How does a fighter jet lock onto and keep track of an enemy aircraft? (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/how-fighter-jets-lock-on-and-how-the-targets-know-1644871272

<comment><USER2> The system has not performed "a lock on the target", at least not in the way that the language leads you to believe. The tool is making a prediction, that within a certain level of confidence, and given the present parameters, that firing the missile will result in the neutralization of the target.

There's growing number of ways, both active and passive, that targets can be tracked or future positions predicted. One of the answers on that page hints at this, the other answer is misleading and often not how it's done in many modern systems.

Source: engineered parts of these systems before.

<comment><USER3> The radar and weapon control systems are "locked on" to from the aircraft's perspective - I don't really understand what you're talking about...

A particular target has been identified, it is being tracked (maybe at the expense of scanning for other targets if its an older system, probably with track-while-scan otherwise), and based on this updates are being sent to the missile in order to control its initial trajectory when it gets launched to point it in the correct direction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Related anecdote - I worked with a coder a while back who was a naval aviator before he went back to school, flying carrier-based transports. I asked him once about whether he would have wanted to fly fighters instead, and he said that just flying transports was already a huge amount of work, as far as flight plans, training, practice, and such. Flying fighters apparently involved doing all of that same work, plus a bunch more for weapons, tactics, etc, so those guys never had any free time. Apparently, flying fighters wasn't nearly as fun as it sounds.

<comment><USER5> believe me, flying fighters really is as much fun as it sounds. It is more work than the transport guys, but you get out what you put in. its all worth it coming in for a 450 knot overhead at 600', pulling six g's in the break, then catching the three-wire aboard the carrier.

<comment><USER6> To remember that there are people that can and do pilot those jets regularly, before coming home to their family, gives me a kind of feeling of vertigo and envy, that my life (and the other peasants around me) is flat, onedimensional, boring and meaningless.

But soon I forget and resume watching Netflix.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So why don't they include two radars, one for sweeps and one for tracking? I know, I know, weight, power, etc. At the same time, isn't that the obvious answer?

<comment><USER8> No space. Take a look at this image, it's the standard AN/APG-63 on an F-15C fighter aircraft: [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:APG-63_radar_of_F-15_...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:APG-63_radar_of_F-15_1985.JPEG)

Note how the radar's processing units and dish take up the entirety of the aircraft's nose and how large the system is compared to the technician working on it. There simply isn't enough space to add another radar.

Nor would it make sense to split that into two smaller radars, as the size of the dish and processing units is strongly linked to its power and range. That's one reason larger aircraft like the F-15, F-14 and Su-27 have longer- ranged and more powerful radars than smaller fighter aircraft.

This track vs scan limitation is removed by Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radars such as this AN/APG-63(V)2 retrofitted to a USAF F-15C: [http://www.pacaf.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/070720-F...](http://www.pacaf.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/070720-F-9999J-001.jpg)

Rather than having a mechanically-slaved reflective dish, an AESA radar has hundreds of Transmit/Receive Modules (TRMs) each capable of acting like a tiny radar dish by transmitting or receiving on its own frequency and being steered its own direction.

So now, rather than having the radar dish jump between track and scan at rapid intervals, the system can just dedicate a few hundred of the AESA TRMs to tracking one or more targets while letting the remainder continue sweeping the skies. There's no limitation on azimuth because each TRM can be individually steered.

So in short, the answer is that the latest fighter aircraft don't have two radars, they have hundreds or thousands of tiny radars that can work together in a whole bunch of useful combinations.

 _Edit: Replaced initial image with a Wiki Commons link that doesn 't have linking issues._

<comment><USER9> It is important to note that the antennae in a phased array (TRMs) cannot be "steered" individually: it is the electronics that creates a beam by timing the transmit and receive signals to a number of antennae. It's similar to the way an array of atoms creates a pattern of beams in x-ray crystallography, if that makes it clearer.

<comment><USER10> This does also mean that the whole array can be pointed in multiple directions at once: The only limitation is the number of phase shifters coming off of each antenna (if the signals are directly sampled and then the beam forming is done in software you are then only limited by your processing power. I'm not sure if this is currently possible in radar but I've seen it done for sonar).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hmmm, I was kind of hoping for an explanation of how the control system determines how to modify the highly directional antenna's orientation to continue to maximally "illuminate" the target once it's been selected from a general scan.

Can anyone describe the solution to this?

Example idea: Once selected for "lock," the antenna scans in small circles and migrates its central point toward the point on the scanned circle that provides the strongest return, allowing for variation due to noise sources.

<comment><USER12> There is a book on it[1]. But suffice it to say that the radar is computing an "exit vector" when the target it moving away from center and applying a correction to the pointer. I built a similar system with LEDs when building a tracking system for two moving robots. In my case I used a parabolic dish (a solar cigarette lighter) and a line of LEDs (bar graph display) as detectors rather than lights. Since the target robot and the pursuing robot had their beacon and search dish in the same plane I could reduce the problem to a managable bit of 2D geometry. As the signal went off axis you could turn the robot to re-align by applying the opposite rotation.

[1] "Multiple Target Tracking with Radar Applications" \- Sam Blackman ([http://books.google.com/books?id=Ag9TAAAAMAAJ&q=tracking+mul...](http://books.google.com/books?id=Ag9TAAAAMAAJ&q=tracking+multiple+targets+with+radar&dq=tracking+multiple+targets+with+radar&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VVk4VPiNLsnwoAS4rICoCw&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA))

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the thoughtful reply and reference!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> After playing something like Falcon BMS you'll have all these radars memorized. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU3pmXvnc0k&hd=1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU3pmXvnc0k&hd=1)

It acutally makes the sim quite fun to play, although you do have to get past that learning curve. I think for me it was the learning part that was kind of fun too

<comment><USER14> The radar discussion in the video is pretty good itself. It begins at 30min 31sec: [http://youtu.be/uU3pmXvnc0k?t=30m31s](http://youtu.be/uU3pmXvnc0k?t=30m31s) .

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Another interesting aspect is the Lock-On detection of the enemy aircraft. Aircraft are able to identify when they're being tracked by other aircraft or homing missles. [1]

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_warning_receiver](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_warning_receiver)

<comment><USER16> like mentioned in the answer..?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Upon reading of RWR and its delights, at least one part of me, the techno- dweeb, goes "weeeh!" ..

Another part, more of a hippy tree-hugger, goes "wish we were using this to figure out where to drop the water/medicine/books instead of _BOOMB_ devices" ..

I mean, seriously. Tell us where to drop the books, and _BOOM_ there it is: how it should be.

<comment><USER18> You might be interested in the UAV Challenge:

[http://www.uavoutbackchallenge.com.au/](http://www.uavoutbackchallenge.com.au/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Good response, worth the read. Heck the response alone could justify their own article.

As an aside: I hate quora' site design so much I have blacklisted it using Google Personal Blocklist. Somehow I dislike it more than Experts Exchange (which is also blacklisted), it is just super cluttered with nonsense, rolls into the comments section without warning and rarely offers good content (see Experts Exchange again).

That being said Yahoo! Answers also rarely has good content but at least with Yahoo! Answers you can determine that with a glance. You visit the page and you can see the answer (or lack of answer). So Yahoo! Answers remains in my search results, Quora and Expert Exchange have been vanished indefinitely.

PS - Quora also likes to spawn pop ups whenever you click anywhere on the page for no real reason (just asks for your Quora login details). For someone who randomly highlights blocks of text while reading this is pure hell...

<comment><USER20> I remember you used to see experts exchange or the like come up in search results and you could block it right there, in your search results without having to go to a separate page. Since they've hidden it, I honestly thought they'd removed the ability to block websites. Thanks for letting me know I just have to hunt for it.

I wonder why they removed that option from search results?

<comment><USER21> No the option is completely gone, not just hidden. You have to use an extension (which is what Google Personal Blocklist is).

<comment><USER22> Pesonal Blocklist Extension: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal- blocklist...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist-by- goo/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This was a great read until I reached the truncated bottom of the post.

God I hate Quora. There's the `share=1` flag but still, the end of the article is truncated and you're asked to login.

Quora wouldn't piss me off so much if they were not so annoying about me logging in and linking a social account, if they didn't post crap from my friend's facebook account who do have an account, send me spam about whatever people I know might have done (or not done) on their platform.

This is trying to gather users by pissing them off. Likely I'd have created an account since if it weren't for their aggressive behavior.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's odd. On the page with the signup box look for the id "__w2_LG4FatW_modal_signup_wrapper" and delete the whole div, that'll get rid of the box allowing to you to continue reading the top answer but not the others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Off Topic: Man! Reading this answer so makes me want to play those FlightSim games of the yesteryears like Apache Havoc, Commanche, Jane's F/A 18 Hornet etc etc. Does anyone have any suggestions for a modern Flight Sim game? Thanks!

<comment><USER25> Commanche was great. Strike Commander with a full Thrustmaster setup back in the day was epic.

Games to keep an eye on (if you like combat) [http://www.polygon.com/2014/6/9/5791924/e3-2014-marks-the- re...](http://www.polygon.com/2014/6/9/5791924/e3-2014-marks-the-return-of- the-flight-sim-genre)

Been out of games for a while, but looking forward to Oculus and whatever today's Thrustmaster equivalent is :)

<comment><USER26> For being a "Wing Commander"-like game, Strike Commander was surprisingly good and detailed. The manual was pretty interesting, with lots of information similar to the Quora answer.

