'12 Monkeys': Why Terry Gilliam's Movie Is Relevant Today - <AUTHOR> https://www.vulture.com/2018/11/12-monkeys-why-terry-gilliams-movie-is-so-relevant-today.html <comment><USER2> "I've been thinking about 12 Monkeys a lot lately. It seems, these days, as though the human race has passed a Rubicon and is now on a straight path toward the end of days, or at least the end of the social order as we know it."

This feels a little unsubstantiated.

Historically speaking, this is the greatest time on earth to be alive. This pessimism is toxic and unrealistic.

<comment><USER3> Historically speaking, the best time to own Bitcoin was back in January. Things always look great at the top of a bubble.

CO2 is higher than in the past several million years and we're still adding more at our usual pace. We've killed 60% of wild vertebrate life since 1970, wiped out a large percentage of the insect population, and we're continuing the practices that caused that as well. None of this can go on forever.

Almost everybody misses the main finding of the Club of Rome study: if you model a simple assumption that resources get more expensive to extract over time and environmental destruction gets more expensive to deal with, you don't get a gradual decline. You get continued improvement up to a peak, and then it suddenly crashes down.

What's really toxic: enjoying that run up to the peak and assuming everything's fine, instead of buckling down and fixing the problems before it's too late.

<comment><USER4> The root cause of all of this: an economic system predicated on the notion of _growth_. Unrestrained greed, sole focus on maximization of profit, and unlimited growth. It's not enough to sell as many mobile phones as you did last year, no, you must sell 10% more each quarter, or whatever. Doesn't matter if you're mining the earth bare, generating millions of tons of garbage, optimising for inferior products that break sooner, treating workers like slaves in a race to the bottom... in other words making the world objectively _worse_. All social considerations, moral, ecological, of welfare, of justice, all those considerations don't enter the calculations. All that matters is the quarterly shareholder report.

Like some guy said, "the only people who believe in infinite growth on a finite planet are madmen and economists".

<comment><USER5> """ It's not enough to sell as many mobile phones as you did last year, no, you must sell 10% more each quarter, or whatever. """

But if the next gen of phones use 30% less resources, it's still possible to grow without increasing the rate of resource consumption. GDP growth has been driven much more by innovation than added resource consumption for years.

<comment><USER6> However with Jevon's Paradox, we get the opposite consequence and people consume even more. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you have not seen it, highly recommend the original film this was based on, La Jette as mentioned in the article. It is a (shortish) masterpiece of French SciFi, all in black and white, shot almost entirely in still scenes, and fully narrated.

And i would argue it does follow fairly closely in terms of script and meaning to the remake than the article suggests. It is much more subtle and nuanced.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Jet%C3%A9e](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Jet%C3%A9e)

<comment><USER8> La Jette reminds me of another under appreciated french movie Le Dernier Combat. Double first for Luc Besson and Jean Reno.

<comment><USER9> A very disturbing PA movie, an amazing portrayal of the desolation and loneliness in that situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> While I loved 12 Monkeys story & most of TG's body of work, I must posit "Brazil" is more relevant in our non-fiction world than anything else he has done. I hesitate to note the multitude of similarities to our current state of information retrieval & bureaucracies. Zero Theorem seemed to touch the needle but sorta fizzled out mid-way(IMO).

Yes, I did not RTFA.

<comment> 52-6F-62 I have to admit I still haven't seen Brazil but it's been on the to-Watch list for a long time.

Zero Theorem just managed to depress the hell out of me for a week or so.

<comment><USER11> Oh you should. It's a great movie. Absolutely weird and surreal but great. Some of the themes you'll pick up from it are pervasive across tons of other movies and genres all condensed into one wild ride.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So, perhaps the author is correct about the film's ending, but that's not the way I interpreted it when I first saw it. Rather, it seemed to me that the scientist from the future was there to insure that the disease did, in fact, spread, even if Bruce Willis' character stopped the original source from getting on the plane. She was either a carrier (a Typhoid Mary of sorts), or else had her own vial. I thought it suggested that some of the scientists in the future were in favor of the status quo, and wanted to sabotage the plans of the majority of the scientists to alter the past.

But, perhaps my interpretation was overly cynical.

<comment><USER13> I'm glad I read this article because I never understood the ending that way. I'm probably kind of dumb, but for me, the scientist at the end, on the plane, was just there as part of the normal timeline. I never imagined that she travelled from the future, I thought it was just her character before the epidemic :)

<comment><USER14> This is so interesting as I'd always interpreted "insurance" as her being there to stop the plague. I never considered either of your views nor the one in the article. Now that I see there are so many possible interpretations it really gives some fuel for thought.

<comment><USER15> She can't stop the plague. They can't change that. It's well established. She can't help the plague. It doesn't need help. This is also well established. However, the whole point of sending Cole back was to find out where they could get a clean version of the specimen. The earliest version of it. He succeeded. She's the "insurance" on this whole thing. She can get a sample of the virus so they can create a cure.

<comment><USER13> I think this is the most plausible meaning yes. My reading was pretty naive. As for the "I work in insurance" part, I always thought it was her job before the plague, and maybe it meant that the caste of "scientists" who were ruling in the future were actually mostly con-people, self-proclaimed "scientists" who took advantage of the collapse to take control. It doesn't really make sense in a way, they invented time travel after all. In my defense, I saw this movie when I was pretty young so most likely missed a lot of subtleties.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "the '90s, that bizarre blip in American history where it seemed like we were living in an eternal present, the End of History"

That's something millennials & later won't understand: 2000 was a mental barrier we couldn't really think past. Objectively, people may have addressed the next millennium's dates, but we just couldn't deeply believe we'd be living in what was always colloquially called "the future".

<comment><USER17> I have a very different take. As someone who grew up in the 90s I draw the line at 9/11\. That event ended the brief post cold war era of peace, prosperity, and optimism. We still have not recovered culturally from 9/11\. The optimism of the 90s is literally unthinkable today. The terrorists won.

<comment><USER18> idk why this is downvoted. the 90s is the period between the end of the cold war and the start of the war on terror. its the only time in living memory where there was no enemy.

9/11 absolutely changed the country. it was the start of militarized police, nationalistic displays, and 24/7 fear that have all been normalized today. Perhaps the terrorists didn't win (Bin Laden is dead and the house of Saud still stands) but we certainly lost.

<comment><USER19> Perhaps this is far too controversial a view for HN, and for many Americans, we'll see.

The terrorists absolutely won. Least that's my perception as a non-American. Your first mistake was legitimising them as "the enemy"

When the IRA were bombing Docklands, Manchester or Birmingham pubs we'd make a poor taste joke the next morning, walk past the wreckage and forget about it the day after that. When the Baader Meinhoff Group were killing public figures, and bombing Brits, Germans and Americans over in Germany they were treated as a bunch of insignificant extremists. Even by the Americans it seemed from news reports. There'd be a poor taste joke or two, and they'd be ignored. Much the same for other terrorist groups hijacking aircraft or killing people through history. "Don't deal with terrorists" was heard from every politician.

Then came 11/9 and the "war on terror." So determined were your politicians to legitimise the terrorists it became a war. Against a legitimate target. Globally. So determined were you to preserve your "freedoms" that you built an apparatus of surveillance to ensure that freedom. Apparatus so far reaching that it is indistinguishable from an apparatus of oppression. Most other countries played along too in support, and built the same apparatus of oppression to preserve freedom. Not only did the USA lose, and the terrorists win, but the UK, France, Iraq, Malaysia etc lost too. So did freedom.

No more bad taste joke the morning after and treating them as a bunch of irrelevant idiots unworthy of but the briefest air time (like I get the impression most Americans still do with a group like the Westborough Baptist Church), but an unwinnable war with a legitimate enemy and a leader, and endless analysis. Everyone except them, globally, lost.

<comment><USER20> In a country of 325 million people, it seemed like there wasn't anyone who didn't know someone either affected or directly harmed by the 9/11 (11/9 as you call it) attacks. It didn't feel like "some poor saps over there got the short end of the stick" it felt like "we're all directly attacked".

This wasn't the first time Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda reached out and touched us. Previously, we'd treated him more or less the same as you'd suggested, thinking back to the attack on the USS Cole we just lobbed some missiles off into the desert and called it a day.

As for the surveillance apparatus that sprang up in response, there was most certainly a backlash against it, with all the dystopian oppressive government warnings. The general public didn't really mind much, though, because they'd felt that the government fundamentally failed at what could theoretically have been a preventable disaster.

So, given that, what were we to do? Say to our neighbors, "sorry, you have to risk death in future attacks because I can't be arsed to wait longer in lines at the airport"?

I don't think the terrorists have won, because their objective wasn't to make our lives a little less pleasant. Their objective (as stated) is the fundamental destruction of our nation. Sure, we've compromised our constitution by allowing our government more power than it ought to have. The consequences of our reaction, our actions (and lack of actions in other places) will be felt for generations. That doesn't mean that the terrorists have won, far from it.

<comment><USER19> > (11/9 as you call it)

I normally transpose to US order when it's 9/11 as it's become the name. Date habit got the better of me, sorry.

> So, given that, what were we to do? Say to our neighbors, "sorry, you have > to risk death in future attacks because I can't be arsed to wait longer in > lines at the airport"?

Not at all. It was a horrific, terrible event on an unprecedented scale, which I don't wish to play down or disrespect. Perhaps no reaction could have kept the trademark US unbounded optimism afterwards, but it seems that the reaction changed more than the event itself.

If the reaction had been more like other incidents, the authorities could have quietly done what authorities do whilst the politicians try to play down the drama and immediate desire for revenge, reinforcing the need to mourn but preserve all that's best of your way of life. The CIA and excellent special forces might have clinically cut al Quaeda and its leaders to shreds over the coming years with global support and enhanced US global reputation. It might have taken longer, or been more difficult with an organisation like al Quaeda. Smaller changes could have improved air security without the enormous security theatre industry that's resulted.

