Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/03/ocean-acidification-carbon-dioxide-emissions-levels <comment><USER2> In a bit of cosmic irony, most fossil fuel was created from mass extinctions that accompanied changes in ocean chemistry: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event)

<comment><USER3> Very cool I guess we will have to adapt. As current Industrial Complex is too large and unwieldy to react to such thing.

<comment><USER4> The Industrial Complex is far too small to be even considered among such players as Litosphere and Biosphere.

<comment><USER5> This is absolutely false. The entire academic world says otherwise with a fantastically high margin of confidence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How credible a source is IPSO, the author of the report backing this story? From what I can tell it's a U.K. non-profit hosted by the Zoological Society of London [1], itself a U.K. non-profit [2]. Alex Rogers, IPSO's Scientific Director [1], is also a Professor in Conservation Biology at the University of Oxford [3].

Paper article is based on: [http://www.stateoftheocean.org/pdfs/Bijma-et- al-2013.pdf](http://www.stateoftheocean.org/pdfs/Bijma-et-al-2013.pdf)

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

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

[3] [http://www.zoo.ox.ac.uk/people/view/rogers_ad.htm](http://www.zoo.ox.ac.uk/people/view/rogers_ad.htm)

<comment><USER7> Well ocean acidification is real and proven. At this point all we're arguing about is how many years we have left.

<comment><USER8> This is certainly true, but amount matters. If its 300 years then we have a problem, if its 3000, maybe not so much. Articles like this do not help give perspective.

<comment><USER9> Not at all ... if the acidification is moving some positive feedback loops (and it seems it is) we have much less.

<comment><USER10> There are almost no positive feedback loops in nature, for the simple reason that they tend to get triggered by random variations and feedback on themself till they reach limit and convert to negative loops.

<comment><USER5> Try Siberian bog swamps releasing an amount of methane with effects equal to the US yearly emissions.

<comment><USER11> "The fact that the ice core records do not seem full of methane spikes due to high-latitude sources makes it seem like the real world is not as sensitive as we were able to set the model up to be."

[http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/01/much-a...](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/01/much- ado-about-methane/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The short-term scenario is not good, but from the little I know about aquatic biology/chemistry, it might not be as catastrophical as the article pictures it.

Increased CO2 levels should just cause algae/cyanobacteria blooms, which will balance CO2/O2 levels back again and foster primary consumers (solving over- fishing as a bonus). Also, H2CO3 gets buffered by all the Ca/Mg content in the ocean, so I don't think it's even _possible_ for the pH to just drop forever (as in the graph someone posted in one of the comments here).

<comment><USER13> I live in Seattle and in just the past few years, beaches which used to be absolutely covered in oysters are now barren because of acidification. And by covered, I mean you need a path through them to walk (they are sharp), and the most difficult thing when picking them was to pick up a single one rather than cluster. This was on the Hood canal for anyone in the area.

[http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea- change/2013/sep/11/...](http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea- change/2013/sep/11/pacific-ocean-perilous-turn-overview/?prmid=4939)

It absolutely amazed me how fast everything disappeared. It really shocked me.

<comment><USER4> Local insignificant event.

<comment><USER5> The appearance of multiple local effects is a clear indicator or a global trned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The Seattle Times did an interactive article about this very subject last month:

[http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea- change/2013/sep/11/...](http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea- change/2013/sep/11/pacific-ocean-perilous-turn-overview/)

<comment><USER15> I read that just after reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Capitol trilogy. (40 days of rain, 50 degrees below, 60 days...) Yeah, it's science fiction, but it's plausible hard sf, not space opera. And the Time article sounded way too close to some of what was happening in the books.

Ocean acidification was mentioned somewhat in passing in the last book as something that's very hard to reverse, partially because of the chemistry and partially because of the sheer amount of chemicals that would be required. That was in contrast to a multi hundred billion dollar salt transport to restart the thermo haline circulation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Let's presume it is all true. Gizmag quoted a study that 15-container ships (just 15) dole out the same amount of pollution as 760-million cars. (I shit you not):

[http://www.gizmag.com/shipping- pollution/11526/](http://www.gizmag.com/shipping-pollution/11526/)

God knows what coal and power plants produce but nonetheless, why does the IPSO and The Guardian have to scare the shit out of everyone instead of offering some sort of real, solution?