The hardcore side of combat flightsim gaming for me was Su-27 Flanker ([http://www.mobygames.com/game/su-27-flanker](http://www.mobygames.com/game/su-27-flanker)), published by SSI. So hardcore I never actually managed to complete a full mission! It was a bit dry, without any campaigns or any kind of career tracking, but man was it detailed! It made me fall in love with the real-life Flanker.

And of course, Falcon 3.0 by Spectrum Holobyte. Another awesome flightsim I spent a lot of time with but never managed to complete a single mission with. It was obvious this sim was a work of love.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> __Meta Note __

I 'm not sure if its the software or the OP who added the "?share=1" parameter but thank you for including it in the link.

The flag makes reading quora possible. If HN doesn't add this parameter by default I think it would be a worth while upgrade to the site.

Lots of great content is locked in quora otherwise.

<comment><USER28> Since quora has problems in the money department, how is their competitor Stack Exchange maintaining profit?

<comment><USER29> I don't know any numbers, but it seems as if Stack Exchange is far more popular, especially as an information database for employees and students.

Quora has the opportunity to do the same, but I think the specific stack exchange communities offer a better partition between topics. Quora does it's best to show you targetted questions/comments, whereas StackExchange sites just throw you wherever you showed up (which, if by search, is usually a better choice)

A good example : I once answered a fringe question about the Dalai Lama on Quora, now many of the questions i'm tasked with giving answers to are spiritual in nature, and of absolutely no interest to me. It's the same search bubble problem that YouTube/Google runs into occasionally. Things like that make me prefer more 'basic' sites like StackExchange networks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Is there any way to view the rest of the answer hidden behind the "more" link without signing up for an account?

<comment><USER31> I usually just open dev tools and delete the div that contains the modal dialog and gray-out background (its ID is along the lines of "Modal_signup_wrapper"). You still won't be able to read past the first answer, but at least you'll get all of that answer's content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Interesting(I didn't read the whole article because I'm not logging into Quora). I wonder what the state of the art is? Certainly we have tech now to get all the info on all the aircrafts? I would think that software could be employed to fill in the gaps and extrapolate the info at the least. What with 3d video tracking and the like at the levels they are at today.</comment>


Still on the Job, but Making Only Half as Much  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/business/economy/14income.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

<comment><USER3> "[...] he said, adding that his wife does not want to be married to a pilot with so little earning power"

God, what's up with those people!

<comment><USER4> It is possible that he is projecting his insecurities onto her. "Making less salary makes me less of a man, my primary yardstick for being a man is as husband to my wife, accordingly my wife must think less of me."

At least, I hope that's what is happening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I remember reading an article some time back that students graduating in a recession year start with a lower salary than usual (expected), but that effect persists well into their careers (unexpected). I wonder if taking a 50% pay cut now will impair his earning potential for the rest of his career.

<comment><USER6> Could it be because salary history is used to determine starting pay (in later jobs)?

Another possibility is that lower salaries indicate lower starting positions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> These articles are ridiculous.

1\. Bought too much house 2\. Bought motorcycle 3\. Had FOUR kids 4\. Bought loads of presents at christmas 5\. Wife wants to stop working

Yet they live in a VERY cheap part of the country. If they had been better with their money they wouldn't be in such a terrible position. I'm not going to argue that losing 50% of your pay doesn't suck - because it does; yet whining about it while also bitching that your wife must now _gasp_ work is lame.

<comment><USER8> During the part about the Harley and the gold band it is worded almost as if those purchases happened recently. I don't think they did; I think they happened before the downgrade when they thought times were good because it later says the Harley sat for months before a buyer was found - so it's sold off now. The house and kids situation is similar as well. Obviously the kids all happened prior to this situation when they felt they were moving up in the world. You can't just un-have kids when things get tough later! The house deal sounded like it was in progress when the downgrade came. Now they're effectively trapped there. You can't just sell a house immediately after buying and expect to break even - they'd likely end up taking a loss selling the house (especially if the real estate market there is still dropping). (Of course it's important to consider if the loss of selling now offsets the loss of paying a higher mortgage payment while you wait for things to recover.) If they had canceled the in-progress house deal at the last minute, they'd probably have been liable for some fees or perhaps even a lawsuit from the seller. (I've lived in my house just over 2 years and will be selling it soon due to a job and location change and we'll be lucky to even break even - <USER2> we paid a lot extra on principal each month while the times were good!)

EDIT: I missed that the house they bought was actually his parents! Deals with family screws with people's sense of priorities, for sure.. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The article lists the guy's income as $34000 and the woman's as $40000. Even in 2000 when employment was high, Wikipedia lists (for Mechanicsville, VA) _"median income for a family was $62,209."_ So even in "hard times" their income is far above the median in good times.

<comment><USER10> Yes but they weren't aiming for median - they were aiming for rich.

Suppose you became/married a doctor, bought the nice house and BMW - then the hospital started paying $10/hour. Hey it's twice minimum wage what are you complaining about ?

<comment><USER11> This is how it is for my dad. He's a mechanical/process engineer who hasn't had a job for a year and he has a LOT of experience (and a university education of course). But almost every job he's applied for pays less than the previous job. The previous job was in a parts plant for the automotive industry and they're now operating on as few work days as possible to save money.

It's funny how an automotive industry company can pay its employees a decent salary even while the industry declines, while other companies think you should be grateful to get just $10/hr.

<comment><USER12> > It's funny how an automotive industry company can pay its employees a decent > salary even while the industry declines

That might be due to the taxpayer subsidies? Perhaps if they paid market (which is apparently ~$10/hr) they may actually become successful again and require hiring more engineers, driving wages back up?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Metagame Productivity Boost: Stats and Charts - <AUTHOR> http://yieldthought.com/post/6070927890/metagame-productivity-boost-stats-and-charts

<comment><USER2> "I started optimizing my workflow with various scripts and tools"

The stats are nice but i 'd like to read about the optimizations and changes to the workflow that lead to performance boost.</comment>


Pin Payments is Australia's first all-in-one online payment API - <AUTHOR> https://pin.net.au/# <comment><USER2> Wow, I'm a little surprised to see this for two reasons:

1\. Doing anything financial in Australia is hard. For better or for worse (IMHO it's mostly better) there is strict financial regulation in Australia (mostly due to the Corporations Act revamp under the Howard government as well as the longstanding Trade Practices Act, which is one of the most consumer- friendly pieces of legislation I think in the world).

I'd be interested in knowing the story and how high compliance costs are for something like this.

2\. It was done (based on comments here) at least in part in Perth. Perth is my home town and has become increasingly tech unfriendly for three reasons:

\- a lot of the bigger employers got bought out and consolidated their software development over East;

\- the state as a whole is very focused on digging stuff up from the ground (or under the sea to be pedantic) and selling it to the Chinese. The startup scene is tiny; and

\- cost of living in Perth is terrible in wage-adjusted terms. Honestly it's cheaper for me to live in New York (I moved here about 2.5 years ago to start a job with Google). Housing is a huge part of it but food, utilities and, well, everything is expensive in Perth now.

I'd certainly like to here more about the development story and the team (the site is scant on details on this).

As for the service itself, I'll echo the comments of others and say the FX and other fees coule make this quite expensive.

Still, good to see this coming out of Australia and good luck guys. I'm also glad to hear about more tech things happening in Perth. I might have to check out the meetups and stuff next time I visit.

<comment><USER3> From Brisbane, Queensland here and it's a similar story here. The company I work for is causing ripples in the Australian pond but as a whole the Australian tech scene is way behind that of the states and other parts of the world due to our tight regulations, expensive Internet connections and slow Internet connection speeds.

For every successful Australian company I can think of, there are thousands not so lucky. Atlassian and Envato are the only two companies I can think of off of the top of my head who have had major success spawning web based businesses in a country as small and somewhat lacking as Australia as Australia is. Melbourne and Sydney are definitely two locations you're most likely to start a successful business in. Good to see Pin tackling payments because in Australia you have two options: Paypal or a propriety expensive bank solution with horrible API.

<comment><USER4> Big Commerce?

<comment><USER5> Bigcommerce moved to the US (Austin), just as almost every successful tech company (and tech individual) out of Australia ends up doing.

You can't blame Australia too much for that. It's a tiny market, and the US is an abnormally large one. It's logical.

<comment><USER4> Did they really move though? My understanding are both co-CEO's are still in Sydney. I understand they opened a major office in the US but what growing Aussie company wouldn't?

<comment><USER5> That's possible, I'm just going by what someone at the company told me. Haven't looked into it further.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Congratulations to the guys at Pin!

As an Australian, I welcome this wholeheartedly. It has been extremely frustrating watching the payment revolution in the states, whilst at home there is next to no alternative to getting a merchants facility through a bank up until now. It will also be nice dealing with an API that isn't stuck in the 90s.

<comment><USER7> Braintree are in Australia, and their API is quite lovely these days.

edit: apologies, I didn't realize braintree required a merchant account as well.

<comment><USER8> Merchant accounts are a huge PITA.

You have to pay a bunch of money up front and then, if you're not a fish-and- chip shop or similar, you'll probably be told "no".

