AI service gives Wikipedians 'X-ray specs' to see through bad edits - <AUTHOR> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/11/30/artificial-intelligence-x-ray-specs/ <comment><USER2> I can't help but wonder if this will have the side-effect that vandalism will become a more subtle subversion of the pages (or maybe there's already a number of people who do just that and this will thin out the field to make them more obvious)

<comment><USER3> Relevant XKCD [https://xkcd.com/810/](https://xkcd.com/810/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there anything about the false positive rate of this system?

Any binary 'good or bad' classifier should have at least a couple of stats attached to it to give an indication of how reliable the classifier is.

To complete the circle, it would be nice to know how it performs according to this:

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

<comment><USER5> Not really, but one can report a false positives and false negatives here: [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Revision_scori...](https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Revision_scoring_as_a_service#Misclassifications)

Since it is activated on Indonesian Wikipedia (I helped them to extend the tool to Indonesian language), I noticed that this tool can hardly capture an obvious vandalism yet. Some other edits are hard to verify whether it is vandalism or not, even by human. I believe this is a work in progress and hope that it will improve over time. But hey, it is the first time a vandalism detection tool is deployed in Indonesian Wikipedia. :)

<comment><USER4> > Not really

That's worrisome then. You'd expect a bit more rigor before putting a bot like that into production.

<comment><USER6> It's not actually doing reversions, right? It's just scoring edits. Wikipedia editors keep hot-lists of articles they watch edits for, or patrol lists of edits or page creations; ostensibly, all this needs to do is sort those lists of edits.

<comment><USER4> It's augmentation, not making any decisions on its own (and that's logical given the false positive rate). So it's just an aid at this point but it can probably help quite a bit with triage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Welcome to the spammer vs machine learning arms race, Wikipedia. :-)

(Former YouTube Abuse team member)

<comment><USER8> Well, Wikipedia at least has humans working on it, who can catch issues and improve it.

It can't be worse than YouTube/Google's systems anyway.

<comment><USER9> I don't see that many bot-generated comments anymore on YouTube. The genuine user-generated comments are among the lowest-quality on any site that I frequent, but I suspect there isn't much that Google can do about that.

<comment><USER8> I've seen tons of spam, "buy viagra here", and I've seen hundreds of videos that have just an empty image, no sound, and a full-screen annotation (and a description) that link to another video site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As referenced in the article, what is "good" and "bad" is dependent on perspective.

Wikipedia has several perspectives just within the colloquial / perceived mission. Is it for academic integrity? For common education? For the rich and powerful? For the everyman? To record as much as possible? To cull the best knowledge from the stream?

Is it for progressive ideals, which may be opposed by the common majority? Or does it reflect a conservative viewpoint, adopting only what has proven to coalesce in society?

For who's society? What about two sides of a war? Or two equally opposing economic interests (entrenched oil vs alternative energy)?

"good" or "bad" isn't a number...

<comment><USER6> "Good" simply means "unlikely to be reverted". The objective is to save time for editors.

<comment><USER11> Maybe the better metric is usefulness to the reader. A suitable algorithm can recognize things like "N.N. smells", but so can any user. The current algorithms are very effective at dealing with "XY is gay" and "Buy herbal viagra"; you don't see much of that.

The really insidious stuff is spin doctors for companies and nations. So far, Wikipedia does a very poor job with geopolitical conflicts, and competing financial interests are not taken seriously enough either.

<comment><USER12> But the people who are supposed to define what's good for the reader are the editors. They show the system what they think is good by either reverting edits or not, so by saying "this edit is likely to be reverted", the AI is saying "based on input from all editors, this edit may not be good for the users".

Effectively, those are the same thing, unless you want to create a hard definition of "good for the users". But that's going around the editors, and taking their opinion of "good" out of the equation, which IMO is a very bad idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm surprised it took this long. Wikipedia has what would seem to be an excellent and straightforwardly encoded set of training data: a constant stream of edits and reversions.

<comment><USER13> That's not training a model to predict the quality of edits - that's training a model to predict the reactions of admins/editors :) Perhaps a better title is "AI service models Wikipedia editors"?

<comment><USER6> That's all the model needs to do to be valuable.

<comment><USER13> Well, suppose something told me what I would decide if I gave any matter 15 seconds of consideration. It would be an invaluable tool I might use often, for example for sorting and classifying, throwing out trash and so forth. For example, it would be a fantastic spam classifier, since even after 15 seconds there is no doubt. I could use it to get through hundreds of spam messages easily, or delegate things to appropriate departments and so forth.

But it would not give me "x-ray vision", since at the end the day it is the same thing I myself conclude if I give the matter 15 seconds of consideration. Something that I miss - a genuine mail written the way a spam might be ("hey! it was nice to meet you!" in the subject, etc), by a recent acquaintance I forgot I made - would be misclassified as spam. There is no x-ray vision involved here - it's not training on the data - it's training on _me_!

I feel the distinction is an important one.

<comment><USER6> It's 15 seconds of consideration you have to give to huge volumes of edits, so singling out the ones where that 15 seconds is likely to be profitable for an editor is extremely helpful.

(I have no idea how well the scoring works in practice).

Remember, the editorial tasks we're talking about here are enervating.

<comment><USER13> fair enough, I guess I don't like the "x-ray specs" analogy. Their example is a disruptive edit[1] where a URL is replaced by LLAMAS GROW ON TREES

perhaps rather than say it gives editors "x-ray specs", it would be fair to say it gives editors caffeine :)

[1] - [https://wikimediablog.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/diff_64221...](https://wikimediablog.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/diff_642215410.png)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In case anyone else is interested in the source code, it's here: [https://github.com/wiki-ai/ores](https://github.com/wiki-ai/ores)

</comment><comment><USER15> This is very peculiar. New tool is introduced, which joins a set of existing tools (bots) which address the same problem. Some comparison of quality and robustness is expected.

Instead author gives us some insight into his/hers source of inspiration:

> A feminist inspiration

> "Please exercise extreme caution to avoid encoding racism or other biases > into an AI scheme." > Wnt (from The Signpost)

And few lines below we have this gem:

> While artificial intelligence may prove essential for solving problems at > Wikipedia's scale, algorithms that replicate subjective judgements can also > dehumanize and subjugate people and obfuscate inherent biases.

Essence of not being sexist or racist is not to evaluate people basing on sex or race! Author instead accents that we should totally pay attention to subjective factors (such as sex or race) instead of objective factors (such as quality of edit).

And let me guess whos edits will be targeted with extra scrutiny.. Edits of people who don't buy feminist agenda!

(Disclosure, I'm egalitarian and MRA; While I fully support women rights, I just believe that modern feminism does not have anything to do with equal rights for anyone. This post nicely fall into this pattern.)

<comment><USER16> Alright buddy, I don't want to get in a flame war here, but I'll summarize my arguments in short.

A hits B. Hard. When B tries fighting back, A suggests the world should be a fair place, and really, he doesn't support violence at all, and there should be global peace.

C turns D's family into indentured servants. When D becomes a part of a revolution, and tries to make sure no one from C's (or D's) side can do it again, C says "I'm all for equality yo, lets not be violent at each other".

F's people are particularly unfairly attacked by different members of G groups, which are in power in their country. A lot of F's die unfairly and prematurely, and are mistreated for no reason. When F's people say "our lives matter, be kinder to us", some people who are in G's side say: "hey F, ALL lives matter."

People called G's are unfairly discriminated against, overtly and covertly, but often very openly. They are called names, and their presence in public is often made very difficult, by people called H. So when G's get together and try to get this G-rights going, some H's say: "Hey, there should be equality. You shouldn't get special priviledges. If you are systematically prejudiced against, your bad, there should be equality okay". Lets call them HRA's. You are HRA, exo762.

<comment><USER15> Your argument is in fact two arguments. First one is: "women are discriminated against". Second one is: "women are fighting back, men brought it onto themselves".

So lets go through part one, "women are oppressed", point by point.

> A hits B. Hard. ...

Violence. 70% of non-reciprocal domestic violence is committed by women against men. Article [0]. Men are primary target of every police intervention, even if it was man who reported violence committed against him by his woman partner. Lookup Duluth model. And battered men has nowhere to go - there are no shelters for male victims of DV.

> C turns D's family into indentured servants...

Slavery? What?

> ... members of G groups, which are in power in their country. ...

"Men in power". Yeah, those who are in power are mostly men. But what good comes from it for men who are not in power? Majority of homeless are men; majority of prisoners are men; majority of unemployed are men; majority of victims of DV are men. Men get longer sentences for same crimes, women get suspended sentences for things men serve time.

As for clear legal discrimination, there are multiple examples of it. Fathers' rights are a joke, draft is still for males only, selective service is for males only; men can't opt-out from parenthood, while options are available for women. As for legal discrimination of women - there is one clear-cut example and it is access to abortion.

As for your second argument. "Men had it coming, now repent for your sins". This argument is dumb beyond recognition. Even Joseph Stalin said that "The son is not responsible for the father's deeds". You seems to be not agreeing with him on only thing everyone agrees with him. And you basically place blame ON HALF OF HUMANITY, collectively. Good job!

[0] [http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id...](http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=a41532d6-d4df-46a2-a784-f6499938f3b0)

If you want more sources, go here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/wiki/faq](https://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/wiki/faq). FAQs don't bite, and I've spent enough time typing out this answer.

EDIT: word of warning, /r/MensRights is a bad place, too much vitriol. Go to /r/FeMRADebates instead.</comment></comment></comment>


Skiff e-Reader - <AUTHOR> http://www.geektonic.com/2010/01/skiff-e-reader-outed.html

<comment><USER2> It looks gorgeous. I love the huge display and the apparent indestructibility. Now all we need is color e-ink.

