Masahiro Sakurai on Developing Smash Bros. 4 - <AUTHOR> http://www.p4rgaming.com/masahiro-sakurai-on-developing-smash-bros-4-killing-myself-would-be-the-cowards-way-out/

<comment><USER2> Sakurai is a strange man. He needs to lighten up on himself and his team. Brawl showed many signs of strain -- it had an insane amount of features but at the same time felt rushed and unpolished.

> "Some people made a modification of Brawl and now think that they're better > than me. I dare them to say that to my face. I'll have a real brawl with > them and show them that their little mod means nothing in the grand scheme > of things. All they can do is make one of my games more like one of my other > games. And when my new game comes out, everyone will stop playing their > little project and play with a real game."

Wow, take some humble pie. Isn't it enough that Nintendo's draconian DRM restraints mean that the thousands of kids who enjoy _modifying_ your _legally purchased_ game are all breaking the law? Just to play with their toys in a way that they can be creative designers rather than just content consumers?

There are several popular projects that changed the game mechanics to make the game more fun for some players: [http://www.ssbwiki.com/Brawl%2B](http://www.ssbwiki.com/Brawl%2B) [http://www.ssbwiki.com/Brawl-](http://www.ssbwiki.com/Brawl-) [http://www.ssbwiki.com/Project_M](http://www.ssbwiki.com/Project_M) [http://www.ssbwiki.com/Balanced_Brawl](http://www.ssbwiki.com/Balanced_Brawl) are the main ones. Sakurai seems to take this as a personal attack. I think it's fantastic. Not to mention all the hundreds of character and level mods, and other game fixes people enjoy.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a parody site

[http://www.p4rgaming.com/](http://www.p4rgaming.com/)

Foxconn Employees Should Think About the Lives They're Ruining by Making Faulty PlayStation 4s

Exclusive Interview: First PlayStation 4 Owner Joey Says Life Still Unfulfilled

Mario Party leading cause of Video Game Violence

</comment><comment><USER4> Could somebody please explain what is this about? I literally do not understand what the guy is saying.

</comment><comment><USER5> Parody site.

<comment><USER6> The only real explanation that I trust...</comment></comment>


Apple's New Spaceship Campus Has One Flaw – And It Hurts - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-16/apple-s-new-spaceship-campus-has-one-flaw-and-it-hurts <comment><USER2> Recommend amending the title; the flaw is employees walking into glass panels and doors. This has little or nothing to do with the torus/exterior glass.</comment>


Z80 computer wirewrapped on perfboard - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/linker3000/Z80-Board <comment><USER2> I love Z80 and 6809 machines. The first computer game I ever played was Zork on a Z80. I keep trying to buy an old Z80 machine on fleaBay, but the prices either start out of a reasonable range, or I get outbid.

It's great to see so many people these days rediscovering the chip and making these modernized designs. Disk I/O was such an unreliable pain back then. It's fantastic that most of these are designed for CF and SD storage now. Every time I run across a project like this on the internet, I eat it up. And thankfully, they are becoming more common.

If I had younger eyesight, and steadier hands, I'd be all over this project. (Anyone know of a company that sells something like this I can hook up to a dumb terminal? No FPGAs, or RPis, please.)

I met a woman just this past week who used to sell S-100 and Z80 machines at BusinessLand in Silicon Valley back when everything was just starting to percolate. We talked for hours about the experience and the people she met what the valley was like back in those days. (Like getting to try out an Alto in the 70's!)

The next time I run into her I'm going to encourage her to write all of that down and post it somewhere.

[Edit to add:]

If you want an excellent CP/M experience on a modern Mac, there's Tom Harte's emulator.† Unfortunately, I haven't been able to play the full Zork on it because Zork requires multiple disks, and I don't think it has a mechanism to switch virtual disks.

† [https://github.com/TomHarte/CP-M-for-OS-X](https://github.com/TomHarte/CP- M-for-OS-X)

<comment><USER3> I've had a lot of fun with the rc2014 (rc2014.co.uk). You still gotta solder it, but it's all through-hole 0.1", so nothing scary.

It's a very (very!) modular gig, so you can pick'n'mix what to match what you're aiming for. from 32k & basic on rom, to banked ram, flashrom, cf, ide, etc.

rpi & esp8266 optional.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for that link. It looks very promising!

Still needs a bit of soldering, but I may try to find a neighborhood kid with better hands than I have to do it.

<comment><USER4> I think it would be fun to build one of these, but I don't really have a use for it.

I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area, let me know if you'd like to collaborate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hi folks, I see you found my 'parts bin' Z80 board!

Coincidentally, I'm reworking part of it on the desk in front of me right now. I'm removing the address decoder (top left) for the I/O (LED) port and am replacing it with a control line from the GAL (which is now a 22V10 instead of a 20V8).

Apart from giving me something to build, the intention is to use the board as a STEM show-and-tell item during school visits and local 'Jams' \- I am a volunteer STEM ambassador in the UK and my company kindly gifts employees several 'volunteering' days a year for local activities, so I help out with career & STEM days as well as weekend special events (eg: [https://twitter.com/linker3000/status/1020709404843421696](https://twitter.com/linker3000/status/1020709404843421696)).

Since I had the GALs to hand, using one is fine for me - but for those who haven't got a programmer it would be a bit of an expense to tool up for it, so I don't expect many to copy the design.

Someone asked in another thread about the single-sided wirewrapping technique; it IS really quick to do, is easy to trace where you're going to/from, rework is quick, PLUS as a STEM show-and-tell, everything is on one side so it can be left on a desk and doesn't need to be constantly picked up/put down to see everything; this reduces the risk of damaging the wiring and board.

Edit: The DIY retro build computer guys are really friendly and helpful, so do drop by and see what's going on:

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/rc2014-z80](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/rc2014-z80)

[https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/forum/index.php](https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/forum/index.php)

[https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php](https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php)

[http://6502.org/homebuilt](http://6502.org/homebuilt)

There's other places out there too, those are just the ones I've actively used.

Thanks for the attention.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is that same-side wirewrapping really better?

The project site lists several advantages including faster re-works and it being easier to see what you're connecting, but that doesn't seem to be the case since all of the wires are crammed into little channels between the chips.

On the underside of the board there's more room to spread the wires out, making it easier to see the pins and to find the wire you need to re-work - usually you can trace the wires visually, especially if you do some color coding.

They don't seem to be too hard to find, Jameco and Mouser (among other places) carry them, a 40 pin socket for a Z-80 costs $5

<comment><USER7> Pin 1 remains at top left, as it will be in the diagrams on the datasheet, rather than having to mentally flip everything. That's the possibility I can think of.

<comment><USER6> When I started wirewrapping, I'd use a magic marker to place a dot at the pin 1 to make it easier to visualize on an upside down board.