Plus, each bank will ask if you've ever been knocked back somewhere else. If you honestly answer that you have, guess how that affects your chances?

<comment><USER9> I started the process of getting a merchant account with NAB and quickly gave up. They had a long check list of requirements that had to be completed before the application was submitted. This included have the signup and subscription processes fully working so they could test them.

Pin is very needed here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I love that this is happening and this innovation is extremely important in the Australian market.

However, if you're an Australian company that wants to deal exclusively or largely in USD -- then you need to keep an eye on the cost.

Pin is offering $50/month ($9 promo atm) - then 3% and $0.30 on every transaction. Then for foreign exchange there is "a retail foreign exchange rate of 4% on top of the wholesale interbank rate at the time of the transaction" <https://pin.net.au/pricing>

_Plus_ if you've got USD outgoings - e.g. paying for EC2 - you'll cop the foreign exchange on the way out too.

All of these things chip away & can add up to quite a considerable overhead.

<comment><USER11> Th $50/month really is a trivial cost to any business larger than a couple of people, particularly for a service which eases the intake of money. It's the per-payment costs that you need to consider. A flagfall charge of 30c is meaningless when your invoices are $1k, and very high when they're $10. 3% on every transaction might sound a lot, but (I assume) that includes the credit card company cut, which usually comes in at around 2%, so effectively it's a 1% fee for the service.

Forex is beyond me, and that's where it does get complex :)

<comment><USER10> The problem is the FX - and as others have pointed out, this isn't a problem that is necessarily unique to Pin (However, Pin are providing a common retail rate).

It's $50/month. $0.30/transaction. Then 3% and then another 4% for the FX. Then maybe you pay your EC2 bill, or your Adwords account, or your oDesk freelancer and that's another 4-5% on the way back.

If you're doing a large volume of small transactions you'll be racking up ~15% just in fees. If you manage to change that to fewer larger transactions, you might get that to 8-9%. However, even though the % is slightly healthier it's now serious money ($1,000s). Once you get into that camp having a US entity (or whatever) starts to pay off.

Meanwhile, your US-based competitors are doing a flat $0.30 and 2.9% with Stripe (That's just off the bat! Your bigger competitors are using Braintree and probably getting sub 2% overall).

Sounds like I'm hating on Pin. I'm not. Genuinely embrace that they're on the scene. Payments in Australia have been a world of hurt for a long time. This is a great first beachhead and getting this capability out there is fundamental.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> After paypal shutting down my account on a number of occasions while organising campjs.com, we switched from Paypal+EventBrite to Pin+Tito and it's been smooth sailing ever since. The Pin team has been a joy to deal with, responsive to feedback and I highly recommend them. Congratulations to Pin.

</comment><comment><USER13> Been watching these guys closely for the past 8 months or so.

These guys are based out of Perth, Australia and offer some pretty compelling prices, especially the email they sent them morning where their monthly pricing went down to $9 a month (instead of $50).

They use ruby on rails, and offer a JSON API.bEE

<comment><USER14> Would love to hear their story.

For those who don't know, Perth is the most remote city in the world (according to Bill Bryson), and has a population shy of 2 million mostly in a sprawl that hugs the coast.

I spent over a month there and a couple of weeks exploring the area around Margaret River, lovely place... but reading this, what strikes me is how hard it must be to find support, raise money, and build a startup with reach in a city of such remoteness and with only a limited pool of angels and tech resource to call upon.

So... knowing the city and WA as briefly as I do, I think this startup would probably have a good story behind it about the adverse environment (for startups) in which they emerged and what it took to get to where they are, and where they're going from here.

<comment><USER11> Perth is rolling in money - that's where the mining industry has boomed, dragging the Australian dollar up with it. It's remote, but that doesn't mean it's poor.

<comment><USER14> Is Perth rolling in money the way that London is? Here, the financial money favours financial startups.

Perth is wealthy, but is the money mostly poured back into mining related ventures?

<comment><USER11> Unlikely, given that London is rolling in money, and that Greater London is ten times the size of Greater Perth. Though I really couldn't tell you what the VC culture is like there, because I don't move in those circles :) I have seen a few decent techs coming to Melbourne with places in WA on their resume though.

<comment><USER15> There is a PHENOMENAL amount of money out in Perth. It may be small, but some of the wealthiest in the world (and the world's wealthiest woman) live there.

Largely due to mining, Australia's average wage is around $70k but our median wage is around $45k. Pretty crazy.

It's a similar atmosphere to Texas oil culture (I hear, anyway). Lots of secessionists saying Western Australia is keeping the country afloat. This is somewhat true (but not entirely), and they tend to forget 20 years ago WA was a shitheap with nothing going for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have been testing with these guys as we get closer to releasing our service and they have been great to deal with. Not having to worry about a merchant account saved a lot of time when it came to paperwork and the integration is very simple.

The payments sector has been awaiting a shakeup in Australia for some time now, and Pin will definitely be a recognizable force moving forward.

Congrats on the launch and thanks for the lowered monthly fee!

</comment><comment><USER17> "The conversion is completed at a retail foreign exchange rate of 4% on top of the wholesale interbank rate at the time of the transaction".

So the actual pricing is more like $9/mo + .30 + 7% for any non AUD business.

We use Stripe, a Bank of America USD account and OANDA to move our USD -> AUD with an FX commission ~ 0.1%.

<comment><USER18> Would you be able to do a more complete writeup of what you did (setting up EIN, getting a bank account, etc.) and all the implications (especially tax)? I've seen one person do such a thing to a limited degree and I've got the gist of the process myself, but I'd _really_ like to see more info about this sort of thing.

There's one point in favour of Pin, though: easy setup. For side-projects, $9/month and have an ABN is comparatively little, where going through creating a merchant account alone---let alone the other requirements---is a big deterrant and thus, I think, quite harmful to this micro/experimental online business sector. My plan is basically use Pin while it's the cheapest and simplest, then _when_ my business has demonstrated viability, go for the cheaper, more complex option. (Naturally this is dependent upon having a fairly-high-margin business.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is it possible to have USD payments deposited in my account directly without having currency conversion inside Pin? My bank account (Citibank Australia) tends to be significantly cheaper when depositing in USD than when gateways convert and charge their own conversion fee.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, seems to be industry standard to throw nearly one percent on top of any conversion.

<comment><USER21> If I'm reading <https://pin.net.au/pricing> correctly, they're charging four percent extra for conversion, which sounds like it means they end up costing 7% + 30c for payments in USD.

<comment><USER22> I've looked at a lot of options for accepting USD from Australia and 4% is pretty standard for retail exchange rate.

I ended up going with a US entity + bank account, which is the best option of a bunch of crappy options.

Pin looks good for small volumes

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The temporarily reduced pricing means I can actually justify trying a few side projects without investing too much into it. Thanks so much Pin!

<comment><USER18> That was my feeling too. $600/year for what is at present a spare-time project and not complete (thus, not ready to accept payments) was putting me off; $108/year is sufficiently low that I'm pretty confident I'll be signing up in the next month... then there's the added benefit of the incentive that will give me to get something _worth_ paying for up quickly to make it financially worthwhile. :-)

And then for any further side-projects... I'll already have the low- maintenance account. Great!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is great news. I've been patiently waiting for Stripe to arrive, but I've started to lose hope. Pin looks like it will fill that void. Can use a standard customer savings account to receive payments?

<comment><USER13> Yeah, just need an ABN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Great stuff! Good to see this coming out of Perth and hopefully they can get a good foothold on the market from support of businesses here before the bigger US/EU competitors (finally) arrive.

</comment><comment><USER26> I don't understand the $50 a month fee, they're taking that on top of 3% and 30c a transaction.

Uh, and they also don't support 2FA on their login form; that's not going to end well.

<comment><USER27> huh? "A monthly service fee of $9 gives you everything you need to accept payments in your website or application."

<comment><USER23> The $9 a month is an introductory price valid for registrations this month only. The original (and I suspect the price if you register next month) was $50.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I would still think that Braintree would be a better bet.

They abstract the bank part of the equation as well so you are just dealing with a single entity for any issues that arise. Plus their pricing is a little bit better:

<https://www.braintreepayments.com/pricing>

That said ANY competition is always nice. The real question though is how they handle chargebacks.

<comment><USER29> Braintree require you get an NAB merchant account and, if you want to support USD then you have to also get the NAB foreign-currency accounts.

<comment><USER30> > Braintree require you get an NAB merchant account and, if you want to > support USD then you have to also get the NAB foreign-currency accounts.

Which, to me, are not-insubstantial barriers. Pin might not be as competitive on price (barring the $9/m intro offer), but just being able to supply a regular account to handle their deposits is convenient.

On a somewhat related note, I'm currently forking Drone.io's go.stripe library[1] for Pin Payments, given the extreme similarity of the Stripe & Pin API's. If anyone is keen on helping, get in touch or send me a pull request: <https://github.com/elithrar/go.pin>

[1]: <https://github.com/drone/go.stripe>

<comment><USER31> Totally. I don't know how it is in the US, but in AU braintree doesn't even compete with eway + your choice of bank.

IMHO Pin lowers the barrier to entry for accepting CC, which is most welcome, and long overdue in this country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Signed up even though I don't have an immediate requirement for this service. Great to see some local innovation in the financial space.