Any notions on price?</comment>


The speech that Nixon never gave: 'In event of moon disaster' - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/speech-nixon-never-gave-event-moon-disaster-171446192.html

<comment><USER2> This is fascinating and chilling. Thanks for posting.</comment>


Lyft releases self-driving research dataset - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/lyftlevel5/unlocking-access-to-self-driving-research-the-lyft-level-5-dataset-and-competition-d487c27b1b6c <comment><USER5> > Academic research accelerates innovation, but it requires costly data that > is out of reach for most academic teams.

This is true of pretty much any AI research. Look at Puffer[0], which was just on HN a couple of days ago. They're running a free streaming service just to get enough data to train their algorithms, and in fact mention in their FAQ that they would love to use commercial data if they could get it.

Unfortunately, academic and commercial incentives don't really align here. Most commercial entities don't want to share their data because it's valuable to them, and if they let researchers in, they want the output of the research to remain proprietary to their commercial enterprise.

I wonder if there isn't some sort of governance solution to this. Like give companies big tax breaks for sharing their data with researchers, or something like that. Essentially subsidize academia indirectly.

[0] [https://puffer.stanford.edu/player/](https://puffer.stanford.edu/player/)

<comment><USER6> I've seen semiconductor industry companies collaborate on grant-funding fundamental condensed-matter physics research. If it is a question of interest to all parties, and the work is too blue-sky to be immediately profitable, sometimes they'll fund the work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just some context here:

* The raw data in nuscenes ( [https://www.nuscenes.org/](https://www.nuscenes.org/) ) is about 5x larger than this dataset from Lyft. 300GB train vs 60GB train. Argoverse ( [https://www.argoverse.org/](https://www.argoverse.org/) ) is is about 3.x larger at 200GB. The Waymo dataset will (allegedly) be an order of magnitude larger than nuscenes ( [https://i2.wp.com/syncedreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/0...](https://i2.wp.com/syncedreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/image-55.png?resize=1024%2C768&ssl=1) ). BDD100k ( [https://bair.berkeley.edu/blog/2018/05/30/bdd/](https://bair.berkeley.edu/blog/2018/05/30/bdd/) ) is the "largest" public dataset to date, but lacks lidar, and labels are inconsistent; most of the 100,000 scenes only have one labeled frame.

* The Lyft sensor suite has bumper-mounted lidar, which is absent from other existing datasets. Point cloud data in these areas is critical for pedestrians, bikes, and various road hazards. So this dataset alone is useful for validating work trained through other means.

* The current Lyft Level 5 release has no explicit test / validation set, which is crucial for properly measuring performance of any experiment one might do with the data. In nuscenes and Argoverse, there's a small snippet dataset that helps you prepare your pipeline. Feels like Lyft might have rushed things a little here-- they could have posted a "teaser" and then the full train and test/validation set a couple weeks later.

Great to see more public data (especially from a more modern sensor suite), plus investment into a contest with prizes.

</comment><comment><USER8> (I work at scale)

Hmm this blog post and the website doesn't mention that this dataset was mostly annotated by Scale (scale.ai), as part of a partnership with Lyft ... We're going to publish a blog post about this soon, but if anyone at Lyft is reading this, please figure out how to reasonably credit Scale since I doubt leaving out Scale completely from the announcement is in the spirit of the agreement. Scale should probably also be added to the bibliography and website in some form

Contrast this with the nuScenes website, which was also annotated by Scale, and whose data format set the standard for this dataset: they credit Scale pretty reasonably

<comment><USER9> Hi, I'm the CEO of Scale.ai.

This comment does not represent the company's viewpoint, and cardigan is not speaking on behalf of Scale.

We are very excited to have been able to work with Lyft in open-sourcing this dataset and advancing the research community. We are also very grateful to Lyft for choosing to leverage our point cloud viewer and have credited the annotations to us on their launch page.

<comment><USER10> This is pretty effective marketing... generate some fake controversy over some small slight and have it go viral on HN.

<comment><USER11> (I work in marketing at scale)

Thank you.

(I don't really)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> $25k in prizes seems silly given this is a multi-billion dollar market to crack.

<comment><USER13> Such competitions do not usually result in a comprehensive "solution" by themselves - pushing the state-of-the-art is more common. Also the value is not going to be derived solely from the algorithm but more from its deployment to real world applications and the surrounding infrastructure to make it possible.

<comment><USER14> > pushing the state-of-the-art is more common

But do not forget there will be 10s (if not 100s) of people working on this for 30 days. The man-hour this competition will use is highly disproportionate to the amount offered overall.

<comment><USER15> That is the point: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orteig_Prize](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orteig_Prize)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "There will be $25,000 in prizes, and we'll be flying the top researchers to the NeurIPS Conference in December, as well as allowing the winners to interview with our team."

I guess it's a decent opportunity if you're trying to break into DL?

<comment><USER17> I had a bad experience with Lyft's previous self driving challenge - [https://www.udacity.com/lyft-challenge](https://www.udacity.com/lyft- challenge)

I unofficially got first place after finding a bug in their test set (allowing me to blow the competition away). I reported the problem directly - <USER2> decided not to fix it and asked me to take my submission down. They said they'd still offer an interview.

However - this interview wasn't even for their DL team. They offered an interview with the web tools support team because they felt I didn't have enough experience...

Reference - [https://github.com/bearpelican/lyft-perception- challenge](https://github.com/bearpelican/lyft-perception-challenge)

<comment><USER14> > they decided not to fix it and asked me to take my submission down.

Imagine if it was a bug in their app leaking millions of users data and they go "We do not fix it. You can only use Uber now" "Also, come for an interview if you want to fix our web tools instead"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The post indicates there is a competition and prizes but I'm not seeing any discussion of what sort of license the data is being made available under (or the competition for that matter). Hopefully it's there and I'm just not seeing it.

<comment><USER19> The Github they link to says it's under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

<comment><USER20> Hmmm. I wonder how much fun lawyers will have arguing about whether that "NC" clause means a model trained on this data cannot be used commercially by the researcher who built it?

<comment><USER21> I would guess (I'm not a lawyer) that a commercial model would be in the clear as long as the company doesn't release anything including the data itself. Model weights that are derived from the data are not the data.

I would make an analogy where the training data is like a textbook. If I read in a textbook about how to design/build a bridge, I don't have to give royalties to the textbook author when my civil engineering and construction firm gets paid to build a bridge. The copyright/license of the textbook can't prevent me from using the knowledge gained from the book to do a commercial job. In a similar vein, the knowledge gained from a public data set is probably fair game for whatever you want, just as long as you aren't repackaging the data itself. There's probably a good boundary requiring someone to stop at a point where the model weights can't be used to reconstruct the original data.

Of course, other people can disagree. I would look forward to an actual legal opinion to clear this up.

<comment><USER22> I disagree. The license specifies that "using the material for commercial purposes" is prohibited. The act of training a commercial model is obviously a commercial purpose. Whether or not the data is somehow incorporated into the resulting model is irrelevant.

You're confusing this CC license with open source licenses that do not restrict _use_ but require derived works to be created/distributed under certain conditions. This CC license _restricts use_ , in that you are not allowed to use the data for any commercial purpose - this is totally different from open source, and more like the "academic use only" licenses which used to be more common.

<comment><USER18> CC is rarely a good license to choose other than to make yourself feel good. It does a terrible job of dealing with the actual matters of importance to a license outside of photo sharing (and even there it's not a good choice, as many photographers have found because it explicitly grants rights to others that the photographer may not be able to to grant to them, leaving the photographer open to lawsuits as has happened).

In this case, imagine a student working on a class assignment. They use this data for purely academic purposes with no commercial intent in mind. After they train their system, they realize yow I could use this trained system and get rich. There was arguably no commercial use during the training. The use of the data was purely academic, like a person learning math or French. What you do after running the learning is a separate matter, just as using a CC licensed textbook to learn math doesn't prevent you from getting a job as a statistician.

Again, the tl;dr is instead of trying to divine how a court will deal with a poorly specified problem, it's much better to just not license your stuff using a CC license. There are almost always much better licenses to choose from.

<comment><USER20> I'm curious about what you (or anyone else) would recommend as better license choices for datasets that might be used in machine learning model training?

(With, I suppose, hints about what restrictions you might be wanting to grant or prohibit by particular license options?)

<comment><USER18> IANAL but my sense is that it will be a number of years before we really know what works with regards to this kind of licensing of DNN/ML training data sets. It's almost certainly going to be decided on the basis of what's called "case law", which really just means "a bunch of random judges who don't know anything about ML made decisions on a bunch of random lawsuits that probably were not good samples to pick and which were probably taken to court by pairs of parties with wildly different abilities to pay lawyers and now we are stuck with those decisions as precedent for future cases."

If that sounds like a crappy legal footing for the next 20 years of software development, yeah, it is. It's also why Mitch Kapor and a few others founded and funded the EFF to try to encourage better case law decisions around the early days of electronic privacy law. We definitely need an EFF like effort around ML/DNN/etc., but I'm not holding my breath.

I wish I had a better answer, I'm mostly hoping someone else here does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This will go against the grain here on HN. I don't know how anyone can imagine self driving even succeeding in real world, leave alone in the so called third world, unless _all_ vehicles are self driven and operate in a controlled environment. There are some really important things pending, like accurate NLP and computer vision, but no, we need something shiny and useless. I think some smart computer scientists are getting rich by carrot sticking some gullible billionaire investors. Good for them. I hope some of the really useful stuff piggy back on this rather lofty endeavor.

<comment><USER24> I 'm with you i think self-driving is an aspiration rather than a concrete goal. It literally means solving the quintessential problem of robotics which is a very very hard problem. We 'll probably have human level NLP before that.