The creation of the surveillance state, the invasions, ongoing military casualties and gunboat diplomacy seems to have brought most of the changes to society and attitudes and subsequent change in international views.

> The consequences of our reaction, our actions (and lack of actions in other > places) will be felt for generations

That's basically my point.

<comment><USER20> >> The consequences of our reaction, our actions (and lack of actions in other places) will be felt for generations

>That's basically my point.

I was replying more specifically to the claim that the terrorists have "won". By any measure of their stated goals, that simply isn't the case. They didn't want us to be inconvenienced, they wanted us to at least completely withdraw our military from the middle east. Beyond that, they'd love for a total collapse of society... Instead, we have been more heavily militarily entrenched than before ever since.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> _It seems, these days, as though the human race has passed a Rubicon and is now on a straight path toward the end of days, or at least the end of the social order as we know it._

Is there some name for the phenomenon that as things get better, our assessment of where things stand seems to get more and more pessimistic? I feel like you see this in issues of racial and gender equality as well. Things are _so_ much better than they were 100 years ago, but even as I write that, I'm tempted to pre-empt it with an acknowledgement that things are still terrible, because I know that I'm going to get a bunch of comments about how bad race and gender relations are today. And those comments are not wrong, but they ignore the context of all the progress that's been made.

There will always be some kind of crisis and existential risk looming for some or all of civilization, but the more objectively better things get, the more disinclined we seem to be to acknowledge the progress that's been made. Why is that?

Don't get me wrong, climate change is horrific. But for almost the entire second half of the last century, we faced the very real threat of nuclear annihilation at any moment. It's terrifying how close we came to that tipping point. For the first half of the last century, we had _two_ global wars that killed tens of millions of people and whose outcomes were not certain. When I read the history of World War I and II, I'm struck by how easily things could have gone differently and perhaps left us with a much worse world than the one we face today.

So while climate change is a huge problem, I think it's preferable to all-out nuclear war. I think we'll figure it out in the long run, not without a lot of suffering and cost, but we have options. Maybe I'm wrong though.

Regardless, as soon as we do, there will be some new problem that isn't _quite_ as bad as climate change, and humanity will be as pessimistic as its ever been about our future ability to thrive.

<comment><USER22> Nuclear holocaust would have been caused and was prevented by just a few people. It would have been an action with a direct result. We could and did also just stop with the nonsense.

We dont have that option for climate change. We have a worsening situation and no realistic option to stop or even reverse things.

Differently put, nuclear holocaust was a threat, climate change an active process.

<comment><USER21> _We have a worsening situation and no realistic option to stop or even reverse things._

I think this is where we probably disagree. I think things are going to get pretty bad, and many will needlessly suffer and die, but we'll switch to renewables and start doing large-scale geoengineering in the 2030s or 2040s to reverse some of the damaging effects of climate change and eventually stabilize things. Likely not before we've had some devastating wars and lost many species, but I personally think most of the predictions of civilization collapse are way overblown.

It's also possible that sometime in the next decade, all the nations of the world join some kind of super Paris agreement, but I'm not hopeful.

<comment><USER22> >It's also possible that sometime in the next decade, all the nations of the world join some kind of super Paris agreement, but I'm not hopeful.

It is to late for any meaningful change of heart to revert things. There is no option of everyone realizing it was a mistake and fixing it in ten or twenty years. We are currently at the possibility of mitigating the continuously worsening effects of climate change and we are not even able to not increase the degree of our negative impact every year. Instead we are still showing growth in the area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If you're interested in a more in-depth look at the 12 Monkeys universe, check out the excellent TV series of the same title.

<comment><USER24> As the article stated though, they aren't really the same story and don't share continuity. The show is good but it's not an adaptation of the film in any meaningful way.

<comment><USER25> Exactly, the show was ok but the film is much better. While the show takes place in a similar universe, it's not a continuity.

<comment><USER26> The opposite is true to me. The film was OK, but the show was excellent.

<comment><USER27> I rewatched both 12 Monkeys the film and Brazil and they both share an incredibly unbelievable romance - in the first the scientist falls in love with a homeless man and kisses him passionately over the span of about 10 minutes of screen time after thinking he was insane and finding proof he was a time traveler (homeless people are humans, too, but if Cole had been living like a homeless person long enough to appear like that he would have had a pretty foul odor) and in Brazil, Sam Lowry and the female lead are arguing and he singled handedly ends her career and in the next(?) scene we see them together they are in bed pre/post consummation ( though of course that scene makes more sense if it's only in his head after we watch the end of the movie). The TV series also manages to top Brad Pitt's crazy guy, that I thought was going to be impossible after hearing about the TV series initially.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The message I got from the film is that when people give in to despair, they're prone to take actions that may have catastrophic consequences. The virologist has lost his faith (in whatever he may have had faith in) and has become a nihilist. nihilists are the most dangerous sorts of people, as they're likely to take any action at all, unconstrained by morality, ethics, or common sense.

</comment><comment><USER29> The catastrophe in _12 Monkeys_ is due to the action of a single individual - an ideologue concerned with the "biosphere". The pathology highlighted is ideological thought that justifies mass murder.

Love certainly conquers all in this film. It is precisely love (here romantic love) that weaves an unalterable thread through time and binds the two individuals who are absolutely necessary for the future salvation of mankind.

"I've been thinking about 12 Monkeys a lot lately. It seems, these days, as though the human race has passed a Rubicon and is now on a straight path toward the end of days, or at least the end of the social order as we know it." \- the OP.

"[I]sn't it obvious that chicken little represents the sane vision? And that homo sapiens's motto, 'Let's go shopping,' is the cry of the true lunatic?" - the mass murdering virologist.

<comment><USER30> I've rewatched the movie recently. Humanity is definitly not saved. The whole quest is shown as being nothing a but a futile yet beautiful slice of life. It's espacially underlined with the scene revealing the origin of the voice mail that was supposedly the only clue of the whole shebang for the future scientists.

<comment><USER31> Isn't humanity saved? The main character's buddy from prison is able to show up to try to save him because greatly improved the tech; he claims that mc is a hero and things are headed to being solved?

<comment><USER32> Not in the movie.

They definitely can't change the past. They live in block universe where there is only one timeline that happens no matter what. They can only travel into the past and observe and bring some stuff back. mc is a hero because he discovers the real villain and sends message to the future.

The idea is to get sample of the original non-mutated virus and develop a cure in the future so that they can live on the surface again, not to prevent the outbreak.

The movie ends without a cure, but now the future scientists know who the villain is, so they might send other people to intercept the villain when he lands.

<comment><USER33> I think the idea was that the woman scientist "in insurance" in the plane at the end was in fact the next agent working on getting the pre-mutated virus. She knew to go back to that time and get on that seat of that plane because Cole's actions pinpointed the target, time, and place.

<comment><USER29> Precisely. They have found the source, can take samples at each stop, and "get people back on top" post Cole.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lens blur + perspective via CSS - <AUTHOR> http://falcondai.com/demos/focus.html

<comment><AUTHOR> the CSS filter and transform only works with some late webkit browsers (desktop Chrome)...</comment>


Txtexpense -- review my friends app in alpha ver - <AUTHOR> http://txtexpense.codrschool.com/ <comment><USER2> Well first off, it needs an about section that tells me in clear, concise terms what it does. I'm not going to sign up for something if I don't understand what I'm getting into. Especially if that something asks me for my mobile phone number.

From the front page, as best I can make out, the only way this could work would be if I text some number an expense every time I incur one. That's going to cost me money (or a text from my plan) and if I can do that, then I can just make a note for myself and enter it into a spreadsheet later. But I can't do that, I'm usually too busy to make a note of what I just spent. Much less text it to somewhere.

That said, it's sort of a neat idea. And I'm sure it could be useful for some people - people more conscious about money and less absent minded than me. Get that about page up with a clear description of what it is and how it works. I would test it, but I'm in Thailand and don't have a phone right now.</comment>


West LA and vacinations - <AUTHOR> http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/los-angeles-vaccination-rates/

<comment><AUTHOR> "That's up dramatically from 1984, when kids got shots to ward off seven classics such as polio and the flu. Now, a child could get up to 19 shots in the first six months of life."

Assume 2 hours per visit per shot. That's 38 hours, basically a full work week. Also, having lived on the West Side, you also have a lot of traffic to contend with. As a parent there you could potentially spend ~60 hours getting shots for your child in 6 months. I'm not saying AT ALL that you should not be vaccinated, but honestly, it does take a lot of clock hours.</comment>


Hello World in Every Language - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/leachim6/hello-world <comment><USER2> A couple years ago I wrote Hello World in assembly language for Raspberry Pi using 6 entirely different methods, with the code kept as similar as possible so the differences between the methods are easier to compare.

[https://github.com/ksaj/helloworld](https://github.com/ksaj/helloworld)</comment>


Show HN: Macdown - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/uranusjr/macdown

<comment><USER2> I admit to being confused by the multitude of Markdown GUI apps. In my experience, the greatest feature of Markdown is that I can write in the text editor of my choosing and not need a special app / live preview / fancy tools because writing and formatting Markdown is smooth and natural.

Am I missing some great feature that having a dedicated app provides?

<comment><USER3> It seems like the author of MacDown might also have some sort of a philosophical axe to grind with the author of Mou ([http://mouapp.com](http://mouapp.com)), another popular (albeit non open source / future non-free) Markdown editor. Mou implies that it will become non-free once it leaves the beta, but it's been in beta for years now.

The source of the issue seems to be a tweet by Mou's author in which he says that when people say "inspired by X" they actually mean "idea stolen from X." ([https://twitter.com/remaerd/status/484914820408279040](https://twitter.com/remaerd/status/484914820408279040)).

