Some math about the Engineyard contest - <AUTHOR> http://antirez.com/post/some-math-about-the-engineyard-contest.html <comment><USER3> So here is my general thinking on this contest, with an eye on computational efficiency:

1\. SHA-1 is done in 64 byte chunks, with the result of one chunk being the base of the next. Padding and length only factor in at the last chunk. This means you can half the number of computations (or even 1/3 it...) by computing the first block of a "prefix string" then going from there.

2\. Cuda is good on integer ops. SHA-1 is integer ops.

3\. All the combinations of <= 5 printable chars can be represented in <60 MB meaning they don't have to keep being generated.

Not saying anything the article says was wrong per-say Im saying that large amounts of computation can be factored out from the naive approach, large enough to be meaningful that is.

<comment><USER4> I've done some work with CUDA, so I'll just tell you ahead of time: it will probably be decently fast, but not nearly the kind of speeds you'd get from something like matrix multiplication. The problem is going to be that you need to fit the data to hash in "shared memory" (which is sort of like an L2 cache on the GPU). The standard shared memory size in CUDA is 16kb. Also, because of the way that data must be allocated in shared memory, you're not going to be able to get many string permutations into shared memory at once.

However, I think a good solution (if you're going to use CUDA, which I was thinking about doing as well) might be to load one permuation of words from the dictionary into the shared memory, and then have each thread compute one permuation of the various capitalizations for that string. This way you're mostly working out of the "cache" and that's about the best thing you can do on CUDA.

<comment><USER3> I thought that shared mem of 16kb was on a per core basis? It's very possible I misunderstood, in which case: crap! Either way the, the algorithm I have in mind looks pretty matrixy, if you want I can keep you updated as I test things out.

<comment><USER4> It's 16kb per multiprocessor. I believe there are 16 cores per multiprocessor, and multiple threads are scheduled at one time in 'blocks'.

I actually started a thread in the CUDA general discussion forum, perhaps you could come by there and discuss it:

<http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=102228>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm going to try to crank out a little program to work on this over the weekend (what's the worst that could happen, I wasted a couple of hours?).

Unless you have some really serious hardware at your disposal, or you have a good knowledge of how to attack the SHA-1 hash algorithm, the best bet is going to be to just have the computer try random combinations of the words with various capitalizations (plus the extra couple of letters you're allowed to put at the end). Best case scenario, you get lucky and happen to find a fairly well-scoring string that you can submit.

<comment><USER5> here's that program for you, in shitty perl: <http://gist.github.com/149173>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> ## cross posted to blog as well.

Assume the xor of your test hash with their desired hash is just 160 random bits. Furthermore, choose a certain number N, and assert: they must be white!! What is the probability that this is true:

      (0.5 for each bit)^(number of bits you chose).

So given 160 random bits, what are the chances of there being atleast N bits set to zero?

      (0.5^N)*(ways to choose N from 160).

      (0.5^N)*(160!/(N!*(160-N)!)).

define d = 160 - <USER2>

      0.5^(160-d)*(160!/((160-d)!*d!))

So I think that you are miscalculating by a bit, that is why & how.

NOTE: difference is in the 0.5^(here)

<comment><USER7> He was computing the probability of a Hamming distance of _exactly_ D instead of at most D. To get the "at most" version, you could just add up the exact ones, but it's better to just use the central limit theorem instead.

As for your math, I think you are over counting a little :). The problem is, 100...0 is counted by both ??0...0 and ?0?00...0, where ? marks a digit that you've allowed to be free, and 0 marks a "chosen" 0.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Rule 5 from the contest:

      "5.  In the case of a tied Hamming distance
          (entirely possible), the winner will be chosen
           by lottery among people with the best distance"

This says: don't take me seriously.

Hopefully for their sake they get 1000s of people running implementations and by chance someone will get 19 and win. They won't even have the best algorithm, but it will test permutations randomly.

I wrote up a solution, but I prefer scratch off tickets.

<comment><USER9> What would you suggest they do? Your follow-on indicates that you think ties should be adjudicated on the basis of the "best" algorithm, but how do you objectively define that?

<comment><USER3> A simple criterion would be "capable of calculating the most results", which can be objective and meets some definitions of "best algorithm".

<comment><AUTHOR> A simpler and less biased way IMHO is that if two teams will end with a result of, for instance, 30, but one team was able to find two or more strings, this is the winner.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


HTC 1 - <AUTHOR> http://designfabulous.blogspot.com/2010/07/htc-1.html <comment><USER3> Lacks the standard android buttons for a more iphone like single button interface. On android you need to have the home, menu & back button or else most apps won't work. The search button is also needed but the lack of one would probably not break most applications.

Designs like this are great, but often the achieve their elegance by ignoring physics or some other constraint that makes them completely unworkable.

<comment><USER4> Things that came to mind

the "kick stand" would be hard to engineer due to speaker location.

the UV light while charging thing is a bit off

If you want to design a phone for the ages, it needs to be somewhat expandable, a sd card slot and/or a changeable main board might do the trick

<comment><USER5> I think the last one is a very good point. Why not go the whole hog though and make the mainboard upgradable?

The phone could just be a really nicely designed and well built 'shell' to hold the main board + display etc. Then every 2 years, instead of buying a whole new phone, you just get an upgrade to the internals.

It seems a little silly to pay _too_ much attention to the external design of phones since most people only have them for a year then change.

I'd sort of like a _beautifully_ designed custom phone shell into which I slot the latest internals with the new chips etc. Having the same phone shell for 10+ years, but seeing the internals upgrade would be nice.

<comment><USER6> > I'd sort of like a beautifully designed custom phone shell into which I slot > the latest internals with the new chips etc. Having the same phone shell for > 10+ years, but seeing the internals upgrade would be nice.

Maybe we treat our phones differently, but unless it was made of diamond it would be beat to hell well before 10 years passed. Not to mention that mobile changes so quickly that internals will be hardly recognizable in 10+ years (at least 5G and god knows what else).

<comment><USER5> I think most people keep the same wallet/card case/key rings etc for 5-10 years at least. So I don't see why a mobile can't survive either.

I'd actually quite like a metal/leather one. And no, a case/protector just isn't the same.

Do people here remember the Nokias where you could buy different facias, backs, etc - They kinda separated the case in that way which I thought was a step forward. And if the facia gets scratched you just bought a new one and slotted it in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Please, HTC, no more ad-libbing your own user interfaces They suck and are hard to remove. We all call it nonSense for a reason. Stick to making hardware, and let Google handle the software. It's cheaper and your users will be happier. (Just once I would like to buy a phone that I don't have to reflash as soon as I bring it home. Should have gotten an N1, I guess.)

Hardware-wise, this concept is not too compelling. Needs physical buttons. Needs the trackball. I don't want to pay for stereo sound or the ability to turn into an alarm clock. Give me battery life and a higher-res screen instead. I don't want gimmicks, I want a solid phone that always works and doesn't get in my way.

I agree that they should make their "premium" phones out of metal, though. I think Apple is leading the way here (with a metal case and a very high-res screen), and that HTC is just going to copy. But that's fine, an Android-based iPhone 4 clone with WiMax will be phenomenal.

<comment><USER8> > Please, HTC, no more ad-libbing your own user interfaces They suck and are > hard to remove. We all call it nonSense for a reason.

No, people on XDA developers (phone nerds) use the tern 'NonSense'. HTC sticks to common UI principles, ie:

* Identifiable icons (eg, using a globe, rather than a blue and white sphere, for a web browser)

* Known color schemes, eg, black, green, and white, versus Googles white, blue, orange and green.

* A home screen which can host animations. Google's can't, which is why the widget selection is poor and those that exist don't do as much.

* Always visible phone function, something Google themselves did in 2.2

* Widgets that don't waste space, compared to the default 2 x 4 widgets for Twitter and Facebook with the massive stip between.

I could go on. HTC have UI designers. Android clearly don't - it's not a matter of personal preference, it's a matter of basic design principles.

Edit: Fixed 'Apple' rather than 'Android'.

<comment><USER9> > HTC have UI designers. Apple clearly don't

Wait, what?

<comment><USER10> Pretty sure he meant Google, which wouldn't be true either...

<comment><USER8> Well per the post, there's more evidence of Google either not adopting or ignoring well known UI design principles throughout Android, in terms of making common functions widely available, consistency in UI, not using a color scheme with two colors directly sitting across from each other on the wheel.

<comment><USER11> They famously eschew design ideas from design "dictators", favoring data- driven design (e.g. choosing a blue that yields more ad clicks); I wonder if they do this in the Android development cycle or once it is in users' hands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm not at all impressed with this design concept. It's sophomoric design school work, the functionality is not fully thought-out and the UI is HORRIBLE - except for the 1/2 diamond arrows which are trite. It also reminds me that industrial design and interface design are two separate specialties.

That being said, I dig the design language and the inspiration found in fine old cameras and watches.

What I really want is the industrial design and hardware of Apple running the Android OS with the user experience and UI design of Palm WebOS. That's my sweetspot.

<comment><USER13> > What I really want is the industrial design and hardware of Apple running > the Android OS with the user experience and UI design of Palm WebOS.

Well, let's not be too kind to Apple. The new phone is already behind the greatest and latest. Apple just has a brand name.