</comment><comment><USER33> First, congratulations to the Pin team. However I wonder about the longevity of companies that are essentially Stripe clones in unsupported countries. Their business essentially depends on the fact that Stripe is not currently in Australia. Once Stripe announces support for Australia, why would anyone choose Pin over Stripe?

<comment><USER34> Apparently our financial regulations are an obtuse, onerous nightmare to deal with. I imagine even just getting setup here is a big head start. Google Merchant have been expanding for years but are still ignoring Australia, so thank you Pin

<comment><USER35> How to get Stripe in Australia, set up Pin, $$$-big (locally), BRANDBRANDBRAND (its an Aussie thing), and then .. when big enough, the sharks come calling, throw out the chum ..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The website claims that they are backed by the government but doesn't go into any detail. Can anyone clarify?

<comment><USER37> Yeah, they might want to reword that. I think they mean that they got a grant: [http://www.commercialisationaustralia.gov.au/OurParticipants...](http://www.commercialisationaustralia.gov.au/OurParticipants/Pages/Southern%20Payment%20Systems%20Ltd.aspx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> If Stripe was thinking about moving into the Australian market, Pin would provide them a ready-made solution. All things equal, this startup has a high chance of getting acquired/ merged.

</comment><comment><USER39> There's not much documentation that I can find on it, so, do you need a merchant account for this, or will any bank account work?

<comment><USER40> I believe you also need an ABN to begin charging live customers.

<comment><USER29> This is an Australian law requirement anyway for charging anyone for anything.

<comment><USER41> Strictly speaking, no. In Australia, businesses cannot pay suppliers unless they have an ABN, otherwise their payment will be subject to Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT). You can take money as an individual without ABN however. With PayPal this is already possible. You can run a small operation eg on ebay but as soon as you call it a business you should get an ABN, but then you also have to pay income tax on what you make.

<comment><USER29> Which actually effectively requires you to have an ABN to charge anyone in Australia. Without it, anyone you were selling to would be required with withhold 48.5%. How does an individual do that?

<comment><USER42> This is how: [http://www.ato.gov.au/businesses/content.aspx?menuid=0&d...](http://www.ato.gov.au/businesses/content.aspx?menuid=0&doc=/content/19178.htm&page=3&H3)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I hope this pushes <http://www.paymentexpress.com/> to up their game.

<comment><USER44> Don't even get me started... PaymentExpress demanded we sign a 3 year contract to move off their "starter" plan. This is after them stuffing up our recurring billing for 6 weeks late last year. Cost us thousands.

Told them to jam it, in the process of moving to Pin as we speak.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> this is stellar, sterling and capital, all at the same time. I was days away from signing up with eWay. Maintain the modern API and take good care of your customers, I'll refer you to everyone I know and your customers will ensure you'll remain in business for a long while. Welcome!

</comment><comment><USER46> I wonder what the chances of them getting this to us in NZ are...

<comment><USER47> I can't give you an ETA, but the chances are high.

<comment><USER48> Any way we can lock in the $9/mo pricing for when you launch in NZ? As others have said, it would be awesome to have available for side projects!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> So this exact post was made almost exactly a year ago. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4078334>

<comment><USER49> Closed alpha testing vs public availability?

Progress, not the exact same post.</comment></comment>


Why Doesn't Intel Put Say 1GB of L2 Cache in CPUs? - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/Why-doesnt-Intel-put-say-1GB-of-L2-cache-in-CPUs?share=1 <comment><USER2> A tangentially related question I've wonder for a while is:

What type of improvements can be made to L3/"L4"(I'm unsure if that is what intel calls crystalwell and its derivatives) to improve the latency such that access related penalties/IPC lose reach the same diminishing return point that 512KB of L1 provides to registers.

[https://www.anandtech.com/show/14694/amd-rome-epyc-2nd- gen/7](https://www.anandtech.com/show/14694/amd-rome-epyc-2nd-gen/7)

It almost looks like AMD is doing just that. The first 4MB of L3 is almost as fast as L2. That said there seems to be quite a steep penalty for 8MB, and reaching 16MB is only a hair faster than going out to main memory. I translate that last concession as AMD not believe such an event will occur very often.

The penalty for values greater than 16MM is especially slow when one considers the added "hop" the Rome architecture has with regards to it's memory subsystem. Intel's offerings don't seem quite as hampered when working with larger sizes but do incur more of a penalty for using L3 at all. Perhaps someone with a CE/EE background could shed some light on the matter?

</comment><comment><USER3> Intel is so focused on server chips it forgot all about the desktop. AMD is killing it.</comment>


Google Now starts showing gas stations along your route - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/21/google-now-gas-stations-on-route/

<comment><USER2> Possibly an import from their acquisition Waze, which already has this feature - they seem to be generally trying to move some of its features into Google Maps.

</comment><comment><USER3> EV charging stations would be nice too.</comment>


Do you have a different personality when you speak a different language? - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/08/15/f-vp-ross.html

<comment><USER2> I have an unpublished, unfinished PhD thesis investigating this question. I'm working on getting permission to publish it, but for now I can only give you the summary.

The author administered standardised personality tests to people tested as fluently bi-lingual in English and German. Each of the four possibilities was tested. Everyone got both tests, some tested first in English, the others first in German. Each group had roughly equal numbers of those claiming English as their first language and those claiming German as their first language.

The data showed two distinct types of behaviour. Some of those tested showed no personality shift at all, while others showed an unmistakable change. There were none who changed a little - either they did, or they didn't.

It's been suggested that those who didn't change were, for example, compound bilinguals, whereas those who did were coordinates. Or _vice versa._

The conclusion was that a personality shift for some types of bilinguals is clear and unavoidable.

I really hope I can get this material onto the web.

ADDED IN EDIT: Separating the effects of cultural influences from those of the language itself is difficult, and the author of the thesis went to great lengths to look for changes based on the language. that's what makes this research so important (in my opinion). My next step is to contact the supervisor(s) of the candidate, but that's awkward. Working on it.

<comment><USER3> Here's a bit of my experience to back up how hard it is to separate out the cultural aspect: The English singular 'you' has two words for it in German, 'sie' and 'du'.

The first one is used in situations where there is some distance between the speakers, the second when they are (much) more familiar. It used to be fairly unheard of to hear a German 'subordinate' use 'du' to their superior, whereas in English it would be impossible to even express the difference.

So in Germany workplace relationships tend to have a sense of distance between the various strata. Even if you didn't want to change your personality the simple fact that you'd address your superior in this way would make you behave differently (and so you would show a more deferential personality), because associated with that distance are a whole pile of other personal traits.

It's not as strict as it used to be, but the difference is definitely still there.

<comment><USER4> Same in Spanish ('usted' and 'tu', respectively).

<comment><USER5> And in most Indian languages.

<comment><USER6> And French, "tu" (familiar singular) and "vous" (formal singular, or plural).

English used to have "thou", but of course that's long since extinct.

<comment><USER7> Trivia, "thou" was actually the informal pronoun.

On the other hand in Mexican Spanish, "usted" is fading away. It's curious how different cultures get rid of different options.

<comment><USER8> "Usted" is alive and well in Argentinian Spanish. Divided by a common language indeed...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I speak 2 languages fluently and a few others adequately. I definitely think my behavior is a little different when speaking Spanish versus English, but I don't think there are any deep-seated psycholinguistic reasons for this - it's more because of cultural differences.

An example: in Colombia, when demonstrating the height of a child, you hold your hand vertically, while when talking about the height of an animal, you hold your hand horizontally. If you do the wrong thing, people may assume you're a foreigner and don't know, or they may assume you're just rude. The fact that I learned to hold my hand a certain way when speaking Spanish with Colombians doesn't mean my personality has changed, it means I've absorbed a cultural lesson and if I do it, I do it because I am trying to fit in.

The same things goes for the way in which you express yourself with speech. The way you greet people, how long you make small talk before "getting down to business", how to flirt in a bar; all of these things vary a LOT from country to country and if you want to fit in, then you need to pay attention and learn some things. But again, doing that does not mean that your __personality __has changed; you're just behaving differently.

One more thing - as somebody who studied theoretical linguistics and speaks the two languages fluently, any time people start making ridiculously subjective claims about a language like "English, a more unemotional and efficient language than Spanish" - keep in mind you're reading complete bullshit.

That's like saying the firewire cable that you use to transfer movies from your video camera is more "artistic" than the USB cable you use to attach your hard drive to your computer. It's confusing the signal with the carrier, and making some pretty subjective claims about the signal too.

<comment><USER10> "English, a more unemotional and efficient language than Spanish"

That claim is because it is usually perceived that lots of words and expressions in English are shorter than their Spanish counterparts.

car vs carro

dog vs perro

lol vs que risa jajajajaja

I'm really interested in an expert explanation of why this is complete bullshit.

<comment><USER9> First: it's because it's making cultural observations about the people from both places, and trying to somehow say that this is reflected in the language.

For the sake of argument, let's just assume the British are "less emotional" than the Argentines (though attending a football match in each country may disabuse you of that idea). This may affect the way people _use_ language, but it does not affect _language_. Language is a tool that people use to convey their thoughts. The tool not affected by the thoughts it is used to convey.