For a while I did some wirewrapping for a company (defense contractor) and the boards came drilled and with silkscreened component markings much like you'd see on a PCB. It's not clear why they went through all of the trouble to silkscreen and drill boards for wirewrapping and didn't just make PCB's. Probably a combination of the cost to create PCB's coupled with a low production run (they were building 5 custom products, so a pretty low volume)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This just demonstrates the Z80 love will never die ;)

Chips4Makers.io has just launched their own crowd funding campaign (seeking $22K) for the Retro-μC. A fully open-source micro-controller that runs three venerable retro CPU cores: the Zilog Z80, MOS 6502 and Motorola M68K. Yes, you read that correctly. It's like a TRS-80, Commodore-64 and Amiga on a single chip!

[https://www.crowdsupply.com/chips4makers/retro- uc](https://www.crowdsupply.com/chips4makers/retro-uc)

<comment><USER5> Yeah, but it's already been done:

[http://searle.hostei.com/grant/Multicomp/index.html](http://searle.hostei.com/grant/Multicomp/index.html)

<comment><USER9> Right! It seems like anyone who wants a retrocomputer on an FPGA would want to program it themselves. Considering you can get an EP2C5T144 dev kit for $20, and a USB-blaster for $10, I'm not sure I see any market for a $42 pre- programmed FPGA that may not be supported after it ships.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My first ASIC was validated like that. A much larger wire wrapped board with a bunch of FPGAs.

It only worked if you gently pushed with your hands into the wires, but it was sufficient to discover a bunch of bugs (that should have been found in simulation, but we were total cowboys back then.)

<comment><USER11> Your hands may have created some subtle RC time constants that killed a race condition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The kicker is that it runs CP/M -- the demo shows WordStar

</comment><comment><USER13> My first assembly language was Z80, not really hard but not a lot of fun. Then along came the Motorola 68000 and _that_ instruction set was bliss.

<comment><USER14> I was lucky, in the sense that I jumped from Z80 to 386/486/etc. Because Zilog was basically founded by ex-Intel staff the instruction-sets weren't too dissimilar.

I could never get my head round 6502-instructions (as a teenager). These days I guess my knowledge is largely obsolete as I stopped writing Intel assembly language around the time SSE came out. Still there are times when I decompile & patch binaries for fun, so it wasn't entirely wasted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Please note that one of the screenshots shows:

      Z80 CP/M BIOS 1.0 by G. Searle 2007-13

      CP/M 2.2 Copyright 1979 (c) by Digital Research

A curious thing in all that is that Gary Kildall, the founder of Digital Research and the creator of CP/M, invented the concept of BIOS back then in the late 70s. We still use it today!

Please note how closely that CP/M boot text resembles newer variants we still meet in modern PCs.

</comment><comment><USER16> How much more work would it be to build something similar with a 486? (Just as an example since I have such a CPU sitting on my desk). It's quite some more pins for sure, but how many of those are essential? And I don't mean to build something IBM PC compatible, just something that barely boots into some kind of shell and can run a basic interpreter or similar. Has this been done?

<comment><USER17> It would be very difficult to wirewrap a board that could support a 486, starting with the fact that I'm not sure wire-wrap sockets exist for it, so you'd either need a breakout or to get one custom-machined.

Once you have that, you'd want to think about clocking the chip way under its typical speed and seeing if it still gives useful results, because birds' nest wirewrap is not going to be especially useful at 16mhz.

You're right that most of the 168 pins in a typical 486 socket are not necessary or are redundant. At minimum you would need power, some address pins (probably not all of them, if you're only looking to run the most minimal program, call it 16 for a two-byte 64k address space), some data pins (again, you can probably get by with 8 if you're willing to use the 8-bit instructions only). There are a few misc pins that I don't know the exact use of, but you'll probably need 4-5 to do things like understand when the bus is in use, set up 8 bit bus mode etc.

Then you can think about what kind of i/o you want. For a minimal project, you can probably get by with driving LEDs straight from from address pins (i.e. read from a certain address in a tight loop to light it).

From here you can blow some ROMs with simple programs and convince yourself it works, but at this point you're really just treating a 486 like a 70s era micro (8080, 6502, CDP1802, etc) in a "trainer" like the KIM-1 ([http://www.6502.org/trainers/buildkim/kim.htm](http://www.6502.org/trainers/buildkim/kim.htm)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> That's beautifully neat bit of wirewrapping. And the layout is very aesthetically pleasing. It feels like such craftsmanship should yield a computer faster than one you can buy off-the-shelf.

</comment><comment><USER19> The StarTrek game was the first game I ever played. I asked my father to teach me decimals to fire the photon torpedos properly. Seeing this again brings back some really early memories.

</comment><comment><USER20> Utterly brilliant!

</comment><comment><USER21> Posted a bit too late :)</comment>


People can pay to spam your Facebook inbox now. - <AUTHOR> http://www.facebook.com/help/398578543552207

<comment><AUTHOR> Given that many of the people I know use Facebook messaging for the sorts of personal messages they used to use email for, this new policy is very much like Google allowing mail senders to pay them to bypass their spam filters; I know Facebook's got to make money, but I'm not terribly impressed - it used to be that only people I was friends with could get into my inbox.

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm not sure its as easy as the post makes it sound, the person not having a facebook account would still need to provide identification, otherwise, if its a facebook user, he can be reported for spam/blocked/banned or something.

or thats what I hope

<comment><AUTHOR> I suspect it'll mostly be crappy Farmville clones and big corporate pages trying to do "social marketing", but we can hope...</comment></comment>


Teaching CS in the schools - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2018-09.html#e2018-09-30T10_31_14.htm <comment><USER2> I'm currently teaching basic computing with a focus on introductionary programming to 14-18 year olds. The myth that kids that age are all digital natives and hence much more adept at learning CS amd programming is wrong. A tablet in every class room is great to augment history, physics etc. lessons. But it does nothing to improve their understanding of CS and programming.

I've cobbled together a curriculum, starting with CS unplugged activities to explain computational thinking. I found this to be highly effective! [https://teachinglondoncomputing.org](https://teachinglondoncomputing.org) which is a fantastic resource to teach basic CS concepts. The locked-in activity in particular is highly effective in making things click. You get students to tackle a real world problem. You can introduce linear and binary search (or rather, have them come up with it themselves). And finally, you can teach them complexity analysis with a goal: how to write the book the fastest way.

Before any programming can happen, getting computational thinking into their heads is essential. Moving from that to code brings its own challenges. I found Scratch and similar block based environments to be a bit of a deterrent with this age bracket. The kids know it's not "the real deal".

However, there aren't any non-overwhelming "real" coding platforms out there. Python comes very close, but is far from simple (pip, IDE, maybe mypy, because it turns out types are helpful when learning to program).

So, while I think the CS side is pretty well covered, there is amlack of beginner friendly programming environments that don't overwhelm the learner, or treat them like they are "stupid". This could be one thing where the community could make a difference. I'm building a statically typed structured PL for that purpose at the moment.

<comment><USER3> I think visual feedback is important, I teached multiple people programming with [https://processing.org/](https://processing.org/)

Processing is more like a framework and comes in python and java flavour (although I think the language doesn't really matter as long as you grasp how loops work and what can be done with it).