If this is all true and this is as dire as they say, one would think or suggest that the military take over the shipping duties of these 15-container- ships and use 15-nuclear-powered vessels instead? this would remove the carbon footprint of these polluting vessels and/or 750-million cars per day with way less waste?

Next, onto the power plants instead of the barbecues and lawn mowers?

<comment><USER17> Not all journalism or scientific reporting is about presenting solutions, and pointing out the problems (especially of this severity, if the article is to be believed) is an important step. Furthermore, as the article says, I don't think anyone knows the solution. Even if we drastically reduce carbon emissions, it probably won't help.

I often find an attitude of dismissal and disdain towards environmental reporting like this on Hacker News. I think it stems from how we're so used to the optimism and can-do attitude of Silicon Valley that it's hard to digest how we may have created a problem we can't solve. It feels better to think "oh, they're just not being innovative enough in their solutions" and present oneself as above the fray.

But the stark reality, if the science is to be believed, is that we're on the path towards major environmental changes in the foreseeable future, and as of right now, we don't have a solution.

<comment><USER18> I agree with the criticism of HN. The lack of understanding of basic geography and the environment is shocking. Its like listening to a bunch of non- technical sales people discuss computer security.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "This story has broken an embargo and will shortly be taken down. It will be relaunched to the site at 6.00am BST. Apologies"

Interesting.

<comment><USER20> In case they will be taking it down, here is the text:

Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years Overfishing and pollution are part of the problem, scientists say, warning that mass extinction of species may be inevitable

By Fiona Harvey in Kiel The Guardian, Thursday 3 October 2013

Coral is particularly at risk from acidification and rising sea temperatures. Photograph: Paul Jarrett/PA The oceans are more acidic now than they have been for at least 300m years, due to carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, and a mass extinction of key species may already be almost inevitable as a result, leading marine scientists warned on Thursday.

An international audit of the health of the oceans has found that overfishing and pollution are also contributing to the crisis, in a deadly combination of destructive forces that are imperilling marine life, on which billions of people depend for their nutrition and livelihood.

In the starkest warning yet of the threat to ocean health, the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) said: "This [acidification] is unprecedented in the Earth's known history. We are entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change, and exposing organisms to intolerable evolutionary pressure. The next mass extinction may have already begun." It published its findings in the State of the Oceans report, collated every two years from global monitoring and other research studies.

Alex Rogers, professor of biology at Oxford University, said: "The health of the ocean is spiralling downwards far more rapidly than we had thought. We are seeing greater change, happening faster, and the effects are more imminent than previously anticipated. The situation should be of the gravest concern to everyone since everyone will be affected by changes in the ability of the ocean to support life on Earth."

Coral is particularly at risk. Increased acidity dissolves the calcium carbonate skeletons that form the structure of reefs, and increasing temperatures lead to bleaching where the corals lose symbiotic algae they rely on. The report says that world governments' current pledges to curb carbon emissions would not go far enough or fast enough to save many of the world's reefs. There is a time lag of several decades between the carbon being emitted and the effects on seas, meaning that further acidification and further warming of the oceans are inevitable, even if we drastically reduce emissions very quickly. There is as yet little sign of that, with global greenhouse gas output still rising.

Corals are vital to the health of fisheries, because they act as nurseries to young fish and smaller species that provide food for bigger ones.

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is absorbed by the seas – at least a third of the carbon that humans have released has been dissolved in this way, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – and makes them more acidic. But IPSO found the situation was even more dire than that laid out by the world's top climate scientists in their landmark report last week.

In absorbing carbon and heat from the atmosphere, the world's oceans have shielded humans from the worst effects of global warming, the marine scientists said. This has slowed the rate of climate change on land, but its profound effects on marine life are only now being understood.

Acidification harms marine creatures that rely on calcium carbonate to build coral reefs and shells, as well as plankton, and the fish that rely on them. Jane Lubchenco, former director of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a marine biologist, said the effects were already being felt in some oyster fisheries, where young larvae were failing to develop properly in areas where the acid rates are higher, such as on the west coast of the US. "You can actually see this happening," she said. "It's not something a long way into the future. It is a very big problem."