 _HOWEVER!_ Lucky for you the lead OS designer for Palm WebOS just switched to Android. Expect greatness from the next OS update (assuming you already have 2.2).

<comment><USER12> >> What I really want is the industrial design and hardware of Apple

> Well, let's not be too kind to Apple. The new phone is already behind the > greatest and latest.

I agree. I was talking about case/glass/build quality/materials "innovation"/etc. rather than the chip specs. Didn't make that clear.

Expandable memory is awesome and the Snapdragon et. al. seem good like it's pretty good albeit maybe power hungry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> honestly, it's a big amount of work that is also presented in a very nice way (nice graphics, really), but the main-ingredient of this whole project, the designed appearance of the phone, lacks proper proportions, is undynamic and caused either by unawareness of what makes great design, or it is caused by fear of revealing the authors unawareness.

Just criticizing the appearance though.

As far as the usability goes: \- is it a good idea to have a curved touch screen? \- will constant uv-raying create super germs? \- i like the idea of the built in stand, at least on those graphics it looks interesting, but i simply wont buy a mobile where u could flip, twist or slide party away, around or off - because those parts decrease the life-expectancy of the object dramatically and are the first things that wore off and take away all this fancy feeling, that a high priced designy object gives you in the beginning.

<comment><USER14> still, if he were my design student - i think this is what this project is all about - i would give him an a+

<comment><USER15> Sure, give it a design award. Lots of awful devices are explained by "it must have won an award"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Steve Jobs said the iPhone 4 evokes the feeling of an old Leica camera, designer makes a study of a phone supposed to evoke the feeling of a Leica camera. Where is the originality in that? It's way not to beat Apple.

Instead of thinking "how can I make a phone look like an iPhone", better think "how do I want my phone to look". If all you can come up with is an iPhone, change your job (and get an iPhone).

<comment><USER17> True - Apple have claimed Leica. Evoke the feeling of some other camera - <USER2> that big of a deal.

<comment><USER18> what would you propose? Hasselblad?

<comment><USER19> Well Braun's not out of the question:

[http://gizmodo.com/343641/1960s-braun-products-hold-the- secr...](http://gizmodo.com/343641/1960s-braun-products-hold-the-secrets-to- apples-future)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "One of the big flaws with Android is the music player"

Huh? Why? What's wrong with it? Seems great to me :/

</comment><comment><USER20> There are some beautiful design concepts in this. I think the number one thing lacking in software design is the gap between the software and the device it's running on. It's something that often breaks that metaphor that the software is supposed to provide. It would be really interesting to see more software that takes the broader context of the environment the sotware is running in into account.

<comment><USER7> Can you elaborate?

Right now, you press the calendar button and you see your calendar. You press the phone button, dial, and you make a phone call to the number you dialed. I am not sure what's missing here.

<comment><USER20> Not all Android phones have a phone button. The G1 does, the Nexus One (which I have) doesn't. Mostly, there isn't really a standard for what an Android phone should look and operate like. I don't really expect this between manufacturers, but even within manufacturers there can be pretty significant differences between devices.

Also, because Android doesn't have a particularly strong stance on how UIs should work and should be laid out, there also hasn't been a very strong stance on how buttons on the phone should be laid out and what the device should look like. For instance, the back button can change functionality quite a bit between apps. Or also, the G1 has a camera button but the nexus one (foolishly) doesn't. Most devices have a UI completely unrelated to the phone hardware.

I wouldn't just pick on Android but I think it's a problem that Windows and Linux have had as well. The experience just isn't that cohesive and it makes them more difficult to use. I'm not really a fan of Apple, but it's definitely one place where they've put in a lot more work than others.

<comment><USER21> Shouldn't there be significant differences between devices? What's the point in a single manufacturer making multiple devices if they're all exact clones of each other.

Apple isn't necessarily more cohesive, they make a single model of phone. By definition, everything they do is 100% cohesive.

<comment><USER22> > Apple isn't necessarily more cohesive, they make a single model of phone. By > definition, everything they do is 100% cohesive.

There are five iOS devices (iPhone 3GS/4, iPod Touch 2nd/3rd generation, iPad). Two of those are phones and the rest aren't, but only because they can't make calls. Who wants to do that, anyway?

<comment><USER23> There are 3 devices: iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. All three have the same buttons in pretty much the same spots, as I recall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Very striking design. For me, it brought back a flood of memories of my grandfather and his piezoelectric cigarette lighter, of which looked quite similar to this phone.

I am so disappointed this phone isn't real, but simply a concept. Still, I appreciate Andrew Kim's talents.

</comment><comment><USER25> Once I got to the last slide I realized it was a joke.

<comment><USER26> Yes, that reminded me of <http://pomegranatephone.com/> \- which is old but brilliant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Looks like the iphone version of an Android phone. Doesn't seem like a really good phone. Although the UI seems less cluttered. That is my one big complaint about Android. None of the phone manufacturers have wrapped Android UI in nice way either.

</comment><comment><USER28> A pretty nice design. The built-in tilting mechanism is genius: First reaction was "why would I want that?" but after thinking about it for a while, I could see using it a lot.

My only gripe with these mockups is the typography on the world clock. Why is there a period after the place:

      new york.
      9:00pm
      seattle.
      6:00pm

Very confusing image. But overall, good.

<comment><USER29> I thought about that a little, thought "yeah, that's kinda weird...", and then looked again. I actually think I like the periods: they break up the lines. An important difference between the mock-up and your example is that they're _right_ justified; the period makes the locations stand out.

      new york.
         9:00pm
       seattle.
         6:00pm
        london.
         2:00am
         tokyo.
        10:00am

vs

       new york
         9:00pm
        seattle
         6:00pm
         london
         2:00am
          tokyo
        10:00am

note the wall-o'-text effect in the second, and the organization implied in the first.

<comment><USER30> I think it's more weird that no one's objected to the four clocks. Even as a member of the jet-set elite, I'd think that local time is still most important in the general sense. Feature that. Have the global times underneath; gotta know when the markets open after all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Looks great. I feel like there must be a dozen real world reasons why it's infeasible. Antenna performance, cost, size, weight, etc. At least I want to believe that, that explains the reality we live in where objects like this generally don't exist. The only other explanation is inept companies who don't hire or listen to good designers.

</comment><comment><USER32> The UV light is interesting. I like the idea bit it looks like it'll only kill bacteria on the front part of the phone.

<comment><USER33> The bacteria would never harm you, so it is pointless either way. I suppose it might make some people feel better regardless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I love it. I would buy it in a heartbeat.

</comment><comment><USER34> Stereo sound isn't going to be much use when the speakers are only 4 inches apart.

<comment><USER35> That depends highly on how directional the speakers are.

<comment><AUTHOR> Or how small your head is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The screens are a bit hit and miss for me. The alarm clock, music player, and bottom half of the home screen (messages) are beautiful. The top half of the home screen (weather and time) is horrible. The others - meh.

</comment><comment><USER37> I personally like the design of this. Actually, when I saw the first picture, I thought, "I want one...". Plus I love the idea of the stand. Use cases were already flowing through my head when I saw this!

<comment><USER38> I like the stand idea also. But, does it mean I need to remove the case/bumper if I want to stand it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> make it WATERPROOF already

</comment><comment><USER40> Looks like a sexy gadget prototype, underthought and overdesigned. Lack of buttons, alarm clock stand bullshit introducing moveable parts for no particular reasons, curved screen, etc.

</comment><comment><USER41> If HTC can pull this off, I (a huge apple fanboy) might consider switching. I love developing for the android platform, but the phones that have come out so far just irritate me.

</comment><comment><USER42> Would love to see a screen at the back also -- dual screens, if you will. That way I can have one app running on the "front" screen and another on the "back" screen.

<comment><USER30> If I'm holding the phone in landscape with thumbs on front and fingers on the back, what I'd really like is buttons on the back so I'm not limited to just my thumbs. Shift, spacebar and an 'alternate layout' button (switches the onscreen keyboard to symbols/accents) come to mind. Maybe navigation buttons so you don't need to constantly shift your hand to reach the hardware buttons.

That said, many flip phones do actually have dual screens. Never seen them used simultaneously though. (Woz's solution for multitasking also comes to mind - just have two phones.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's almost no side margin next to touch screen. I wonder how difficult it is to grip without accidentally setting off touch events.

</comment><comment><USER43> The iPhone 4 featured next to the caption "Humans have two ears" is wrong: the volume buttons and silence toggle are on the wrong side.

</comment><comment> sans-serif Who else also got to the "the mobile phone is home to many microorganisms" part, stopped, took out his own phone to wipe it clean?

</comment><comment><USER44> Is there anything Helvetica can't fix?

<comment><USER45> [http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2010/july/the- helvet...](http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2010/july/the-helvetica- killer)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> The UV light is completely hilarious. It would be far more effective in a UV container.

</comment><comment><USER47> I just got an xperia x10 and I don't care for no htc phone no more

</comment><comment><USER48> great designs. and your blog is truly awesome!

</comment><comment><USER49> I don't understand this "the software and hardware have to work in harmony". This argument makes no sense with any other OS/hardware in existence. The OS should look good. The hardware should look good. Does the wallpaper match the casing? The user is going to change it anyway. I simply don't understand this logic.