Something like this:

        def setup():
            size(400, 400)
            stroke(255)

        def draw():
            line(150, 25, mouseX, mouseY)

        def mousePressed():
            background(192, 64, 0)

The concepts learned by just playing around with this are valuable in any language.

<comment><USER4> This is something that earlier versions of flash did very well. You could start by creating graphics, then turn them into frames in an animation. In order to make those frames dynamic you had to learn some programming, and you'd get instant feedback.

It wasn't just some toy, you could create production applications this way. Unfortunately the low bar resulted in a lot of low quality applications (in terms of ux and engineering) which led to it's downfall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5>
      Everyone should be able to create digital media, not just consume it.
      Everyone should be able to understand their tools, not just use them.
      People should know that technology is not magic.

</comment><comment><USER6> > The myth that kids that age are all digital natives and hence much more > adept at learning CS amd programming is wrong.

This is unfortunately very true. It's kinda sad seing my nephews and nieces struggling when using a desktop computer. I guess scrolling down on instagram and watching netflix doesn't teach you anything about computers.

<comment><USER7> > struggling when using a desktop computer

They're not native with the desktop computer metaphor, but so what? Why does that matter? Why is desktop computing the true computing that identifies whether you're native or not?

And of course, none of this has anything to do with computer science, does it? You can do good computer science with a desktop, a tablet, or a pen and paper.

<comment><USER8> "You can do good computer science with a desktop, a tablet, or a pen and paper. "

What development environments run well on a tablet?

<comment><USER9> I haven't tried it, but people say nice things about Swift Playground. If you add a keyboard and an internet connection you can also use any of the web based IDEs and programming notebooks out there.

<comment><USER8> Why would you do this over a setup with real keyboards and a big screen? I couldn't imagine myself staring a tablet the whole day.

<comment><USER7> If you attach a Bluetooth keyboard and use a larger tablet what is the effective difference between that and a small laptop?

<comment><USER10> Nothing, but that's disingenuous, because kids aren't hanging out with keyboards and >11inch screens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> 10 PRINT "Hello, World" 20 GOTO 10

Easy to understand and you can see the result right away. You don't complex languages or "playgrounds" to teach the basics of programming.

<comment> java-man but... we have javascript! [0]

[0] [https://hackernoon.com/js-wtf-with- number-5cd73514befb](https://hackernoon.com/js-wtf-with-number-5cd73514befb)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why?

Obviously we need some students to become programmers, and we should start them early, but do we need all students? The student who wants to be a doctor should learn to type and then move on to more science/biology classes. The student who isn't sure what they want to do with their life (this is most, even though they all have done a "what I want to be when I grow up paper") needs to good general background. going deep into math, science, and reading/writing (ie the 3 Rs) will get them much father than specialized education in computers - they can figure out what they need to know a lot better than someone with a deep knowledge of CS can figure out something else.

Computers are tools. They are useful when you know some other domain well and then use the computer to take care of some work for you.

<comment><USER10> Why teach Chemistry, Literature, Music, Physics, or History?

Why is "science" one of "the 3Rs", but computer science is not?

<comment><USER13> Honestly, they stay the same long enough to teach something lasting. Teach java? Wait, no! Now its JavaScript. No! Clojure or Haskell or whatnot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Dave Liepman's Maria Project is a really accessible way to teach students how to use Clojure with no previous experience. Getting the tooling out of the picture and jumpstarting with music and art examples goes a long way.

[https://youtu.be/CUBHrS4ZzO4](https://youtu.be/CUBHrS4ZzO4) [https://www.maria.cloud](https://www.maria.cloud)

</comment><comment><USER15> I really think the best thing for teaching kids would be giving them a fully built 2D game and teach them how to mod it, slowly working into how the core engine works. Not that I have any real evidence to support this. But my casual involvement in Half-Life/WC3 modding scenes during my teens says this is the way to go.

</comment><comment><USER16> Always love seeing stuff from my alma mater on the front page of HN!</comment>


Bill Gates on his last visit with Steve Jobs  - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekwire.com/2012/video-bill-gates-visit-steve-jobs

<comment><USER3> Steve Jobs was a big role model of mine, yet Bill Gates never came close. I'm starting to realize that is due to the dramatic nature of Job's life, which is very different from what we know about Bill Gates.

Yet, when things like this comes out, and stories about Jobs emerge, I start to question whether my choice of a role model was really all that well placed. Do you admire the guy with the entrancing personality, or the one that is about to cure polio?

<comment><USER4> One guy made an easy to use computer, some cool movies, and then some expensive first-world gadgets while hanging on to his massive fortune and reputation as a jerk. The other made "PC" a household word, now runs the largest charity in history, and is working to eradicate malaria, among other things. Both were around the same age at the time of Jobs' death. I don't understand why people look up to Jobs so much when Gates seems to be the better human being by far.

<comment><USER5> Great people are not necessarily nice people. I understand that Leonardo Da Vinci was a jerk. Often doing something really difficult either requires you to be a jerk, or it could just be a jerk is more likely to have the insensitivity to do the job.

I'm old enough to remember Bill Gates was like while he was running Microsoft, and I know people whose businesses Microsoft seriously, and unethically IMO, damaged.

If Gates has mellowed, then cool. Once you've accomplished your goals and squashed your opponents, then you've got time to play the nice guy and work on your place in history. (Mr. Carnegie built a lot of libraries that did a lot of good; after a career in industry and development that makes anything Gates might have done pale in comparison.) Personally I think Gates got pissed when he realized he had lost the browser wars and he couldn't own that internet thingie.

Jobs's goals were a bit more ambitious than simply making "all the money." To describe Jobs's work as "an easy to use computer, some cool movies, and ... some expensive first-world gadgets." strikes me as glib and disingenuous. Anyone who seriously thinks that needs to spend some time with normal people and watch how they interact with technology.

And the movies are _better_ than just _cool_...

Even had Jobs lived a normal life span it's unlikely that he would have accomplished all the universe denting he had in mind. If Jobs was a jerk, and having met him once I can say from personal observation that he _was_ a bit of one, he was a jerk in a hurry.

<comment><USER6> To imply that Bill Gates' goals were "simply making 'all the money'" is at best intentionally misleading. Microsoft's unofficial mission statement from 1977 was "a computer on every desk and in every home". They aimed ridiculously high, succeeded past anyone's expectations, and fundamentally changed the world all on their own.

To dismiss the tens of billions of dollars that he is ploughing into his foundation (and the tens of billions of dollars he convinced Warren Buffet to also donate) as just "play[ing] the nice guy and work[ing] on [his] place in history" is, quite frankly, ridiculous.

This is a foundation working hard on some of the most fundamental problems of humanity: crippling poverty and devastating diseases. Sure, this gets them a few headlines, but what do you expect when their budget is as much as the International Red Cross and Oxfam International combined?

Bill Gates: Changed the world once. Will probably do it again.

Steve Jobs: "This changes everything. Again."