But the chemical changes in the ocean go further, said Rogers. Marine animals use chemical signals to perceive their environment and locate prey and predators, and there is evidence that their ability to do so is being impaired in some species.

Trevor Manuel, a South African government minister and co-chair of the Global Ocean Commission, called the report "a deafening alarm bell on humanity's wider impacts on the global oceans".

"Unless we restore the ocean's health, we will experience the consequences on prosperity, wellbeing and development. Governments must respond as urgently as they do to national security threats – in the long run, the impacts are just as important," he said.

Current rates of carbon release into the oceans are 10 times faster than those before the last major species extinction, which was the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum extinction, about 55m years ago. The IPSO scientists can tell that the current ocean acidification is the highest for 300m years from geological records.

They called for strong action by governments to limit carbon concentrations in the atmosphere to no more than 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent. That would require urgent and deep reductions in fossil fuel use.

No country in the world is properly tackling overfishing, the report found, and almost two thirds are failing badly. At least 70 per cent of the world's fish populations are over-exploited. Giving local communities more control over their fisheries, and favouring small-scale operators over large commercial vessels would help this, the report found. Subsidies that drive overcapacity in fishing fleets should also be eliminated, marine conservation zones set up and destructive fishing equipment should be banned. There should also be better governance of the areas of ocean beyond countries' national limits.

The IPSO report also found the oceans were being "deoxygenated" – their average oxygen content is likely to fall by as much as 7 per cent by 2100, partly because of the run-off of fertilisers and sewage into the seas, and also as a side-effect of global warming. The reduction of oxygen is a concern as areas of severe depletion become effectively dead.

Rogers said: "People are just not aware of the massive roles that the oceans play in the Earth's systems. Phytoplankton produce 40 per cent of the oxygen in the atmosphere, for example, and 90 per cent of all life is in the oceans. Because the oceans are so vast, there are still areas we have never really seen. We have a very poor grasp of some of the biochemical processes in the world's biggest ecosystem."

The five chapters of which the State of the Oceans report is a summary have been published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin, a peer-reviewed journal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Yup, why do I suspect that this article is more of the same from the big movement to claim that humans are evil, carbon is filthy, filthy humans are ruining the planet with evil carbon, or evil humans are ruining the planet with filthy carbon, and the only hope for the planet is massive, UN directed carbon cap and trade to send massive amounts of money from the evil, rich nations to the noble, poor nations, and that humans should junk their cars and either walk or use bicycles, and the rich nations should feel ashamed and guilty for their grossly excessive use of the finite resources of our pure, precious, pristine, delicate planet, right at the tipping point of total devastation?

Do I have that about right? Or we could borrow from the Mayans and kill people and pour their blood on a rock to keep the sun moving across the sky or, in this case, save the planet from filthy carbon from evil humans. Or, we need a boys' band complete with uniforms to counter the sin and corruption of a pool table in town. Let's have some more flim-flam, fraud scams!

</comment><comment><USER22> I hope you like jellyfish.

<comment><USER23> Can humans eat jellyfish? Maybe part of the solution is to shift overfishing to the jellyfish population.

<comment><USER24> They can be a bit like rubbery noodles if they're not thoroughly dried, or crispy like shredded cabbage if they are. I don't know if the edible ones don't sting or they do something to neutralize the stingers. (Jellyfish stingers are spring loaded and generally work quite well whether the jellyfish is alive or not.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Just thinking out loud here...

Can anyone think of other cases where science is used to predict the future of complex systems more than 2 years in advance?

I'm not talking about moore's law, but statistical models used to predict the future. How many solar flares will there be in 2020? What will the DOW be in 2050? How many democrats will be in congress in 2021? Stuff like that.

So far, the only ones I can think of are models that always spit out the same message... "The earth is dying and we're at fault."

I'm just curious if anyone knows of any predictive models that weren't created to scare the shit out of people.

<comment><USER26> > Can anyone think of other cases where science is used to predict the future > of complex systems more than 2 years in advance?

Every empirically-based plan for business, long-term policy, etc., ever. The forward-looking aspect of the science of cosmology. Lots more.