This concept encourages further vendor UI overlays, custom icons, and the 4x4 app icon grid. It's clear that it was inspired by the iPhone and it simply removes the innovation of the Android homescreen paradigm in order to look more like the iphone.

That having been said, why a manufacturer hasn't stepped forward and created a piece of hardware to rival the iPhone is beyond me. Until the hardware is compelling, all Android phones will be interchangable. For example, how many Android users would jump at iPhone-like hardware running Froyo/Gingerbread?

<comment><USER31> You don't understand how it's a good idea to match the aesthetic of the software to the hardware framing it? Do you believe that any good looking shirt looks good with any good looking pair of pants?

<comment><USER49> No, I think that the "software matches the hardware" means literally nothing. What does it mean in this context? Almost all phones are virtually the same shape. Gray or dark gray, what part of the OS do you change to tailor it to the hardware.

No one ever explains what it means, they just reference it as if the iPhone possesses it as another of its magical abilities. Your analogy does not translate to hardware and software. How does Windows 7 match up with your monitor, or unibody desktop computer? What, specifically, makes OS X beautifully tailored for the unibody MBP. Nothing. It's just a way of saying "I think the iPhone has a prettier interface than Android" which is a tired argument so it's dressed up under a new guise.

<comment><USER31> Addressing this line: No, I think that the "software matches the hardware" means literally nothing.

It means aesthetically the texture, color, or lines fit together. In this case the lines are the most important part. Maybe it's not important to you, but it's not a hollow statement.

<comment><USER49> "The lines fit together"? I'm sorry but I still don't hear anything concrete about what is unique to a 4x4 grid of icons and the same rectangular profile of a phone.

Throughout this thread, I keep hearing "its magical beautiful design" and nothing concrete. Please give me some examples.

<comment><USER12> Please don't take this HTC 1 as a good example of the interface fitting with the hardware. Look to some of the other examples cited elsewhere in this thread.

Like it was mentioned above, it seems that Kim's desire was to match the simple lines of the phone with a flat, simple interface. I think his proposed interface is poor at best. If you gave a really great UI designer this hardware to design against, you'd quickly understand the cohesion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> machined brass, oh come on now.

Android CTS demands that hardware design have standard minimum UI buttons.</comment>


Why Wallflowers Don't Make Friends - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/04/why-wallflowers-dont-make-friends.html <comment><USER3> Being a wallflower isn't a great way to meet people agreed. but after a few decades I've come to realize that its a symptom rather than a cause - if you want to meet people you need to plan ahead - invite others to come with you, go to places you know people already - introduce yourself and chat to friends of friends not strangers.

If you go to a place where you're by yourself and aren't talking to people you aren't a wallflower, you just didn't prepare.

<comment><USER4> My "networking" became 100x easier and more effective once I ditched "networking events" (not that I ever went to many) and made "friends of friends" networking through hikes/biking/dinner/etc. my main mode of expanding my circle of friendly knowledge worker acquaintances.

Also you form actual friendships from time to time.

<comment><USER5> But how do you start without the first set of friends and, so to speak, the base case of the induction fails?

<comment><USER6> I have a hard time believing anybody starts from absolute zero in these scenarios, but here's an example from a self-proclaimed introvert:

\- Pair up with random guy at a school hackathon because we're both without a project (+1). Meet a friend of his (+1).

\- Meet him months later for birthday drinks. Introduced to his friend, we end up starting a band with 3 of _his_ friends. (+4)

\- Meet countless people through the music scene (+?)

\- Go to another hackathon together with first guy, join another pair (+2), win, catch a recruiter's (+1) attention and get an internship.

\- Meet countless people over the summer during the internship (+?)

\- [...]

That's the very short version. Most of my network can be traced back to like, 4 people that started as strangers. There were a lot of dead-ends initially, sure. But it really does just take one person to build or reshape your entire social circle, change your career, etc. The first set is the hardest imo, but there's no excuse* for not going out and trying to find it.

*excepting, of course, any affliction which might make social interaction difficult. "i'd rather stay home" is not an afflication

<comment><USER7> It's much easier in a college setting. Much easier.

I've now moved a couple of times in my adult life. I find that it takes about six months to find a group of people to hang out with occasionally, and two years to acquire a small group of friends that I feel comfortable with. It seems to get harder as you get older, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Summary: If you want to meet people, be meetable. Proximity is power. If you isolate yourself by location or behavior, less people are going to do the work of meeting you. If you're a man, this passive shit doesn't work as well, so get ready to be bridging the gap courageously yourself.

Open ended questions usually fail. You're better off making interesting statements than you are actually asking questions. For instance: You look like you're from someplace very far away. vs. Where are you from?

Open ended questions are pretty garbage unless someone is already attracted to you, and used to being conversational. Interrogations aren't fun.

<comment><USER9> Good comment but I wouldn't suggest saying you look like you are from someplace far away. Just sticking with the standard where you are from is good.

Better to have traveled out of the country a few times so you can relate.

Best advice is to talk about doing something. This art museum, this meetup, this new great restaurant. "Oh join me and my other friends. Or let's go explore together." You can kind of bluff your way through this even if you have no other friends (go find them!).

<comment><USER10> I agree. The "you look like you are ..." requires the other person to either affirm that they look conspicuously different than their peers or to refute the asker's claim that they look different, which could be embarrassing for both.

Generally, I try to avoid comments on a person's appearance unless I'm pretty good friends with that person, even if it's something relatively benign like "you like my friend, Pat" or "you like $celebrity".

Edit: of course, "where are you from?" could be perceived as a patronizing way to point out that the other person looks different. Socializing is hard.

<comment><USER11> The best form of "where are you from?" is "Are you from [this city we're now in]?"

If they are, and you are, hey, you're both natives! Where did you go to high school?

If they aren't, and you are, hey, what do you like about it? How long have you been here? What brought you here?

If they are, and you aren't, hey, you're a native, I moved here x years ago, do you know restaurant X? It's my favorite.

If they aren't, and you aren't, mix and match, any of the above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wallflowers stand by the wall because they are afraid of rendering themselves vulnerable, which is perhaps the most important element in building meaningful relationships in life. I don't know what's the root cause of this fragility but I agree it's systemic issue, and one that can quickly morph into something nastier i.e Troll culture, Redpill misogyny, Alt-right hate, and ethnic/religious fundamentalism in minority communities.

<comment><USER8> What is the thread you claim links these things?

<comment><USER13> A cycle of lack of empathy and love.

<comment><USER14> I for one have been a wallflower many, many times and I can safely say that for me personally there is absolutely no correlation between my shyness and any of the other attributes you or the parent commenter allude to.

That's not to say that there isn't some truth to those sentiments, but I'm much more interested in evidence or at least a stronger theory behind the alleged correlations. As written, the original comment at face value is nothing more than one person's opinion based on, who knows what?

<comment><USER13> I've been a wallflower too and definitely don't think it _automatically_ puts you into the more dangerous direction.

Rather, I think it sets up the potential to be susceptible to them. TRP, for example, does a great job of channeling the (understandable) anxiety and frustration of unloved young men into negativity and hate.

<comment><USER15> TRP?

<comment><USER13> The Red Pill, a famously misogynist Reddit community: [https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Learn to hack your own confidence.

If you are heading out for a social event, take your good clothes to the gym, workout, shower and change there, then go straight to the event while you are feeling peppy and confident!

<comment><USER17> If you have the confidence to exercise in public, then it's probably already less of a problem for you.

<comment><USER18> Just remember that everyone at the gym thinks they are imperfect or else they wouldn't be there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> But wallflowers stand by the wall because they don't want to be approached.

<comment><USER20> If they didn't want to be approached, they would find a way to leave the event or avoid it in the first place. A lot of times it is simple social anxiety. They are afraid that people will find out something about them; or rather, afraid that someone will confirm something they suspect about themselves (e.g., "I'm not interesting to other people.")

Those kinds of fears are generally unfounded, but it's difficult to prove to yourself that they're unfounded without actually interacting with people. But for those willing to interact with the wallflowers, they can be somewhat fearful of approaching someone with such a standoffish attitude, so it becomes a self-fulfilling feedback cycle.

Even just a little courage can go a long way. Walking across an open space can make you more approachable; for example, walking from somewhere on the edge of an activity like a dance to wherever beverages are being served can give others an opportunity to intercept you or approach you. It's not hard, it just takes some practice and the realization that the possibilities for negative consequences are much lower than the possibilities for positive outcomes.

<comment><USER21> > They are afraid that people will find out something about them; or rather, > afraid that someone will confirm something they suspect about themselves

Honestly, that may be the case for some, but I suspect that the majority of the time it's much simpler: Afraid to be in a small-talk situation, and not know what to say after a couple of words. In short, it's a phobia of the feeling of awkwardness. Easier to avoid.

Like any phobia, the best way to treat it is by exposure -- putting yourself in awkward situations as much as possible and witnessing that you can handle it/ get out of it. But also like any phobia, that's much, much easier said than done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> To state the obvious: Of course you can only make friends when you talk to people. However, most people who want to make friends probably only want to engage in activities that have a moderate to high likelihood of producing friendships.