<comment><USER5> Despite the actual verbiage used, Gate's goal wasn't a PC on every desk, it was a computer, which he didn't sell, running his OS and software, which he _did_ sell, on every desk. Software that locked the user into an ecosystem that Microsoft controlled and profited by. He helped get the hardware in place, but never got the software lock in he wanted. Not from lack of trying though.

(see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft>)

Ironic that Jobs's emphasis on maintaining quality and interfacing with human psychology is faring better towards that goal; as a side effect.

While I admire your attempt at parallelism, no where in my post do I denigrate Gate's philanthropy. Read it again. Ruthlessness and vanity have their social uses. I grew up using a Carnegie library and am a better person for it. They had a hell of a time tearing it down in the 1970s in order to put up a much inferior glass box. The wreaking ball kept just bouncing off... Literally.

We'll see how well Gates's legacy performs historically. Myself, I wish he had an interest in the space program or in energy production. But it's _his_ loot to spend as he sees fit.

Jobs is through changing the world. At least directly. He's left some ongoing projects, but such things seldom can continue without their visionaries. Look at what happened to Walt Disney's urban planning experiments. Job's legacy will be changing the way people think about and interact with technology.

My bet is that will have farther reaching consequences than any _actual_ technology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is it just me, or does the interviewer seem like he just stepped off the set of CSI: Miami?

Regardless, I love hearing Gates speak candidly.

<comment><USER8> Horrible interviewer

<comment><USER9> He's there to make Bill sound more authentic by comparison.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm so happy to see what he's doing with his money. They way he earned it was problematic to say the least (see the ECIS paper for a succinct history, if you are interested: [http://www.ecis.eu/documents/Finalversion_Consumerchoicepape...](http://www.ecis.eu/documents/Finalversion_Consumerchoicepaper.pdf)). But I have to say, he's making up for it with how he's choosing to spend it. I definitely did not see that coming.

<comment><USER11> Every time I heard about his "charitable" works, he seems to be flying into developing nations and taking a stance against more open intellectual property rights (in medicine as well as software) or, coincidentally, giving them lots of cash when they're talking about adopting open computing systems.

Admittedly, I've kind of lost interest so I've not paid any attention recently but I assume he's stopped that nonsense. Because it's tacky enough to actually lower my already poor opinion of him as a human being. (I'd also heard the foundation was mostly his wife and father's doing and he wasn't particularly interested in it, but again that's going back a few years, maybe that's changed too.)

<comment><USER12> Rarely will people admit to having such strong opinions about things they know so little about.

<comment><USER13> "We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand." - <USER2> Hoffer

Rare to admit maybe, not rare to occur.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I get a "Sorry but this video is no longer available." message.

My internet is routed through a proxy in Germany right now, is it still available in other countries?

<comment><USER15> Now that is another reason Hollywood needs to be killed!

These restrictions are ridiculous; it's 2012.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Gates also mentions working with Wozniak. I'd like to hear some Wozniak stories.

<comment><USER17> Have you read the ones on folklore.org?

[http://www.folklore.org/ProjectView.py?project=Macintosh&...](http://www.folklore.org/ProjectView.py?project=Macintosh&characters=Steve%20Wozniak&detail=medium)

<comment><USER16> Oh yes but we can never have too many Woz stories.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This Telegraph article covers the same topic but better than the text in this article (I haven't watched the video): [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/9041726/Bill- Ga...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/9041726/Bill-Gates-I- wrote-Steve-Jobs-a-letter-as-he-was-dying.-He-kept-it-by-his-bed.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> This interview might be interesting to others interested in Bill's foundation work:

<http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11456>

</comment><comment><USER20> It's a treat to hear them talk about each other.

<comment><USER21> I agree. Especially since Bill has always been quite modest as well about his interactions with Steve.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Seeing him speak so candidly like this makes me think of how unfairly Bill Gates was vilified during Microsoft's peak in the 90s.

<comment><USER17> Oh, it was entirely fair. Microsoft only stopped being evil once Gates left. Its predatory and monopolistic behaviour was driven primarily by him, personally.

Bill Gates is, I suspect, a much better person now than he was in the 90s, and the world is a better place because of it. His current laudable campaigns do nothing to detract from his past misdeeds, however. He was evil, now he's good. I'm glad that he's devoting the same energy and passion to stamping out Malaria and AIDS as he did stamping out Netscape and Linux. Hopefully he'll be more successful, as well.

<comment><USER23> Maybe Bill Gates was never truly "evil". Maybe he just did what he had to do to amass the wealth that is required to do truly great things like stamping out Malaria and AIDS. Who is to say he wasn't planning his philanthropy all along? I certainly am. It's one of the main driving factors behind the business goals I work towards every day. I think Bill Gates has always been kind of misunderstood.

<comment><USER7> I think Bill Gates is generally misunderstood because we don't fully appreciate just how intelligent he is. He's not routinely creating or providing answers (in the way that a scientist like Einstein was constantly offering up new ideas), so it's hard to really measure. He's inherently private, which only hinders our understanding of him even more.

But I think historically, we will look back on him as having some of the most influential and profound ideas (and decisions) of the 21st century.

No one person has done as much for humanity as Bill Gates has, perhaps in the history of the world. The only comparisons are perhaps to someone like Jonas Salk.

<comment><USER24> > No one person has done as much for humanity as Bill Gates

Ok, now its clear you're in love or delusional.

What has he done but spend money? I haven't heard of a single breakthrough from that money, btw. Not that I'm really expecting any, these things take time.

Your placement of a ruthless business person (now giving away to charity) above einsteins and saints feels creepy frankly.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Padlock: A minimalist open source password manager - <AUTHOR> http://padlock.io/ <comment> stephane-klein I like that cloud component was open source.</comment>


The Marginal Productivity of Debt - <AUTHOR> http://commoditybullmarket.blogspot.com/2009/04/why-obamas-stimulus-package-is-doomed.html

<comment><USER2> Here are some problems I see with the article:

1 The article assumes a causal relation between debt acquisition and a change in GDP. I can't even see how they would be related at all.

2 The article proposes that the utility of additional debt relies not on the use of the funds, but on a number based entirely on past use.

3 The article compares a scalar (debt) to a rate (GDP). This means that '1' has no special meaning in the comparison.</comment>


The Disadvantages of Single Page Applications - <AUTHOR> http://adamsilver.github.io/articles/the-disadvantages-of-single-page-applications/

<comment><USER2> "It is therefore ironic that SPAs require significantly more development effort, with a result that is detrimental to the user"

So true</comment>


Favorite simulation style CTF - <AUTHOR> We are doing some research with regards to simulation style CTF platforms out there and how to best begin to refine GhostRed We have stumbled upon/tried out a few (see below), and would love to know of others you all have enjoyed. Hacknet: http://store.steampowered.com/app/365450/ CTF 365: https://ctf365.com/ CyberCity: https://www.sans.org/netwars/cybercity <comment><USER2> Welcome to Hacker News.

There have been a number of popular discussion of Capture The Flag ]CTF] exercises: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=ctf&sort=byPopularity&prefix&p...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=ctf&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

In the case of a new exercise an interesting technical blog post is probably more likely to attract discussion than an announcement.