<comment><USER4> That doesn't seem to be a source of the issue though. Navigating on to the homepage of the application, the author (of MacDown) writes more about the reason there. Apparently, the author of Mou, wants to stop developing Mou and sell the project and the author of MacDown didn't have the cash and decided to write an open source clone of it instead.

"

Why Another Markdown Editor?

I like Mou. I write Markdown all the time, and since I use OS X on a daily basis, Mou is my go-to editor whenever I wish to generate something with markup. But I had always wanted something more.

It came as a great shock when Chen Luo announced that he felt he could not actively continue the development, and wished to sell the ownership of Mou. No suitable offers surfaced (I honestly do not think there will be, either), and I decided that instead of waiting for others to do something about this, I should act myself.

I don't have nearly enough money to match Chen Luo's purposed offer, but I do have my own pocket of tricks and some free time. So I started from scratch, spent some weekends hacking together my own solution. And this is the result.

"

[http://macdown.uranusjr.com/](http://macdown.uranusjr.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You'd have to pry emacs from my cold, dead hands.

Nonetheless, I have both Mou and Macdown handy, and they really are nice for editing in markdown. As someone else said, marking up your documents in markdown is great, but reading/proofing them as they will be rendered at the same time really enhances the experience.

As for which I prefer, or which is better? So far I haven't seen enough difference to recommend one over the other. However, the fact that Mou seems like it might be becoming abandonware, or, "a release every now and then if I feel like it, maybe"-ware is upsetting. Everyone's seen the effect that's had on Sublime. So on that note, I'm kind of glad someone made an open source version.

I find it weird in the field of text editors - emacs and vim are some of the most useful, powerful pieces of software in existence - and they are free, and open source.

So, if you're going to compete in that arena and charge, you had better be serious about it, and update often (i.e. IntelliJ or Pycharm.)

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been using this for a few weeks now and I really like it.

My only complaint is that the preview window doesn't line up with the editor window sometimes, usually when using lots of images.

Overall it's been really great tho. It's the best markdown editor that I've ever used. Excellent work.

</comment><comment><USER7> I personally like it. Very simple. Seems a bit better than Mou, which btw doesn't recognize the github flavored code blocks.

</comment><comment><USER8> Just asking (not trolling, really), but what are the reasons for using markdown and not emacs org-mode? Is it simply that you don't have to use emacs? I like markdown and all but it seems redundant since org-mode already exists.

<comment><USER9> Org-mode came out in 2003. Markdown in 2004. Considering when they came out, I could also just say markdown already exists.

As for why people use markdown, it's probably a mix of being simple, being used everywhere already, and not something directly associated with being emacs specific.

<comment><USER8> sure that makes sense, I wasn't aware of the similar dates

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a long time Mou user, I think this looks awesome - it sounds like it has improved some if the (my) pain points of Mou, such as proper code fence support and syntax highlighting.

Gonna try it out!

</comment><comment><USER11> I have used macdown for like a month, and it's quite good, but a little glitchy. A couple crashes, and something that bothers me a lot: it doesn't deal very well with scrolling

</comment><comment><USER12> Hmm, the Dev should get a proper registration with apple. I don't like these untrusted warnings and the need to add an exception too much, nowadays.

</comment><comment><USER13> Looks neat! The brew cask is broken, though. You might want to get that checked.

Error: No available cask for macdown

</comment><comment><USER14> looks really well done and full-featured, esp for such an early version! And is why we can't make a living from libraries.

</comment><comment><USER15> Markdown is like a simple, limited html with better syntax. i think we all can already imagine what will it looks like when converted to HTML.</comment>


Ask HN: Mathematicians, Why 9 cancels out in an addition of digits? - <AUTHOR>

I was playing with additions and it seems that 9 cancels itself out (Sorry, nobody thought me this in elementary algebra, or I forgot) when continuously adding all the digits in a number in order to reach one final one-digit number.
Example:
92. 9+2=11 -> 1+1=2. So just remove the 9 and you have 2
989. 17+9 -> 8 + 9 => 1 + 7 = 8. So just leave out the 9s.
94968594892 -> 9+4+9+6+8+5+9+4+8+9+2 = 73 -> 7+3 = 10 -> 1+0 =1
Remove the 9s
4+6+8+5+4+8+2 = 37 -> 3+7 = 1
So why do the smallest one digit number (0) and the largest one digit number (9) both cancel out in such additions? <comment><USER2> Because adding 9 to any other digit will produce 1 and the other digit - 1. Add these together and you have the original other digit. Because your rule necessitates repeating until you only have 1 digit it doesn't matter when this resolves itself.

For example: 9 6=> 1 5 => 6

Put another way, a nine will bump up the 10s place by one and lower the ones place by 1. These cancel out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is there a simple explanation as to why 9 and 0 share this same property?

<comment><USER2> 0 + other digit = other digit

9 + other digit = (other digit -1) + 1 = other digit

I don't know if there is a good way to quantify this other than it is a basic property of base 10 when you are basically looping around the basis. The other post illuminates on this in that it would be E for hex or 5 for base 6.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Think on the modulo or the set of characters that you use for the representation. If you use base 9, it would be 8, for base 6 would be 5 and so on. Or look at it as placed into a revolution circle, or exponentials sequence. In quantifying the multiplicity 9 would be the previous value for 1, not 0</comment>


Ask HN: I'd like to learn more about programming secure websites - <AUTHOR> I'd like to learn how to program secure websites. I use Django and have read the Django book (including chapter 20 on security). I'm more interested in SSL-type trust stuff than SQL injection, but I'm certainly not an expert on anything. Any weak link will break the chain, so please recommend whatever books you found helpful.<p>Thanks! <comment><USER2> I am from PHP background and here is the lowdown of how I worked my way from basic PHP security to advanced web application security (language- independent). I am sure it will help you in making a decision for yourself. 1\. Essential PHP Security by Chris Shiflett: a light read with little over 100 pages. PHP often picks a lot of flak for being insecure. However, in majority of cases its not because of the flaws in PHP platform itself. It's because of the certain design choices PHP made which makes it easier for a novice developer to mistakenly write insecure code. Given a little care, these mistakes can be easily avoided. All basic security stuffs are covered like forms and urls, sql injection, session and cookie security. The concept covered in this book can easily be applied for other platforms but apparently you don't want any of these information because you already are well-versed in them.

2\. Pro PHP Security by Chris Synder and Michael Southwell: Covers most of what you are looking for, namely, perils of shared hosting, safe development practices, Encryption, SSL and SSH, HTTP and HTTPS, Access Control and Authentication. Of course the book is inclined towards PHP but most of the concepts are language neutral and you can easily extrapolate these concepts to another language of your choice.

3\. Foundation of Security by Neil Daswani et al.: The blurb on the first page speaks for itself _What every programmer needs to know about security with running examples of web applications and stories of what's gone wrong in the past_. Mostly language neutral but sample codes are implementation in Java. Comprehensive. Recommended.

4\. A bunch of videos at <http://code.google.com/edu/security/index.html> helped too.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the resources. this is great!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> <http://www.owasp.org> should be the first place you look.

<comment><USER4> We lived and died by the OWASP recommendations at the bank that I used to work at. It's certainly a good place to start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Depends what you mean by "secure": do you mean protecting against attacks or do you mean impenetrable transfer and storage of information?

For protecting against attacks, the absolute rule is: Never trust anything that the user has provided. This includes form submission, URLs for requests (i.e. it could be a malformed URL), the HTTP headers, the cookies, etc. They are all vectors for an attack. The corollary to this is: validate everything. From here, you can start learning more about the creative ways your app can be exploited.

For securely transferring and storing information, you'll need to look at encryption strategies like SSL and hashes (for, e.g., passwords) and the like.

Of course we can only point you in the general direction. This is a very big topic!

<comment><AUTHOR> true. i am at once torn between consuming this large topic and beefing up the few links in the chain that i am currently working on. i'm looking forward to getting some of the above mentioned books from the library sometime, yet i also know i'm on a tight schedule and it's hard enough to sneak engineering goodness tasks into each iteration (tests get on fine, though).

getting my server hacked into is certainly on my mind as i set up the server myself only out of necessity and poverty (if not financial then creative and social). i really want the data to remain private.

i have form submission secured. not only does django escape input into sql, but i have a pre-save signal that removes html tags. once concern i do have is that when a form has an error in it, the page is reloaded with the previously entered form values. i believe django templates always escape variables, but i should try writing javascript there just to make sure.

django also stores salt + hashes of user passwords, rather than the passwords themselves. django also puts non-critial information in session cookies. the real data gets looked up in the view middleware.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A lot of suggestions would tell you how to write secure sites, but if you really want the guts, learn how to break the site.

Go to the library and pick up some network security books, and focus on the website security sections (sql injections, exploiting the parameters sent to a website, trying to learn the sites using their error messages to ssl to domain spoofing). For one, this is actually a lot of fun, but more importantly, now you'll always be thinking how to exploit the code you write, and doing so will allow you to realize mistakes very quickly.

</comment><comment><USER7> Good overview of the issues you'll need to deal with: (read the paper, not so much the class notes)

<http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.893/2009/schedule.html>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> one question that if ind particularly perplexing: what is supposed to be secured over HTTPS v HHTP? should the entire site be HTTPS? including media? why do some folks talk about hybrids? is it for performance?

<comment><USER8> HTTPS encrypts the connection between the client and the server, so, login pages and all backend/control panel pages should be HTTPS.

Reason being, someone between the client and the server can sniff the traffic. If it is HTTPS it will be encrypted; if not, plain as day. Hence the reason why login pages usually redirect you over to a HTTPS login page, when you login you don't want to send your username and password pair to the server in plaintext!

What's funny is people often still send their email creds to their email server without being encrypted either...

