increased the lift of the aircraft, creating a tendency for the nose to pitch up."

The problem wasn't just the ground clearance. the problem was that aerodynamically had issues (not so well balanced probably). So when they were trying to fix "this" something else was breaking and so on. That's why they introduced this MCAS software in the first place. It wasn't some new fancy tech but it was just a system to help with the bad 737's aerodynamics.

<comment><USER17> Right, but it sound like the aerodynamics have been deteriorating model-by- model, as they move away from the original design.

This creeping change must be really hard to regulate right. A terrible new design you could refuse to certify, but a terrible one which is only a few percent worse than the one your predecessor certified a decade ago... it would take a lot of confidence to say no.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> <Boeing added larger, more powerful engines, but that required it to reposition them to maintain ground clearance. As a result, the 737 can pitch up under certain circumstances.>

This has to be THE MOST Stupidest decision i have ever read about.. either extend the landing gear or start from scratch.

Aeroplanes should be naturally neutral Longitudinally and also have longitudinal static stability it should never require complex control systems to achieve any of this.

It should never have passed certification.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitudinal_static_stabilit...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitudinal_static_stability)

<comment><USER19> "Under certain circumstances" is, as I understand it, close to stall. Many planes have less-than-desired stall characteristics. The tendency of T-tail planes to go into an unrecoverable deep stall comes to mind.

Or have you ever flown a Cessna 152 or 172? They have the same tendency to pitch up strongly when power is advanced at low speeds. This is probably the most common training aircraft in the world, and yet have a behavior that may cause them to stall at exactly the most inopportune time. And they're flown by students, not airline transport pilots!

The 737 MAX does not _require_ the MCAS. The pilots could be trained to expect and handle this characteristic. (And they are, as it is apparently, to a lesser degree, present on all 737 models.)

The big problem lies in the design of the MCAS system and the fact that it was decided to rely on this and not train pilots on the new behavior.

<comment><USER18> putting and engine on the wing in an undesirable position because of the height of the landing gear is stupid..

just because "a pilot should be able to handle it" is not acceptable.

Aeroplanes traditionally are designed with as much passive self correcting features as possible for safety.

When a plane has a real emergency the less a pilot has to actively deal with the more likely people are going to come out alive.

The evidence is clear that this was a huge mistake.. many people have already died.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's not nice that so many writers parrot that the solution is "more pilot training." Under the hypothesis that there needs to be a solution (one that I think is correct), then the answer of more training amounts to mere hope. One hopes that the pilot a) knows and b) remembers to turn off the autopilot when the emergency starts.

<comment><USER21> Pilots can fly planes with unusual characteristics when properly trained. That is the point of the type rating. I feel the 737 MAX needs its own type certificate distinct from the rest of the 737s and that should solve the problem, since the MAX has very different flight characteristics in certain situations.

Either that or ground the plane permanently for being poorly designed and unsafe with any amount of training.

If the FAA does anything else, it will harm my faith in the organization, which is already at a recent low.

NB: Jet pilot, not 737 pilot.

<comment><USER19> 737 pilots have said that they are already trained in the tendency of a 737 to pitch up when full power is applied at low speeds, which apparently is present in all 737 models. (Stall recovery procedures for a 737 apparently specifically detail that you must lower the nose _first_ , and then apply power (and not too much power) as applying full or higher power near stall speed will overwhelm the pitch authority.

What's not clear to me is how much worse the characteristics of the MAX are compared to the NG or earlier 737s? Would it really be unsafe to fly without the MCAS, or was this just the route Boeing took to avoid having to retrain pilots?

<comment><USER22> Money's on a last minute fix to the problem and engineering being told the launch couldn't be delayed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> They should have a philosophy of building aerodynamically stable aircraft rather than relying on software and sensors to produce an illusion of stability.

<comment><USER24> Consider that before WW2, pilots had direct connection between the control and moving the surface. After WW2, planes got too big and heavy for that, and hydraulic boost was added. Starting with the 747, where it is not credible a pilot could control it with muscle, the switch was made to fully powered surfaces.