Good luck.</comment>


New Apple patent applications reveal basic science R&D - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/08/15/new-apple-patent-applications-reveal-basic-science-rd

<comment><USER2> This is definately a sign that Apple is preparing to flex it's financial muscles to control the emerging market of portable computing devices.

If they can bring these techniques to market, their competitors just won't be able to compete - no-one else has the vertical integration from chip design through to application software. I can't see how companies like Nokia can respond to Apple gainng, for example, 25% extra battery life through using the techniques described in these patents. They risk getting shut out of the market for 10 years, allowing Apple to install an empire in the portable market similar to that owned by Microsoft in the desktop world.

Personally, I'm not so sure that that is a good thing, and I say that as a complete and utter Apple devotee (iPod shuffle, iPhone 3G, iBook, Macbook and iMac 20" at home).</comment>


The Hidden History of the Laundry Chute - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/the-hidden-history-of-the-laundry-chute/516963/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> I'm not sure I've ever read a paragraph with as many twists and turns and unanswered questions as the description of the radioactive hand-towel in this article:

"In 2006, the most radioactive object ever discovered by Scotland Yard was found at the base of a hotel laundry chute in London. Two Russian FSB officers had traveled to the U.K. to take out a dissident using liquid plutonium. They succeeded in poisoning the man but only on their third attempt. After they finished, the two men, who had little knowledge of the material, poured the most toxic substance known to man down their hotel drain and disposed of a polonium-soaked hand towel in the hotel's laundry chute. The hand towel was sent immediately to the U.K.'s Atomic Weapons facility."

It reads like poorly written fiction. Surely, it wouldn't take trained assassins 3 attempts to kill a person with the most toxic substance known to man. Surely, the people who supplied them with the liquid plutonium would include some basic care and guidance instructions with it. Finally, the story ends with a hand towel being delivered to an Atomic Weapons facility.

It's like a fire at a Sea Parks - the mind boggles at what series of events happened.

<comment><USER3> They didn't use plutonium at all: they used polonium [1]. The article refers to polonium in some places (correctly), but plutonium in others (incorrectly).

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It closes by inferring there was some lesson, some hidden evil that accompanys chutes, but provides none. Now I want a laundry chute and am confused as to why I should not.

<comment><USER5> They're banned by some fire codes, or you have to install weird temperature operated closures.

There is also a conspicuous consumption aspect that someone who has a washing machine anywhere but the basement is wealthy and care free enough to do substantial repair work, because there's only two kinds of washing machines, the ones that will flood and ruin everything underneath them, or those that already have. Putting a washer on the 3rd floor by the bedroom seems very practical and convenient until the first expensive flood. Of course the trend to fancy up basements means a leak will cause $10K of damage and mold where ever the washer is located, so may as well located it conveniently.

<comment><USER6> If you want a laundry machine on a higher floor, just add tile and a drain when building the house. Getting a washing machine up to the 3rd floor can be a significant issue. But, combining a laundry room with a bathroom is a very sensible design choice. (As is having a drain on the floor for every room with a sink.)

The downside is just noise when running the washing machine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The house I grew up in had a laundry chute from one bathroom down to the other half-bath//full-laundry room. It was viciously convenient and if I ever build//buy a home I want one.</comment>


Evil JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://benmccormick.org/2018/07/04/evil-javascript/ <comment><USER2> I think the features mentioned (getters, proxies, et al) are great features for certain projects in any language. Of course they are also usable for evil shit (evil being everything in the spectrum of misguided to malicious).

I'm not even trying to defend javascript, just that saying "you can run sudo rm -rf / in your shell" doesn't mean the shell is "evil".</comment>


Nokia Projects Disastrous Losses as Shares Plunge 17% - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17678806 <comment><USER3> "No one could have predicted..." Classic head-in-the-sand, barely-reactive executive "leadership".

Is this what Microsoft and the Nokia BoD planned when they hired Elop, who scrapped Meego and their N9 (now N900 running WP7) and wiped out their entire existing "burning platform" revenue stream from Symbian?

This was all planned - it's not a disaster. The problem is, the plans may have been too successful.

<comment><USER4> When you say planned, do you mean for Microsoft to eventually purchase Nokia on the cheap, or to simply obliterate them?

<comment><USER3> The plan was to obliterate Symbian and replace it with Windows Phone. Symbian probably died faster than they planned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Did anyone else see how they executed on the launch of the new product that if not successful the company will die:

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/04/09/the- very-s...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/04/09/the-very-strange- easter-sunday-launch-of-the-nokia-lumia-900/)

Most stores closed on Easter Sunday and recordings talking about the iPhone 4S. I would say Nokia is done.

</comment><comment><USER6> I said it before, and I have not changed my opinion:

In the Microsoft -Nokia agreement Microsoft wins disproportionately and Nokia loses even if it wins.

If Nokia wins e.g with tablets, other companies will use Windows, if it loses stock price goes down and Microsoft buys it(now officially) for cheap.

Elop looked and looks like a MS insider designed for the transition from Nokia to Microsoft subsidiary.

Funny how Samsumg and Apple margins are "disproportionate" when Nokia used to carry those margins with their high quality phones.

<comment><USER7> _Microsoft buys it(now officially)_

I wonder what the implications would be for Qt and KDE. I know Microsoft has made some Linux commits in the past (in regards to its own interests), but I can't imagine how it would justify actively developing a product which has no place on Windows Phone (yet?) and only serves to weaken Windows' stranglehold on the desktop.

<comment><USER8> Take a look at the KDE Free Qt Foundation: [http://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.p...](http://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php)

<comment><USER7> Yep, I'm familiar with that, but licensing isn't what I'm concerned about (LGPL is pretty permissive as-is; this agreement was mostly relevant in the days of Trolltech when Qt was GPL/commercial).

My main concern is that, despite the open governance, to my knowledge the development and direction of Qt is still primarily driven by employees of Nokia. I'm sure Qt would still do a fine job of existing and evolving under the leadership of KDE contributors, but it would nevertheless be a major blow to the framework to see so much talent whisked away at this critical time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The full impact of a recession for a couple of quarters is usually not felt until several years later.

What we're seeing with Nokia, BestBuy etc. is the companies that didn't adapt facing extinction. It should be happening to more - but they're being propped up artificially - that can't be sustained indefinitely.

If you think the valuation for Instagram was wild - look at their metric trends against these monoliths.

"but Instagram don't make anything" - in the western world we don't really need to consume physical products so much any more - I've got 5+ TVs in the house and 3 fridges - our consumption is moving to non-physical products.

<comment><USER10> Nokia did adapt, it made one hell of a move backed by lots of Microsoft and AT&T cash for promotions and had /has a special relationship with Microsoft. Their native OS was no where near ready and being another Android phone maker wasn't appealing (Other than Samsung, is anyone else making money on Android?).

Sometimes, it just doesn't work out.

<comment><USER11> "Their native OS was no where near ready"

By that, I suppose you mean Meego.