Now, how many of the people the wallflowers aren't talking to do actually seek any new friends? For one thing, many people want to enjoy a given event with their friends (and _only_ their friends) whom they've brought to the event. That's often the case at concerts or clubs, in my experience. For another thing, people today are highly mobile and - thanks to their smartphone - <USER2> constant contact with their "old" friends so that the set of people they really care about doesn't change much anymore after school. After classes at my uni, for example, many fellow students would drive up to 100km home to live with their partners or to hang out with pre-uni friends. Among the rest, "friendships" existed mostly for learning and partying and thus didn't evolve to something deeper.

<comment><USER23> Some people may prefer to have a few real, very close friends than 100 "friends" that they never talk to. Some people also like to go to events to just be out and about and not at home. I don't feel weird eating dinner or going to a movie alone. I'm there for me and am not out to "make new friends".

It is a little like co-working space. Yeah, I could work at home but there is a lot more energy being at a location full of people being busy even if they aren't my "friends".

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> just chiming in here to say that

1\. wallflowers do make friends

and

2\. being awkward is not, as the psychologist in the article claims, awesome.

but

3\. wallflowers make friends in spite of being awkward

but finally

4\. people with social anxiety don't live as full or enjoyable lives as everyone else, which sucks

<comment><USER25> Social anxiety is not a thing that you either have or you don't. Everyone has social anxiety to varying degrees. To claim that people with social anxiety don't live as full or enjoyable lives as everyone else is just plain wrong. What is a "full and enjoyable life"? Is it having an average amount of social anxiety? But then you don't get to do all the cool shit that the people with very minimal social anxiety do. Is it having minimal social anxiety? But then you might end up doing things that you'll regret later i.e. having your silly picture/video go viral and then you might even end up developing social anxiety as a result of the entire world/country/city knowing your embarassing moment.

<comment><USER26> Anxiety of any kind makes life less enjoyable then not having it. People with social anxiety needs friends, wants to belong in group and generally have normal social needs - except that they are afraid to do necessary steps for it to happen and end up isolated and unhappy. Social anxiety is not the same thing as being happy at home alone and thus not seeking wild parties, it is feeling uncomfortable in presence of people. Happy loners exist, but they don't have social anxiety.

Not everyone has social anxiety just like not everyone who is a bit sad has depression. Social anxiety makes you perform badly on meetings, when talking with your kids teachers, when talking with colleges and in all kinds of situations where it actually matters.

Not having social anxiety is not the same as not doing silly things while drunk. Plenty of extroverted highly social people don't do cool stupid things while drunk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Has anyone read the book so far and could comment on it somehow?

</comment><comment><USER28> While gen-pop frequently abuses the word 'literal', you kind of hope that actual authors wouldn't:

> There's a moment in your book that I love, when you give advice to awkward > people looking for social shortcuts, and you tell them not to be _literal_ > wallflowers.

The anecdotal clarification there is that people in dormitories should ensure they are near the entrance -- precise details not provided.

<comment><USER29> The word "literal" here is slightly more complicated than in the usual commonplace misuse of the word.

The author is trying to distinguish between "wallflower" the "socially awkward person" and "wallflower" the "person who stands near a wall". They are using a slightly more literal definition, but not the most literal (i.e. the plant).

The justification is that "being near the wall" =/= "being in a high-traffic area".

<comment><USER28> I appreciate the point you're making.

Re-read the quote I have in my comment and remove the word 'literal'. Does that sentence have more, less, or the same meaning / power to you?

<comment><USER30> Without 'literal': don't be shy

With 'literal': don't stand by the wall

<comment><USER28> Are you _seriously_ suggesting there's a profound loss of meaning between:

> There's a moment in your book that I love, when you give advice to awkward > people looking for social shortcuts, and you tell them not to be literal > wallflowers.

and

> There's a moment in your book that I love, when you give advice to awkward > people looking for social shortcuts, and you tell them not to be > wallflowers.

<comment><USER31> Yes. The former can be argued as more polite, because you're suggesting an alternate course of action (don't stand near wall), and the latter can be construed as an attack on a person's mentality (you're a shy person, don't be that way [that's bad]).

<comment><USER28> > The former can be argued as more polite, because you're suggesting an > alternate course of action ...

alternative

<comment><USER31> In US English at least, alternate can be used as a direct synonym for alternative. Idk if it's the same in British English. Might be different like the phrase "just in case", etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> cool-RR Relevant username. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)</comment>


A peek into China's top 'bodyguard factories' - <AUTHOR> https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2102703/peek-chinas-swashbuckling-bodyguard-factories-and-their <comment><USER2> Too lazy to read the article, but this was a thing in Russia for a long time. The USSR falling apart in the 90s correlated with a bunch of special forces coming back from Afghanistan and then Chechnya. They had no jobs and crime rates were high, so naturally private security companies popped up. Naturally, body guard schools popped up.

I didn't read the article, but I watched a documentary on the Chinese companies, and it seems like they are far closer to the security guard than the "any threat, anywhere" type deal.

Regarding Blackwater and its equivalents, there is a merc company called "Wagner Group" in Russia that recently attacked an oil field in Syria held by pro-US rebels. The US hit them with artillery from a MEC position, and then fixed-wing and AH-64 CAS ran train on them for four hours. The US and Russia initially denied any direct US on Russia contact. So, it seems like Russian "military" PMCs are more expendable, deniable spam when compared to BlackWater/Academi/whatever they are calling themselves these days.

That's not to say Russsia doesn't have the capability, but they prefer to keep their "PMCs" as black units directly under FSB control, a la "rebels" running around Ukraine with radar-controlled machine guns, taking out helicopters on take off, etc.

To tie this all back to China - they haven't shown themselves on that level yet to the best of my knowledge.

<comment><USER3> A bit of acronym expansion:

* PMC = private military company

* FSB = Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation

* CAS = close air support

BBC article on the Wagner group, including attack mentioned above: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world- europe-43167697](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43167697)

<comment><USER4> What about MEC?

<comment><USER2> Marine Expeditionary Unit - the smallest "self-sufficient" deployable unite of the "regular" US Marine Corps. In this case, it's just relevant to understand that its infantry with embedded artillery and air support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The title of this article made my mind go to some very William Gibson places. Vat-grown ninjas and the like.

<comment><USER2> Is that you Hideo? Did they grow you some new eyes?!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> As an early IT job, I worked for a famous boxing promotor who would take end of career fighters and charge them a fee to "school them" into bodyguards and find their first quazi-celeb client. Was fascinating to watch their training at the gym.

<comment><USER7> It's also a nice rehab story. Most of those guys end up doing crappy jobs if they had no fall back, and usually boxing was their initial fall back.

<comment><USER8> Reminds me of this amazing article about boxing "inside baseball": [https://deadspin.com/why-i-fixed-fights-1535114232](https://deadspin.com/why- i-fixed-fights-1535114232)

Basically, most fights are fixed except for big headline bouts. Trainers and promoters can tell from the start whether you're a potential contender. If you are, they're not going to let you get your clock cleaned before everyone's getting paid. If you aren't, the only thing you're good for is building up another fighter's record.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Meh. Seems like anything China-related gets to be on the front page nowadays. I'm sure academies like this are all over the world. Tbh, I'm much more interested in the inner workings of Blackwater type companies that operate in the ME.

<comment><USER10> Yes there are.

And a lot of reputable ones are actually quite small and discreet (E.G: groupe 9, bba training, ronin, etc)

You will, however, probably not see 6 MIB from those on TV. A body guard that looks like a small athletic woman in confortable clothes is way more sustainable if you need somebody 24/7.

Most people don't need a POTUS level of personnal protection, and a lots of those suits you see are more for show than preventing threats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting, I've never heard of the preference of female bodyguards. It makes sense and apparently: "These days, the good female PPOs can work all year round while men struggle to find jobs... Such is the demand for women, they get paid more than the men at the moment." [0]

[0] [https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/female-bodyguard- hi...](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/female-bodyguard-high-profile- celebrities-women-protection-security-threats-david-cameron-tony- blair-a7688541.html)

<comment><USER12> Why does a gendered preference make sense in this case?

<comment><USER2> Female body guards are generally preferred for these reasons:

1\. They aren't perceived as such, rather they can be mistaken for a partner, friend, or personal assistant. They are therefore allowed into places where bodyguards normally aren't and the attacker doesn't expect them.

2\. Some rich prefer a female to guard their daughter or wife so there are no awkward situations.

<comment><USER11> Also, 3\. "A female PPO tends to be better at conflict resolution rather than making the situation worse." 4\. "Those bodyguards, the big guys, actually draw attention to the clients and put them at more stress and risk."

(Quotes from the article above)

<comment><USER12> I can definitely see this, I've known a handful of police officers in my life and everyone says the big strapping men are constantly getting into fights where the smaller women aren't. I'm sure there's a certain amount of the men being more likely to instigate, but if you're an inmate going into jail for the night you're not going to score any points with the other folks in there by punching a 110# female officer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Meanwhile, all the local staff got was a bar of made-in-China chocolate

I can understand why they revolted.

</comment><comment><USER14> What the hell is wrong with scmp's mobile website. A modal of suggested videos covered the content half the time for me

</comment><comment><USER15> As a multibillionaire my first concern is absolutely ensuring the loyalty of my security forces. I wonder how the Chinese address this.