Car driving is in decline [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2013/04/m...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2013/04/miles- driven-CNP16OV-adjusted.gif)

A more concrete goal for transportation would be to reduce driving times even more by adopting remote work. That is reachable within the decade. In the meanwhile, car safety features should be ramped up, but autonomous driving so far doesn't seem very safe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> > Self-driving is too big — and too important — an endeavor for any one team > to solve alone. Transportation serves all of us, and we should all be > invested in the next step of its evolution.

Imagine how much better things could be if everyone working on maps felt the same.

</comment><comment><USER26> spicy

</comment><comment><USER27> It's looking more and more like everyone is just going to have to licence Tesla's FSD when its finished.

They are the only ones with a broad real world data source and seem to have wisely taken the right path by not adopting LIDAR, focusing purely on passive vision.

<comment><USER28> Its not really that wise, its a large gamble.

tesla decided to not include lidar because they couldn't find a manufacturer that would make one cheap enough for them/fell out over terms. Its not a statement of vision. Its exactly the same decision that Apple dropped Flash support for the iPhone, The processor and ram were too limited to support it, adobe refused to make compromises, and it was too late to change before launch.

Firstly, Tesla is not focussing purely on passive vision, they are using radar as well. But because radar is nowhere near high resolution enough, they need vision to provide categorization.

Now Musk makes a lot of noise about avoiding lidar, thats mostly because he knows its a massive gamble. Yes, he bleats on about its power budget and cost, but using pure AI cost a whole more in RnD, plus a boat load of latency. Not to mention the massive power budget needed to run the custom silicon.

_eventually_ vision + radar will be more than enough to provide life critical level 5 autonomy. However Tesla barely provide more than level 2.

They have a number of problems to overcome, rain/bug occlusion of vision sensor, low light performance, sunrise/sunset, fog, reliable realtime depth estimation, etc.

I suspect that CCD based time of flight depth sensors will become cheaper, low power, and small (They are almost certainly going to end up in mobile phones soon) before pure vision realtime life critical depth estimation is a thing.

<comment><USER27> Anytime you do something new its a gamble and things will go wrong.

Tesla has never been shy of using expensive components for their products. Their entire strategy relies on bringing down battery costs.

Musk makes a very good argument for his choice to not use LIDAR - <USER4> alive on this planet uses it. Every creature navigates our world on vision, even dolphins and bats use sonar as a secondary system. The proof of concept is everywhere, Tesla is just adopting it.

And yeah, they're purely level 2 at the moment. I don't agree with their marketing as it does lead some to use it as something more before its ready.

<comment><USER28> > Musk makes a very good argument for his choice to not use LIDAR - <USER4> > alive on this planet uses it. Every creature navigates our world on vision, > even dolphins and bats use sonar as a secondary system. The proof of concept > is everywhere, Tesla is just adopting it.

Nothing alive uses wheels, apart from us. Its a null argument.

I don't mind a gamble, what I mind is patent bullshit. If he'd been honest and said "Lidar is great, but its too expensive, and the manufactures are not willing to compromise" and left it at that, it'd be ok. But he didn't He dressed it up in semi prophetic _wank_. Now we have legions of "experts" blindly parroting that ToF sensors are dead and will be never used into the future.

I'm willing to be that a Lidar-like Time if Flight sensor will be shoved into a smartphone in the next 4 years. why? because it makes SLAM so much more easy/immersive/better. Which makes AR better, and more useful.

Once that happens, all bets are off.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some good books on AI? - <AUTHOR> Looking for books discussing AI on a higher level and books focusing in current practices in the AI field. <comment><USER2> If you have mastered the basics (e.g. Norvig's _AIMA_ , Hastie and Tibshirani's _Elements of Statistical Learning_ , Koller's _PGM_ ), then I would suggest that the only place to really get a view of the state of the art is by reading papers.

In general, scientific books are an overview of a field, which can only occur with sufficient time for hindsight and synthesis. Even a thousand page book such as Koller's _PGM_ will be littered with references and suggestions of papers to read for a deeper understanding.

One partial exception might be the Deep Learning book by Goodfellow and Bengio, which was made public only a month or so ago. Even this, however, is just an overview. [http://www.deeplearningbook.org/](http://www.deeplearningbook.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Is there anyway to find papers without the references and suggestions in books?

<comment><USER2> As T-A suggested, arXiv is a great source, especially with the frustration over the profiteering of the publishing industry, although you always have to be aware that arXiv papers are not peer-reviewed.

There is also [http://gitxiv.com/](http://gitxiv.com/), which includes source code.

If you are at a university or a company with deep pockets, you can also use [http://dl.acm.org/](http://dl.acm.org/) or [http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/home.jsp](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/home.jsp).

I've also heard of certain hubs of science on the internet, but I wouldn't know anything about that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> T-A This is the inevitable standard reference: [http://aima.cs.berkeley.edu/](http://aima.cs.berkeley.edu/)

Another textbook, often linked on HN, and freely available online: [http://artint.info/](http://artint.info/)</comment>


Silicon Valley tech workers consider starting their first union to defeat Trump - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/916534/silicon-valley-tech-workers-are-talking-about-starting-their-first-union-in-2017-to-resist-trump/ <comment><USER2> A terrible idea. One way or another, someday there won't be a Trump. Then the union has to find a new reason to exist, because very few organizations that size simply dissolve. What's going to be the new animating goal that doesn't result in internal political infighting to drive the union unto its destruction, with no principles like "Get the workers higher pay" which for all their issues are at least simple enough for all the participants to rally behind?

I'd also like to hear the putative advocates of "diversity" explain the virtues of what would almost certainly swiftly degenerate into "having a silicon valley development job requires you to conform to silicon valley political opinions". (Though I can easily imagine funding my retirement via the lawsuits I'd be filing against the union when it turns into that.) Again, if you can't _possibly_ imagine anyone disagreeing with your "resistance", can you imagine disagreeing with chosen tactics, or perhaps someday, having some other political issue come up that you disagree with? Typing unions to politics is a terrible idea.

Form a PAC, not a union. Or form a union for more conventional union goals too, that's fine. But don't form a PAC and call it a union.

<comment><USER3> "having a silicon valley development job requires you to conform to silicon valley political opinions"

Seeing this, and all the boycotts based on political opinions happen at the same time as the bitcoin split makes me wonder if we are going to end up in separate economies. Crazy, I know...

But if you have to agree on politics to get a job, won't the other side just form a different union? With republican owned companies hiring republicans, and vice versa. Seems like diversity of thought is going to decline. And why? Diversity!

"if you can't possibly imagine anyone disagreeing with your "resistance", can you imagine disagreeing with chosen tactics, or perhaps someday, having some other political issue come up that you disagree with?"

Fractal economies!?! Now which ones will have the best jobs : employees ratio? I need to place my bets/form my political opinions appropriately.</comment></comment>


How to Become a Data-Driven Company - <AUTHOR> http://enterprise.import.io/post/how-and-why-to-become-a-data-driven-company/

<comment><USER2> You make a lot of good points</comment>


Ask HN: How to consolidate logs across server farm? - <AUTHOR>

For various reasons, I need to consolidate a set of php logs from my load balanced servers. I doubt I'm the first to need to tackle this problem, so I wanted to look for some advice on the matter.<p>What are some good starting points for me to research? <comment><USER2> Remote Logging with SSH and Syslog-NG:

<http://www.deer-run.com/~hal/sysadmin/SSH-SyslogNG.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> How does this compare to using a Spread based solution, if you've had a chance to play with alternatives?</comment></comment>


Microsoft starts distributing open-source Drupal - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10067547-16.html <comment><USER2> According to one of the comments quoting an excerpt from the license for Microsoft's Web Application Installer, MS does not agree that they are "distributing" open source.

 _THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE. This software enables you to obtain software applications from other sources. Those applications are offered and distributed by third parties under their own license terms. Microsoft is not distributing those applications to you, but instead, as a convenience, enables you to use this software to obtain those applications directly from the application providers. By using the software, you acknowledge and agree that you are obtaining the applications directly from the third party providers and under separate license terms, and that it is your responsibility to locate, understand and comply with those license terms."_

Phew... That was a close one. :P</comment>


Privacy lawsuit over Gmail will move forward - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/privacy-lawsuit-over-gmail-will-move-forward/ <comment><USER2> This is going to be a game changer for sure, personally I don't like those adds. I think they violate my privacy. I don't think anyone should know what I do or where I go.

<comment><USER3> I don't personally have a problem with ads being displayed. What I have a problem with is Google building profiles of people who are not Google users.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> tldr: "plaintiffs are seeking to represent only users who do not use Gmail and have never had a Gmail account, but have still had the content of their emails scanned because they interacted with Gmail users"</comment>


Is scientific publishing about to be disrupted? - <AUTHOR> http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/is-scientific-publishing-about-to-be-disrupted/ <comment><USER2> This a very thoughtful discussion of publishing, scientific publishing in particular, and disruptive technologies and why the incumbents fail. His basic premise is that the incumbents are at a local optimum and cannot move off it without seriously damaging their existing businesses. For (my) example, the NYT cannot move completely on line without antagonizing their print customers, liquidating print facilities, busting unions, and on an on, probably going bankrupt in the process.

As a bonus he offers several good suggestions for entrepreneurs in the scientific publishing business.

On a sad note, the post opens with a mention of the demise of Kongo Gumi founded in 578. It makes one feel that there should be a means of preserving historical companies jast as there are for historical landmarks, perhaps by repurposing them as museums.

</comment><comment><USER3> great piece</comment>


SpamMimic: encode your message into something innocent-looking - <AUTHOR> http://www.spammimic.com/explain.shtml <comment><USER3> For my favourite variation of this, see "Practical Linguistic Steganography using Contextual Synonym Substitution and a Novel Vertex Coding Method"[1].

Chang et al. use synonym substitution to encode hidden data into standard text, resulting in perfectly readable and sensible output afterwards. This is far less suspicious than someone keeping spam. Appendix B gives an example of how innocuous the output can be. The best part is that even when the attacker knows the system being used, it's still secure against an enemy (Kerckhoffs's principle).