I have recently used a N9 phone running Meego for a couple of hours and it was a real pleasure. In many regards it's better than Android has been until recently. It's snappy and looks well finished although look-wise there's work to make it compelling.

It's not really fair to give any real feedback on such a short utilization span but I wouldn't say the OS is "nowhere near ready".

Had they spent the same effort on Meego rather than on integrating the Windows OS, they would have a very, very good OS.

With Qt, they would also have very good technical fundation for developpers. Love or hate it, Qt programmers are very loyal to the library and praise it. With its ease of use, it _could_ have been a developper-frendly platform.

I'd write a Qt app over a Dalvic-Java or Obj-C one anyday.

What I'd like to note on this story is that most tech writers feared that if Nokia didn't take this path, they would be shamed and welcomed their move. Now, given the sales both Microsoft and Nokia are shamed for taking this path.

<comment><USER12> I agree. I've been using the N9 since its release and I think Meego is very close to being consumer-ready. Great UI, fast, stable, great built-in software. Some built-in software lacks some features, it doesn't quite have the tweakability Maemo had and there are a few bugs and shortcomings here and there. But considering the small market the N9 was deployed in, one can only wonder what it could have been if it had gotten more attention from Nokia.

I was an N900 user before that. I hoped Nokia would be a shining beacon in the mobile space, with an open operating system and a more GNU/Linux software stack than just the kernel. But those hopes were shattered by Elop's turn. I guess Microsoft will continue to drive Nokia's market price further into the ground so they can buy them for a few pennies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _"Shipments of Symbian devices are declining faster than we anticipated"_

Why management thought that consumers considering a Nokia smartphone (perhaps generously?) over a bevy of competitors would pull the trigger instead of waiting until a Windows8 phone is ready.

<comment><USER14> Why would Windows Phone 8 make any difference? I don't think announcing they will go WP7 is what killed their Symbian market. It would've died anyway. They've lost more than half their market share in China last year alone. Android has a market share of almost 70% in China now:

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/10/net-us-android- app...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/10/net-us-android-apple- idUSBRE8390AK20120410)

<comment><USER15> Seems like they hitched their wagon to the wrong horse going with WP7 over Android.

<comment><USER16> Your logic seems a little off there.

Just because Andriod has gained a huge market share in China does not imply Nokia would have sold a lot of phones if they have gone with Andriod.

<comment><USER17> I don't think his claim was predicated on the success of Android in China, but rather upon the general success of OEMs shipping Android phones. It has users and an ecosystem which WP7, interesting though it is, can't claim.

Many people would have lept at a Nokia smartphone running Android, given the consumer goodwill they've built up over the years. Few seem willing to do so for Nokias running WP7. Android was a proven platform with wide adoption when they announced their support for WP7; their decision to hitch their wagon to MS can only be seen as a grave mistake.

Maybe things will turn around, but it doesn't look likely at this point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> 1\. Android would be short term profits. Let's just take Chinese market. China has 70% Android. Now, I am coming to the market and building a new Android phone. It's awesome and everything but how do I stand apart from HTC, Samsung, Moto and low cost options like ZTE? Imagine a Lumia running Android. Would I be able to beat HTC and Moto and Samsung with that?

2\. I guess we will start seeing the Nokia MS partnership success going forward when Nokia really has a chance of adding value to MS products.

I agree that Nokia took on the insane task of reviving themselves as well as MS. But if they can get some sort of adoption with WP7, they can continue to survive and add value to the ecosystem going forward with WP8. They have to continue on life support until their true strategy kicks in to place.

<comment> Tuna-Fish > I guess we will start seeing the Nokia MS partnership success going forward > when Nokia really has a chance of adding value to MS products.

I doubt that. The biggest change was that the mobile devices turned from devices (that people buy and use, but rarely get 3rd-party software for) into platforms (that people buy to have access to 3rd-party software). The big difference is that there are not that much positive externalities for market share for devices, but positive network effects absolutely determine the platform market.

That's why Windows rules the desktop, and that is why Android will do so in the handset. I predict that all competitors will effectively be dead in 2 years, and only Android and iOS remain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This will make Nokia even cheaper when Microsoft decides to buy them. This whole scenario reminds me of an old editorial cartoon which lampooned two companies (HP maybe?) as two sinking ships tossing a rope to each other.

</comment><comment><USER20> "Nokia's challenges have been exacerbated by rampant competition - <USER2> from Apple and Samsung who are extracting a disproportionate amount of margin from the industry at present,"

Disproportionately high or low ? I guess what they are saying is that smartphone profitability is falling due to lower margins.

MS/Nokia are in huge trouble, especialy after seeing that report that google makes almost _no_ money off smartphones. It seems the only way for Nokia/MS to really compete with google is to also make _no_ money. Sounds like Nokia is now in the wrong business.

<comment> excuse-me "competition" - that's the solution then. Once RIM have managed to destroy themselves in the corporate world you are left with the choice of buy Microsoft

MSFT's only hope in mobile, and their only reason for going there is to be the standard business solution - the only one that works with MS-exchange, MS- domain-emperor(or whatever it's called today) and MS-office cloud.

Once you ensure that corporates/government only allow MS mobile devices onto their networks you have a pretty nice market sewn up. And one that doesn't care about price and buys new kit regularly

The only tricky bit is persuading all those corporate and government customers that they haven't had a perfectly workable blackberry solution for years, and that they shouldn't save money by allowing workers to use their own iPhones.

<comment><USER21> You're thinking in terms of a 2005 business model.

Even government organizations are buying lots of iPhones, even though Apple is an obnoxious vendor for those organizations to deal with.

Microsoft sells stuff these days by bundling product licensing. So unless Apple does something really dumb, you're not going to see enterprises mandating anything Microsoft mobile other than ActiveSync anytime soon.

<comment><USER22> ehh, Microsoft will fall back on the old tried and true: Change apis for each successive version of Exchange, and make minor api changes during patches - just enough to cause Apple products to work inconsistently, and make sure Windows Phone X stays up to date with the changes. Corporations are too stupid as a group to see what's being done to them, so they will drop Apple like yesterday's news and join the Microsoft death-cult.

<comment><USER23> Good luck telling corporate users that just a few years after you've allowed iPhones and/or Android phones as their devices on your exchange server, you're going to ban them.

It was easier for things like this to happen back when everyone was carrying a company-issue blackberry (because blackberries were too expensive for most consumers.)

These days, companies are increasingly just letting their employees connect personal devices onto their exchange servers (with policy management) and enjoying the savings from not having to pay for the device, data, or both. I can't see either group (companies and employees) being happy about reversing this trend.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't know how much market share Apple has in India or the more prosperous African countries, but without selling any kind of low-priced/low-tech phone Apple doesn't compete at all with Nokia or Samsung in that market segment. I wonder if Nokia is talking about lower sales specifically in the smartphone segment or lower sales due to "competition" in other segments as well.