Your whole site should _not_ use HTTPS unless _all_ of the data or functionality on that site were sensitive. Pretty simple rule of thumb: public facing pages use HTTP and login pages + anything behind use HTTPS.

<comment><USER9> Total noob question, but I'll ask it anyway: is there any coding that has to be done to do HTTPS, or is it as simple as linking to the same page with https in the front?

<comment><USER3> I also feel that I should point out: Putting forms behind SSL does not absolve you of secure coding guidelines! SSL does not influence whether or not your webapp is vulnerable to traditional injection and logic flaw attacks.

<comment><USER8> While that is true, the OP said he was interested in learning more beyond just SQL injection etc...

Which brings me to your second subject: logic flaw. _That_ is probably the most common security flaw than anything else. It is been made worse by the fact that most "web developers" don't actually understand logic nor the full implications of structured programming.

It is compounded by a lack of understanding system fundamentals too; it's quite common amongst developers I have met to _not_ know why "0123" comes out as "83" in any scripting language built atop C (Python and PHP are popular examples). (Hint for those that don't know: C interprets integer literals with a leading zero as an _Octal_ number).

<comment><AUTHOR> haha. this is so true. i have no doubts the biggest problems we'll face with early product iterations are our own bugs rather than malicious third parties :-)

we'll do the best we can to get both fronts up to snuff before the general public gets a stab at us.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Software Companies Die (1995) - <AUTHOR> https://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=DeveloperBees <comment><USER2> I was thinking about two stories that were in the Economist that I received today. (1) Hillary Clinton's defeat and (2) the concentration of profits in growth in a small number of companies.

The email story around Hillary Clinton has a lot to do with the general incompetence we see in IT in both the government and private sector. I think a lot of people, particularly older people, are resentful that IT is so important for business today so they don't take it seriously. You might think you are a librarian or banker or something like that and should be judged on that, but how well you make things happen with computers may be more important for your business than your tradition skills.

Similarly I think that that resentment prevents many businesses from getting the most benefit from IT. Leading companies are going full forward, but generally most places think "Amazon can do it right because it is big" rather than "Amazon is big because it does it right" and thus end up putting out substandard systems that damage their brand, demoralize employees, etc.</comment>


'Fuck ethics. Money is everything': Facebook employees react to scandal - <AUTHOR> https://mashable.com/article/facebook-employees-react-teen-spying-app-blind/ <comment><USER2> Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19039799](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19039799)

</comment><comment><USER3> I think this is good in a way. Finally people are speaking what has been practiced in business since the dawn of business. I took a business ethics class and I remember the entire course subtly focused on euphemisms for wrongdoings and not arriving at a concrete assertion that whether an action is moral or immoral.

</comment><comment><USER4> Finally some honesty so the society can start dealing with the problem in earnest. I hope the clear text honesty streak continues and that this is merely a beginning, because the world is upside-down and the society rotten from the inside under the pretense of such monstrosities as "civil discourse", "civility" and massive censorship in a bid to dominate and control.

</comment><comment><USER5> The two hours I spent surfing Blind were honestly some of the most depressing in my life. I try to forget that place exists</comment>


Performance Win: load your SPA's required data while your app loads in parallel - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sean-roberts/parallel-data <comment><AUTHOR> The performance benefits are immediately obvious and this route removes the headache of http2 setup or service workers to get benefits as fast as possible</comment>


Who develops HTML5? [HTML5 Open-Source] - <AUTHOR>

This question hit me:"Who develops HTML5?"
We keep hearing about HTML5 and how it is the "future" of the web. In my opinion, I feel the web is transitioning to HTML5 at a very slow pace. So I asked myself, who should I blame? Simply put, I decided it was the developers of HTML5.<p>1) Who are they?
2) Why should we wait for them? Why can't HTML5 be open-source? Wouldn't it advance a lot faster? 3) Again, who is developing HTML5?! <comment><USER2> <http://www.w3.org/></comment>


Should Reddit Be Blamed for the Spreading of a Smear? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/magazine/should-reddit-be-blamed-for-the-spreading-of-a-smear.html?hp&pagewanted=all

<comment><USER2> Not Reddit, but the user's of Reddit. The users that searched images for 'suspects' were doing vigilante work, or so they thought. It seems to me all they were doing was looking at every image and trying to spot the brown skin. They didn't look for any evidence or use any reasoning. So, again, the users that identified Sunil should be blamed.

</comment><comment><USER3> Anybody remember the guy in Frederick, Maryland, whose life was pretty was all but destroyed by suspicion of involvement in the anthrax letters? Reddit wasn't part of that conversation; the mainstream press had a lot to do with it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I already commented but I'm going to again, to make a different point.

This article is going to get a lot of traffic and it's talking about things that happened months ago. The take-away is: news stories don't need to be first to get attention and pageviews. They need to be informative, accurate, high-quality, well-written, and present new information.

Maybe too many professional journalists are caught up in the "game", where a big influx of traffic or Twitter followers is a dopamine hit similar to getting a bunch of upvotes on Reddit (or karma on HN).

But I have not seen proof that "being first", by itself, correlates to long- term professional success as a journalist. Often the things that journalists are trying to be first on, are things that everyone will know soon anyway-- like who the FBI has named as a suspect. Is saying something 5 minutes before everyone else really worth the risk of getting it wrong? It's gambling with your professional reputation.

The value of being first is usually really the value of being "only". Look at Glenn Greenwald's articles about the NSA, or David Corn's article about Romney's "47 percent" comments. Sure, they were the first on those topics, but their real value was that they were the only people who could have reported those stories--because they were the only people who had the sources for previously hidden information.

So: if you're the first with a story because you have exclusive access to new, trustworthy information (in both Greenwald's and Corn's cases, they were primary sources with verifiable documentation), then it's good to be first.

But if you're just trying to shout the latest rumors into Twitter faster than the other 1,000 people, then you're really just rolling the dice.

</comment><comment><USER4> In the modern, highly fractured media culture in the U.S., there are few commonly shared sources of information like the network news broadcasts, or the big papers like the NY Times, used to be.

Reddit fulfills that role for many people...but the problem is that there is zero editorial judgment involved in the "news" it reports. Information goes big based on emotional factors (OMG can you believe this), not rational or informative factors (I have definite proof this is true).

This is great for low-risk content like memes, jokes, personal anecdotes, interviews with celebrities or politicians, etc. But obviously it can be terrible for high-risk, or more serious subjects like cancer victim fundraisers (Reddit users have mistakenly crucified several) or in-progress news stories--where rumors, first impressions, and even eye-witness accounts are often wrong.

The entire "crowd sourced" online search for the Boston bombers was IMO really awful and embarrassing for Reddit, and for the young journalists who let themselves get sucked into the excitement.</comment>


AWS DeepRacer League - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/deepracer/league/ <comment><USER3> I got a DeepRacer car at Reinvent, but three months later I still can't use it :(

Access to the DeepRacer section of the AWS console hasn't been made public, and I don't think there's any other way to program it.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's cool that they are making a more packaged product. For a more hackable setup the original Donkey Car setup is pretty good and available now:

[http://www.donkeycar.com](http://www.donkeycar.com)

<comment><USER5> Of interest , the DeepRacer does reinforcement learning while donkeycar has a completely different approach (supervised learning). It would be interesting to see them compete

<comment><USER6> Donkeycar is open source and modular by design, so nothing prevents using reinforcement learning. People are going there already.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is incredibly cool, and I'd love to enter, but despite having one of the races in Sydney, the actual DeepRacer hardware doesn't ship outside of the United States. Baffling from a company that has a local presence in Australia.

If anyone from AWS is reading, I'd love to buy one!

<comment><USER8> Any idea if you can enter your own homebrew system? I mean, the hardware listed isn't really all that special. You could probably take this:

[https://blog.davidsingleton.org/nnrccar/](https://blog.davidsingleton.org/nnrccar/)

Slap it on new-ish Samsung or Apple phone, coupled to a cheap-ish RC car...

That'd probably get you 80% of the way; also, check out NVidia's "End-to-End" self-driving vehicle paper:

[https://images.nvidia.com/content/tegra/automotive/images/20...](https://images.nvidia.com/content/tegra/automotive/images/2016/solutions/pdf/end- to-end-dl-using-px.pdf)

I built a tensorflow model from that trained on a 750 TI for the Udacity Self- Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree (it was part of the course to build such a thing that ran on a virtual track), and after training it did quite well - <USER2> least on a virtual track.

A few tweaks to the model, maybe using the TensorFlowLite package or something on the phone - probably work fine for 99.9% of the runs...

<comment><USER7> I actually completed the Udacity SDC course as well and implemented the same Nvidia NN.

I looked into building my own implementation, but decided against it. I'm not particularly interested in the hardware, just the algorithms that drive it, and the amount of time spent getting the hardware working (not to mention a simulator ) would have been nontrivial.

Perhaps I'll grab a Donkey.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is it hotlapping or a race? One is a lot easier than the other as evidenced by codemasters's valiant attempts to write AI over the last few years.

Also, it looks like they don't know the track beforehand but they seem to be taking absolutely bizarre lines through bends (Or is that an artifact of the model used?)

<comment><USER10> This is hotlapping, it seems. A race would be cooler.

<comment><USER11> you might be interested in marble racing, it is very exciting and uses much less energy

<comment><USER10> Correct. But you don't get the RL/ML/DL experience out of it.

<comment><USER11> True, but once self-automated racing cars are a solved thing, marble racing will still be more interesting to watch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Would be nice if there was a program to get these into high schools to bootstrap a more software oriented robotics option.

Also a decent quality five or six DOF arm option instead of the racer might be interesting. Just dont call it DeepGripper.

<comment><USER13> There is already FIRST robotics competitions for that. FIRST tech league in particular is pretty software oriented. There programs are a great way to get students into programming and learning about writing real software.