Second: sure, English may have lots of one-syllable words for things that are two syllables in Spanish (though the "lol" example you gave above is spurious because in my experience people just write "jaja."). But English requires more use of pronouns, articles and prepositions than Spanish does:

* "No sé" vs. "I don't know"

* "No lo vi" vs. "I didn't see it"

* "vamos" vs. "let's go"

* "saco la mano" "I take out my hand"

What's more "efficient?" It's subjective, and at the end of the day an utterly meaningless thing to analyze because trying to extrapolate cultural behaviors from the way a language uses propositions and articles is about as good science as phrenology or astrology.

Third: let's assume when people say "efficient" they mean "simpler grammar." People often claim that "Latin is more complex than English" because it has nominal declensions. But because of its declensions, word order in Latin is almost irrelevant. In place of declensions, English uses strict word order to distinguish subjects from objects. Which one is simpler? It's subjective, because your answer will depend on whether you're a native speaker of a language more like Latin or more like English.

But if you're writing a program to parse natural language syntax, Latin's "complex" nouns make it _a lot_ easier to parse programmatically than English. What does this say about Roman culture? Nothing. Again, it's the wrong way to look at language - there's no valid reason to draw a connection between grammar and cultural behavior.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This seems to be my week to finally "de-lurk" around here.

I did a collaboration a few years back on this; it's a fascinating topic. If you're curious to learn more and have access, check out: [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WM0-4DVBH3Y-1&_user=10&_coverDate=04%2F30%2F2006&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1428132340&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=b715da28a8ab603d2c951da1a5de90a1)

I'll see if I can dig up a summary but am on iPhone at the moment.

<comment><USER12> Nice paper. what is Atof, Inc.?

<comment><USER11> Just my company... essentially it's what I do all my work through, makes life easier than doing things as a sole proprietor.

<comment><USER12> very interesting. can you tell me more? what kind of work do you do?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One issue that comes up with people who speak multiple languages is the way you speak them and the way you are perceived, which in turn lead to a personality shift.

Say for example, you are a native english speaker from South Africa. You speak with a normal informal accent. Then you go to study french in a school in france - the french you will learn will be formal school french, and not street french.

As a result, people who speak to you in french will perceive you to be a formal, educated person, because of your choice of words. So they will treat you that way, and you will adopt the same formal characteristics as the people who are talking to you.

So it will appear that you have a personality shift when you switch languages.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think it's a lot more cultural acclimatization than language, although the language you're using at the time may "force" a cultural context. I've certainly been different people when living in different places: the back- woods bilingual (English and "sawmill French") Stan of Northern Ontario had a lot in common with the distictly Maritime-accented Stan who lived in Halifax, Summerside and St. John's, but is almost no relation to the Stan who lived in Montreal or the current Torontonian version -- unless you can drag a bit of Newfanese or joual d'scierie out of me in a conversation. When that happens, the "my time is precious", stacatto-speaking urban a-hole melts away and a mellower (yet, oddly, harder-working) kind of fellow takes over. Granted, that's "anecdote", not "datum", but it frames an alternate way of studying the phenomenon.

</comment><comment><USER15> It's getting more interesting when you have mastered a language to such a degree, that you can think in it. Having lived the first half of my life in Russia and the second in Germany I can think in both, russian and german, and switch between them instantly. I found out, that I am more happy and more relaxed while thinking in Russian, while thinking in German helps my problem solving skills. Probably it's correlated with my life experiences. I also talk in a higher, more boyish pitch while talking in Russian, while my German voice is deeper. At parties I often enjoy talking in English, as I have no cultural baggage at all associated with it, and can use it to say things I would hardly say in any other language (knowing how it may be interpreted). While it has its upsides (being able to switch to another cultural mindset on the fly helps with taking things easy), having two personalities occupying my brain makes both of them less deep, and while it's more or less interconnected now, translating the pieces of information between the languages feels often impossible in polynomial time.

</comment><comment><USER16> For a few years I dated a girl (translator) that spoke several languages fluently. She would talk with her father on the phone and sort of regress to the age/personality she had when she primarily spoke that language.

In English she was a young professional. In Italian she was a teenage girl. In Maltese she was a much younger child. I still wonder if they had a richer communication by going through the languages like that. It was so abrupt and obvious that I loved to sit and listen.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm a native English speaker and relatively fluent Japanese speaker. I used to speak only Japanese for several days straight, dreamed in Japanese, thought in Japnese etc. when I lived there.

There are words in Japanese I cannot translate to English - any translation just has the wrong meaning outside of the Japanese context.

My friends who've seen me speak in both languages say I have quite different personalities in each language. I would say that it's primarily related to the cultural context I learned the words in.

In the same way different groups of friends bring out different aspects of me, so too do different languages.

</comment><comment><USER18> I live in America and only speak swiss german with my wife. Apparently I talk like a girl when I speak swiss now.

<comment><USER19> I had the same problem when learning Japanese. Whether teachers or friends, I didn't often speak it with other men, and definitely picked up some softer turns of phrase and pronunciations.

Once I became able to hear this in myself I started overcompensating somewhat, and had a few people comment that I sounded unusually brusque or was saying something almost cartoonishly masculine.

I don't think there was anything inherent in the language that changed my personality, but it definitely added another layer of concern and thought to how I interacted with people. A lot of it also had to do with just the more limited set of words available to me, though. Maybe I wanted to say something snarky or yell at a taxi driver or whatever, I might just not have known how.

<comment><USER18> That's interesting and pretty hilarious. Did you ever find a middle ground between the soft turns of phrases and being cartoonishly masculine?

The part about the "more limited set of words available" is the same for me. My vocab is okay, but strongly biased toward certain (mainly household) topics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> i grew up speaking german and i live in SF.

I call bullshit on TFA, because last time I checked the german speaking area was culturally diverse in the traits mentioned.

Repeating stereotypes: people in Vienna don't yell and call bullshit on people (they are more likely to talk behind each other's backs), while people in Berlin yell at each other all the time to resolve conflicts (which seems way more healthy to me). These are stereotypes sure, but not more so than the ones mentioned in TFA.

So if there's no uniform behavior identifying even stereotypical german speakers, how can this guy pick up on behavior that is different just because of the language?

OTOH, hanging out in a culture that is more verbose (or not) about their conflict resolution can surely change you. But that's independent from language.

<comment><USER21> "people in Berlin yell at each other all the time to resolve conflicts"

Oh, I thought the real German stereotype was that you sued people if they annoyed you even the slightest.

<comment><USER22> The US is famous for their lawyer epidemic and nutcase lawsuits like McDonalds coffee that is too hot.

<comment><USER23> I wish people would make themselves familiar with examples before citing them as evidence of vague general claims:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonalds_Restaurant...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonalds_Restaurants)

<comment><USER22> Have a TL;DR? Am I supposed to red a 1000 lines Wikipedia article before I comment on anything?

<comment><USER23> Short version: the woman suffered third degree burns over 6% of her body (1% = the size of a handprint) including her crotch, and lesser burns over 16%. She required emergency medical attention, expensive skin grafts, etc. This was not just someone spilling a bit of coffee on their arm and flinching in pain, but instead was a horrific life-threatening injury (I'm somewhat reminded of Rush Limbaugh suggesting that waterboarding is no big deal, similar to a fraternity hazing ritual). A jury made up of people (including self-professed conservative republicans) who initially thought the case was a joke ended up rewarding the woman a big pile of cash, because they felt after hearing all the evidence and four hours of deliberation that McDonalds needed to be seriously punished for what they felt was unacceptable carelessness with customer safety.

Here's a 1995 Newsweek article: [http://www.newsweek.com/1995/03/19/are- lawyers-burning-ameri...](http://www.newsweek.com/1995/03/19/are-lawyers- burning-america.html)

> _What happened next on the morning of Feb. 27, 1992, was an accident. "I > took the cup and tried to get the top off," she later testified. She looked > for a place to set it down, but the dashboard was slanted and there was no > cup-holder in the Ford Probe. "Both hands were busy. I couldn't hold it so I > put it between my knees and tried to get the top off that way." Liebeck > tugged, and scalding coffee gushed into her lap. She screamed. Chris leaped > from the car to help her. Desperately, she pulled at her sweat suit, > squirming in a bucket seat as the 170-degree coffee seared her skin. By the > time they reached an emergency room, second- and third-degree burns had > spread across her buttocks, her thighs and her labia. All that she remembers > is the pain._ [...]

> _After the spill, Liebeck spent seven days in an Albuquerque hospital and > about three weeks recuperating at home with her daughter Nancy Tiano, then > was hospitalized again for skin grafts. She had lost 20 pounds -- down to 83 > pounds -- and was practically immobilized. The grafts were almost as painful > as the burn, her daughter Judy Allen recalls: "She was in tremendous pain; I > didn't know if she'd survive this." In August Liebeck wrote to McDonald's, > asking the company to turn down the coffee temperature. She wasn't looking > to sue,but the family thought she was entitled to her out-of-pocket expenses > -- about $2,000 -- plus the lost wages of her daughter who stayed home with > her. According to the family, McDonald's offered $800._

> _The case proceeded in the stylized manner of the civil courts: expert > witnesses were gathered, settlement offers were made. Just before trial > Morgan suggested $300,000, but McDonald's wasn't interested. In August 1994 > they went to trial before a jury filled with citizens annoyed at having to > listen to a case about spilled coffee. "I was just insulted," recalls > Roxanne Bell, 38, a preschool teacher. "The whole thing sounded ridiculous > to me." According to several jurors interviewed by Newsweek, three witnesses > turned the case around. First there were the photos of Liebeck's charred > skin and the testimony of Dr. Charles Baxter, a renowned burn expert from > Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. He testified that coffee at 170 > degrees would cause second-degree burns within 3.5 seconds of hitting the > skin._ [...]