The trouble with that is the pilot's controls simply crack open a valve, and hydraulics do the rest, meaning the pilot gets no feedback via forces on the control column. He'll "overcontrol" the aircraft leading to a crash. The solution is the addition of a "feel computer" which pushes back on the stick making the airplane feel like direct control. Safe flying relies on the feel computer working properly.

Also, the travel of the control surfaces is automatically reduced as speed goes up, because full travel at high speeds will literally tear the airplane apart.

So right there are two flight critical computer systems on jets, and modern air travel would not be possible without them. Each produces an illusion to the pilot.

<comment><USER23> Right, this makes sense. The system you describe magnifies or reduces the signals going back and forth between the pilot and the control surfaces. It can be modelled linearly and done with an analog system.

However I'm referring to a computer literally trying to hide a stall that occurs when you pitch the nose up by producing an inverse signal out of thin air that has no input from the pilot. Why wasn't this needed before the max moniker was added to the plane?

Seriously, build the plane so that this doesn't happen. Don't create some MCAS system to hide it.

<comment><USER24> MCAS was there to prevent a stall, not hide it. All airplanes will stall under varying circumstances. Much of pilot training goes towards avoiding and recovering from stalls, but they still result in crashes.

<comment><USER23> The stall didn't exist at that configuration previously. MCAS prevents the pilot from even knowing about this stall by preventing the plane from even going into that configuration. In other words it hides the stall by preventing you from maneuvering the plane into it. It fits the definition of "Hide." But that's besides the point, we're arguing about semantics here.

I'm saying similar to the older design make the aerodynamic shape good enough so that it won't hit that stall when the plane is flying at that same configuration. I'm also saying that the control system should only magnify or reduce the signals the pilot sends to the control surfaces rather than actually sending it's own override signals itself. That's it... pure and simple.

<comment><USER25> > MCAS prevents the pilot from even knowing about this stall by preventing the > plane from even going into that configuration. In other words it hides the > stall ...[.] [T]he control system should only magnify or reduce the signals > the pilot sends to the control surfaces rather than actually sending it's > own.

What about fly-by-wire? Many aerodynamic controls are assisted by avionics, and have been for decades. The MCAS system is not fundamentally different. The intent of the system was to put the plane where the pilot wanted intended it to go, similar to how a fly-by-wire system will keep a plane flying straight if a pilot doesn't touch the yoke.

The problem seems to be that the MCAS system breaks under certain conditions, however the fundamental idea is sound. Planes have been doing similar control adjustments for decades.

<comment><USER23> No its not. Fighter planes like the F-16 are designed to be aerodynamically unstable for higher maneuverability. For this case an incredibly fast control system is required to make minor adjustments to the plane to maintain stability. This control system is in constant control of the plane and the entire jet aircraft is designed to operate in such a way.

The 737 MAX was made more aerodynamically unstable then the original 737. A partial control system was put in place to hide this instability should the pilot maneuver the plane into the configuration that will trigger a stall. It's an entirely different situation than the jet plane above.

Think of it like a bandaid to cover up a problem. I'm saying don't use bandaids. Design the plane correctly from the ground up.

<comment><USER25> > A partial control system was put in place to hide this instability should > the pilot maneuver ... It's an entirely different situation than the jet > plane above.

I wasn't talking about military craft, I was referring to commercial aircraft that also have fly-by-wire capabilities, of which there are plenty of examples.[1] The MCAS is not fundamentally different from these other existing systems.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly-by- wire#Airbus/Boeing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly-by-wire#Airbus/Boeing)

<comment><USER23> Right, except military aircraft is where FBW was developed and very very much _required_ for performance. Such is not the case for passenger airliners. Only two Boeing planes use FBW, the 777 and 787. Every other plane does not use it including the 737.

The MCAS is fundamentally different in that it is a partial FBW system that they tacked on on top of an existing control scheme that is not FBW.

It's a random partial FBW component grafted onto something that's completely different. Sort of like a mod chip in a console. It's a hack. To drive home the exact opposite of what you said: "MCAS is abnormal and fundamentally different from many existing systems."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> And one more thing - trim tabs should be separate airfoils, not an electronically set setting exactly for the purpose of reliability.

That way, an elevator should always have more authority than the trim tab, and be able to overpower it if it fails.

On other hand, independent trim tabs can work as reserve control surfaces if hydraulics fail.