<comment><USER12> Wasn't aware of tech league. My daughter tried FIRST a few years back and it was way more hardware/build oriented which kind of killed her interest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> They dont even ship to australia but they have a Sydney event?

<comment><USER15> There are a bunch of events before they actually ship. They gave a bunch of them out at this past year's re:Invent, so I guess only those people who got them can participate until then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Udacity SDC alum here as well and this looks awesome. I'm tempted to buy one after reading about DIYRoboCars. I've been thinking about porting openpilot to my Jetson TX2 but have been reluctant since I have no way to test it. DeepRacer seems much funner and safer. I wonder how hackable the car will be. How hard would it be to set up a remote ROS nodes rather using AWS services?

</comment><comment><USER17> Amazon gets to keep the winners models?

<comment><USER18> The models should be limited to within the confines of the s3 location you specify (and the physical deepracer device) unless you explicitly permit otherwise. Nothing that I see in the terms of use [0] cover access to the model.

[0] [https://aws.amazon.com/deepracer/device-terms-of- use/](https://aws.amazon.com/deepracer/device-terms-of-use/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Now that nvidia has released a cheaper jetson board, I'm really itching to get it and build a small RL car. Training on the device would be out of the question though.

Anyone know of any successful DIY small RL cars?

</comment><comment><USER13> It's not clear to me why deep learning is required here. It seems like some dead simple lane following code would probably work just fine. This is generally how these competitions are done.

</comment><comment><USER20> I got a deep racer at Re:invent but I'm still waiting to get into the preview to play with it. Anyone from AWS cruising the comments here who might be able to enable it for my account?

</comment><comment><USER21> This is that weird future shit I was hoping would start to happen.

</comment><comment><USER22> darn. the window for $249 deepracer is over? Still mentioned as $249 'introductory discount' at [https://aws.amazon.com/deepracer/pricing/](https://aws.amazon.com/deepracer/pricing/) but upon clicking through to Amazon.com it's $399 now.

<comment><USER23> My reading is that pre-order is more expensive than launch price. "Can" vs "will be"?

"You can pre-order your AWS DeepRacer car on Amazon.com for $399. For a limited time at launch AWS DeepRacer will be available at an introductory discount price of $249."

<comment><USER22> It was previously $249 on Amazon.com. It's now $399. Not sure how to make it any more clear.

<comment><USER7> I think he is confused by "Launch of pre-orders" vs "Launch of the product". It's an easy mistake to make.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Must the training be done in their cloud?

<comment><USER18> You require AWS to at least activate and set up DeepRacer [0].

You don't strictly speaking need the cloud for training a DeepRacer model, although cloud access (via the DeepRacer console) could be the path of least friction.

Much of the source code for training DeepRacer on AWS can be found on the amazon-sagemaker-examples github repo [1].

The sample training environment relies on Gazebo [2] which, while freely available, has a managed AWS offering [3]. But ultimately, you should just be able to deploy an RL Coach model to the device [4].

[0] [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/deepracer/latest/developerguide/...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/deepracer/latest/developerguide/deploy- deepracer-project.html)

[1] [https://github.com/awslabs/amazon-sagemaker- examples/tree/ma...](https://github.com/awslabs/amazon-sagemaker- examples/tree/master/reinforcement_learning/rl_deepracer_robomaker_coach_gazebo)

[2] [http://gazebosim.org/](http://gazebosim.org/)

[3] [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/robomaker/latest/dg/simulation-t...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/robomaker/latest/dg/simulation- tools-gazebo.html)

[4] [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/deepracer/latest/developerguide/...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/deepracer/latest/developerguide/deepracer- drive-your-vehicle.html#deepracer-drive-vehicle-autonomously)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Why is the age limit 18?

<comment><USER26> For some reason most robotics contests seem to be restricted to highschool students. It's bizarre. It's like "Hey kids get into STEM because robots are cool! OK now stop and go build accounting software."

Edit: Thinking more about it, it's even worse. "Hey kids, robotics is a toy for kids to play with."

<comment><USER27> I think a big part of it is because as an adult with the time, inclination, some money, and programming skills you're expected to just go off and build things.

I guess the same holds true for other adult things like paint-and-sips (you drink and paint a picture) though, so maybe you've come across an untapped market for bot-and-booze.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, generally that's true. I think I may be a different case ([https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.08233](https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.08233)).

<comment><USER10> Nice to see another high school student here!

Just wanted to compliment you on your self-driving car design. Also skimmed your blog and paper. My intended area of focus is generative modeling but I thought your project was awesome nonetheless.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Don't Discriminate Against Mutants Like Me - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/opinion/sunday/dont-discriminate-against-mutants-like-me.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> If this isn't a ringing endorsement for single-payer "medicare for all" health insurance, I don't know what is. As a society we're aghast at the notion that people might be discriminated against due to their genetic pre-conditions. Why the heck do we let our values slug it out in an inefficient, non-competitive, quasi-market?

Also, because it's Hacker News and a lot of folks here are engaged in start- ups, I wonder why I hear relatively more from tech about basic income than single-payer health. While basic income goes further, single-payer health removes a major burden / friction for creating a start up.

Also, from a labor standpoint, decoupling health benefits from work allows start-ups to play with less-than-full-time employment arrangements. Having more people fractionally employed might be just the safety valve we need until automation job loss is more comprehensively addressed. But I digress.

<comment><USER3> Why do you believe that the possibility that people may be discriminated against due to their dna is a ringing endorsement for single-payer "medicare for all" health insurance?

<comment><USER4> Because a single payer would, by definition, cover everyone.

Private insurance companies and employers (the two places most Americans get their health insurance from) may not want to pay for the higher costs associated with higher risk people like this. Employers would be especially susceptible to this sort of discrimination if proposed legislation allowing employers to demand genetic tests of their employees passes.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your- health/wp/2017/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your- health/wp/2017/03/11/employees-who-decline-genetic-testing-could-face- penalities-under-proposed-bill/)

<comment><USER5> The discrimination referenced in the article is not just about insurance costs. Even if health care costs were totally removed from employees they would still have reason to discriminate on genetic factors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Being born with this type of genetic predisposition is unfair, but passing that risk on to an unknowing employer is also unfair. For a medium-size business that underwrites its own policies (very common), a few employees with multi-million dollar medical needs can easily make the difference between a modest profit and bankruptcy.

If we care about equal protection of all American citizens -- and I believe that we should -- the solution is _not_ to legally prohibit employers from performing genetic screenings, it's simply to cover healthcare for high-risk individuals, or ideally everyone, at the national level with single-payer care. That way there's no incentive to cheat anti-genetic-discrimination laws, business don't have to worry about getting hit with an unexpected multi- million dollar expense, and the cost of coverage to everyone shows up on the national ledger, where it honestly belongs.

<comment><USER7> What companies underwrite their own health insurance policies?

I would find that to be a ridiculous risk for those not actually in the business. The whole idea behind insurance is to spread the risk among lots of people. If a medium-sized business is underwriting their own policy, I would think they would quickly go bankrupt more often than not.

<comment><USER8> My company has about 1,000 employees and underwrites its own insurance. They allocate a pool at the beginning of the year and anything that isn't used is written off as profit at the end of the year. I don't know anything more specific than that, but our medium sized, successful company does do this.

<comment><USER9> Isn't this usually coupled with some sort of insurance that covers a major cost overrun? That secondary insurance might get skyrocket if it gets hit repeatedly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It seems we're racing towards the events of Gattaca. It's easy to dismiss the movie as being similar to the far fetched distopian depictions in Minority Report, but in this case we actually have the technology to make it a reality.

<comment><USER11> I might be alone here, but I always felt Gattaca was misunderstood. The dystopia was that society _allowed_ non-enhanced humans to be born. Allowing an underclass to exist, voluntarily, was the mistake. Genetic-engineering healthier, better people sounds great. Let's just make sure everyone has access.

<comment><USER12> I could be misremembering but I thought the character who was non-enhanced was born that way on purpose due to the choice of the mother. Gets a lot more ethically dicey when you start talking about forcing people to genetically engineer their children or face them being forced into a underclass.

<comment><USER10> You're correct. I think the other point is that regardless of the path we choose, there will be a period where not everyone will be genetically engineered due to availability (older people who were born before it was invented, people born to poor or conservative families)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here. Pure corporativism. I am a mutant too. Didn't get any superpower though.

</comment><comment><USER13> I think Americans are going to realize exactly what "run the government like a Trump-branded business" really means. The anti-climate change and pro-business attitude the GOP has doesn't suddenly mean jobs and wealth for all. It means rolling back protections like these. We just saw our browsing data privacy taken from us and now this is probably going to happen. Not sure what Trump voters were expecting, but this is it. I hope they're happy with it.

<comment><USER14> This is why I never understood the "run the government like a business" concept. Business and governments do very different things. You wouldn't run a business like a government and running a government like a business is no better.

<comment><USER15> Indeed. If you were to truly run the government like you'd run a business, wouldn't you "fire" all the older people who are no longer performing at an acceptable level i.e. retired?

<comment><USER16> From a .gov perspective performance and production is measured not by working, but by voting, and voting rates are excellent for older people.

<comment><USER15> That's one more way a government isn't a business. Also, didn't Trump campaign on generally minimizing government? Did (does) he also run his businesses in such as way so as to "minimize" them?

Obviously there are approaches that make sense to be common to running both business and government (that probably apply to most everything else as well because they'd seem like "common sense") but, at a high level, to say "run government like a business" is one of those things that only sounds reasonable (possibly) until you think about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> High risk pools are an answer to the questions posed here. A collective will to ignore reality would not seem to be an answer to me.