<comment><USER2> This is hard. Governments traditionally do it by having multiple agencies competing with each other to some degree. This was cultivated directly in the USSR, where GRU (military intelligence) and the KGB ("internal" / "less militarized" intelligence __) competed with each other. Putin now has a full handful of competing agencies that I don 't even want to get started on. Likewise, the US ABCs provide checks and balances for one another - if this wasn't the case, one agency could seize control. The funny thing is that having more of these does protect the constitution, unlike what most conspiracy theorists seem to think.

Despite these checks, in 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev, guarded by a general of the KGB (Vladimir Medvedev iirc) and his squad was forced to abdicate by threat from KGB higher ups supporting Yeltsin. Later on, the communist party wanted to take back control and ordered "original" Vympel (GRU diversionary unit) to storm the presidential palace with Yeltstin in it. I.e. it was an example of the "checks and balances" working, but Vympel stood down due to guaranteed civilian casualties. Btw, this could have single-handedly brought communism back to Russia.

Anyway, that was a really long prelude to our first point.

1\. Hire multiple agencies which would require collussion to take you out discretely. Balanced against more and more people having access to you.

2\. Pay them well - though you will never be able to pay them as much as it costs your competition to take you out. Balanced against unacceptable turn- over rate due to dimishing marginal returns of labor.

3\. Filter out fanatics somehow. Not balanced against anything, just hard to do.

4\. Increase automation. Balanced against privacy concerns and tech-savvy threats. It still comes down to contractors.

* Neither of these terms really applies, except in relation to GRU.

Absolutely on the example above too - one of the best examples of "free- minded" men being loyal...until they weren't for later emperors, but that's a story for another day.

<comment><USER16> This helps explains why different US services have so much overlap. Like you know what he purpose of the DEA, ATF, and ICE because it's in the title. But I could never pin down why the FBI, US Marshall, or Secret Service would get called in. Media wise, the FBI is the most famous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> link broken. This is good one: [https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2102703/peek...](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2102703/peek- chinas-swashbuckling-bodyguard-factories-and-their)

</comment><comment><USER18> Sunglasses not included _</comment>


Puddlz- whatsapp for recommendations - <AUTHOR> http://www.puddlz.com

<comment><USER2> The app does what it says - gives you recommendations from people you trust. A better way to make some decisions. Pretty nice. Could go a long way ahead.

</comment><comment><USER3> Simple and nice.. A couple of suggestions. Make a video to help new users understand the app better. And when are you guys launching for ios?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks johnh99. ios version coming soon. And we're working on the video. It should hopefully be up in a week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Awesome app. Easy mechanism for asking questions. Great Blog with useful stuff. A different, unique and useful concept.</comment>


A rare interview with the mathematician who cracked Wall Street - <AUTHOR> http://www.ted.com/talks/jim_simons_a_rare_interview_with_the_mathematician_who_cracked_wall_street

<comment><USER2> If you found this interview interesting, there is a longer interview that goes into most of the same topics as well as several others here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNznD9hMEh0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNznD9hMEh0)</comment>


Notes – DeepWork by Cal Newport - <AUTHOR> https://pawanpe.github.io/website/notes-deepwork-by-Cal-Newport <comment><AUTHOR> This is just a quick reference link for some of the important points mentioned in the book. Skimming them once a month or so, can help me staying focused on targets. Thought this can help others too!</comment>


Tell HN: Amazon now owns 184.108.40.206/8 - <AUTHOR> Apparently bought in two chunks: 220.127.116.11/9 and 126.96.36.199/9.
Previous owner was GE.
Anecdotal reports across the Internet that AWS EIPs are now being assigned in that range.
https://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-3-0-0-0-1.html
https://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-3-128-0-0-1.html <comment><USER2> Wow. This is a significant slice of the IPv4 address space, and one of the few remaining uninterrupted /8s owned by the private sector. This is a 10-year old visualization, but it's still a good one to visualize the scale of this purchase.

[http://maps.measurement-factory.com/](http://maps.measurement-factory.com/)

It's a great purchase for them, and a shot at Azure and GCP - Amazon can now legitimately tell larger clients "we will have enough IPv4 space to be your partner for all your static-IP-dependent applications, no matter how much you need to scale."

<comment><USER3> Much larger and more readable version of this map:

[https://www.caida.org/research/id-consumption/whois- map/imag...](https://www.caida.org/research/id-consumption/whois- map/images/whois-20071001.png)

Each pixel in the image is a /24 network.

<comment><USER4> It's really incredible how so many non-tech companies have /8s still. What is Prudential doing with all of that address space? Eli Lily?!? Who the hell is Cap Debis?

<comment><USER5> > Who the hell is Cap Debis?

Debis = Daimler-Benz InterServices, sold to T-Mobile (specifically T-Services) in the early 2000s

CAP Debis was a partnership with CAP Gemini.

Today it's mostly enterprise telecom/IT, though that maybe oversimplifies things. It's a big beast in Europe, Germany specifically.

<comment><USER6> I wonder if T-mobile is aware of that purchase. Sometimes these little known assets get lost by the big predator because they were interested in something very specific of the prey company.

<comment><USER7> I'm sure TMobile is intimately familiar with their networking assets. They pioneered squatting on MoD space for internal routing to avoid dual homed conflicts. (22.214.171.124/8)

[https://blog.wireshark.org/2010/04/t-mobile-clever-or- insane...](https://blog.wireshark.org/2010/04/t-mobile-clever-or-insane/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Coming soon: Amazon launches free DNS service on 18.104.22.168 and 18.104.22.168?

It's pretty crazy though that that huge range goes to Amazon in full. Wouldn't it have been better for the health of the internet as a whole to get them back to IANA for redistribution?

<comment><USER9> Best for the internet is encouraging IPv6. There aren't extre fees for that, so people with less money are equal.

Meanwhile, if Amazon is going to use all these in the medium-term future, that seems OK to me.

(22.214.171.124 and 220.127.116.11 would be more memorable.)

<comment><USER10> While 188.8.131.52 is a valid IP address, some users might experience problems with IP address ending in 0. It would not be a good idea to use 22.214.171.124 if you want best compatibility with all available hardware/software on the market.

<comment><USER11> I wouldn't bet my life on it, but I've never experienced a problem with an IP address ending in 0, and I've been using them for over 10 years. Our primary VPN end-point used to end in .0 - so we had lots of opportunity to find chance for breakage. :-)

<comment> ryan-c I have, actually. Most of our networks were /23s, and the syslog server was a .0 in the middle of one. An SMS sending appliance we bought would not accept IPs ending in .0. Fortunately, the check was client-side in javascript, and once overridden, everything worked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Amazon's documentation shows it is already in use on AWS.

They also have 22.214.171.124/9, bought from MIT.

[https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/aws-ip- ranges....](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/aws-ip-ranges.html)

<comment><USER12> And here's a JSON of their IP blocks:

[https://ip-ranges.amazonaws.com/ip-ranges.json](https://ip- ranges.amazonaws.com/ip-ranges.json)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder what they got it for? if just for more IPs for AWS stuff, or if it's for something like IoT stuff?

<comment><USER14> What's up with IPv6, anyways?

<comment><USER15> Enough address space for every atom on the surface of the earth.

<comment><USER16> Yet as far as I can tell no cloud provider is taking it seriously.

GCP only supports it on the edge for their load balancers for instance.

<comment><USER17> All rsync.net locations[1] have ipv6 addresses.

[1] Cali., Denver, Zurich, Hong Kong

<comment> cbm-vic-20 Been a customer of yours for ten years. No BS. Just works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Given that IP is a scarce resource, why aren't we taxing those large IP blocks similar to property taxes on land? If holding an /8 came with a hefty tax bill attached, it would 1) encourage companies that got them for historical reasons and don't have much practical use for them to sell them to those who actually need a lot of IPs, and 2) encourage IPv6 MIGRATION.

<comment><USER19> Who do you pay the tax to? Be warned that your answer will probably lead to a fragmented Internet, or encourage even less redistribution according to real needs

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Does anyone mind sharing how IP addresses are allocated and bought in the first place? Like who did GE buy it from if it wasn't another company?

<comment><USER21> In the very early days no one understood that over half of all humans would be on the internet. It was just this ARPANet thing for the military and universities, then a few big companies.

So you got a /8 by asking for one; they handed them out for free.

Same goes for DNS. You used to request the name and it was yours. No yearly fees.

The IP blocks were never reclaimed because it was pointless. Even now clawing back the big /8 assignments only kicks the can down the road for a year, maybe two.

<comment><USER22> And oddly enough, this seems to be happening all over again with ipv6.

My company has a /32 ipv6 space. That's 79228162514264337593543950336 /128s. And we got it by... just asking for it.

I know everyone's shouting about "there are enough IPs for every atom on earth!" but just like "no one understood that over half of all humans would be on the internet", maybe we'll need more IPs in the future becuase of some unforeseen development... it seems silly to be handing out blocks like this just for giggles.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, we can only give out 4,294,967,295 more /32s to large companies.

<comment><USER19> So to take a known scale, there is not enough to give one to each person alive. Which might seem crazy but then again, why would everyone not only need an ipv4, but need several (phone, computers, watch, tv,...)? Crazy

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> IBM owns 9/8 - it's used for their internal network (really). They're mid-way through a 2y project to move everything to IPv6

The recent purchase of OpenShift may be a good answer to 'I wonder what they are intending to do with a /8 in a year'.