The same design thinking is behind having engine reverse locks being physical parts, separately powered, and operated independently of electronic engine controls: a hard lock will always be able to overpower haywire electronics.

Same with emergency chassis deployment system on smaller planes, they are often designed to be able to physically disconnect/overpower motors that pull chassis, or chassis cowers if they jam or electronics bugs out.

<comment><USER27> Trim would never be a separate airfoil because that would be horrendous for efficiency. Instead they have an all-moving tailplane.

They could have prevented this issue by slightly increasing the tailplane size to restore stability margin, but they didn't presumably for development cost and fuel efficiency reasons.

<comment><USER26> Are you really sure that it will be "horrendous?"

That thinking remind me of people who try to economise on few microns of plastic we see in electronics OEM industry. Pro managers trying to shave microns from casing, ending up with multimillion dollar recalls, and that for savings not even amounting to few snickers bars.

<comment><USER9> You're adding an entire new system. That's more wiring, more programming, more hydraulics, more moving parts, etc. It's far from trivial.

<comment><USER26> Far from trivial, but it was done in the past nevertheless. All things above were going away one after another, and replaced with often ineffectual electronic safeguards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Any design will have consequences, and is thus relevant. But changing it has as much of a consequence as not changing it. Example: Airbus design has "stick" type yokes that are not linked together, and are out of the field of view. If one pilot is using improper inputs, the other pilot won't know. Boeing planes have mechanically connected yokes, both pilots are aware of flight control inputs. Is one a better design than the other? I suggest it's the wrong question, the right question is, what are the consequences of the design on cockpit communication, management, and training and can we meet the ensuing requirements?

</comment><comment><USER29> The calls for more and better training make me wonder why we don't just train for the relatively rare over pitch characteristic that the MCAS system is intended to prevent. If we can't actually train for that then why are we suggesting that the solution is just being quick to turn the system off? What level of unreliability is required to make it better to just never turn it on?

</comment><comment><USER30> I wonder why Boeing didn't they design new, longer landing gear instead of moving the engines forward?

Then the engines could have remained in the same position. I am sure most airports could handle a taller airplane.

<comment><USER31> Not a direct answer, but what you're more or less asking is "why did they not modernize the 757 instead?" The answer is type ratings. Pilots can fly certain classes of planes based on common training. I.E. the 757 and 767 are common enough you can be trained for both at the same time. The issue with changing geometry of the 737 is you have to then retrain pilots against a new type instead of letting them take an orientation course on the new plane.

Honestly if the accidents did not happen we'd be calling them geniuses. After all, that's why the 737 is the best selling plane ever.

<comment><USER32> > Not a direct answer, but what you're more or less asking is "why did they > not modernize the 757 instead?" The answer is type ratings.

But if there's already an existing type out there that's a better fit, why not just use that?

<comment><USER33> Because the plane was basically designed for Southwest Airlines and American Airlines, and they demanded a new 737, not a new plane.

<comment><USER34> "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." -- Henry Ford (purportedly)

<comment><USER35> There is still a significant niche market for faster horses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Does anyone know why Tunisia refused to work with the FAA?

</comment><comment><USER37> "First introduced in West Germany as a short-hop commuter jet in the early Cold War"

The Cold War started in the second half of the 1940's, so I rather doubt that is true.

</comment><comment><USER38> My family would have flown on a 737 Max this morning. Flight was cancelled. The FAA was literally the last regulatory org to ground the 737 Max... I'm livid that corruption and bias put my family at risk!

<comment><USER23> Yeah. It is strange that they were the last regulatory org to do so. . In America basically every governmental body is in the pocket of big business.

<comment><USER32> This is an interesting take on it: [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/opinion/federal- aviation-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/opinion/federal-aviation- administration-boeing.html).

Basically, the US has taken the view that any regulation should be strongly supported by facts and evidence, while many other countries are more willing to regulate on a precautionary basis, before all the results are in.