<comment><USER9> How do high risk pools address this? Will they be subsidized more then others, passing the cost to taxpayers? Otherwise, they will be unaffordable. The only way insurance works is to pool resources of people who don't need the service to cover those that do need the service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "The legislation would enable companies to coerce employees into participating in wellness programs that could require them to undergo genetic testing and provide genetic information about themselves and their families."

This is the price. There will be other prices.

So-called "red state morons" who "vote against their own economic interests" often tout a hazy, poorly thought out rationale of "freedom" as the driving force behind their choices.

There is, however, a decent heuristic at work here. _They know_ that there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Just because they have no idea how they'll be made to pay for it doesn't mean they're wrong.

<comment><USER13> > They know that there's no such thing as a free lunch.

I'm already paying for health insurance. Its not, nor has it ever been, a free lunch. Diving into my genetics is completely uncalled for. Stop calling health care buyers moochers, thanks.

Also somehow almost all other wealthy western nations do better than us by almost all metrics in healthcare and they don't need to do this either. What's wrong with Americans?

<comment><USER18> Covering existing conditions is a _wonderful thing_. And it is a free lunch.

Regular wellness checks, etc., _while wonderful_ , are a free lunch. They are not insurable. You can't insure for regular, scheduled services. Because math.[1]

If you see things like this - things that are either exorbitantly expensive _or_ defy the bounds of underwriting _or both_ you should expect to pay other prices, elsewhere.

[1] This is insurance 101. You cannot insure against regular, universally consumed services. There is no underwriting pool there. You cannot buy an auto policy that includes regular tire replacement - and if you could, the premiums would include 100% of the tires cost (plus admin).

<comment><USER4> I'm pretty sure most people with an existing condition would prefer not to have it at all than to cost insurance companies more and have that covered.

It's not a free lunch. They paid the admission fee with their health.

Regular wellness checkups are also not a free lunch. They're priced into the policies. You absolutely can insure against regularly consumed services, as long as the premium is enough to cover it and to do the underwriting for the unexpected expenses. Look at dental or vision insurance. The vast majority of what they cover are regular wellness visits.

Putting that aside, free wellness visits are also in the interest of the insurer. It's far cheaper to prevent disease or to treat it early than it is to deal with it later. Those savings from this so-called "free lunch" ends up right back in their pockets.

<comment><USER19> > It's not a free lunch. They paid the admission fee with their health.

You're using the word "paid" in a sense that isn't relevant in context.

<comment><USER4> Considering it's a debate about health care and insurance, I'd say the health of the individual is relevant.

<comment><USER19> Health is relevant. The sense in which you used the word "paid" is not.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Animals that sniff out TB, cancer and landmines - <AUTHOR> http://mosaicscience.com/story/rats-and-dogs-medical-detection-animals-smell-TB-cancer <comment><USER2> For some years I've been thinking about how to use modern machine learning and artificial intelligence in animal training. Most "automated" uses of animal training involve lab animals pressing some buttons, but it should be possible to teach a mouse/rat to visit a particular place in a cage, or hold a certain pose, sniff out something, or a parrot to hum a tune.

But it would also require an algorithm to score "progress" toward a multi dimensional training goal and encode that into binary reward/no reward signals.

</comment><comment><USER3> Article is about mammals' sense of smell. However, following wikipedia trail I was surprised to know that bees and wasps are also used for that purpose. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymenoptera_training](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymenoptera_training)</comment>


Coffee Shops Pull the Plug on Laptop Users - <AUTHOR> http://sbk.online.wsj.com/article/SB124950421033208823.html#mod=rss_Technology

<comment><USER2> Hmm. As a coffee shop owner this is interesting. I was thinking more along the lines of getting a megaphone for my baristas so they can loudly shame the deadbeats.

Most of my clientèle are students so the internet access is pretty key. I have noticed a few obviously non-student types hanging out looking for jobs online. Which is cool unless they are bringing their own drinks. Which happens.

<comment><USER3> As a non-student (with a job) that works fairly often at coffee houses, I try to not always buy the cheapest drink, put a little extra money in the tip jar, etc. understanding that sitting there for 4 hours working and spending $3 is not optimal for the health of the business. I'm curious, however if you've ever considered any kind of alternative business models besides just charging for the Internet access or for the electricity? I've thought about what kind of "value added" services I could charge people for realistically if I had my own place and I haven't come up with much. Do your economics really work with a bunch of students coming in and sitting for hours?

<comment><USER4> One suggestion I think would work is cater to user or student study groups. Maybe offer a discount to the group if enough show. Or possibly reserve seating for a nominal charge, or with a minimum $ purchase.

I know it would have been beneficial and a "value add" for me to know that my study group of 8 would have guaranteed seating and beverages.

<comment><USER2> Student groups typically in my experience don't have any money. Administering 'reservations' is a PITA and I think you would end up dealing with no-shows and pissing off drop ins and regulars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I always thought that allowing customers to sit around was the coffee shop business model.

It's like Barnes & Noble versus previous bookstores. Barnes & Noble encourages you to sit down and read books you have no intention of buying. They're smart enough to know that if you're in the store for 2 hours at a time on a regular basis, you're going to buy SOMETHING. I buy a lot of stuff at Barnes & Noble even though Amazon is generally cheaper. I go there all the time because it's such a cool place to shop, and I buy stuff because I see it and I'm like, "I WANT!"

Anyway, my impression was always that Starbucks and others had the same idea. If you let customers chill for a few hours, they're going to buy stuff. I know I do. If I'm going to sit and read or sit and use a laptop, I'll buy a good drink and some kind of snack. If I want to stay after I finish that, I'll buy something else.

I guess the problem is now customers aren't buying stuff, which sadly coffee shops are fighting in less-than-optimal ways. The problem is, I think, that there is no optimal way that coffee shop owners can do anything. Customers need to be reasonable and support the businesses that are giving them such a nice place to hang out and get online.

<comment><USER6> > _Barnes & Noble encourages you to sit down and read books_

Don't know about BN, but I noticed recently that their Canadian version called Chapters now have substantially fewer chairs than they did a year ago. In smaller stores chairs are gone completely. There's also virtually no wall space to lean against, and they generally discourage from sitting on the floor.

> _If you let customers chill for a few hours, they're going to buy stuff._

Let's say you sit for 4 hours and buy two cups of coffee. If the shop is packed, your chair could instead serve 5-6 lunch customers in a matter of just two hours, each spending considerably more than you. On the other hand if the shop is half-empty, it's nice to have people sitting around, because it creates crowd.

So if you add 1 and 1, you will arrive at the exact policy described in the article - no idlers during the lunch hours.

<comment><USER5> I guess I just expect a sort of cooperation between customers and businesses. If I noticed that the place was crowded and people couldn't sit for lunch, I'd either buy lunch or head out if I was just drinking coffee. Now if I was drinking coffee and eating snacks and such, I'd figure I was spending as much as a lunch customer, so I wouldn't worry about it, but really, I try to be a good customer to good businesses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was flabbergasted at the account of people bringing in their own tea bags or home-made sandwiches. Kudos to the coffee shop owners for trying to accommodate them by adding sandwiches to their repertoire, but I'm not surprised that it didn't change much. If someone comes in with a teabag and a PB&J so they can cuddle up in the corner with their laptop all day, I have no compassion; coffee shops need to stay in business, and to stay in business there needs to be place for _paying_ customers to sit.

Conversely, kicking someone out when the place is almost empty sounds like just awful PR to me. It's an intuitive distinction: "It's busy, we need space for people to sit," vs. "It's empty, feel free to hang out until it gets busy." What's complicated about that?

<comment><USER8> Even if they're "cuddle[d] up in the corner" then they're still using electric, still leaving crumbs on the floor, putting dirty feet on furniture, still going to use the washrooms, etc.. They may seem like little things but they're real costs.

I think I'd aim for a tech solution of providing a ticket with purchases over X amount (coffee + danish price) with one hours free log-on. You either then pay for additional web or buy more products or leave.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> _So far, this appears to be largely a New York phenomenon, though San Francisco's Coffee Bar does now put out signs when the shop is crowded asking laptop users to share tables and make space for other customers._

Cool; I'm never moving to NY.

It's highly unlikely that many SF or SV places could actually "get away" with kicking out their paying customers and maintain any kind of loyal customer base. It's really a symbiotic relationship -- being nice to the laptop wielders makes it much more likely that they'll be nice to your business in online reviews and contexts.

</comment><comment><USER10> As far as I know, Starbucks locations allow you two hours of wifi access along with a purchase. Seems reasonable to me.

<comment><USER11> This is the only reason they get my business over a closer and much cheaper coffee shop (with no wifi).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> What a great business plan: Harrass the jobless who are working on job applications (or maybe a startup?).

Think they'll become loyal customers once they're employed?

Weird business idea: figure out how to be _supportive_ toward the down- and-(temp.)out techies (and their laptops) so you have a tech-friendly reputation. [ If you don't, some of them will open shops that will compete with yours. ]

<comment><USER13> There is a fine line that has to be drawn though, can't let people not buying anything sit there all day in the hope that in the future they will start buying a decent amount.

<comment><USER2> Things are getting tight for people. I imagine some people have gotten rid of their internet at home or used to get it at work. Then the only way to have connectivity is at a hot spot, what else are you going to do?

<comment><USER14> Go to the library.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's odd that some people seem to be assuming everyone is either surfing or job hunting.

From having talked to people, I think more often it's people making stuff, being creative, getting stuff done - some amazing projects and products get created in cafes.

I love seeing laptops out in coffee shops.

When a cafe is welcoming of laptops, I always tip better: paper only.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Didn't the woman who wrote Harry Potter do the entire first book in a coffee shop? Well, at least thats the PR! Just think - we might have no Harry Potter if her local coffee shop (cafe) had kicked her out. I'll leave that up to you, if you think it's a good thing!