</comment><comment><USER25> Can someone give an ELI5 summary on why this is important and has 360+ upvotes? Why would GE have had this? Why did Amazon want it?

<comment><USER26> 3/8 or 18.104.22.168/8 means the IP address range from 188.8.131.52 to 188.8.131.52 - this is 2^24 or 16.7M IP addresses.

Why does Amazon want it? - Amazon has a lot of customers who want EC2/ELB instances with their own IP addresses. IPv4 addresses are a scarce resource.

Why did GE have it? When the IPv4 address space was formed, various big US companies managed to get the initial IP address allocations. You can see more on these allocations here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assigned_/8_IPv4_addre...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assigned_/8_IPv4_address_blocks)

Why so many upvotes? It's relatively rare to see what is 1/255th of the IPv4 address space sold.

<comment><USER25> Does that mean Amazon has a lease from ARIN on those batches of IPv4 addresses for a period of time (in the same sense as a domain registry for x years) or actually own them?

Also, That Wikipedia article was particularly helpful. I knew the /32 was specific to my IP that I use but didn't realize the sheer scale of those blocks.

<comment><USER27> IP Address purchases one-time purchases, you don't pay annual fees.

There is another comment here that said Amazon paid ~18/IP. They won't pay this next year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Can someone explain what /8s /16s etc. are? Or a link to a good explainer?

<comment><USER29> It tells you how many of the 32 bits in your IPv4 addresses are fixed. The rest belongs to your space.

In binary, a /8 netmask would look like this: 11111111.00000000.00000000.00000000 and a /16 would look like this: 11111111.11111111.00000000.00000000

So 22.214.171.124/8 means only the first eight bits are fixed. Which gives Amazon 2^24 IP-Addresses to use (32-8 bit). That is huge because it's 1/256 of all available IPv4 addresses. It is small because it's only 16777216 addresses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> When we were hp we used to own all of 220.127.116.11 and 18.104.22.168 (formerly DEC) but now we're down to only 15 and hpe has 16. It's weird how these blocks move around, should really be more of a shared resource.

<comment><USER31> As an individual, I own an entire /24, registered back in 1993. The people who got in early got a disproportionate amount of address space. New ISPs / companies have to beg and borrow just to get a small slice.

<comment><USER16> This is happening with IPv6. People think there's so much address space that wasting several trillion isn't going to matter.

The issue is that when you have 95% of your address space allocated and unused you can't reap individual sections, and if you could then you'd bloat the BGP tables to epic proportions.

IANA/RIPE need to be more reserved when they have abundance.

Actually, that goes for technology in general; just because most of your users have 8G of ram doesn't mean you should think that using 5G is acceptable. (looking at you skype/slack/chrome)

<comment><USER9> Perhaps the visualization here would show you just how huge IPv6 space is.

[https://subnettingpractice.com/ipv6_is_huge.html](https://subnettingpractice.com/ipv6_is_huge.html)

<comment><USER32> By the way, I always wondered what if companies start acquiring large IPv6 space chunks, and it will become the same problem as with IPv4. For example in hand, if AWS bought 126.96.36.199/8, cannot they buy 03::?

And once enough companies buy huge ranges of IPv6, we would come to the same scarcity as in IPv4, no?

PS: I understand that largest CIDR block that can be allocated in IPv6 is /20, not /8\. But they could buy 4096 blocks of size /20 to get the whole of /8.

<comment><USER31> No, because all global unicast allocations are done out of 2000::/3 This means even if we screw up all these allocations, we have many other chances to get it right.

See [https://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv6-address- space/ipv6-add...](https://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv6-address- space/ipv6-address-space.xhtml)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I worked for Halliburton as a sysadmin for 12 years.. during that time they owned 34/8 and 134.132/16.

Looking now:

134.132/16: still LGC/HAL

34/10: HAL

34.64/10: Google

34.128/10: HAL

34.192/10: Amazon

So I guess they decided to make some hefty profit...

</comment><comment><USER34> Re: IPv6

Would love for each AWS account to have it's own IPv6 range out of the box. I feel like this solve the pains the AWS Lambda fans (like myself) have when they need to access a whitelist only service.

Disclaimer: Board strokes, I don't really know what I am talking about

<comment><USER35> If AWS ever implements IPv6, that's totally possible. The standard IPv6 distribution model calls for end users to be given a /64.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> According to their usually up to date json[0], the IPs are already in use and all 17+M have been assigned to the Singapore region (ap-southwest-1). According to the json they are available for both EC2 and other infrastructure as well (ELBs, API gateway, etc).

[0] [https://ip-ranges.amazonaws.com/ip-ranges.json](https://ip- ranges.amazonaws.com/ip-ranges.json)

<comment><USER37> It's definitely not all assigned to Singapore or to ap-southwest-1, the ip- ranges.json file reports assignments to other regions, i.e.

184.108.40.206/15 ap-southeast-1 EC2 (Singapore) 18.104.22.168/14 eu-west-2 EC2 184.108.40.206/14 us-east-2 EC2 188.8.131.52/14 eu-west-1 EC2 184.108.40.206/12 us-east-1 EC2 184.108.40.206/14 ap-southeast-2 EC2 18.104.22.168/14 ap-northeast-1 EC2 184.108.40.206/14 eu-central-1 EC2

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Considering GE's downward spiral (www.google.com/search?q=nyse:ge), I wonder if Amazon managed to get a good deal out of it or if GE managed to actually extract some value out of this sale.

I can't imagine why sales and values of IP blocks would be publicly tracked (beyond just IP blocks trading hands), but is anyone aware of the sale price?

<comment><USER39> Amazon should buy GE.

<comment><USER40> Order a locomotive, or 5MW Wind Generator with free 2 day shipping with your prime membership..

<comment><USER41> Fine print would say _free locomotive offer only applies to 1435mm territories._

<comment><USER41> _Aaaand, your locomotive will not move unless your CBTC reports to Alexa network, enabling precise location tracking of these trains_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Just a thought but why hasn't Multicast or Reserved sections been sliced up further and added back into the pool? I'm guessing going back and making those addresses Internet routable would be very difficult at this point. Since MBONE[0] is gone I feel like even a /16 would be sufficient for reserved multicast in private networks. A /4 just seems ridiculous to me. I suppose at this point the path of least resistance is to just go to IPv6 though.

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

<comment><USER4> If you're going to have to hack every single router to support using these addresses for regular unicast traffic you might as well just switch to IPv6.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> And GE sells another valuable asset. (Previously: appliances to Haier, property portfolio to Wells Fargo)

</comment><comment><USER44> Found one more piece to sell off, I guess:

[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/10/03/654141402/what...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/10/03/654141402/what- happened-to-ge)

</comment><comment><USER45> As you pointed out, they own 2 /9's. While this covers the entire 3/8 space, they cannot have ROAs signed for the /8 nor can they submit route objects for the /8 until the 2 /9's are consolidated into a single /8.

</comment><comment><USER46> [https://api.iptoasn.com/v1/as/ip/126.96.36.199](https://api.iptoasn.com/v1/as/ip/22.214.171.124)

</comment><comment><USER47> How much does cost to own those kind of DNS resolvers?

<comment><USER48> The cost for a "vanity/memorable ip" like 22.214.171.124, or the cost of a global anycast redundant recursive resolver setup?

<comment><USER49> Yeah, i'm curious, so what does it cost for a "vanity/memorable ip like 126.96.36.199"?

<comment><USER50> You're not going to be able to have a single IP address globally routed. Practically speaking, you can't own anything smaller than a /24 network.

<comment><USER48> A /24 is probably in the ~$4k range. No idea what a netblock with a cool/vanity IP might cost. Pretty sure all the single digit ones are impossible to buy, but there could be others that would be a premium above regular pricing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> What's next? Rent seeking on IPv4 address space?

<comment><USER52> It's already a thing, usually called leasing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Do they own them, or is that a figure of speech? Probably should be rented so that the unused eventually come back to the pool.

</comment><comment><USER54> Given General Electric's dire straits lately, it doesn't surprise me they would sell it.

</comment><comment><USER55> The xkcd map will need an update.

[https://xkcd.com/195/](https://xkcd.com/195/)

<comment><USER56> Is this whole list of unallocated blocks still relevant ? I though there was a shortage of IPv4 adresses ?

<comment><USER57> No, it's a map from 2006

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> How much would something like this cost Amazon?

</comment><comment><USER59> Meh, I have 2 /8s.

10 and 127.

</comment><comment><USER60> Eventually Amazon is going to rule us all.

<comment><USER61> No doubt. While everyone is looking at Apple, Google and FaceBook, Amazon is back there plotting their take-over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Not only that, Amazon's HQ2 now covers more of the US than MetroPCS.

[https://www.techloaf.io/2018/11/08/amazon-hq2-now-covers- mor...](https://www.techloaf.io/2018/11/08/amazon-hq2-now-covers-more-of-us- than-metropcs/)

(This is a tech humor blog/email I follow - they have been vicious with Amazon this week)

</comment><comment><USER63> The shortage of IPv4 addresses is "self-inflicted". If the internet didn't follow this stupid libertarian approach of selling and buying addresses, we could have addresses for everybody.