[1]: [http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/COLI_a_00176](http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/COLI_a_00176)

<comment><USER4> The approach in this paper looks much cooler. A major thing missing in OP's website is that there is no way to add cover text (equivalent to "key" for encryption). However I like the fact that message comes out as spam so it (hopefully) stays out of inbox of receiving person and one would need to know what to look for in spam folder. This is very cool because I'd never thought of utility of making a message purposely look like spam.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I encourage anyone interested in this to read about Peter Wayner's _Mimic Functions_.[1]

From the abstract:

      A mimic function changes a file A so it assumes the statistical
      properties of another file B. That is, if p(t,A) is the
      probability of some substring t occuring in A, then a mimic
      function f, recodes A so that p(t,f(A)) approximates p(t,B) for
      all strings t of length less than some n. This paper describes
      the algorithm for computing mimic functions and compares the
      algorithm with its functional inverse, Huffman coding. It also
      provides a description of more robust mimic functions which can
      be defined using context-free grammars.

Using mimic functions, one could mimic spam or any other text (or non-text, for that matter) corpus.

The two main challenges are deciding which statistical properties one wants to mimic (for an adversarial steganalyst's mind is not always readily available for perusal) and then actually mimicking them. In other words, it's easier said than done.

[1] - [http://www.nic.funet.fi/pub/crypt/old/mimic/mimic.text](http://www.nic.funet.fi/pub/crypt/old/mimic/mimic.text)

</comment><comment><USER5>
      Dear Friend ; Thank-you for your interest in our publication
      . If you no longer wish to receive our publications
      simply reply with a Subject: of "REMOVE" and you will
      immediately be removed from our club ! This mail is
      being sent in compliance with Senate bill 1626 ; Title
      3 , Section 308 . THIS IS NOT MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING
      . Why work for somebody else when you can become rich
      as few as 10 WEEKS ! Have you ever noticed more people
      than ever are surfing the web plus nearly every commercial
      on television has a .com on in it ! Well, now is your
      chance to capitalize on this . We will help you process
      your orders within seconds and deliver goods right
      to the customer's doorstep ! You are guaranteed to
      succeed because we take all the risk . But don't believe
      us ! Prof Simpson who resides in Illinois tried us
      and says "Now I'm rich, Rich, RICH" . This offer is
      100% legal ! We BESEECH you - act now . Sign up a friend
      and you'll get a discount of 20% . God Bless ! Dear
      Friend , Especially for you - this amazing news ! We
      will comply with all removal requests . This mail is
      being sent in compliance with Senate bill 1618 ; Title
      2 , Section 301 . This is not multi-level marketing
      ! Why work for somebody else when you can become rich
      in 58 weeks ! Have you ever noticed people will do
      almost anything to avoid mailing their bills plus most
      everyone has a cellphone ! Well, now is your chance
      to capitalize on this ! We will help you SELL MORE
      and increase customer response by 170% ! You are guaranteed
      to succeed because we take all the risk . But don't
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      "Now I'm rich many more things are possible" ! This
      offer is 100% legal ! So make yourself rich now by
      ordering immediately ! Sign up a friend and you'll
      get a discount of 60% . Best regards !

<comment><USER6> Dear Friend ; Especially for you - this red-hot announcement . This is a one time mailing there is no need to request removal if you won't want any more . This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 2216 , Title 9 ; Section 303 ! THIS IS NOT A GET RICH SCHEME . Why work for somebody else when you can become rich within 41 days ! Have you ever noticed more people than ever are surfing the web & how many people you know are on the Internet ! Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this . We will help you SELL MORE and sell more ! The best thing about our system is that it is absolutely risk free for you ! But don't believe us ! Mr Anderson of South Carolina tried us and says "I was skeptical but it worked for me" ! We are a BBB member in good standing ! We IMPLORE you - act now ! Sign up a friend and you get half off . Thanks ! Dear Cybercitizen ; Your email address has been submitted to us indicating your interest in our letter . If you no longer wish to receive our publications simply reply with a Subject: of "REMOVE" and you will immediately be removed from our mailing list ! This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 1621 ; Title 4 , Section 302 ! This is not a get rich scheme . Why work for somebody else when you can become rich in 41 DAYS . Have you ever noticed people love convenience plus most everyone has a cellphone . Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this . We will help you deliver goods right to the customer's doorstep & turn your business into an E-BUSINESS . The best thing about our system is that it is absolutely risk free for you ! But don't believe us . Ms Anderson of Hawaii tried us and says "I was skeptical but it worked for me" ! We are licensed to operate in all states ! We BESEECH you - act now ! Sign up a friend and you get half off ! God Bless .

<comment><USER7> Dear Friend , Especially for you - this amazing announcement . This is a one time mailing there is no need to request removal if you won't want any more . This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 2116 ; Title 3 ; Section 304 ! This is a ligitimate business proposal ! Why work for somebody else when you can become rich within 31 weeks . Have you ever noticed nearly every commercial on television has a .com on in it plus more people than ever are surfing the web . Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this . We will help you increase customer response by 130% plus process your orders within seconds . You can begin at absolutely no cost to you . But don't believe us ! Mr Jones of Alaska tried us and says "I was skeptical but it worked for me" . We are licensed to operate in all states ! If not for you then for your LOVED ONES - act now ! Sign up a friend and your friend will be rich too . Warmest regards ! Dear Cybercitizen , You made the right decision when you signed up for our mailing list ! This is a one time mailing there is no need to request removal if you won't want any more ! This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 2416 , Title 4 , Section 302 . THIS IS NOT A GET RICH SCHEME . Why work for somebody else when you can become rich in 99 days . Have you ever noticed more people than ever are surfing the web & how long the line-ups are at bank machines . Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this ! WE will help YOU increase customer response by 150% and sell more . The best thing about our system is that it is absolutely risk free for you ! But don't believe us ! Ms Simpson who resides in Indiana tried us and says "My only problem now is where to park all my cars" . We are licensed to operate in all states ! Do not delay - order today ! Sign up a friend and you'll get a discount of 50% . Thanks ! Dear Friend ; Your email address has been submitted to us indicating your interest in our newsletter . If you no longer wish to receive our publications simply reply with a Subject: of "REMOVE" and you will immediately be removed from our mailing list ! This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 2416 ; Title 3 ; Section 302 ! This is not a get rich scheme ! Why work for somebody else when you can become rich as few as 58 DAYS ! Have you ever noticed more people than ever are surfing the web & how many people you know are on the Internet ! Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this ! WE will help YOU deliver goods right to the customer's doorstep and decrease perceived waiting time by 140% . You can begin at absolutely no cost to you ! But don't believe us . Ms Anderson of Georgia tried us and says "Now I'm rich many more things are possible" ! We are licensed to operate in all states ! We IMPLORE you - act now ! Sign up a friend and your friend will be rich too . Thanks .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is an interesting concept but this implementation seems rather inefficient. It should be possible to exploit spacing, punctuation and case more effectively.

Related web comic with a similar idea: [http://cube- drone.com/2013_06_05-Cube_Drone_37_The_Often_Ins...](http://cube- drone.com/2013_06_05-Cube_Drone_37_The_Often_Inscrutable_Motivation_Of_Programmers.html)

<comment><USER9> That comic describes approximately 95% of HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> SpamMimic works by using a context free probabilistic grammar to derive its output. Each production of the grammar is translated into a Huffman tree based on the probabilities assigned to each variable or terminal symbol in the production.

For example:

      S -> A(.25) | B(.75)
      A -> aS(1.0)
      B -> bS(.75) | b(.25)

You simply feed the mimic function an encoded message (as a binary string) until you consume all the bits. Of course you can also pad the bit string so that it always terminates on a terminal symbol.

I wrote a program not too long ago that took some inspiration from SpamMimic and linguistic steganography in general. For fun I used the comments from this thread as input to my program:

      So why not send it as spam? The key here is hiding in this approximately 95% of HN.

      So why not send spammer--not a spy.

      For my favourite variation seems rather inefficient. It should be possible output
      can be used already, and you just look for in spam thousands of people with it. 2.
      Also send lots of receiving person and a Novel Vertex Coding and identify the
      system being used, it's used to encoding and identify the fake spam. Appendix
      B gives an enemy (Kerckhoffs's principle).

      [1]: https://github.com/rw/tweetfs

      Plainsight uses each byte of the

The encoded message is: 'meet at 3'

</comment><comment><USER11> This is pretty cool.

Closest thing I've seen to text steganography [1]. Probably more efficient (I tried to encode a 1.000 character message, and the encoded message ended up being 80.000 chars long - that's a long SPAM email) to encode your message in a picture though, although I can see use cases for when text only may be desireable.

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

</comment><comment><USER12> My encode for the word "combinator"

Dear Professional , This letter was specially selected to be sent to you . If you no longer wish to receive our publications simply reply with a Subject: of "REMOVE" and you will immediately be removed from our mailing list . This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 2416 ; Title 4 , Section 302 . THIS IS NOT A GET RICH SCHEME ! Why work for somebody else when you can become rich as few as 69 days ! Have you ever noticed people love convenience and more people than ever are surfing the web ! Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this ! We will help you process your orders within seconds and SELL MORE ! You can begin at absolutely no cost to you ! But don't believe us ! Prof Ames who resides in North Carolina tried us and says "Now I'm rich many more things are possible" ! This offer is 100% legal ! We BESEECH you - <USER2> now ! Sign up a friend and you'll get a discount of 50% . Thanks .

</comment><comment><USER13> Neat idea. I know it's not a serious proposal, but the problem with this sort of approach will be that the message will be identifiable from the fact that it hasn't actually been sent as spam to many people. So an attacker can identify a suspect message just by considering its distribution.

<comment><USER14> So why not send it as spam? The key here is hiding in the this can be done in multiple ways.