<comment><USER23> A speculative opinion piece. Here is another one: [https://www.vox.com/policy- and-politics/2019/3/13/18263719/b...](https://www.vox.com/policy-and- politics/2019/3/13/18263719/boeing-ceo-dennis-muilenburg-trump-tweet-call)

Two planes of the same model crashing of is a statistical anomaly. Science is the correlation of hypothesis with statistical evidence. If I made a hypothesis saying that something is wrong with the 737 max then two 737 planes crashing is valid supporting evidence. Therefore, the decision to regulate is scientific.

The decision to not regulate and claim that there is no scientific evidence when their clearly is... is more likely to be a cover story to protect big businesses then an actual decision made to support your safety.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The physics of angular momentum radio - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1410.4268?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter <comment><USER2> Photons have both spin angular momentum (SAM) and orbital angular momentum (OAM). OAM was found theoretically by L. Allen et al. in 1992.

What if the the space is full of efficient OAM encoded radio transmissions from alien civilizations and we are just getting close to discovery?

<comment><USER3> >What if the the space is full of efficient OAM encoded radio transmissions

Unlikely. OAM is very localized: only those along the transmission path can determine the OAM component of the light. You can't "broadcast" an OAM signal across a large area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Haven't parsed the whole paper, but my first thought was "did they just re- invent circular polarization?"

<comment><USER5> No, they have proposed that something like polarization modulated signals would make it possible to send data just as well as frequency modulated or amplitude modulated signals.

<comment><USER6> Naive question, what does multipath do to polarization?

<comment><USER7> Circular polarized waves invert (i.e. RHCP switches to LHCP) upon reflection. For example, precision GPS antennas need good cross-pol rejection to keep the LHCP from multipath (reflections from buildings and ground) from interfering with direct RHCP from the satellite.

In general, linear polarized waves retain their polarization, but I believe there are special cases (such as Brewster angle on dielectrics) where you can get some depolarization.

From what I read a while back, on an IEEE article on this orbital polarization, the number of orthogonal modes you can achieve is limited by antenna construction, and it definitely can't handle multi-path; strictly point-to-point microwave link. I'll bet rain will really mess it up, more so than your typical rain fade.

Still very cool though, and I still don't have my head wrapped around it, despite 20 years of RF/Microwave engineering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> From what I understood, this requires varying the complex-valued field spatially near the receiver. Isn't that equivalent somehow to having multiple antennas and creating streams with those (i.e. varying the field near the receiver and detecting it, aka MIMO)?

<comment><USER9> You are not alone in drawing that conclusion: [http://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=downloadFile&recordO...](http://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=downloadFile&recordOId=2062936&fileOId=2339120)</comment></comment>


Google Is Fighting Disinformation Across Their Products - <AUTHOR> https://blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/fighting-disinformation-across-our-products/ <comment><USER2> "Disinformation" still seems to be a convenient and insidious vague way of describing "indiscriminate" bias... that also gives Google a free pass to listen and peak at anything going through their systems to "correct" behavior they deem misinformative.</comment>


Devaa.txt - <AUTHOR> http://janit.iki.fi/shit/devaa.txt <comment><USER2> I do wonder how this made it to the front page. It's an amusing short story, but mostly for stylistic reasons pretty much untranslatable.</comment>


Mail Avenger: get rid of spam for good - <AUTHOR> http://www.mailavenger.org/ <comment><USER2> Looks really good, I will try it when I have some time :-)</comment>


Ask HN: Solo owner here, how important is automation? - <AUTHOR>

I have a side project that I would like to see turn into a full time job. Right now it is only me and I have no interest in hiring anyone else, but I am running the entire show which can be a bit overwhelming at times.I sell a physical product but it is deeply facilitated by a strong web presence.
How important is automating the business?
I've set up scripts thus far that will email me when the mysql server is down, my node server is down, the site is unreachable, etc. Emails to customers are automated etc. But I know there is much more I can do.
I am capable of building just about whatever in terms of automation but there is a real upfront cost in terms of my time so my question is really Would it be wise for me to spend time in automating business tasks or should I defer that until more sales come in? <comment><USER2> Automation makes sense when it will: 1) enhance the user experience, 2) save time, or 3) mitigate the risk.

These things are probably in chronological order. First focus on little things that will improve the user experience (like sending automated shipping confirmation) so they like the site even more. Then focus on eliminating manual and time-consuming tasks, and reducing the risk.