<comment><USER64> How exactly do you fit 7.5 billion unique identifiers into a 32 bit address space?

And that's ignoring population growth, multiple devices per person, infrastructure addresses and overhead.

<comment><USER65> Not everyone needs a public IP, right? Especially with the advent of carrier grade NAT.

<comment><USER66> CGNAT will hopefully drive people to IPv6 because it's really quite bad. This talk is really interesting in explaining why it's so bad: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbk4H6EmZzI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbk4H6EmZzI)

Edit: Changed likely to hopefully... as let's be honest, we'll probably still be using IPv4 in a few decades.

<comment><USER29> Wow that was a very good, if scary, summary of the situation. Whenever my phone browser drags now I'll just say: "thanks CGN".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


iOS 6 Home Screen Webapps behave even more like native Apps - <AUTHOR> http://curiousmind.at/2012/06/ios-6-home-screen-webapps-behave-even-more-like-native-apps/

<comment><USER2> This is big but unfortunately I don't see it solving a main problem. Lots of apps in the app store are merely repackaged web browsers. Although this is prohibited (I think) by the app store guidelines they're in there anyways. They don't get javascript enhancements and are slow and laggy for the most part.

But this won't make companies pull those apps from the store. Why? Because they want to be in the app store but they don't have the time or capital to write a native app so they stuck to what they knew. It's a lot easier to tell customers to find them on the app store and you can include a link on your desktop website that will direct people to the right place. I doubt a lot of people even know that you can pin webapps anymore, so you'd have to overcome that barrier.</comment>


Ask HN: Co-founder leaving amicably. Convertible debt an option? - <AUTHOR> Three of of us started this startup a while back. For more than a year we didn't get very far and finally cofounder A decided to stop working on it full time, at which point his stock stopped vesting. However, based on our vesting, A still owns X% which is a non-trivial percentage. Since A left, and we refocused the company onto a different product line and gained much more traction, becoming close to cash flow positive.
Based on the fact that A's contribution to our current efforts is zero, he volunteered to bow out of the company. We are still too early to put a valuation on his share and buy him out. Is there a fair way to compensate A for his early efforts but 'cap' his share in growth to which he did not contribute?
One option we are considering is converting his share into a convertible note for an amount equal to the salary he gave up by working full time on the startup, with little or no interest and a twenty percent discount at first round. Is this a good idea?
Are there any other options? <comment><USER2> However you decide to work out things financially, I'd be careful not to undervalue his effort. You say he contributed nothing to your current product, but I find it unlikely that was the case. Even if you are working on a new product, surely you learned something from the previous one. Also, if it wasn't for his efforts, perhaps you wouldn't have got so far with your previous product, and would still be working on it. A business is a fluid beast, and what you set out to create usually isn't what actually makes you succeed.

<comment><AUTHOR> _You say he contributed nothing to your current product_

Actually, I said

A's contribution to our current _efforts_ is zero

It's an important difference and I chose the word carefully. Our early efforts with him did not succeed, but based on my experience it is almost impossible to succeed without making mistakes first and learning from them. We value his contribution, which is why I am trying to determine a fair way to compensate him for this efforts.

Edit: Let me expand on what I said. It is hard to talk about separation while sounding entirely positive, because separation is not a positive event. I wouldn't even have met my other cofounder if it were not for A. So, rest assured, however this separation is structured, in my mind he will have earned his keep.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Personally, if I was "A", I would just keep the shares. My time is already gone, so I might as well have a chance at a payoff at a later date.

If I needed money, then I would go for "an amount equal to the salary I gave up by working full time on the startup", which you seem to be offering.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, I said "a convertible note for an amount equal to"..which gives him a chance for a payoff at a later date and (as I understand it), provides a floor for this payoff while limiting the ceiling to a certain extent.

However I am not sure if this understanding is correct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> An option for you guys could be to wait until you do your first round of funding and have the incoming investors buy him out. I've seen that done before and it worked well.

Lesson: always include an option to redeem the shares of a founder who leaves. Redemption can specify whether that takes place at nominal or market value of the shares. There should be a good leaver/bad leaver clause that outlines what happens if a founder is fired or leaves voluntarily.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you're on friendly terms with your cofounder then it's just a question of reaching an agreement both sides are happy with. The best option would be along the lines of what davidu has suggested.

If you're not on friendly terms then it's basically irrelevant that he didn't contribute anything to your current success. There's nothing you can do without his consent.

A 1 year cliff is standard, and he stayed with the company for longer than a year. And since you had a vesting schedule in place, the cofounder is clearly entitled to the stock he's accrued.

It seems to me that the mistake you've made is having an overly generous vesting schedule. 4 years is standard, in which case he would have only accrued about 8%.

</comment><comment><USER6> Go get any reasonable SV lawyer to have him sign back his stock to the company and then cancel the shares. You can make him an advisor and give him a grant to recognize him for his early efforts.

You will need all the equity you can as you build your company and being nice now giving a big chunk to a non-participating founder will make you bitter later.

If you don't think it will, then let him keep his ~25% vested. He'll be diluted, just like you and everyone else as you raise more.

<comment><AUTHOR> This may be a stupid question, but by 'grant', do you mean a stock grant? Why would he agree to a grant of less than X% (which he currently owns)?

The last option is the default, and we are o.k. with it if it comes to that.

<comment><USER6> Hey may agree to less than what he has today because by giving back a huge chunk of equity to the company it can allocate it to future hires. That way he is hopefully increasing the chances of his somewhat smaller stake being worth more later.

In other words, he'd be better off owning less of something huge than more of something small. :-)

This is not unheard of. It might not be common, but I've only been in silicon valley six years and I've seen it at least a handful of times.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the perspective. It makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What is the outcome you want to optimize around? Friendship? Current cash on hand? Maximizing equity for the remaining founders?

I suspect the best thing is to focus on the biz, it's much more important to have a big pie to argue about dividing than to have a fair division of nothing

<comment><USER8> "I suspect the best thing is to focus on the biz"

Agree with this, whats done is done. Keep pushing forward and keep an open mind about his opinions, you never know when a piece of advice from an 'outside' mind might help. Just because he may not have been there during the formative part of the biz doesn't mean his thoughts about it can't make everyone money and see things that other people wrapped up in growth don't see. Hell he/she might even turn out to be an asset as they don't see the day to day and also know you and your other partners faults via the slow time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Next time have a cliff so if a founder leaves within the first yr, he gets nothing.

<comment><AUTHOR> We had a one year cliff. He left some time after it.

<comment><USER9> Ah my bad for assuming you didn't have one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm curious, do you have an LLC or a C-Corp? Does anyone know, is this kind of situation easier to handle if you have a C-Corp?

<comment><USER6> It doesn't have any impact on it. You can deal with this in either case just fine.

OpenDNS was an LLC for it's first 3.5 years of existence and then we converted to a C corp when Sequoia Capital invested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Do the math on what x% is in dollars based on your premoney evaluation. Give him the note for that amount and treat him as if he were a friends and family investor.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea but this would require us to wait till we raise funding, and therefore have a valuation. We are wondering if there is a way to resolve this right now so that it doesn't complicate an already complicated fundraising process.

<comment><USER11> Have you pitched any VC's or angels? What premoney are you giving them?

If you don't have a premoney, then cut him a fair salary for the time he worked in a convertible note. The convertible note will be the optimal way to have a nice looking cap table.

I just suggest that you deal with this matter quickly while everyone is in a good mood. Success in a business after someone leaves can be dangerous...

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed that we need to deal with this matter quickly. Thank you for your advice.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


IBM scientists say radical new 'in-memory' architecture will speed up computers - <AUTHOR> http://www.kurzweilai.net/ibm-scientists-say-radical-new-in-memory-computing-architecture-will-speed-up-computers-by-200-times <comment><USER2> This is the promise of memristors. Despite innumerable articles being written about neuromorphic architectures like they'll be something miraculous, this ability to change from functioning as a bit of memory to being a bunch of functional logic on the fly at the speed of a memory read? That's going to be crazy. It will open up possibilities that we probably can't even imagine right now.

I've never understood why people don't get more excited about memristors. They could replace basically everything. Assuming someone can master their manufacture, they should be more successful than transistors. Of course, I'm still waiting to be able to buy a 2000 ppi display like IBM's R&D announced creating back in the late 1990s or so... so I guess I'd best not hold my breath.

<comment><USER3> > I've never understood why people don't get more excited about memristors.

personally, mostly because i've been seeing articles about how they're _just about_ to totally upend computing for the last ten years

<comment><USER4> Pretty sure I first read about them in a PC World magazine I got at the airport on a family vacation in like 2003

<comment><USER5> As far as I know I submitted the first ever article about memristors to HN, which was this in 2008:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=177865](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=177865)

<comment> squeaky-clean HN has only been around since 2007

<comment><USER6> Ambiguous language. I thank what was being implied is that it was the first occurrence of that type of article _on HN_ , not that the article was the first ever about memristers _and_ was posted to HN.

<comment> squeaky-clean Not really that relevant to the ongoing point of the age of memristor articles then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The result of the computation is also stored in the memory devices, and in this sense the concept is loosely inspired by how the brain computes."