1\. Encode fake spam and send spam thousands of people with it. 2\. Also send lots of real spam to your intended targets.

Their spam filter could then attempt decoding and identify the fake spam from the real spam, and you just look like a big nasty old spammer.

The thing I like about this approach is that for all we know, it's used already, and some of those junk emails that we've got, you know, maybe even a classic, could have actually been messages from some spy agency that contained a message!

<comment><USER13> If only then it were a solution which scaled and didn't have harmful effects..

<comment><USER15> Depends on how you define "harm" i suppose. Considering it's not real spam, there's not a real scam company on the other side of the message waiting to grab your cash, the "damage" is a few hundred kilobytes of text ending up in the spam can along with all the other legitimate spammers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6427525](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6427525)

Pardon the essay, but I've written a tool in this space before.

Back in 2011, I wrote a textual steganography library and command-line application, called Plainsight: [https://github.com/rw/plainsight](https://github.com/rw/plainsight)

Additionally, @workmajj and I wrote TweetFS using Plainsight. It lets you recursively pack up directories and post them as an encoded linked list of Tweets to Twitter: [https://github.com/rw/tweetfs](https://github.com/rw/tweetfs)

Plainsight uses each byte of the input message to generate tokens. Bits are used to decide how to traverse the token tree, weighted by frequency. The drawbacks are 1) verbosity and 2) incorrect grammar.

One of the lessons of writing Plainsight is that spam can be used to contain secret messages. Send enough gibberish to enough people, with your intended recipient included, and you'll look like a spammer--not a spy.

\-- Example 1 (regular text) Type your message to encode:

       echo 'Meet at Union Square at noon. The password is FuriousGreen.' > cleartext

Then, pipe it through Plainsight:

       cat cleartext | plainsight -m encipher -f sherlock.txt > ciphertext

The output will be Doyle-esque gibberish:

       cat ciphertext | fold -s
       which was the case, of a light. And, his hand. "BALLARAT." only applicant?"
       decline be walking we do, the point of the little man in a strange, her
       husband's hand, going said road, path but you do know what I have heard of you,
       I found myself to get away from home and for the ventilator little cold night,
       and I he had left my friend Sherlock of our visitor and he had an idea was not
       to abuse step I of you, I knew what I was then the first signs it is the
       daughter, at least a fellow-countryman. had come. as I have already explained,
       the garden. what you can see a of importance. your hair. a picture upon of the
       money which had brought a you have a little good deal in way: out to my wife
       and hurry." made your hair. a charge me a series events, and excuse no sign his
       note-book has come away and in my old Sherlock was already down to do with the
       twisted

Now, decipher that ciphertext:

       cat ciphertext | plainsight -m decipher -f sherlock.txt > deciphered
       cat deciphered
       Meet at Union Square at noon. The password is FuriousGreen.

\-- Example 2 (binary data)

       $ dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/stdout bs=1 count=10 | plainsight -m encipher -f 1984.txt
       10+0 records in
       10+0 records out
       10 bytes (10 B) copied, 9e-05 s, 111 kB/s
       Adding models:
       Model: 1984.txt added in 0.89s (context == 2)
       input is "<stdin>", output is "<stdout>"

       enciphering: 100%|#####################################################################################################################################################################|474.67  B/s | Time: 0:00:00

       which is a war is real, the proles used mind on the telescreen. He could see through all right to. You have read what said. 'Yes,' only in the Ministry

\----

One serious use case is to seed the generator with a spam email corpus. This lets you generate messages that look like spam. Example:

       wget https://spamassassin.apache.org/publiccorpus/20030228_spam.tar.bz2
       tar -jxvf 20030228_spam.tar.bz2
       cat spam/0* > spam-corpus.txt

       echo "The Magic Words are Squeamish Ossifrage" | plainsight -m encipher -f spam-corpus.txt > spam_ciphertext

       $ cat spam_ciphertext
       (8.11.6/8.11.6) 3 (Normal) Internet can send e-mails until to transfer 26 10 [127.0.0.1] also include address from the most logical, mail business for your Car have a many our portals ESMTP Thu, 29 1.0 this letter on internet, <a style=3D"color: 0px; text/plain; cellspacing=3D"0" how quoted-printable about receiving you would like width=3D"15%" width=3D"15%" border="0" width="511" Date: Tue, 27 Thu, 19 26 because email@example.com for

       $ cat spam_ciphertext | plainsight -m decipher -f spam-corpus.txt
       Adding models:
       Model: spam-corpus.txt added in 2.57s (context == 2)
       input is "<stdin>", output is "<stdout>"

       deciphering: 100%|#####################################################################################################################################################################|543.84  B/s | Time: 0:00:00

       The Magic Words are Squeamish Ossifrage

<comment><USER17> This (awesome work) makes me wonder if people are using systems like this in the wild. Because I've gotten plenty of spam email, and stumbled across websites (thanks, Google!) that read just like this.

<comment><USER18> Hmm. That's intriguing. Spam could be modern day Numbers Stations, broadcast to our inboxes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I kinda-sorta wrote one of these about 15 years ago. In VB 6!

It simply took your data stream and encoded the message in the first letters of each word in some generated gibberish. You transform the 8-bit arbitrary byte stream into a 26-bit ascii representation to give you your list of first letters.

The gibberish was generated by choosing randomly from a list of common structures. That last sentence would have been encoded as [a,N,V,G,P,V,Av,P,a,N,P,Aj,N] - article, noun, verb ... Each word category (articles are skipped) had a dictionary containing one or more of each type of word starting with each letter.

Wasn't quite as convincing as the fake spam! I was rather pleased with it though, and it was far more interesting than the work I was supposed to be doing, as is writing this post. Back to work....

<comment><USER18> You just reminded me -- I once wrote a script that decoded and then eval'd a hidden command encoded within the whitespace of the script file itself. My goal was to create an entirely benign looking script that would hold up to visual scrutiny, but still be possibly malicious - in the final variant, it downloaded an additional remote script. Not that I ever used it for anything, but it did temper my natural trust in cursory inspection of benign-seeming open source code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is pretty cool, reminds me a bit of something I made a while back: [https://github.com/nemasu/utf8encode](https://github.com/nemasu/utf8encode)

It encodes/decodes data into valid UTF-8 characters, please ignore the terrible interface & coding (was more proof of concept) -_-

Can use it to post more information using Twitter (albeit, completely human unreadable).

</comment><comment><USER21> Heh, the mailto link when encoding defaults to billg@microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER22> It is rather interesting that this site never mentions the word Steganography.

But also it is an intelligent way of implementing it, masking it as spam.

<comment><USER23> They actually do, in the Credits page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Can this be layered on top of a PGP signed and encrypted email message?

I wouldn't really that stenography by itself to secure anything.

Sure its a good diversion.

</comment><comment><USER25> Add a pinch of NLP and you can not only set your enemies on a course to hell, but re-invent religion while you're at it.

</comment><comment><USER26> Interesting but if the recipient's ISP classify it as spam, the mail may never reach its mailbox.

</comment><comment><USER27> So, is there an explanation somewhere of what they do?</comment>


Top 10 Best Ever Hackers - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunchit.com/2008/07/22/top-10-best-ever-hackers/ <comment><USER2> My god that is one lame list of mostly irrelevant people.

<comment><USER3> Who would you put in?

<comment><USER4> builder of useful world-changer stuffs, like Woz

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> These people above Joybubbles and Crunch?

For crying out loud, Shawn Fanning? A hacker in the sense of the word used here?

</comment><comment><USER6> So now we are once again making heroes of criminals.

... lame

</comment><comment><USER7> This is why I null route 188.8.131.52/24

</comment><comment><USER8> yep, hackers in the old sense of the word

</comment><comment><USER9> Egad.</comment>


3 Gmail plugins that make my inbox better - <AUTHOR> http://microreviews.org/3-gmail-plugins-that-make-my-inbox-better/ <comment><USER2> Urgh, somewhat impenetrable article.

"Rapportive: Brilliant, intuitive, magical and useful. Rapportive helps you know your contacts better(Even their moods). Once you install this plugin, you are asked to add raplets. [...]"

I'm still not sure what Rapportive _does_.

<comment><USER3> It worked like charm for me

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Rapportive also has the added bonus of making it easy to figure out what email address people at a company use without actually sending anything.

</comment><comment><USER5> I liked rapportive too, but I've seen that it slows my email down, especially when rapportive is down for some reason. Removed for now.</comment>


Is Facebook Killing Off Business Pages? - <AUTHOR> http://www.advantly.com/guides/is-facebook-killing-off-business-pages/

<comment><AUTHOR> It has become more of a challenge and more expensive with having to promote your posts in order to get more of your fan base to see your updates.</comment>


Porter Plug – Display related HN stories right on GitHub repo page - <AUTHOR> https://porter.io/plug/

<comment><USER2> The flying Octocat is pretty slick.

I like the idea of collecting news for individual Github repos. At least it's something I don't see on other Hacker News readers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. If you have any suggestions, feel free to open an issue at [https://github.com/porter-io/feedback](https://github.com/porter-io/feedback)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The graph should probably be placed in the Graphs section of GitHub. Having it on the main repo page just takes a lot of space.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your suggestion. We're planning to add more related info about GitHub repos and replacing growth graph block. Never thought about the Graph section before. Might be a good place to place the growth graph. One concern is that our user might not know we have enhanced the graph section and never use this feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> i find it's not only dislaying related hackernews stories of a repo, but also a pretty handy tool for studying the growth of the repo star history. neat! tks.</comment>


The iPhones 6S - <AUTHOR> https://daringfireball.net/2015/09/the_iphones_6s <comment><USER2> My 2012 Thinkpad T530 with a core i5-3230m gets about 5000 on the geekbench 3 multicore test. That a 2015 phone gets 4300 astonishes me. I never feel like my thinkpad is slow, so I can't imagine how fast that phone feels.