</comment><comment><USER16> Oh no, how will I be a rock star writing Rails code in TextMate on my MBP now? :(

<comment><USER17> I am proud to say it took me a few moments to figure out what MBP stands for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> When I read this the other day, I wondered how many laptop abusers there are compared to people who sit with their laptop and continue to buy things. Because this gets rid of both.

Maybe the economy has gotten bad enough recently to tip the scale too far.

<comment><USER19> It may just be New York. I haven't seen any instances of laptop use being discouraged, except for non-customers.

And the rule of no outside food and drink makes perfect sense.</comment></comment>


'The Mother of All Demos' Is 45 Years Old, Doesn't Look a Day Over 25 - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-mother-of-all-demos-is-45-years-old-doesnt-look-a-day-over-25/282152/ <comment><USER2> One of the things I love about Engelbart's work is that it does not obfuscate the underlying data. You have the data structure at your finger tips and it's up to you how you display it or interact with it. If you've got a graph, you interact with that graph as a graph. If you create a list you can interact with that as a list.

I am trying to implement something in a similar vein[1].

[1] 98, 4, & 44: [https://github.com/samsquire/ideas](https://github.com/samsquire/ideas)

</comment><comment><USER3> December 9, 1968 Douglas Engelbart did something what I believe was a huge leap into the future. He didn't just invent the mouse, but the whole experience and interactivity with a computer which was unheard.

Do that sort of things still happen today? Of course new things get invented and new ways to interact with media and a computer such as Leap Motion, Myo - Gesture control armband, Siri, and I'm sure there are tons of other examples out there. But they seem to be what in Engelbart's presentation was the mouse, just a part of the larger picture.

<comment><USER4> While it was more commercial in bent, I've always felt that the original iPhone introduction[1] was a spiritual successor to Englebart's demo.

[1] Jan 9, 2007 video in this podcast series: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/apple- keynotes/id2758346...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/apple- keynotes/id275834665?mt=2)

<comment><USER3> I have to agree with that, I still own an iPod Classic Video and after 2 HD replacements and a new display (I wasn't really smart nor careful the first time I attempted to replace the HD) it still is the best Media device I ever had.

I wonder if Apple will be able to keep pushing devices of such impact out on the market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> See also, "Turing's Curse", from OSCON 2013: [http://www.oscon.com/oscon2013/public/schedule/detail/29917](http://www.oscon.com/oscon2013/public/schedule/detail/29917)

</comment><comment><USER6> Every time Douglas Engelbart is in the news, I reread Bret Victor's reminder of his goals. [http://worrydream.com/Engelbart/](http://worrydream.com/Engelbart/)

<comment><USER7> Victor points a software design that can be implemented, two mice, even two text cursors if designed that way.

What about today's tools isn't alighted with Engelbart's vision? Everything? That seems a bit too broad

<comment><USER8> Well, it's partly because the article is a bit narrow minded. Well, thats what I feel anyways.

As the article rightfully points out, what matters is intent, not the actual technical means of implementation, or even how it appears. We do have modern "screen-sharing" applications with multiple cursors. Just take a look at Google Docs.

The "problem" of today's tools is that computing technology went through this phase called the "PC" in which single-user interaction was all there was, and we went ahead and found efficient methods of single-user interaction, and then taught entire generations to think based on that metaphor.

<comment><USER9> This is an excellent point, and I also think that Victor's interpretation of Engelbart's priorities is really interesting: what if we made computer tools powerful enough to enable high-bandwidth creative cooperation? Would that open up new areas of hyper-productive human activity that we've only sporadically seen up to now, when small groups of like-minded people happen to be put into a facilitating environment at the same time?

What if that were the norm, because you could find such people -- right for you -- anywhere in the world, and work with them all your life, not just until this project funding ran out, or someone graduated, or got a new job, or whatever.

That's what I think Bret Victor is aiming to find out, and that's why I think a lot of people are really excited by what he's saying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Would there be a better quality video available anywhere? I've always thought that of the one single copy we _do_ have floating around the net, the quality is garbage. I wanna read the text!

<comment><USER11> Archive.org has it in three parts:

Part 1 - [https://archive.org/details/XD300-23_68HighlightsAResearchCn...](https://archive.org/details/XD300-23_68HighlightsAResearchCntAugHumanIntellect)

Part 2 - [https://archive.org/details/XD300-24_68HighlightsAResearchCn...](https://archive.org/details/XD300-24_68HighlightsAResearchCntAugHumanIntellect)

Part 3 - [https://archive.org/details/XD300-25_68HighlightsAResearchCn...](https://archive.org/details/XD300-25_68HighlightsAResearchCntAugHumanIntellect)

[Edit: formatting]

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> That's an awesome chord keyboard - [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv- zdhzMY#t=2039](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY#t=2039) I've always wondered why more people don't use them. It seems significantly less prone to errors - instead of fat fingers or incorrect placement, you have to coordinate the timing between the fingers.

It's pretty amazing how much that video demonstrates. I wonder what the next version of that video will be. Hopefully it's not computer related.

<comment><USER13> I'd like to try one, but there appears to be basically no such thing as a bluetooth-enabled one-hand chord keyboard that you are intended to hold in your hand (as opposed to having on a table), and that's the use case I'm interested it... an input device for my augmented reality glasses while I'm walking around. On that note, if they're ever going to make a... well... can't really make a comeback if you never made an appearance at all... an _appearance_ , that's probably the scenario that will drive them. Voice may cover casual usage, but when you really need to go to town you're going to need something more, and no current input device can meet that need.

<comment><USER14> Sadly I think neat keyboards are patent encumbered.

There have been things like the Frogpad, or the Twiddler. But they're expensive and not available anymore.

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

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciQVBNHrKKA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciQVBNHrKKA)

I totally agree, I think their time has come and it'd be great if someone could rescue the tech from all these dead or dying companies and provide a decent chording keyboard for people on the move.

<comment><USER15> Perhaps Morse code would make for a neat device, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wow, how trendy is that humanist sans-serif font and lack of capital letters?

Edit: I mean on the announcement at the bottom of the article.

<comment><USER17> Did you notice there appears to be an overline for caps? At least that's what it appeared to signify to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> For people interested in seeing the 1968 demo here's the links to the best (to my knowledge) version available on the internet:

[https://archive.org/details/XD300-23_68HighlightsAResearchCn...](https://archive.org/details/XD300-23_68HighlightsAResearchCntAugHumanIntellect) (first reel, follow the links for the other two)

If you are interested in how NLS was actually used I also suggest watching the 1969 demo which is less flashy but contains a better explanation of the interface.

[https://archive.org/details/XD301_69ASISconfPres_Reel1](https://archive.org/details/XD301_69ASISconfPres_Reel1)

</comment><comment><USER19> Very interesting.

It looks like a interactive document/hypertext backed-up by a schema-less store ( much like JSON, with hierarchies ). Also I liked the idea to build "views" from the document(s).

<comment><USER20> Views are a very powerful idea, one that is currently under represented.

Today, if you want a different view of a document/data, you typically have to convert the document/data into a new one (in a different format). Then, as you change the original, the other remains outdated. Views are awesome because they remain up to date.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Or a day over 30. The Blit demo - [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emh22gT5e9k](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emh22gT5e9k) is a bit over 30 years now

</comment><comment><USER22> It is shocking to me that it took so long for this technology to be realized by the public at large. Decades passed before this technology reached people's homes.

</comment><comment><USER23> Here's a talk in the 80's from Douglas that covers some more details:

[https://archive.org/details/XD302_86ACM_Prese_AugKnowledgeWo...](https://archive.org/details/XD302_86ACM_Prese_AugKnowledgeWorkshopParts1and2)

The Q&A session at the end is very interesting. People asking about gestures and using a pencil (stylus) instead of a keyboard (note this is back in 86).

</comment><comment><USER24> Is everyone seeing a bunch of screwed up inline links, or is it just me? Stuff like this:

was fairly mind-blowing

</comment><comment><USER25> Incidentally, the way the kids were typing in the recent Ender's Game movie is interesting. Does anyone know how deeply they designed that system/interface? (i.e., was it just random keystrokes or did the chording actually matter?)

</comment><comment><USER26> The shopping list demo really looks like org-mode to me. :)

</comment><comment><USER27> What else would you expect when much of our Software architecture is from the 70s ? :)</comment>


Homework: New Research Suggests It May Be an Unnecessary Evil - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alfie-kohn/homework-research_b_2184918.html

<comment><USER2> It should be noted that the article is written by Alfie Kohn, who has a number of books on education. See <http://www.alfiekohn.org/books.htm> for the list, and <http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/hm.htm> for one that is very, very critical of homework.

His basic thesis points in that book are these:

1\. Homework is just extra practice. If practice is done right, it helps, if done wrong it hurts.

2\. Studies do not find a simple correlation between homework and grades. Increasing homework does increase the correlation between the parents' socioeconomic status and grades, and the reason is that the likelihood of correctly practicing homework depends on how well the home environment can guarantee correct practice.

3\. There is a very direct correlation between homework, home conflict, and children's dislike of school. In the absence of an academic benefit, these negatives are very telling.

I've read the book. I found it compelling. But then again I disliked homework back when I had to do it, and don't enjoy telling my son that he has to do his.</comment>


Intel delays Cannonlake 10nm processor for the third time - <AUTHOR> https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/intel-delays-cannonlake-10nm-processor-third-time-2017-09/ <comment><USER2> So I guess this means that we'll have to wait an additional year for the MacBook Pro that finally smashes through this archaic limit of 16 gigabytes of memory :(

Except if Intel wakes up and relieves us from our pains by inserting a Kaby Lake revision of sorts with an updated memory controller capable of driving more low-power RAM. I personally couldn't care less about 10-20% more processing power per watt from Cannonlake and 10nm, it's the memory limit that's really limiting me.

<comment><USER3> Add one more to the "Reasons Apple would want to take control of their own destiny by putting their own chips in Macs" tally.