For anyone who is interested in a simple model of how the brain does this, check out "associative memories". The basic idea is that networks of neurons both store memory (in their synapses) and perform the computations to retrieve or recall those memories.

A simple example is the Hopfield network, a single layer of neurons that are recurrently connected with a specific update function: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopfield_network](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopfield_network)

Another is two layers of neurons that are reciprocally connected called a Bidirectional Associative Memory (BAM): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidirectional_associative_memo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidirectional_associative_memory)

edit: grammar

<comment><USER8> Really fascinating, the low energy aspect is intriguing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Weren't HP working on the similar idea? What happened to it?

UPDATE: Looks like memristors production didn't work out for them: [https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/207897-hp-kills-the- mach...](https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/207897-hp-kills-the-machine- repurposes-design-around-conventional-technologies)

</comment><comment><USER10> [https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/10/who-needs-a-cpu- phas...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/10/who-needs-a-cpu-phase-change- memory-acts-as-an-analog-computer/)

I found this article very useful in understanding what the work was about..

They are using phase change memory to store data and perform computations.

</comment><comment><USER11> Didn't HP design and I think prototype something like this with memristors, calling it 'The Machine'?

 _edit_ So HP built one with 160Tb of memory, I remember it being proposed with memristors but haven't been able to check if the prototype used them... Does anyone know what is different about IBM's that let's them claim this as a first though?

<comment><USER12> As shmerl noted, The Machine turned out to be vaporware and they released something significantly different under the same name. HP couldn't mass produce memsistors. :-(

[https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/207897-hp-kills-the- mach...](https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/207897-hp-kills-the-machine- repurposes-design-around-conventional-technologies)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sounds very much like Content Addressable Parallel Processors such as the one that powered the Staran air traffic control system.

Caxton Foster's book is the major text I know on the subject.

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

</comment><comment><USER14> What they describe sounds like a pipeline architecture or a systolic array, or a network of interconnected computers. None of these are new concepts from an architectural point of view, but the actual dimensioning could be new.

<comment><USER15> > None of these are new concepts from an architectural point of view, but the > actual dimensioning could be new.

Depends what you mean by "architecture". I disagree that a network of computers is comparable to colocating a computing unit with its memory. There are orders of magnitude in difference in communication costs and failure modes, so at some point you just have to acknowledge that the models are fundamentally different, and should be treated as such.

Certainly they are Turing equivalent, so they aren't more "powerful" in a computability sense, we but what's more interesting is the tradeoffs in computational complexity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Are these benchmarks unusual to anyone else? Things like changing the color of all the black pixels in a bitmap simultaneously and performing correlations on historical rainfall data. Is it because this technology is more suitable for certain types of computations?

<comment><USER17> I think this is most analagous to simd in terms of issueing a single computation over multiple words of data, which would work well for both zeroing data and operating on scalar arrays.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I got a little confused by the

>scientists have developed the first "in-memory computing"

as your normal GPUs have register and cache memory mixed with the processors. I think the novel feature is they are mixing the processors with non volatile flash like memory rather than with RAM. Which I guess is interesting but the "will speed up computers by 200 times" presumable refers to an old school architecture rather than something like the 15/125 TFLOP Volta GPU which I'd imagine is faster than their thing. ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14309756](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14309756)).

</comment><comment><USER19> Regarding the application of memristors to AI, here's a bit of a dissenting opinion:

      Unfortunately for neuromorphics, just about everyone else in the semiconductor
      industry—including big players like Intel and Nvidia—also wants in on the
      deep-learning market. And that market might turn out to be one of the rare cases
      in which the incumbents, rather than the innovators, have the strategic
      advantage. That's because deep learning, arguably the most advanced software on
      the planet, generally runs on extremely simple hardware.

      Karl Freund, an analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy who specializes in deep
      learning, said the key bit of computation involved in running a deep-learning
      system—known as matrix multiplication—can easily be handled with 16-bit and even
      8-bit CPU components, as opposed to the 32- and 64-bit circuits of an advanced
      desktop processor. In fact, most deep-learning systems use traditional silicon,
      especially the graphics coprocessors found in the video cards best known for
      powering video games. Graphics coprocessors can have thousands of cores, all
      working in tandem, and the more cores there are, the more efficient the
      deep-learning network.

From:

[https://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/design/neuromorphic...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/design/neuromorphic- chips-are-destined-for-deep-learningor-obscurity)

</comment><comment><USER20> Micron had eval ram modules with buildin cellular automata for what, 10 years now?

[http://www.micronautomata.com/research](http://www.micronautomata.com/research)

</comment><comment><USER21> For god's sake. I've been pitching this for years .. I can't sigh hard enough.

<comment><USER22> That's how I feel. I used FPGAs in the late 90s and wanted to try making a parallel chip with say 1024 cores and a few K of RAM per core and then program it with something like Erlang. Then the dot bomb happened, then the housing bomb, the Great Recession, and so on and so forth. The big players got more entrenched so everything was evolutionary instead of revolutionary and I'd say computer engineering (my major, never used) got set back 10-15 years.

But that said, I'm excited that 90s technology is finally being adopted by the AI world. I'm also hopeful that all these languages like Elixir, Go and MATLAB/Octave will let us do concurrent programming in ways that are less painful than say OpenCL/CUDA.

<comment><USER21> TBH, seeing Chuck Moore talk about its GreenArray forth silicon gave me the inspiration. Since all cores are ALU+RAM and can send data/code to neighbors you get a "smart buffer". I found it so damn exciting I can't stop dreaming about this.

Even a subset of the idea, having blit in ram (swap, row/col-zeroing, etc etc) could reduce pressure on the memory bus.

<comment><USER23> Have you read about the J-machine? An older research machine that was sort of like that. Trouble is that we need to change software and hardware together to really reap the advantage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There was a talk about this on this year's debconf

Delivering Software for Memory Driven Computing

[https://debconf17.debconf.org/talks/206/](https://debconf17.debconf.org/talks/206/)

</comment><comment><USER25> The concept of "Smart Memory" has been around for a while...from 2000 at least: [https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=339673](https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=339673)

</comment><comment><USER26> Watched the video, read the article, but I'm not entirely clear how 'in memory' components differ in principle from just having a CPU with very large register sets?

</comment><comment><USER27> This will catch up to Moore's law when it does come out one day

</comment><comment><USER28> Would this be classified as MIMD?

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

</comment><comment><USER29> Didn't early Palm Pilots have something they called run in place memory?

</comment><comment><USER30> So sorry to find this thread on HN while intoxication. I need to write a blogpost about it in a couple of days. In short, these devices are more capable and realizable than most can imagine.

Disclaimer: Neuromorphic computing with PCRAM devices is my MSc and future PhD thesis topic.

<comment><USER31> If only there was room in the margin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Serverless applications

Computerless computing!

</comment><comment><USER33> feels like IBM comes up with a new architecture every week and a half or so, and then you never hear from them again. It's like Reddit and it's be-monthly cures for aids and cancer</comment>


When you hate your design and you're almost finished with it, what do you do? - <AUTHOR> http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/7264/when-you-hate-your-design-and-youre-almost-finished-with-it-what-do-you-do

<comment><USER2> That's how I know its almost finished. A little more effort and you'll be at "truly despise". Time to ship.</comment>


Foxconn Considering Building Plant in U.S - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/22/business/foxconn-might-build-plant-in-us.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_dk_20170123&nl=dealbook&nl_art=14&nlid=65508833&ref=headline&te=1&referer= <comment><USER2> Well, work conditions are not that different now between China and US as they were in the past, so makes sense.</comment>


Two people fly jetpacks over Dubai [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/tldr/2015/5/11/8587941/jetpacks-yves-rossy-dubai-balloon-boy <comment><USER2> That vid just makes you want to go afk and DO something.

</comment><comment><USER3> Are they flying or falling with style?

<comment><USER4> More towards the latter, it appears. They're certainly air-launched and parachute-landed. Still I think there's a reasonable case that you should call it flight if they are capable of straight level powered flight while the fuel lasts, but I don't think they're quite there.

The website cites a flight time of 6 to 13 minutes - I suspect that is the peak of the trade-off between launch weight, fuel duration and descent time. Rather than 6-13 minutes of powered flight followed by the equivalent of a parachute jump.

(EDIT: I've just seen on the developer's wikipedia entry that he claims stable level flight has been achieved. Very impressive - though one might still conjecture that that might only be achievable at certain lower fuel levels).

Depending on the amount of control the pilot has, I'd expect them to be capable of levelling out and making short ascents, basically trading speed for height. And above all it looks like great FUN!</comment></comment>


CocoonJS 2.0, now ready for HTML5 Apps Introducing the Phonegap Killer - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ludei.com/html5-apps-phonegap/

<comment><USER2> Pity they have such a horrible site design and poor documentation (scattered in too many places). For e.g. the code example on this page could be made easier to read/understand with a simple syntax highlighter:

[http://support.ludei.com/hc/en- us/articles/200807797-CocoonJ...](http://support.ludei.com/hc/en- us/articles/200807797-CocoonJS-Webview)

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice! Does Canvas+ support WebGL? What about video and device camera processing, i.e. through a custom shader?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Do you think CocoonJS is better than Famo.us?</comment>