Most of the things you mentioned are related to monitoring and reducing the risk. While appropriate, monitoring mysql is pointless unless you have have people going to the site in the first place.

(and if your MySQL is going down frequently, you have other problems)

Don't over-engineer your project. Spend more time on creating the MVP, finding core users, understanding what they want and how to better service them. You'll know when automation is needed (e.g., when you spend several hours non- stop doing this dull manual task, when you could invest a day or two and have it fully automated).

<comment><USER3> I have a tendency to "over-engineer"/overthink projects. I love process but the three points above are awesome. They now are on a sticky note next to my desk. Good litmus test for automation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Until you are able to go full-time, your primary focus should be to build revenue to the point that you can take that step. Have you looked at the opportunity cost of building your business automation compared with just buying suitable SaaS solutions and concentrating on building revenue? I get the impression you like the technical side, but that generally becomes an obstacle to growth.

I recommend reading "The e-Myth" \- work on your business not in your business.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've noticed this but have not heard anyone articulate it, I will look into that book. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does your side project _really_ require you to run your own node server and mysql server? Do the cost benefit on running those things yourself vs paying more for something like Heroku etc or other services with higher level abstractions.

I think automation is really important at the business process level but at this stage you should probably give yourself a budget to buy vs build in most all but your really core areas. Lay the foundation but defer where you can.

Things I would do right away is:

\- Have a credit card just for the business

\- Automate your accounting (push orders to accounting system)

\- Automate your inventory management (at least have a system)

\- Figure out shipping well and automate that.

I leverage Shopify and Xero for these and it works OK for now.

Feel free to email me if you want to compare notes in detail.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Does your side project really require you to run your own node server and > mysql server? Do the cost benefit on running those things yourself vs paying > more for something like Heroku etc or other services with higher level > abstractions.

You're totally right, I have a bad habit of wanting to build everything from scratch and in house, I am aware of this and I will need to get over this and enlist other services if I want to run this company by myself.

I really should have used a service like shopify, instead I built my whole site from scratch and integrated the site with Paypal's api via node.js. The site looks and performs excellent but it was and will continue to be a lot of work.

Those are good suggestions and I will review those.

<comment><USER4> I can relate to your approach. Engineers have a tendency to allow the "not invented here syndrome" take hold.

But ... that is not necessarily a bad thing. It is possible that you are more passionate and motivated by the technical aspects. If your product and the niche that it serves doesn't stir the same intensity of passion then maybe you should consider amping up your skills in the infrastructure side and finding lucrative gigs in that area. If you decide to change track in the future, your current business might be a viable sale proposition. The new owner might need you to maintain the infrastructure on contract.

Money is good, but once your basic needs are met it doesn't buy more happiness. In the long term you are more successful if you do what you are good at and enjoy doing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [http://blog.asmartbear.com/virtual-assistant- startup.html](http://blog.asmartbear.com/virtual-assistant-startup.html)

 _before you launch your product, think about the processes you can avoid automating_

 _you'll have plenty of time before you need to scale, and you may never need to scale if the idea doesn't work. Every hour spent writing code is wasted time if that code could be replaced by a human being doing the same task until your product proves itself_

</comment><comment><USER7> If you don't know how important it is to you, then you're probably doing it for your own enjoyment. Or more likely avoidance of more important stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you're right, I do seem to be avoiding other tasks that are probably more important at least right now.</comment></comment>


After optical cloaking comes Matter-Wave cloaking - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.physicstoday.org/newspicks/2008/03/cloaking_matter_waves.html

<comment><USER2> Translation: "I want to jump on the cloaking bandwagon. But I'm a BEC guy. I know, matter wave cloaking!"</comment>


Telehack retro command line museum - <AUTHOR> http://telehack.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> From <http://telehack.com/telehack.html>

"Telehack is a simulation of a sylized arpanet/usenet, circa 1985-1990. It is a full multi-user simulation, including 25,000 hosts and BBS's the early net, thousands of files from the ero, a collection of adventure and IF games, a working BASIC interpreter with a library of programs to run, simulated historical users, and more."

</comment><comment><USER2> I wasn't born at this time, but using telehack I feel like I'm inside "The Hacker Crackdown" which I read last year :-). Very good idea!