<comment><USER4> Not to mention they've already done something similar when they switched chips from Power PC to Intel. I find it hard to see how they'd license x86, but who knows, they do have ridiculous amounts of money piled up...

<comment><USER5> I think it's easier for them to turn iPad + iOS into laptop that make a x86 processor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is any other company having more success at 10 nm or smaller?

<comment><USER7> Yes. The A11 Bionic CPU Apple is shipping in the newly announced iPhones is on a 10nm min-feature-size process built by TSMC. They announced revenue from the process this summer.

Samsung is ahead of TSMC by a few more months; they've been shipping wafers since March of this year.

<comment><USER8> Intel's "10nm" has roughly twice the transistor density vs. Samsung/TSMC "10nm", so I wouldn't compare based on the advertised process names.

<comment><USER7> That's true, but only if Intel's _proposed_ 10nm specs matches what they ship. They haven't shipped anything, that's the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Laptop vendors are reported to be preparing to skip Cannon Lake and move to its planned successor Ice Lake."

How does that work? Wouldn't the successor also be on a 10nm process? Or at least facing similar delays?

<comment><USER7> Sort-of. The successor (Ice Lake) is planned to be on a 10nm+ process (so an advanced, 2nd gen version of the 10nm process). However, if the issues with Cannon Lake are mostly about moving to a smaller feature size (i.e. it's mostly a die shrink), and Ice Lake is more of an arch update than a feature size reach, it makes sense that Cannon Lake gets pushed back more than Ice Lake would be. (Yes, it'd necessarily be later -- but if you tackle most of the hard problems now, maybe not _that much_ later, and it makes sense to skip a gen.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Coffee Lake (14nm++) is launching in Q4 2017, [https://www.anandtech.com/show/11843/prices-of-intels- coffee...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/11843/prices-of-intels-coffee-lakes- cpus-published-400-for-core-i78700k)

Can a Coffee Lake CPU work on a Kaby Lake / Skylake motherboard?

<comment><USER11> > Can a Coffee Lake CPU work on a Kaby Lake / Skylake motherboard?

No. Although the socket has the same number of pins it is not compatible with Skylake/Kaby Lake. The socket will probably be called LGA 1151-v2 to distinguish it from the earlier socket.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Have there been any 10nm or smaller CPU chips produced yet? Seems they've been stuck at 14nm for a while now.

<comment><USER13> Qualcomm's already mass producing 10nm CPUs.

<comment><USER14> Qualcomm is fabless, so they are not producing anything. It seems they are on Samsung for 10 and will switch to TSMC for 7 [1]

[1] [https://www.xda-developers.com/qualcomm-ends-foundry- partner...](https://www.xda-developers.com/qualcomm-ends-foundry-partnership- with-samsung-and-entrusts-7nm-process-to-tsmc/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Since Intel nm is not tsmc nm, maybe Intel delays 10nm for different reasons. Like realizing that with a bit more time (that their smaller (sic) nm allows) they could produce much better dies.

</comment><comment><USER16> "Vaporlake"

</comment><comment><USER17> So what's the future? Plasmonics? TFETs? Exciton FETs? Nanoelectromechanical switches? Actually looking at the data and realizing the interconnect is the bottleneck?

</comment><comment><USER18> Ryzen when?

</comment><comment><USER19> For Apple, Apple should just go ahead and ship Macs with their ARM chips. Their 10nm A11 chip is already as fast as their current generation MacBook Pros, and that's with a 2 Watt cell phone power budget. Give it a 5 Watt tablet power budget or a 15-35 Watt Laptop power budget and it would wreck anything Intel could produce.

I'm not even sure what the issue is holding them back on switching their Macs to ARM cores? They're already forcing devs to ship byte code to the App store.

<comment><USER20> If you want to run any software besides what's on the iOS App Store, you need a 64-bit x86 CPU. Apple hasn't released a macOS toolchain for ARM yet, and they need to do that a couple years before releasing such a computer. Otherwise their computer will launch with zero third-party applications (besides the open source ones available on brew).

I did check the Geekbench scores, because I was curious about your speed claims... [https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/search?utf8=&q=7360u](https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/search?utf8=&q=7360u) and [https://browser.geekbench.com/ios- benchmarks/](https://browser.geekbench.com/ios-benchmarks/) seem way too close to equal for me to believe. Maybe that's the way it is, but I'm assuming I'm misunderstanding the tests. The A11 couldn't possibly be that fast, could it?

<comment><USER21> I remember the Rosetta era when they switched from PPC to Intel and had their VM layer inbetween. You could go to your process list and see what was using x86 vs PPC via Rosetta and later even x86 64-bit. Eventually Rosetta was removed from the default install and I think it's gone entirely now, so you can't run really old PPC apps without an older version of MacOS and an older Mac.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, if Apple tried to emulate Intel's ISA they'd very likely get sued. [https://www.forbes.com/sites/davealtavilla/2017/06/09/intel-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/davealtavilla/2017/06/09/intel- puts-microsoft-and-qualcomm-on-notice-regarding-windows-10-x86-emulation-on- snapdragon-devices/)

<comment><USER22> Except isn't X86_64 ISA technically property of AMD, not Intel?

I know some of the later stuff (SIMD / AVX / SSE / etc) is Intel, but technically I think they could leave that off and still be successful assuming that would be all that's needed to not be infringing (which I don't know if that's the case or not).

<comment><USER23> It's x86_64 is so obviously inspired by 32/16-bit x86 that practically speaking, it's patented heavily by both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It really seems a hard limit is being reached w.r.t current processes and technologies

<comment><USER7> TSMC and Samsung, two competing foundries, have already successfully shipped 10nm wafers. They'll also be in the upcoming iPhone, which is a pretty high- volume part.

<comment><USER25> It's worth noting that node size refers to very different things between different manufacturers, we have very little idea about whats different/similar between TSMC/Samsung/Glofo/Intel's '10nm' nodes.

It's very possible that TSMC and Samsung are using a less technically challenging (and potentially less technically capable) definition of 10nm than Intel.

Or, it could be that TSMC and Samsung are actually technically ahead of Intel.

<comment><USER7> Yep, that's a fair point. In particular, because Intel isn't actually shipping anything at 10nm, all we have to go off of is their marketing material for what 10nm means.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Anyone else find it funny that Intel's first CPU with the SHA-1 instruction set is going to be released about a year after SHA-1 was broken? (Yes, there are still certain uses for SHA-1. But the timing is still hilarious)

</comment><comment><USER27> I guess 10nm will be more prone to cosmic rays in our homes.

</comment><comment><USER28> the future after that is more dies on the chip.

bigger chips with lower core counts that can run lots more instruction sets per cycle then for multicore put many dies on each chip.

more yield too it's better, you can makes sure every die is operational at the very least, and if not desolder and replace that die.</comment>


I Have a Few Things to Say About Adria - <AUTHOR> http://www.dogsandshoes.com/2013/03/adria.html

<comment><USER2> Here's the thing:

If one of the two dudes had just punched her right in the face, and she gathered up a mob of her buddies to beat him rather than reporting it to the police, we'd all be calling her out for doing the wrong thing.

So maybe she was offended, but I don't care about her feels more than I care about her being punched in the face. If the solution to the bigger problem - punching in the face - is to talk directly to authorities to combat the problem rather than drumming up a public mob, why is it different here?

You can say whatever justification for /why/ she was offended or wanted them to stop, but this article just hand-waves at the main complaint that she responded in a drastically unprofessional and inappropriate manner.

So, really, someone give me a compelling argument on why public mob rather than authorities is how we deal with some, but not all problems with rights violations in an organized and regulated environment?</comment>


Open-source Real User Monitoring - <AUTHOR> http://github.hubspot.com/bucky?h

<comment><USER2> The Github repot, last commit, was bumping to version 0.3.0 over 4 months ago, but the 'learn more' pages all point to downloading version 0.2.0, from over 5 months ago. The few commits in that period seem fairly innocuous, is this a mistake or is there a good reason not to use the latest version?

<comment><AUTHOR> Link fixed, thanks!

<comment><USER2> Np, great stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> How does this compare to the real user monitoring in NewRelic? I know NR is commercial and not cheap, but in features? Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a subset of what NR provides. Bucky gives you aggregate stats on the performance of your endpoints and pages as experienced by your users. NR gives you that, and a bunch of other stuff which we hope to build as OS tools of their own some day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is this somewhat similar to Soasta Mpulse RUM? The way you inject the code to start sending data points is similar. With them i have to specify what i want to track though, using tags. It won't allow me to track all ajax calls.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> If you're interested, HubSpot is currently looking for engineers and interns: [http://github.hubspot.com/#frontend- jobs](http://github.hubspot.com/#frontend-jobs)

<comment><USER5> They actually offered me an interview chance after completing a set of challenges they posted on Talentbuddy. [http://www.talentbuddy.co/set/5286b6e84af0110af3838c47](http://www.talentbuddy.co/set/5286b6e84af0110af3838c47)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's great how HubSpot continues to open source these things.

</comment><comment><USER7> I could imagine only using the client part and sending the data to our python web server that is already enabled to send monitoring data to stats/graphite.

</comment><comment><USER8> Cool, now make HubSpot faster! I swear by the software, but damn it's far and away the slowest app I use everyday.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly why we built monitoring tools.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> but why did they call it bucky? There is a python statsd / collectd -> graphite bridge [https://pypi.python.org/pypi/bucky](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/bucky)

</comment><comment><USER10> This page is very simple without JavaScript! [http://i.imgur.com/3tWz79o.png](http://i.imgur.com/3tWz79o.png)

<comment><USER11> You non-js users are adorable: [http://i.imgur.com/VV4Yw2V.png](http://i.imgur.com/VV4Yw2V.png)</comment></comment>