</comment><comment><USER25> I wonder how much of this is related to the bug and subsequent price drop for the Lumia 900. I was hoping for this phone to become a successful competitor to Android in the lower-end smartphone market.</comment>


Statistical Analysis of Election Manipulation in Republican Primaries - <AUTHOR> http://www.themoneyparty.org/main/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Republican-Primary-Election-Results-Amazing-Statistical-Anomalies_V2.0.pdf

<comment><USER2> A recent discussion on /r/statistics: [http://www.reddit.com/r/statistics/comments/11ydmt/20082012_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/statistics/comments/11ydmt/20082012_election_anomalies_results_analysis_and/)

And this: [http://www.reddit.com/r/statistics/comments/123pt7/would_rst...](http://www.reddit.com/r/statistics/comments/123pt7/would_rstatistics_care_to_critique_the/)

And this, from 8 months ago: [http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/qb9ea/reddit_can_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/qb9ea/reddit_can_you_debunk_this_some_people_with/)

The result seems to be that the more one knows about statistics, the less convincing the case is for election manipulation. All the analysis actually seems to show is that Romney did better in precincts with a large number of votes cast, which is pretty much what we'd expect, as those are are more likely to be precincts in denser areas.

By sorting the precincts by number of votes cast, and then plotting percentage split of the cumulative votes across that sorted list, they are pretty much forcing the general shape of the curves that they get. The smaller rural precincts are (1) more likely to go for other candidates, and (2) are going to show much more variation, thus making it almost certain the split on the left side of the graphs will be far from the split on the right side of the graph.

People also seem to be making much of the way when Romney's curve moves up on the graph, one or more of the other curves move down by an amount that EXACTLY BALANCES Romney's gain--and so it must have been vote flipping. No, it is because they are showing the percentage split, which BY DEFINITION must add to 100, and so any change in one curve must be balanced exactly by the net changes in the other curves.

Another thing worth noting is that exit polls agreed well with the reported results, as did news organization forecasts based on early returns, as did projections based on pre-vote polling. If there were significant fraud, it would throw those off (unless the fraudsters were managed to ALSO rig the polls and projections...).

EDIT: here's an example. Given a set of precincts where the number of votes cast match those of 2012 Arizona GOP primary, and where the distribution of votes in large precincts is 44.6% Romney, 31.4% Santorum, 16.0% Gingrich, and 8.0% Paul, and the distribution is 29.6%, 36.4%, 21.0%, 13.0% in medium precincts, and 14.6%, 38.4%, 27.5%, 19.5% in small precincts, with large meaning had 150 or more votes, small meaning had less than 50 votes, and medium being anything else, here's what the percentile distribution of cumulative vote total sorted by precinct size curve looks like for a simulated election: <http://imgur.com/s4SrE>

My numbers there aren't meant to reflect actual Arizona numbers. They are just meant to illustrate the kind of curve we expect if there is a distribution difference that correlates with precinct size.

Romney is blue, Santorum is yellow, Gingrich is green, and Paul is red. Note the similarity to the actual Arizona curve. I expect that if someone could dig up polling data from each precinct from before the vote, and used that to control the vote distribution for each precinct, the match would be very close.

If anyone wants to play around with this, here's some quick and dirty Python code:

        #!/usr/bin/python
        import random
        import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

        precinct_size = [1, 1, 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 18, 19, 21, 26, 28, 29, 30, 30, 34, 41,
        46, 50, 56, 57, 57, 58, 58, 61, 68, 69, 72, 78, 79, 85, 88, 94, 99, 100,
        103, 109, 109, 120, 126, 126, 129, 132, 133, 133, 136, 139, 139, 141, 147, 152,
        157, 158, 162, 162, 165, 166, 169, 172, 173, 175, 177, 177, 179, 181, 192,
        201, 224, 231, 235, 238, 246, 249, 249, 251, 258, 264, 268, 270, 272, 276,
        277, 281, 281, 293, 315, 322, 327, 333, 334, 337, 346, 348, 349, 350, 363, 366,
        367, 369, 370, 374, 374, 384, 385, 386, 387, 394, 397, 405, 407, 412, 413, 419, 420,
        421, 425, 429, 434, 438, 439, 449, 467, 474, 483, 483, 496, 502, 505, 507, 508, 513,
        518, 525, 526, 538, 545, 548, 555, 560, 571, 577, 581, 583, 584, 606, 606, 612, 620,
        620, 625, 635, 641, 646, 647, 650, 652, 662, 663, 666, 669, 673, 674, 710, 711, 721, 728,
        737, 744, 745, 747, 747, 780, 786, 787, 790, 791, 818, 824, 833, 834, 878, 899,
        903, 927, 928, 949, 961, 1002, 1031, 1059, 1070, 1133, 1587]

        vote_dist  = [.446, .314, .160, .080]    # romney, santorum, gingrich, paul
        vote_dist2 = [.296, .364, .210, .130]
        vote_dist3 = [.146, .384, .275, .195]

        def vote(d):
            r = random.random()
            s = 0
            for v in range(len(d)):
                s += d[v]
                if s >= r:
                    return v

        def trial():
            total = [0, 0, 0, 0]
            x = []
            romney = []
            santorum = []
            gingrich = []
            paul = []
            i = 1
            vt = 0
            for s in precinct_size:
                for voter in range(s):
                    if s < 50:
                        v = vote(vote_dist3)
                    elif s < 150:
                        v = vote(vote_dist2)
                    else:
                        v = vote(vote_dist)
                    total[v] += 1
                    vt += 1
                x.append(float(i))
                i += 1
                romney.append(float(total[0])/vt)
                santorum.append(float(total[1])/vt)
                gingrich.append(float(total[2])/vt)
                paul.append(float(total[3])/vt)

            plt.plot(x, paul, 'ro')
            plt.plot(x, gingrich, 'go')
            plt.plot(x, santorum, 'yo')
            plt.plot(x, romney, 'bo')
            plt.show()

        trial()

EDIT 2: I'm not actually sure that the precinct sizes match Arizona. I got the numbers from a spreadsheet attached to one of the news stories about this. However, the total number of votes is only about 75k, which is much less than the correct number for Arizona.

<comment><USER3> To expand on this a bit, Romney is more likely to take urban republicans in greater numbers over suburban republicans. This is similar to in the general Obama is expected to take urban voters over suburban voters. I suspect this "analysis" could just as easily be done to show Obama "tampered" with votes after the general.

You gave a much better explanation, but in all seriousness folks, flag this story(I already have) and get it off the front page. It's nothing but pseudo statistics from someone who doesn't have a clue hoping to stir controversy over "evil republicans".

<comment><USER4> This isn't necessarily true. It's important not to conflate "small precinct" with "suburban/rural area" and "large precinct" with "urban area", since many rural precincts might have more voters than urban ones.

I wish someone would look at the underlying precinct data and redo this analysis while factoring in precinct population density.