My highest praise to apple's cpu engineers.

My small fear is projects like the mill will not materialize, and we'll have a long-term cpu speed cap of about 4000 on the geekbench 3 single core no matter what we do, at least for the next 50 years.

<comment><USER3> > My small fear is projects like the mill will not materialize, and we'll have > a long-term cpu speed cap of about 4000 on the geekbench 3 single core no > matter what we do

If I remember correctly, the Mill CPU real advantage isn't really about improving the maximum performance of a core (even if it has advantage also here) but improving performance/power ratio. So this could help 'reduce the gap' between a battery powered computer and a plugged computer, but not really improve on current plugged computer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> While It is great to see iPhone 6S A9 closing in on the Desktop performance. I dont think this is a fair comparison.

The A9x in iPad Pro, should make a better comparison. Which i think will beat even the current Macbook / Macbook Air.

Next year will mark a decade of OSX switched to x86. So may be 2016 WWDC they will announce the switch to ARM?

</comment><comment><USER5> So it appears that the new iPhone is considerably faster than my laptop and I am probably more likely to upgrade my phone this year than my laptop.

So ... any way to offload heavy computations to my phone?

</comment><comment><USER6> Still amazing they start out at 16GB and charge so much for upgrades when you can get a 128GB flash drive for $30 on amazon.</comment>


Protecting Against a Man-in-the-Middle Attack on Origin Traffic - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-strict-ssl-protecting-against-a-man-in-the-middle-attack-on-origin-traffic

<comment><USER2> The option to pin a self-signed certificate would also be nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. We are working on cert pinning on the origin side as well (and some other SSL enhancements that I'm not sure I can talk about yet). We really want to lock down SSL on CloudFlare as much as we can.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What all things can a developer on H4 visa do? - <AUTHOR>

I can at least answer interviews and get someone to sponsor me an H4 ? <comment><USER2> If you are looking forward to obtaining an H1B.....The start date for filing new H1-B visa is April 1st, 2013. And normally the quota of 65k is reached very quickly. So you have between now and Apri1 1st to find a sponsor. Reach out to companies to see if they are willing to sponsor a new H1B.

</comment><comment><USER3> H4 is a dependent visa for spouses. You can legally stay in the US but cant work (you won't get an SSN). Only thing that you can do is keep coding on side projects and wait till you find a company willing to sponsor you H1.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't think you meant H4 -- that is spousal visa ; it is only granted if your spouse has H1B.

<comment><AUTHOR> YEs thats what I meant. What can a H4 visa holder do ? My spouce is working, I am not though I am equally qualified.

<comment><USER5> Like the other poster said, work on side projects. Attend interviews. Once someone agrees to sponsor you for an H1B and assuming it gets through by this year, you can start working on October 01.</comment></comment></comment>


What are your thoughts around having PDFs on your website? - <AUTHOR> I am wondering about your outtakes and thoughts around having PDFs on a company's website. Are those unprofessional? <comment><USER2> It depends on how they are used.

Our local bus company (rather good) had an "important announcement" as a linked PDF on their web page that was just one paragraph that could have been in HTML. That looks unprofessional

On the other hand, people who want to post old scanned documents or documents that were born in tools like Word or Powerpoint or Publisher can do that efficiently with PDF. For instance, if you go a trade show you will find full- color printed brochures on two sides of 8.5x11 and if you want to distribute that kind of marketing collateral online PDF is a good way to do it.

My favorite use case for PDF is to store PDF documents on my tablet for use in bed, in a hammock, in the lean-to on my hill, in the passenger seat of a car, bus, etc. This is good for "e-book"(s) as well as it is for personal documents.

For years I have always made a "go folder" when I travel that has everything I need to get from home to the hotel and back. I still make one, but I also store bundles of PDF documents on my tablet to support this. It's like I can carry all the books in my house on my person, which is pretty good.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm puzzled by this question.

How else would you place documents on your website that you have made available for download or reading on-site? You need those documents to be in some cheap, widely available format.

In today's world, that format is .PDF. (A few decades back, that might have been Microsoft's Word .DOC, and earlier still it would have been plain old .TXT.)</comment>


Ask HN:teach my 4 and 5 year old kids about logic/math/programming? - <AUTHOR>

Hello all First I know im not going to teach them programming but I do what to  start to teach and give them building blocks
about computers and to lead them in the end in few years to programming . ( if they show interest )
Is there some methods ? or applications I should familiar with to them ? I want to start small really with fun attitude <comment><USER2> I play table and video games with my 4 y.o.

She has learned to play dominoes (to the point of beating me), Jenga, and Toople.

On her ipod she has a short selection of puzzle games.

It has really developed her skills.

Another thing I do is buy the kindergarten and first grade activity books. Then we sit down and do it together. We have finished a few already.

Kids learn so easily its just amazing.

</comment><comment><USER3> That age is really young to start thinking about teaching them programming. I'd work on just teaching them basic logic and things of that nature, leaving out the computer part entirely for now, I think there is still a lot that can be learned about programming logic without even using a computer.

<comment><AUTHOR> sure this is what i meant , im not going to teach them basic now ... i want to start teaching them stuff like basic logic and other stuff ( which i dont know what they are) that when they in older age introduce to programming they already have the tools to ease the process

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The logo simulator on heroku is pretty good. <http://logo-blank.heroku.com/>

My five year old has learned a few commands to get the turtle moving. Hit the ? in the top right to get a list of commands.

</comment><comment><USER5> Really old math resource list I made about 60 million BC:

<http://www.kidslikemine.com/mathlist.shtml>

I am guessing some of this is out of print and you would need to look for second hand sources.

Another page that might interest you: <http://www.kidslikemine.com/geometry.shtml>

Best of luck.</comment>


Ask HN: Are you using new JavaScript / CSS features on any non-trivial web projects? - <AUTHOR> I am happy that JS and CSS are progressing, but I feel that most of the new features are literally years away from being usable "natively", ie, without polyfills / transpiling, due to browser inconsistencies / errors and legacy browser support.  But rather than feel this way, I would love to be shown that I am wrong.<p>Are you using new features of JS / CSS in a non-trivial web app? <comment><USER2> Surely server-side: Node > 6 supports ES6 without transpilers. Since Node doesn't have to be browser-compatible, there is no reason to use older versions.

On the client side, I recently wrote a CMS for a big company based on CSS flexboxes (which are not polyfillable). I also wrote a number of browser projects using ES6 / ES7 features, but normally you demand transpiling and polyfilling to Babel, so you never know.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good point - you can use these features browser-side if you can control the browser being used (like in a large company).

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Also, IMHO, if you're starting a project and you're not particularly constrained to stick with an older version of IE (or anything not-evergreen), you should target only the latest browsers. It's 2017 and evergreen browser are secure, free and stable on every OS. Older browser are a huge security risk and should be discouraged / not supported.

<comment><USER3> > Older browser are a huge security risk and should be discouraged / not > supported.

I think Microsoft allows it's enterprise customers to buy support for older versions of IE.</comment></comment>


Sourceforge down - <AUTHOR> http://www.sf.net

<comment><USER2> [https://www.google.com/search?q=is+down+site%3Anews.ycombina...](https://www.google.com/search?q=is+down+site%3Anews.ycombinator.com)

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4499893>

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://www.isup.me/sf.net>

<http://www.isup.me/sourceforge.net>

Looks like it's just that particular domain. I didn't investigate more, but I'd guess some DNS problems.

</comment><comment><USER4> Bummer, was just now trying to get a copy of KeePass.

</comment><comment><USER5> Tweets complaining of the site being down go back to before 8pm PDT tonight!

</comment><comment><USER6> Slamming it with HN front-page traffic isn't going to help.

</comment><comment><USER7> I have never seen an "X is down" link on Hacker News whose discussion has enriched my life. The Facebook one earlier turned into linking "lolz" Anonymous tweets and implying they were responsible, along with (sorry) a lot of armchair "investigation" by people who just discovered WHOIS last week.

Can we stop submitting these? This is three today.</comment>


Ask HN: Did you get a job after responding to Who is hiring on HN? - <AUTHOR>

I wonder what the average number of people applying per job is in this thread. Anyone had luck finding work in Who is Hiring or Seeking Freelancer threads? <comment><USER2> I know of a few people who successfully found a position through the Who is Hiring. Here is one blog post for someone talking about it.

[http://www.jaretmanuel.com/blog/thanks-hacker- news](http://www.jaretmanuel.com/blog/thanks-hacker-news)

</comment><comment> why-el I sent out a couple of emails last month but I had to back out from the application process for family reasons. Pretty much everyone emailed back and some even personally asked me to reach out again once I am ready to go for it. All in all its a much more responsive channel.

</comment><comment><USER3> I did. I have no idea how many other people have applied though.</comment>


How to attend a conference & not look like a jerk - <AUTHOR> http://www.trackur.com/conference-etiquette

<comment><USER2> What a stupid article. Public Wifi is slow? Really? Don't block seats/aisles? Don't violate peoples personal space? Don't present with a hangover? This is rather a list of common human courtesy instead of anything that is relevant to conferences.

Some of the other stuff is not really relevant to all types of conferences. Nobody wants your twitter handle on every slide at a scientific conference.

<comment><USER3> Stupid? That's rather harsh. While a lot of these are common sense, they are pointed out for a reason - people do these things. Common sense isn't so common as they say.</comment></comment>


Hacker News for relationships - <AUTHOR>

HN has a pretty good concept and it seems to work for designer news, product hunt and so on. We learn a lot about tech and business in these rounds but what other areas of life most people kinda suck at. Like, for one, relationships.<p>Have I not looked hard enough or is there not too much like this out there? (aside from google) <comment><USER2> There's plenty of discussion on Hacker News about people management, culture- building, social issues, work-life balance, personal development, etc. Usually as it relates to tech and startups, but that's to be expected.