> _After deliberating for about four hours, the jury found for Liebeck. Her > compensatory damages -- out of pocket plus pain and suffering -- were set at > $200,000. To be fair, the jurors knocked off 20 percent because she had > contributed to the accident. Then they hit McDonald's with a stern warning: > $2.7 million in punitive damages. "It was our way of saying, 'Hey, open your > eyes. People are getting burned'," recalls juror Bell. A month later, trial > Judge Robert H. Scott reduced the award to $640,000, calculating punitive > damages at three times compensatory. He, too, wanted to deliver a message to > McDonald's that it "was appropriate to punish and deter" its corporate > coffee policy. Scott, another self-described conservative Republican, > insists the case was "not a runaway. I was there." After further post-trial > skirmishing, the two sides settled out of court. Part of their deal includes > keeping secret the final amount._

etc.

<comment><USER22> So is 170° too hot for coffee? I still don't quite get it. is that Fahrenheit, or Celsius (the latter probably physically impossible, but still)? What temperature is coffee now (at McD and at Starbucks?)?

Feeling sorry for someone doesn't appear to be beneficial to people's judgement.

<comment><USER24> Fahrenheit. Yes, it is too hot; home-brewed coffee is ~140 degrees. McDonalds was warned multiple times, at least once by a burn victims' society, that their coffee was dangerously hot prior to this case but chose to do nothing about it. I don't know the exact temperatures that McDonalds & Starbucks currently serve their coffee at, but that specific McDonalds franchise lowered the temp by ~10 degrees afterwards, and though I've never measured the temperature of my Starbucks coffee (from multiple franchises), it's never been much hotter than the drip coffee I make at home.

<comment><USER21> Yet, the jury put part of the blame on her, and further attempts to sue corporations for serving (or making) hot coffee has gone nowhere. The temperature issue is probably just a legal McGuffin here; in reality, she got the money because McDonalds blew it in the first round, when they refused to contribute to her actual costs.

<comment><USER24> I'm no lawyer, so I'll take your word on the legal aspects. But from an ethical perspective, I think the temperature of the coffee is important. They intentionally sold a dangerous product. The woman's only faults were being kind of clumsy and assuming that the "hot" coffee was ouch-hot, not ER-hot. 140 degree coffee is ouch-hot, and serving coffee so hot it would injure you if you tried to drink it right away is absurd.

Juries are just people, and people blame victims of things all the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> When I started to get good at my second language (Japanese), I found it easier to be outgoing than when I was using English. Now it's been several several years and I speak Japanese and English every day, though I use Japanese a lot less (maybe 10% of the time), and I think the distinction has gone away. Sometimes I do find myself wanting to use a Japanese phrase when I'm having an English conversation, though.

</comment><comment><USER26> I definitely have a different personality when I speak Mandarin, a language I studied for a year in Shanghai. I am not fluent, so my spoken mandarin is very simple, but direct, without the fluffiness or sugar-coating that one tends to include in English (my native language). Examples:

English: "Would it be possible to get a receipt for that?"

Mandarin: "Please give me a receipt"

The language helps to reinforce this due to its structure and grammar, however, I find I am more confident, outspoken and to-the-point when speaking in Mandarin. Also, I find I am an incredibly stingy negotiator when buying things, to the point of being a bit of a shit... didn't realise this until a friend came to visit me from overseas.

EDIT: Also, I tend to be more respectful when addressing others in Mandarin, using Sir (xiansheng), Master (Shifu) (as in a learned master), Boss (Laoban) etc to give face. Its an immense help and illustrates to me that a little respect and politeness goes a long way.

</comment><comment><USER27> When working overseas and immersed in a foreign language, I found the processing power required for translation occupied my brain enough that I was less filtered and, as a result, more outgoing. I also picked up a new set of social cues and linguistic mannerisms since I was working with a blank slate of sorts. Both contributed to a slightly different personality.

</comment><comment><USER28> I think I'm largely myself at my church and with my friends when speaking Japanese, but if it is a business situation, you are meeting a very carefully constructed avatar that sometimes forgets he isn't real.

I am insufficiently skilled at Spanish to be doing anything other than trying to speak Spanish when speaking Spanish.

</comment><comment><USER29> I was in a car with a few friends giving directions to another car that was supposed to meet us. The driver of the other car had a little trouble understanding the directions I was giving and asked if we could switch to English.

No problem. I can give directions in English as easily as in the local language.

When we were off the phone, my friends in the car remarked with astonishment that I seemed like a different person in English. At most one of them had any English proficiency but they certainly noticed that my manner had changed and my personality seemed to follow.

My ex-wife mentioned the same thing.

I don't notice it because I'm always the same person, subjectively experiencing the same reality. Evidence indicates, though, that I do have a different personality in English and Spanish.

</comment><comment><USER30> Interesting Wiki page that is helpful here on code-switching: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching>

<comment><USER31> Another on linguistic relativity: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity>

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Another interesting data point. My brother speaks English as his first language, but Mandarin is his primary language.

One thing that he found is that when he immersed himself in Chinese culture, he had no problems. However if he went through a period where he hung out with other Americans and Canadians, he shifted back towards his Westerner persona, and would start to have trouble with the cultural differences.

</comment><comment><USER33> Does anyone have data on how thinking in a certain language relates to problem-solving skills? I know that e.g. for any programming related task I automatically switch to English, even though I'm not a native speaker. I wonder if you could hack your thought processes to be more efficient? Kinda like pick the right language for the right problem, but for natural languages.

</comment><comment><USER34> I've been living in Spain for 8-9 years now and notice this whenever I go back to visit Canada or even the UK.

Interestingly, when we go to foreign places where English isn't the official language I find that I take on my "Spanish identity", perhaps like this author did when using German in the Czech taxi.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm definitely much more direct and polite in French. I'd prefer to calculate what I'm about to say a little longer than misspeak the local tongue, so I end up appearing much more tight-lipped as a result.

My wife, on the other hand, has spent a lot more time in France than I have, and apparently learned from the school across the tracks--she's much more apt to stutter and fumble with vocabulary (she's got an anecdote about learning the difference between cravat and crevette), but she's much more talkative and seems to get more done with her style.

</comment><comment><USER36> Well, I do feel much more saucy when I speak Spanish ;D

I tend to become much nicer when I switch over to Spanish, mostly because I usually speak it in customer service situations. Spanish is my language to help people. That and I always love the look I get when the pasty Russian girl starts sounding like a Columbian.

</comment><comment><USER37> I actually try to get a different personality for every language I speak to realize it's a different thing. It helps not to confuse the languages and not to pronounce the common words in the wrong way. My spanish girlfriend is a bit annoyed when I speak spanish like a maccho when I don't speak in english like that at all.

</comment><comment><USER38> I've noticed that when I speak Spanish (or Japanese) I become a much more outgoing person. I've suffered from fairly bad social anxiety most of my life, but when I switch to another language I don't run into the same mental walls that I do when I speak English.

</comment><comment><USER39> native english speaker... I feel it easier to be brusk and borderline rude when speaking French, but also appear to be timid and shy in that language, and probably also humorless. In english, i'm the exact opposite

</comment><comment><USER40> Personality might be affected by culture, but not by language itself.

</comment><comment><USER31> I've always been of the belief that cognition is deeply rooted in language. This is essentially the Sapir-Wharf hypothesis.

<comment><USER41> Not exactly. _Everbody_ agrees that cognition and language are interconnected. But the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is a little more specific.</comment></comment>


Parent of gamer asks his son to honor the Geneva Conventions - <AUTHOR> http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/22/parent-of-gamer-asks.html

<comment><USER2> I think that, while it makes for a fair enough educational springboard to use Call of Duty or whatever to talk to your kid about the Geneva Conventions, it also has the slightly off-putting side-effect of teaching your kids to take the content of a video game at face value.

"Stop playing when one of your squadmates violates the Geneva Conventions" is about as awesome in this context as saying "Turn off Apocalypse Now the moment someone violates the Geneva Conventions."

Video games are all about various deliberately designed interactive systems, and the play that comes out of those systems intersecting with the player and (in some cases) with each other. Asking your kid to stop playing a game when it does something it has no control over (or awareness of) like "violating the Geneva Conventions" seems like its breeding a bit of ignorance into the whole thing. It's like yelling at someone in a war film for shooting at a child... it won't change the outcome.

If someone actually used the power of interactivity and systemic NPC AI present in modern gaming to make a game which was aware of the Geneva Conventions and was able to reward players for adhering to them either through their own actions or how they directed their units, and presented notable moral choices surrounding that stuff, that would be I think a pretty interesting achievement.