<comment><USER5> _This isn't necessarily true. It's important not to conflate "small precinct" with "suburban/rural area" and "large precinct" with "urban area", since many rural precincts might have more voters than urban ones._

And in fact, the paper spends quite a bit of time addressing this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The take home message:

> _"...highly anomalous election results indicate a widespread, systematic > exchange of votes favoring one candidate"_

> _"Mitt Romney, based on our analysis, should have (statistically) gotten > third rank in Iowa's election (as opposed to second); second rank in New > Hampshire (as opposed to the first rank), and so on, resulting most likely > to a brokered convention at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, > FL."_

Statistics is awesome, although I suspect that public/media knowledge will mean this is brushed aside.

</comment><comment><USER7> The main problem of this paper seems to be 'publication bias.' I mean by this, given a number n of statisticians who look at a certain fair election. Each using n novel method. Then we expect ß n papers from it, given that ß is the chance of falsely rejecting the election as fair. Since each statistician uses a number of tests, which may or may not correlate with each other, it is very much impossible to determine sufficient level of certainty, without committing first to the statistical tests used.

</comment><comment><USER8> Hacker News?

<comment><USER9> it relates to hacking elections.

<comment><USER5> And possibly in a much more traditional sense than that word's typical usage around HN!</comment></comment></comment>


Bitcoin Is Worth Less Than the Cost to Mine It, JPMorgan Says - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-25/bitcoin-is-worth-less-than-the-cost-to-mine-it-jpmorgan-says <comment><USER2> This place is a complete fraud. How can they still operate?

[https://news.bitcoin.com/after-the-boss-calls-bitcoin-a- frau...](https://news.bitcoin.com/after-the-boss-calls-bitcoin-a-fraud-jp- morgan-buys-the-dip/)

<comment><USER3> Because Bitcoin is for the most part, unregulated. And in the big scheme of things, Bitcoin is a granule of salt in the universe of banks and fraud.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It has happened before. It'll happen again. This makes for a great news piece, but the idea that mining demand may fluctuate is built into the protocol.</comment>


Monoculture - <AUTHOR> http://indiewebcamp.com/monoculture <comment><USER2> This strikes me with connotations from critical and literary theory of social sciences. Software architectures begin to resemble social structures such as governing bodies in a country, hierarchies in an organization and the protocols with which they implement interaction between human agents. Eventually the two might intermingle in such a way that the recent discourses may affect what will happen in social domains in the future. In software, too, there's already an ongoing almost ideological rather than practical conflict between the two ends of the cathedral and the bazaar frontiers for a long time. Gladly and hopefully the software culture is going in the bazaar way.

<comment><USER3> > _Gladly and hopefully the software culture is going in the bazaar way._

That is, towards chaos, inefficiency and fragmentation? :P.

In software world, we pride ourselves of having at least some semblance of sense in the discussions about approaches and methodologies; the cathedral/bazaar model is not an evil/good model; both approaches have applications for which they're the best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _" No one particular project should be considered a 'distributed social network'"_

What? Something can be a distributed without being interoperable.

This article is humorously unbalanced. Sounds like someone venting. Even the counterpoint section is called "Perceived Advantages", haha.

Clearly, interoperability (or the lack thereof) can be taken to extremes; the hard part is finding the right balance. There's nothing in this article that helps with that.</comment>


Petition to the UK government to apologize to Alan Turing - <AUTHOR> http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/turing/ <comment><USER2> I think it is wrong that modern society/government should apologise for the transgressions of it's predecessors (I feel the same way about the whole apologising for slavery business).

IMO a _better_ way is to not hold those prejudices any more. At the end of the day that is greater than any apology could ever be :)

<comment><USER3> I'm generalising here from your particular view on state apologies to a more general one about state responsibility. If that's not an accurate appraisal of your view, my apologies; I hope this post will at least spur you to clarify this point.

Disavowing the continuity of the State through time might, perhaps, be a defensible position, but let's be clear as to the ramifications.

To begin with, states shouldn't have to pay the debts incurred by previous governments: those debts were incurred by a totally different set of people, perhaps with wildly different motivations and ideologies.

If a government signs a treaty, then when they lose power, the next government is under no obligation to honour that treaty.

People do, generally, consider that governments must abide by the obligations of their predecessors. They may be wrong to do so, but an argument is surely required as to why we are all wrong when we think that.

An apology might seem like a minor thing, especially when the object of that apology is deceased. We should resist this view. An apology is an admission of guilt and an acknowledgement of moral responsibility: "We did that thing, and we were wrong to do it, and we are sorry for it." An apology is required because the British state, while having a different government and different citizens, is an entity with continuity through time that retains some element of responsibility for its actions in earlier ages. With time, and the change that happens over time, this responsibility may diminish or lapse entirely. But Alan Turing's death is not long in the past, and the spectre of homophobia still lurks within our society. An apology is past due.

From a utilitarian viewpoint, we might argue that apologies better allow people to "not hold those prejudices any more". By apologising for the mistreatment of gays, or ethnic minorities, or colonial subjects, a state sets out a position: this mistreatment is not acceptable. Such apologies endorse a particular social norm, giving it a weight it might not otherwise have had.

<comment><USER2> In a way I agree with you.

But in another I dont. Those things: treaties etc. are honours of state. BUT the prosecution of Turing was simply the application of law - a law adopted by an even earlier generation and inspired by societies homophobia.

In that sense the role of the government isnt quite the same.

If the aim of such an apology is the start of a wider work against homophobia then I am 100% behind it. But it isn't really - so it's just empty words.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not wanting to nitpick, but shouldn't we be apologizing for his persecution, rather than his prosecution? Homosexual sex was illegal at the time, and his prosecution seems fair even if the law was not. Many others fell foul of this law, and to apologize solely to Turing because he was a war hero and a genius of the first order seems rather unjust. I find the story of Turing's subsequent persecution - the inhumane chemical castration and his treatment at the hands of an institutionally bigoted civil service - far more disturbing. Homosexual acts are no longer illegal, but this kind of institutional prejudice and bullying is still very much a problem.

</comment><comment><USER5> As a typical cynical Brit, I think it'd be a good exercise to one day make a list of _all_ the people to whom the UK technically owes an apology, but not to actually say sorry until we get an apology from everyone that we feel owes _us_ one. And yes, that includes you, Italy - don't think we've forgotten that little hoo-ha between Boudicca and Paulinus! It may have been the first century AD, but some scars just never really heal.

Oh, and if I come across as crass, it's because the whole notion of the thing is absurd. History is history - we all routinely did some horrifically awful things, but we don't do them now and no-one's seriously suggesting that we should.

</comment><comment><USER6> What purpose would it serve? either in the weak form of acknowledging that his persecution was wrong, or in the stronger form of apologising for it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Reading about the case again, it's certainly sickening. As a whole, it's a relatively tame instance of what a government has done in the name of "national security". It's the government after all, their job is to kill people. I wonder what was really going on here? Why did this guy report the theft at all, perhaps some actual security breach occured during the robbery? If not, why did he admit to it and admit to being gay? I mean, I understand the value of telling the truth and all but if something is unjustly illegal in your culture and you get caught, isn't your primary goal getting away with it? Especially if you have security clearance...</comment>