</comment><comment><USER3> do you mean romantic relationships? then there's reddit.com/r/relationships

if you mean networking then there's volley ([http://volley.works](http://volley.works))

<comment><USER4> also for workplace [http://workplace.stackexchange.com/](http://workplace.stackexchange.com/)</comment></comment>


Tacocopter - Flying Robots Deliver Tacos To You - <AUTHOR> http://tacocopter.com/ <comment><USER4> Sadly there is no reasonable path to doing this legally. We are in the real estate photography business and the FAA started cracking down on people using helicopters and other UAV's for _commercial_ purposes. It's not allowed. You can only fly drones/helicopters/etc remotely (or autonomously) as a hobby.

more info: [http://photographyforrealestate.net/2012/01/24/warning- faa-s...](http://photographyforrealestate.net/2012/01/24/warning-faa-says-us- airspace-is-closed-to-all-commercial/)

<comment><USER5> FAA, county health department, municipal regulations on restaurant delivery... Tacocopter is up against a nearly vertical hill of red tape, but the utterly fantastic thing is that we're having this conversation. It's happening, it's here, there's nothing even close to a legal framework for it yet, but this is just one new facet of a massive shift we're witnessing. Like the internet, drones and autonomous vehicles may have been born of the defense world, but they'll truly come of age in the civilian world.

This is just another little taster of the wild ride we're in for.

<comment><USER6> I'm pretty certain there'll be many an unexpected incident when/if people start up something like Tacocopter. Specifically, how many drones you're going to lose to seagulls and hawks tackling them for food.

You'd be talking custom made machines, because you just know some idiot is going to hook a box of chow mien noodles onto the skid of a robocopter and it'll get dive-bombed by a pigeon and land on someone's wind shield in the middle of rush hour traffic.

The problem that robotic helicopters, and other flying devices, are going to face is that they're legally liable for anything they damage below them if something falls. When you're 50' up, you don't want to be dropping a single thing over a roadway or side walk. It also brings up the questions of insurance, registration (to ensure all UAV's flying are insured and maintained) and more, because any accidents have the potential to be equal to a motor vehicle accident in terms of personal injury claim.

Operators literally have to have no choice to make sure there's the ability for them to get sued for accidents/drops, otherwise municipalities will quickly outlaw them and once that happens it's going to be decades before those municipalities change their minds.

<comment><USER7> > I'm pretty certain there'll be many an unexpected incident when/if people > start up something like Tacocopter.

so what? there are thousands of car accidents and deaths every year that doesnt stop majority from riding. What OP did is open my eyes on something I didnt think of before. Imagine a crowded city, like NY where 5 feet above your head there are hundreds of drones like bees flying everywhere and delivering goods: food, small mail, lighweight groceries, etc. That would be great win for problems with traffic in big cities. Mother Earth would appreciate that too. Awesome idea OP.

EDIT: you could also have personal delivery done this way, something like "electronic mail pigeon". You attach your lighweight package and you send it across the city. Of course we would need to minimum probability of accidents. Most likely software used would have to be governmet-approved/tested and you would have to have a license to be a part of "lightweight transportation channel" that flows above the city. But this is totally doable!

<comment><USER5> > _Imagine a crowded city, like NY where 5 feet above your head there are > hundreds of drones like bees flying everywhere and delivering goods: food, > small mail, lighweight groceries, etc._

Excellent visualization. You've nailed the kind of socio-infrastructural change this shift could lead to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Won't be able to compete long distance with the Alameda Weehawken Burrito Tunnel:

[http://www.idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda- weehawken_burri...](http://www.idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda- weehawken_burrito_tunnel.htm)

<comment><USER9> You do know that's fake, right?

<comment><USER10> Whoosh.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> To quote Chris Anderson, CEO of DIYdrones and Editor-in-chief at wired:

 _Did you know the word "gullible" isn't in the dictionary?_

 _Sigh. Prepare for loads of credulous coverage, matching the wave of reporting on the Pirate Bay's stoned suggestion that "we're going to use, er....GPS drones!....to file-trade from the sky. With Raspberry Pi."_

[http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/did-you-know-the-word- gu...](http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/did-you-know-the-word-gullible-isn- t-in-the-dictionary)

<comment><USER12> Thanks for putting me in check, remind me next time I dream about the future.

<comment><USER11> No, no... it's _good_ to dream about the future. I suggest heading over to DIYdrones, grab some hardware, and help create the future rather than reading about "credulous" projects.

There are plenty of _real_ efforts underway to use UAV's in a similar fashion -- for example, to deliver medications in disaster-stricken areas [1] and for building construction [2]. We all have very little time and attention. I simply suggest that we allocate it wisely.

[1] Matternet, a Singularity University spinoff -- <http://matternet.net/>

[2] ETH researchers use UAV's to build 6-meter tower -- [http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/diy/video- watch-...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/diy/video-watch-flying- robots-build-a-6-meter-tower)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The domain is registered to Star Simpson of MIT, formerly notorious for this story: <http://boingboing.net/2007/09/21/mit-student-arrested.html>

<comment><USER14> Star's totally legit, definitely makes me update towards at least some tacos being delivered by drone, though I doubt there's intention to make this serious business.

<comment><USER13> Damn straight she's legit: <http://starsimpson.com/>

<comment><USER15> Wow, she has a pretty impressive catalog of executing on ideas (even the bizarre/wacky).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've been flying model airplanes, helicopters and other RC contraptions since I was 10 years old. Decades. I've flown, designed and built nearly everything out there, from pure (no motor) gliders to aerobatic planes, electric and turbine jets, helicopters and multi-copters --even an occasional RC blimp. One of my favorites are very high power-to-weight ratio 2 meter-ish gliders with thousands of watts of power. They go straight-up like a rocket and reach incredible speeds, well in excess of 100 miles per hour (youtube: F5B glider).

The preface is to say: I get it. I do it. I love it. And, I'll probably stay in this hobby forever. Having kids has a way to help with that.

Having said that, I also understand, in no uncertain terms, just how dangerous this stuff can be. I have seen many nasty accidents first hand. A small propeller spinning at 5K or 10K RPM can shred a hand or a face in horrific ways.

The idea of toy drones flying around town is a scary one. The FAA is right in wanting to exercise restraint and gradually walk into a sensible set of rules. The have been working very closely with the RC flight community in order to understand the needs and voice their concern as well:

<http://www.modelaircraft.org/aboutama/gov.aspx>

I love the idea of small inexpensive drones coming online to help firefighting efforts, disaster aid and such needs. Still, it has to be done right and it has to be done with safety in mind.

Small inexpensive model aircraft, even when they cost thousands of dollars, are not designed to the same strict engineering standards of full-scale aircraft in general aviation. Most of these devices suffer from catastrophic single-point failures in their designs. None of them are put through strict process control during manufacturing to ensure that such mundane things as cracked or "cold" solder joints don't creep into a batch. None of them are made with conformal or environmental coatings applied to circuitry. Not one of them uses rugged, vibration and environmentally-tested hardware, boards, wiring, connectors and batteries.

As an example of this, a prominent motor controller manufacturer recently produced designs that started to violently catch on fire and even blow-up under varied conditions. They have been reported to catch fire by simply plugging in a battery or in the middle of a flight. In a lot of cases people have lost helicopters costing thousands of dollars to this particular problem. However, in most cases, because the activity took place within the confines of AMA model aircraft flying fields not one person seems to have been hurt and no property (other than the model and electronics) was damaged.

Did you know that the LiPo (Lithium Polymer) battery packs these models use can also spontaneously catch fire and explode? YouTube search: "LiPo fire"

It's exciting to think of these little things flying about and doing all kinds of things for us. The reality, I think, is as far away as building a C3PO that actually works as it does in the movie. OK, maybe not that far, but nowhere close to reality. The legal and liability hurdles alone are massive.

Can someone make a quadcopter that can safely and reliably fly around buildings in a city with an acceptably low probability of failure, redundancy and solid engineering? Sure. But it isn't going to be anything like these little toys we are seeing in hundreds upon hundreds of youtube demos.

I believe that, once the FAA has a chance to sort this out there will be really good opportunities for very high quality, professionally designed drones. It'll be a few years though. And rightly so.

<comment><USER17> Similar stuff could be said to Henry Ford about cars back in the early 1900s ("What? You want us to zip around town with a vehicle full of GASOLINE? Yeah right...").

This is a truly revolutionary idea, one that has so many different positive side-effects (reduce traffic congestion, reduce pollution, faster deliveries, cheaper mailing costs, etc). It needs to be pushed forward by visionaries, folks who really believe in it.

Yes, they'll have to be a little crazy. Yes, they'll likely have to deal with setbacks.

But if they persist and succeed, their name just might one day be written in history books.

<comment><USER18> Delivering tacos with RC helicopters is a revolutionary idea?

I believe you misspelled evolutionary. Inventing a helicopter was a revolutionary idea (pun!), and coming up with a delivery model for food consumption may have been a revolutionary idea, but combining the two definitely is not.

This is basically a sky lawnmower with a taco hanging below it. Seems kinda dangerous.

<comment><USER19> Combinations of ideas is not revolutionary? Or just that this specific combination is not?

Carriages and Internal Combustion Engines -> Automobiles

Telephones and Radios -> Cell Phones

Touch Screens and Cell Phones -> iPhone

<comment><USER18> Try rereading the comment you replied to. It speaks of the combination of a remote control helicopter and food delivery not being revolutionary.

So to sum it up....just this specific combination is not revolutionary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> When I talked about making quadcopters to my friend, the first thing that popped into his head was something similar. He was thinking about making small weed delivery copters. that was actually a very good idea; not suggestible at all ofcourse.

</comment><comment><USER21> I can't tell if this is for real or not, but I'm praying that it is and it comes to Seattle.