Other than raising awareness of the presence of the Geneva Conventions in his son's mind (which is worthwhile in and of itself), I don't know what this lesson will teach other than incorrect side-effects like potentially misrepresenting how soldiers behave and think in real life (eg: in real life they have human brains, and are doing things other than creating a cinematic experience for the player, which is all they're there for in most war video games), and misrepresenting how interactive systems work and the potential they hold. It's very noble, and has definite merit and is also a clever idea, but it does also seem like another case of parents not understanding what games are, and trying to assign their own values to them which end up missing at least part of the point.

</comment><comment><USER2> Actual link: [http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/22/parent-of-gamer- asks.ht...](http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/22/parent-of-gamer-asks.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> It would be interesting if they could build that into the game and keep it fun. I think I would enjoy avoiding the Hague, or working to bring in the violators.

<comment><USER4> it could definitely be fun. And shouldn't be that hard to implement, add civilians to a game, allow enemies to surrender etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I see FPS games as an opportunity to take my self-righteous bastard alter-ego for a walk. If I don't take him often enough through art I might actually be kinda confused in real-life situations.

Violent art has its purpose, deal with it.

<comment><USER6> Look at the success of games like GTA. These games allow people the ability to do things that they otherwise would not be permitted to do in real life, all without consequences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> While obviously not a practical agreement (to stop playing if _someone else_ plays the game normally is ridiculous), it is a tactful approach to dealing with concerns about desensitization to actual violence, and an interesting exercise in metagaming.

I would suggest that parents do more to familiarize themselves with the actual nature of the games, though. They only make use of the imagery of reality, and don't support a range of actions remotely approaching reality, so many of the rules that make sense in reality make no sense in the world of the game. Adding arbitrary rules can just as easily strip away the enjoyment of the game as it can add to it--it depends heavily on the game and the other players.

This kind of lesson would work better if tailored more closely to the set of interactions available in the game world, so that the player can continue to play the game effectively, but must be conscious of additional restrictions-- which is really what the Geneva Conventions are about. The ideal is for the child to both learn something and enjoy the experience.

</comment><comment><USER8> If he were my son I'd take him for a run.

</comment><comment><USER9> So the teenager is being held to a higher standard, in video games, than the last President of the United States was in real life. Great.

<comment><USER10> At the danger of swerving offtopic, the Geneva Conventions only apply in the case that mutual signatories go to war. Regardless of what the LPOTUS did or didn't do, that is not a factually valid criticism.

<comment><USER11> Actually, (I was looking this up earlier), it applies in the case that a signatory goes to war and the other side either a) is a signatory, or b) follow the Geneva conventions.

Not that this changes the nature of the comment. It is a good point that the Geneva conventions do not protect _nearly_ as much as people seem to think.</comment></comment></comment>


California's Salary History Ban: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions - <AUTHOR> https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/state-and-local-updates/pages/california-salary-history-ban-questions.aspx <comment><AUTHOR> This went into effect Jan 1 2018. Two important provisions applying to all employers in California. -employers or agents cannot ask about salary history -employers must provide a payscale for position upon reasonable request from job applicants

I've been in the job market lately, and I've been seeing mixed reactions in terms of the second one. Some companies willingly disclose the range, others demur until "later in the process". My guess is that the law wasn't sufficiently clear what payscale and reasonable request mean, so companies aren't changing their policies en masse quite yet. Was curious what other readers from here have been seeing.</comment>


Backdoor in the firmware of Antminer Bitcoin mining hardware - <AUTHOR> http://www.antbleed.com/ <comment><USER2> The hardware checks in with central bitmain servers to see if the hardware is "legitimate". The bitmain servers have to explicitly return false to disable the machines, which is really important because it means that the servers just being disabled (via a DDoS for example) will not shut down anyones systems.

That's why redirecting the traffic from "auth.minerlink.com" to point at "127.0.0.1" is an effective way to bypass the issue. The server (localhost) isn't responding with false and thus the system stays up and running.

The idea that all machines would be shutdown globally seems a bit excessive. While possible it would require Bitmain to lose control of their domain globally, and I imagine an issue like that would get resolved fairly quickly.

That being said it is a bit stupid of bitmain to be doing this, especially if they aren't even doing it over SSL.

<comment><USER3> They are controlling a huge share of the hashing power themselves. If they kill all the ASICs that they produced but do not control themselves I think it is quite likely they would control over 50% of the hash power themselves. That is a nightmare scenario.

<comment><USER4> "The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it." – Dune

<comment><USER5> "Plans within plans"

-Dune

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Someone noticed it in September, opened an issue, and got no response. [https://github.com/bitmaintech/bmminer/issues/7](https://github.com/bitmaintech/bmminer/issues/7)

It also looks like the backdoor may have a remote code execution vulnerability: [https://twitter.com/petertoddbtc/status/857340167400587264](https://twitter.com/petertoddbtc/status/857340167400587264)

<comment><USER7> Relevant source code:

[https://github.com/bitmaintech/bmminer/blob/b5de92908498590d...](https://github.com/bitmaintech/bmminer/blob/b5de92908498590d96d333a1e2570eab0eb321d3/driver- btm-c5.c#L7776)

Edit: Nobody cares about the vulnerability until it has a name and a logo :-)

<comment><USER8> An 8000+ line C file. I can understand how a single bug might be overlooked there.

<comment><USER9> It wasn't overlooked though. Issue was raised in Sept 2016

[https://github.com/bitmaintech/bmminer/issues/7](https://github.com/bitmaintech/bmminer/issues/7)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Bitmain is not only the producer of those mining ASICs, it also controls a huge share of the mining power itself.

If it really can kill a large fraction of the remaining hash power it is quite likely they would control over 50% themselves.

That is scary! Especially as they are known to act maliciously in other situations and are opposing the remaining part of the community in the Segwit vs Bitcoin Unlimited debate.

<comment><USER10> Are you the same as "twowo" who posted this, but using a different username?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The Reddit thread on this seems somewhat evenly divided on whether this is a real issue: [https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/67qzsn/antbleed_exposi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/67qzsn/antbleed_exposing_the_malicious_backdoor_on)

Surprising, as it seems like a straightforward, real issue.

<comment><USER12> I think that particular subreddit is being generous about the issue because they overwhelmingly support the Antminer manufacturer on a completely separate issue (increased block sizes). That issue is more-or-less the big schism at the moment between /r/btc and /r/bitcoin.

If that's confusing, as a hypothetical example: You just linked to an /r/conservative thread about Trump's alleged Russian ties.

The opposing subreddit (i.e. the /r/politics thread) is much less forgiving about it: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/67qwqv/antbleed_ex...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/67qwqv/antbleed_exposing_the_malicious_backdoor_on/)

<comment><USER11> The analogy helps a lot. Funny how that reality distortion field effect kicks in for something that seems obviously bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It appears that Antbleed is a proposed temporary denial of service attack.

 _Even without Bitmain being malicious, the API is unauthenticated and would allow any MITM, DNS or domain hijack to shutdown Antminers globally. Additionally the domain in question DNS is hosted by Cloudflare making it trivially subjected to government orders and state control._

</comment><comment><USER14> Why would Bitmain shut down their customers' hardware? It's a sure way to kill their (quite successful) brand.

But even if it happens, all you have to do is update the firmware again, and keep mining.

But let's imagine someone actually does shut down 70% of the mining power. What's the real consequence? Blocks will be mined somewhat slower (but not even close to 3 times slower) till the difficulty self-corrects. In the very worst case that will take 2016 blocks, or 14 days.

<comment><USER15> If you can shut down up to 70% of the mining power, it would make mounting a 51% attack incredibly easy. It would also mean whoever controls the remaining mining power is in for a treat with block rewards for a while.

<comment><USER14> 51% attack would require a collusion of the large group of the miners, and, if successful, will likely cause a massive price drop. Which is the last thing miners want.

P.S. And btw, it's >50% attack, not 51% attack. You don't need that whole extra percent.

<comment><USER16> > 51% attack would require a collusion of the large group of the miners

If you can shut off 70% of all the miners (because they run backdoored hardware), then you only need >50% of the remaining 30%, no? Which should be a lot easier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Redirecting auth.minerlink.com to point at 127.0.0.1 is not a permanent way to bypass the issue.

If the next patch includes a localhost server that can proxy communication to auth.minerlink.com, the issue returns.

If the next patch updates the url to auth2.minerlink.com (or any other domain), the issue returns.

If the next patch flips from default-allow to default-deny, all customers will be out of luck until they patch and come back to the central control mechanism.

If the next patch implements some form of authentication such that you can't easily spoof a "True", all customers will be out of luck.

If the remote code execution is used to patch code without the administrator's knowledge/permission (haakon has a link saying remote code execution is possible) any/all of the above are trivially easy to take advantage of.

Lastly - my understanding of bitcoin is a little fuzzy, but I believe with 50% of the computing power, you can rewrite transactions as you please, capturing as many bitcoin as you want. If you had a plan to not centralize those accounts, it would be extremely difficult to sort out.

<comment><USER18> You cannot rewrite or otherwise change transactions with a 51% attack, nor can you capture any bitcoin.

You can, however, deny certain (or all) transactions from being mined into a block. And you can exclude past transactions if you can overtake the current longest chain. But rewriting history to exclude past transactions would require more than 51% of the hashing power. The further back you go, the more power it will require to overtake the longest chain.

<comment><USER19> Yes you can. Rewriting a transaction is exactly what a double spend is.

<comment><USER18> Yes - for your own coins.