</comment><comment><USER3> This totally brings the memories flooding back; thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> There are about 25,000 hosts, mostly mined from old uucp maps. You can login to the hosts or finger @them and see users logged in who posted from them at the time. Try e.g. finger @sgi.</comment></comment>


Is this yet more proof that Google doesn't understand open source licensing? - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/support/issues/detail?id=5543

<comment><USER2> Nope. More likely indicates that Google has fewer people working to develop code.google.com than you expect.

<comment><USER3> A team of 16 people is more than I expected.

\- <http://code.google.com/p/support/people/list></comment></comment>


Macron to call on U.S. funds to build French startups, not steal them - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-tech/macron-to-call-on-u-s-funds-to-build-french-start-ups-not-steal-them-idUSKBN1O20WD <comment><USER2> Nobody is "stealing" French startups, they're being acquired. Striking a nationalist tone might be great for poll numbers but does little to provide liquidity to entrepreneurs who are taking significant risks. If Macron is trying to boost the attractiveness of investing in France or entrepreneurship he's certainly going about it the wrong way.</comment>


Ask HN: Are short-term internships/junior-positions possible? - <AUTHOR>

The "standard" internship tends to be something like 3 months long. Is it ever possible to get hired as an intern for 2 months, or even 1 month?<p>I'd also be interested in knowing if it is also possible to get hired for junior developer positions for periods of 1-2 months. Obviously that does seem like more of a contractor relationship. <comment><USER2> Absolutely. I joined a scheme in the UK run by Shell called Shell Step. After talking to one of their in-house recruiters they sent me to a medium-sized company for an interview and for nine weeks I worked as a developer in this firms marketing and development departments.

The experience was invaluable. I picked up ASP.NET/C# from working there and a year later I had graduated. I had this, and another internship on my CV and the second my exams started I had around six or seven offers for an interview.

</comment><comment><USER3> Of course. Asking the business you are applying to - or just asking businesses straight up is one way you could organize this.</comment>


Lego Safe is ultra secure - <AUTHOR> http://www.slipperybrick.com/2008/11/legos-safe/ <comment><USER2> Sadly, the logic is done in digital form. I think a mechanical lego safe you have been much geekier.</comment>


Can we design the ideal city or must it evolve - <AUTHOR> http://aeon.co/magazine/culture/can-we-design-the-ideal-city-or-must-it-evolve/

<comment><USER2> If you design a city, and then design a slightly better or worse city, and repeat that process until every new modification only creates a worse city, is that not at least a locally ideal city evolved through design?

</comment><comment><USER3> There is no such thing as an ideal city. Everyone who lives in it would have different needs, and these needs change over time. City dynamics are unpredictable. How can you design for an audience that is at once unpredictable, and does not know what it wants?</comment>


Three Lies I Was Told This Week [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuR8jGnZV2U <comment><AUTHOR> This is an important video because it highlights a major problem with how reporting (news or otherwise) is done in today's world.</comment>


New Symbol of Elite Access - E-Mail to the Chief - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/us/politics/01obama.html?_r=1 <comment><USER2> "To minimize the risk, the government technology gurus have made it impossible to forward e-mail messages from the president"

That doesn't make any sense to me. Anyone know what that's supposed to mean?

<comment><USER3> They could be talking about drm features in outlook 2007 which lets you specify restrictions on forwarding of messages.

Of course, it can be 'broken'.</comment></comment>


Show HN: coolAnalytics - A cool trend analytics, without tracking visitors - <AUTHOR> https://analytics.coollabs.io <comment><USER2> Absolutely love the look and feel of the website. Some advice would be to make the Demo button more prominent. Right now it is rather lost in the upper right corner.

Also, I think you should add a small FAQ section because people will come and ask you why would they use this instead of GA.

It is absolutely awesome that more and more services that are privacy-focused arise. Users need to learn that there are more simple alternatives to GA. I build 123Metrics [1] as an alternative with privacy in mind.

[1] [https://123metrics.com/](https://123metrics.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Considered & implemented your feedback!

Take a look on it! [https://analytics.coollabs.io](https://analytics.coollabs.io) :-)

Appreciate your feedback on it!</comment></comment>