<comment><USER22> It's like there should be a Poe's Law but for technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm uhh... guessing this is a joke, but if it isn't... they'd do brisk business in San Diego!

<comment><USER24> Probably a joke since the batteries last around 15 minutes, especially when carrying a load.

It would be amazing if real though. Maybe someone can make a hydrocarbon powered version that would actually have enough range. It would use less fuel than a car, and get there faster to boot.

Startup idea?

<comment><USER25> Something like a quadshot [0] should be more efficient for this task - <USER2> quadrotors for the VTOL ability, but convert to far more power-efficient wing for flying at speed.

I think it'd be possible to build a large quadshot-esque quadrotor -> flying wing device that would have the 1-3 mile range and ~500gr non-battery payload capacity necessary for taco delivery.

[0]: <http://thequadshot.com>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Pretty funny, I think the LobsterCopter gave the joke away.

<comment><USER27> be sure to check out the lobstercopter band

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> In the south of Spain it would be an impossible business. Once I get into a library to return a book, entering the library I saw a bicycle attached to the wall, when I went out of the library I saw the chain cut and the bicycle gone with some parts of it in the floor. It was shocking how fast everything went, it is like you look at something, then look away for a moment and then its gone.

In Spain gitanos will learn how to pilot UAVs (or "fish" them) in a blink of an eye.

<comment><USER29> I am always shocked by the blatant racism even educated and otherwise "normal" Spanish people display towards Gitanos.

<comment><USER30> I am always shocked by the fact that people equate a negative view of Roma/Gitanos with racism.

Disliking a parasitic culture that fosters the notion that it is okay to steal from "others" is not racism since it a) has nothing to do with race but culture, and b) it's based on fact, not prejudice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is something I need in my life! Tacos delivered via flying robot. Could you imagine getting the delivery while at Dolores park?

</comment><comment><USER32> how fast can a quadcopter fly, how far, and how much can it carry? seems like this would only work well in limited contexts, like, say, small deliveries on a particular campus or within a single large building or complex. not to be a complete nay-sayer, but the limits of battery tech are a bit harder to overcome than most software problems.

<comment><USER33> A $2000 drone can carry around 4 pounds and fly maybe 20 miles. More expensive, bigger drones can do significantly better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Last mile delivery will eventually be a huge market for UAVs. Think beyond just tacos -- think about anything that people would pay a premium for to have it delivered to them. Out of milk? No problem. Need your prescription filled? Delivered to your GPS coordinates. Condom delivery? FedEx?

The technology is there. The regulations need to catch up.

<comment><USER33> Probably easier to allow small robots on the roads or sidewalks, running around delivering pizza or whatever.

<comment><USER34> Oddly, the technical challenge of sending a ground robot through an unknown dynamic environment is even more difficult than a flying robot. There's very few obstacles in the sky. Another thing to consider is petty theft and vandalism. Maybe I'm jaded, but I think a ground robot would not last very long. With an aerial vehicle, packages can be dropped with parachutes. (though, I'm pretty sure some will be shot down before they're generally accepted)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I don't know if this is real, but this totally justifies the risk of the inevitable quad-copter robot uprising.

</comment><comment><USER36> Sometimes no matter how stupid the idea seems at first if it's executed brilliantly it might just work!....lol

</comment><comment><USER37> The biggest issue I see is tacocopter naping. Order a $3 taco, get some lunch and a free drone.

<comment><USER38> The biggest issue I see is random hackers ordering a taco then putting a "TPB Transponder[1]" on several of these. The tacocopter then does double duty as an airborne server.

[1] Theoretical easy-to-deploy Android or Raspberry Pi-sized wifi-broadcasting device, to broadcast TPB magnet links.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Nice idea. Only one remark: Anyone has ever seen the dicrepancy between the concepts of new aircrafts and the things that actually fly? Aviation is one of the most conservative industries I know, and for a good reason considering the fact one accident kills probably hundreds of people at once. You can argue that some regulations are more on the red tape side, but most of them are here for good reason. If I were a start-up, I would rather follow these regulations or have really deep pockets AND official support if I dont't, like SpaceX for example. That said, I'm not sure if it is for real or not... Funny idea having a flying delivery claptrap bringing you your tacos :-)

</comment><comment><USER40> Stoners Rejoice! The Future is Now!

This will eventually happen, though. That means the FAA's going to have to come up with some pretty strict regulations to force manufacturers and operators to ensure their bots don't crash into things/people.

</comment><comment><USER41> Imagine landing pads on the top of every house/city. They would look like giant targets used for this copters to land. There could be one within a few meters of where you currently are.

You place an order on your cell phone. The copters immediately go to work delivering whatever you needed. A SMS would alert you that your goods have arrived. Maybe there would be secure drop zones where a giant chute would automatically route your package into a secure locker. You would open the locker with your cell phone.

Okay I will stop dreaming now.

<comment><USER42> Finally a practical use of QR codes? Each landing pad could have some information embedded via QR to help the copter to distinguish them from one another.

<comment><USER43> Until I forge your QR code and enjoy your delicious tacos.

<comment><USER44> Or until I fill your QR Code target drop-zone with dog-poop in a paper bag.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> My new startup - Taco Pirates. Hunting down taco drones.

</comment><comment><USER46> Nah, everybody knows that drones can only be used to deliver drugs and bombs.

Commercial UAVs being illegal in the US, "might as well hang for a sheep as for a lamb."

</comment><comment><USER47> So, I can steal a Bot for the price of a taco order?

<comment><AUTHOR> One word - <USER3>

<comment><USER48> Three words - Tacos in puddles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Imagine your mail could be delivered to you like this?

Something tells me Amazon will run with this in 10 years and take USPS/Canada Post/etc out of business

</comment><comment><USER50> AKA: Quadrocopters - Flying Robots Deliver Themselves To You!

With all the crazy scamming I've experienced on places like Craigslist, I can't imagine there wouldn't be some jerk that would just start taking the vehicles. Even if there's some type of visual/tracking, they'd figure it out. How many tacos would have to be delivered to deal with that kind of shrinkage?

</comment><comment><USER51> Whoa! I was daydreaming about this exact same thing (Except it was pizza instead of tacos). I thought they should have a small box that hangs from them so they could drag the box down with a small thread in order to avoid accidents with the propellers. Anyway, awesome idea, hope to see this legally in the near future :-)

<comment><USER15> They attempted this in small form on 'Marcel's Quantum Kitchen' (its on Netflix) using a toy quadcoptor to 'deliver' a piece of pizza at a dinner party. Didn't really work out to well but interesting concept nonetheless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Ok so, how could they protect a UAV from thieves? Anyone could jam the remote control signal or use a net to block it on the ground.They could add an effective gps based alarm and insure the drones,this is a real problem though, only while UAVs are still quite expensive imo

</comment><comment><USER53> I've been planning to build a quad-rotor to deliver food and beverages around my house, but I never thought that idea could turn into a delivery startup.

I can't tell if this is a joke (?), but the technology is definitely available to make it happen.

<comment><USER8> That's probably easier than it might seem. "Balancing" the drinks might seem like a hard problem to solve…

[http://www.diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/why-doesnt-the- ball-...](http://www.diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/why-doesnt-the-ball-fall- off)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> This idea is currently illegal since FAA regulations restrict unmanned multirotor aircraft from any commercial activities, although they are in the process of changing these rules. So it might go from joke to reality :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> They had a more awesome version of the site up earlier this week.

</comment><comment><USER55> TacoCopter has really incentivize for me, a Taco-centric dietary pivot. It's advanced culinary airborne delivery agent is HUGELY disruptive. I can tell by the screams!

</comment><comment><USER56> Apparently this doesn't really exist.

<http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/03/qa-with-tacocopter/>

</comment><comment><USER57> If this were to happen, I'm imagining tacocopternapping.

</comment><comment><USER58> Though obviously a joke this is the sort of thing that I'd support breaking the law for. Disrupt the land-based food delivery establishment.

</comment><comment><USER59> Wasn't there a story last year about a similar service for delivering sandwiches?

<comment><USER60> <https://themelt.com>?

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Tacocopter - Skynet's more benevolent, munchie abating little brother.

</comment><comment><USER62> Id rather just install Pneumatic tubes everywhere, Tacotubes!

</comment><comment><USER63> I am suprised no one has called an outright FAKE on this!

</comment><comment><USER64> Watch out for the taco bandit flying robots tho.

</comment><comment><USER65> My next startup will be air rifle sales in SF.

</comment><comment><USER66> April fools jokes starting early this year?

</comment><comment><USER67> This a a sign of the coming techpocalypse.

</comment><comment><USER68> I hope that thing is reasonably quiet.

</comment><comment><USER69> i hope this means they can deliver to my balcony. that would be baller.

</comment><comment><USER70> would make a great alternative to duck-hunting

</comment><comment><USER71> Of course it's real. I want my tacos brought from LA though..

</comment><comment><USER72> This sounds like sci-fi but I think we're not far from being able to do this. I think the entire Postal system could be replaced with UAV's. Why deliver mail by hand when robots would clearly be better and could work 24/7 and not go crazy. Food delivery maybe doesn't have the profit margins to do it yet, but eventually it will.

</comment><comment><USER73> Pretty scary--the same tech could "deliver" a pistol, which then delivers a bullet more or less just as easily.

<comment><USER74> It's a good thing we haven't yet invented drones that can shoot a missile at you.

<comment><USER75> Many of these are equipped with armaments: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unmanned_aerial_vehicl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unmanned_aerial_vehicles#United_States)

They are in active use today: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_attacks_in_Pakistan>

<comment><USER76> Just quietly, I think you missed the joke. (Upvoting you to relieve any downvote damage because there are worse mistakes than being too informative!)

<comment><USER75> sorry, was stuck in hyper-literal programming mode :-)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>