You can re-spend the coins that you own and send them to another location and invalidate one of your own spends.

You cannot rewrite or modify any other transactions that you do not hold the private keys for. You can only withhold them from a block.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Can someone explain why Bitmain controls such a large share of the global hashing power? Why can't competitors produce Bitcoin mining chips as good as Bitmain's? Is the case simply that Bitmain were first with 16nm-based miners, and when everyone else get there too, Bitmain will have no advantage left?

<comment><USER21> There were many many other companies in the market 3 years ago but they all went bust because they all scammed their customers in one way or another. Antminer was the only one that didn't follow shady business practices that is the main reason they are still around. The reason a segment of the bitcoin world likes to hate on them is because they are an outspoken supporter of bigger blocks and bigger block threatens the business plan of certain non- mining interests.

<comment><USER22> > The reason a segment of the bitcoin world likes to hate on them is because > they are an outspoken supporter of bigger blocks and bigger block threatens > the business plan of certain non-mining interests.

I think that people are primarily pissed with them for blocking SegWit for absolutely no good reason [0], against the wishes of the industry and community.

[0] one potential explanation is that SegWit blocks a covert performance boost that Bitmain secretly built into their ASICs. [https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/breaking-down- bitcoins-...](https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/breaking-down-bitcoins- asicboost-scandal-solutions/)

<comment><USER23> > against the wishes

Since when do businesses have to play nice along others' wishes?

Stop blaming financial incentives...

While they have been acting somewhat hostile to the rest of the community, this "please be nice even by sacrificing yourself or you're evil" sounds crap as a real world claim.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Statement from the company: [https://blog.bitmain.com/en/antminer-firmware- update-april-2...](https://blog.bitmain.com/en/antminer-firmware-update- april-2017/)

tldr; Code left behind from abandoned feature implementation to allow owners to remotely shutdown miners that have been stolen/misappropriated. Our bad... sorry.

</comment><comment><USER25> I wonder if YC would fund a new Bitcoin mining ASIC startup. I often regret not being able to pivot my previous company from FPGAs into ASICs :/

<comment><USER26> I hope not. From a business point of view, Bitcoin and hardware are both risky; putting the two together is exceptionally so. From an ethical point of view, the environmental impact of large-scale Bitcoin mining is a real problem.

<comment><USER27> > the environmental impact of large-scale Bitcoin mining is a real problem

This is completely ridiculous. I've never seen anyone supply numbers to remotely back this up. A few people have linked to a blog post that through extrapolation and gross misunderstanding asserted that bitcoin mining used up as much electricity as all of Ireland (lets use our very best judgement).

The truth is the financial industry is 8% of GDP. How much power does it take to air condition all the banks of world?

Beyond that there is the fact that not all electricity has significant environmental impact and the fact that bitcoin mining ends up happening in places where electricity is the cheapest and most plentiful, which means it probably is not being generated with coal or oil.

This assertion is an enormous detachment from reality based on gut feeling.

<comment><USER25> Alright, well, here's some math.

The Bitcoin network hashrate is currently at ~3,800,000,000 GH/s. The most efficient miners are at ~0.1W/GH. So the Bitcoin network, at its most efficient, would be using 380,000,000 Watts right now.

I'm not sure what to compare that against. I looked up and found this article: [https://www9.nationalgridus.com/non_html/shared_energyeff_of...](https://www9.nationalgridus.com/non_html/shared_energyeff_office.pdf)

That article says that office buildings use ~1.53 Watts per square foot to cool the building (that's an average 1.53 throughout the year). So the power used to secure the Bitcoin network is equal to cooling ~248 million square feet of office space. Sounds like a lot, but pulling up a random office building, 55 Water Street, and I see it's 3.5 million square feet.

The U.S. as a whole uses 446,689,497,716 Watts on average. So Bitcoin is using 0.085% of the total U.S. power consumption. Or, 0.015% of world power consumption.

I have no idea if what we are currently spending on the Bitcoin network, in terms of natural resources, is more or less efficient than our current banking system. But those are the numbers.

Personally, I don't think any of its relevant. Reducing energy consumption should not be the primary focus of our species. We should focus on increasing sustainable energy _production_. Energy production is a core attribute of our economy and our civilization. It may even be the _most_ important thing to us, as a growing species. Obviously reducing waste when we can is good, but I'd rather expend the majority of our resources building out solar installations rather than quibbling about whether Bitcoin is power efficient or not.

<comment><USER28> Generally a house that isn't electrically heated or cooled uses 1 kWh per hour. So 380 megawatts for Bitcoin mining is the around the same amount of energy that 380,000 houses would use on a nice day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> As usual please make sure you link to github links directly.

"[https://github.com/bitmaintech/bmminer/blob/master/driver- bt...](https://github.com/bitmaintech/bmminer/blob/master/driver- btm-c5.c#L7755-L7756")

If the file is edited that link is useless. Even worse, removed or moved.

Press "y" and you get: [https://github.com/bitmaintech/bmminer/blob/b5de92908498590d...](https://github.com/bitmaintech/bmminer/blob/b5de92908498590d96d333a1e2570eab0eb321d3/driver- btm-c5.c#L7755-L7756)

<comment><USER30> Never knew of that keyboard shortcut for GitHub.

Thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Looks like they also took down auth.minerlink.com ... at least it doesn't resolve to anything for me.

<comment><USER6> It doesn't resolve yet. The idea is that they could set it up, thus activating the backdoor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> "Sell them coin-operated shovels that we can remotely disable". Until they get caught. Oops.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm not sure what's worse about this:

1\. The fact that it exists

2\. The fact that they're using "something" bleed as the name (creativity, please)

3\. That whoever created this page recommends the user alter the miner to point to some other, user-controlled HTTP server, effectively MITMing anyone who sees this page.

Shame.

<comment><USER33> >2\. The fact that they're using "something" bleed as the name (creativity, please)

Seriously, it isn't even a data leak.

<comment><USER34> bleed is a nod to the vuln "heartbleed", not to leaks.

<comment><USER35> Incorrect, heartbleed caused leaks from the servers affected. This is not even vulnerability it's just a stupid design decision that someone can MitM.

<comment><USER36> This issue should have been called Ant-in-the-Middle.

<comment><USER35> That's actually a great name for it or something along the lines of killswitch. Maybe AntKill or MinerRaid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> You would need to be MiTM to exploit that. This "backdoor" will have probably almost no effect, it's interesting that someone made special site just for it..

<comment><USER6> They haven't made it hard; the phone-home is unauthenticated, so you could just spoof someone's DNS for instance.

But even if a third-party exploit were impossible, it's a real problem if one company actually has a kill switch for 70% of Bitcoin's hashing power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> As usual, this is a strong lesson for those who haven't considered capability- safe designs. A big pile of C carrying many libc calls is pretty hard to audit!

<comment><USER39> Bad and hard to grok code can be created in any language. Even more-so in languages that have more syntax complexity than C.

<comment><USER38> The point of capability-secure design is that it's possible to prove that a chunk of code, regardless of its nastiness, _cannot_ take certain actions.

In particular, in this case, it sounds like the offending code:

* Makes outgoing connections with sockets * Alters the flow of execution outside its scope

Both of these flaws can be mitigated if the ability to do these things is _closely-held_ and not available to all code.

It's true that object-capability languages like E, Monte, Pony, etc. cannot stop you from writing bad code. But they can automatically prove that your code only is as bad as it appears to be, and not any worse via skulduggery.

<comment> TD-Linux This code is running on a dedicated Zynq SoC on the miner, where it's treated more as "firmware". Any capability based system running on this SoC would be designed by Bitmain, so they could just backdoor it as well. In addition, the software is _required_ to make outgoing connections, for the stratum mining protocol.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40>
      Standard inbound firewall rules will not protect against this because the Antminer makes outbound connections.

What kind of idiot doesn't have outbound firewall rules, particularly on their production mining network?

<comment><USER2> You'd need a bit more than a standard IP firewall since the auth server can simply be moved to a different IP address. The best way to truly block it would be to block it directly on the nameservers for the network.

<comment><USER40> The proper outbound firewall configuration would be default-deny with outbound connections allowed only to the hosts required. That way Antminer would have to somehow take over an IP address that was already whitelisted and run their auth server on it.</comment></comment></comment>


Hardware revolution pushes AI into the mainstream - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/15886efa-1cff-11ea-97df-cc63de1d73f4 <comment><AUTHOR> "AI systems have followed a Moore's Law on steroids. With new types of hardware and greater resources being thrown at the problem, the capabilities of the most advanced AI systems have doubled every 3.4 months"

"According to Stanford's DawnBench project, which provides a way to benchmark AI systems, the time taken to train a system on the widely-used ImageNet data set has fallen from three hours to only 88 seconds in the space of less than two years. This translates into massive price deflation, with the cost falling from $2,323 to $12."</comment>


Creative Commons Version 4.0 – License draft ready for public comment - <AUTHOR> http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/32157

<comment><USER2> I was the featured "Creative Commoner" (or whatever they called it) for a while about a decade ago.

I release a few book length PDFs under a CC license and always liked the simplicity of generating an appropriate license and how understandable the licenses are.

The linked site is not at all clear to me, but when version 4 is done, then I'll run their custom license generator and decide whether to upgrade my licenses.</comment>