> So far, the only ones I can think of are models that always spit out the > same message... "The earth is dying and we're at fault."

That's more indicative of the biases through which you filter the available information (perhaps most importantly, the bias in the information sources from which you _receive_ information -- e.g., if the main place you get information about "science used to predict the future of complex systems" is the mainstream commercial media, there's a pretty heavy bias in what predictions you are going to hear about.)

<comment><USER25> >Every empirically-based plan for business, long-term policy, etc., ever.

Sure, all business do forecasting. That's pretty simple stuff.

>if the main place you get information about "science used to predict the future of complex systems" is the mainstream commercial media

That's true, where should I be looking? Can you link to specific examples?

<comment><USER26> > Sure, all business do forecasting. That's pretty simple stuff.

Lots of it involves predicting the behavior of complex economic and social systems using empirically-tested (scientific) methodologies.

> That's true, where should I be looking? Can you link to specific examples?

If you want to know about where science is used to predict the behavior of complex systems, one place to look would be the scientific literature of fields which are concerned with the behavior of complex systems.

<comment><USER25> Do you realize you basically just said "If you know where to look, you'll find it"?

Thanks MOTO. Any links?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> some context: e.g: [http://www.sciencebuzz.org/sites/default/files/images/OA_Gra...](http://www.sciencebuzz.org/sites/default/files/images/OA_Graph_small.jpg)

more context: [http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/chart.png](http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/chart.png)

..and a frightening projection: [http://oceanacidification12.weebly.com/uploads/1/4/4/2/14422...](http://oceanacidification12.weebly.com/uploads/1/4/4/2/14422224/2688836_orig.jpg?0)

</comment><comment><USER28> > imperilling marine life, on which billions of people depend for their > nutrition and livelihood

Nature always win in the end! Hopefully the plunge in human population can be handled mostly by attrition.

<comment><USER29> If things get too bad for too many, I suspect the result in an increase in war and conflict.

<comment><USER30> What will make things really bad, but for many less people.

Confirming the GP's argument, that Nature wins in the end. Winning is easier when you are not fighting anything.

<comment><USER31> Keep in mind that the last world war resulted in nuclear attacks. I don't think we have any guarantee that "mutually assured destruction" will be enough to save us if there is another truly global war between the remaining super/nuclear powers.

And now we also have stuff like "depleted" uranium rounds which have pretty serious consequences on future generations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> They talk about the oxygen content falling by 7% by 2100. This makes me wonder: let's assume the worst and earth is headed for a mass extinction event. How long do these events usually take? Are they slow processes, or does everything just die one day?

<comment><USER5> What would happen is that the rate of biodiversity drops drastically, and organisms that are simple and adaptable (like cockroaches, algae, jellyfich, certain classes of bacteria, small mammals, urban birds) adapt and thrive and consume the rest of the flora and fauna, and permanently adapt their environments making the situation extremely fragile for more complex and delicate birds and larger vertebrates.

Also, the system goes out of the equilibrium slowly developed in the last climate age.

As far as crops go, we'll see new varieties of plant illnesses appearing in places we hadn't seen them before. Unpredictable weather kills the more fragile species that depend on consistent climate.

Some ecosystems become simply uninhabitable; the Siberian bog swamps which are beginning to melt and release a greater amount of methane than ever before seen by humanity will not support the current crop of bacteria and plants. However there are no mammals and complex predators that can effectively fill the niche that will be created (at least not for potentially many thousands of years). So what you'll have is the growth of tall grasses and bushes that can survive on the new climate, but lacking a sustaining ecosystem, there won't be birds or large predators. Since insects develop very rapidly they will probably thrive, but their impact on the new ecosystem will not be predictable.

A lot of land probably won't be able to support crops, however the current state of industrial farming leaves the land depleted, so it will take many generations to replete the topsoil necessary for more balanced wildlife to survive.

Amphibians are already at a stage of mass extinction; their porous skin allows for a very large degree of exchange with chemicals in their environment, and are already suffering the effects of pesticides and herbicides in the environment. If those things biodegrade effectively that effect will not be felt in a few decades, but the change of climate will probably be too much (it already is).

<comment><USER33> >organisms that are simple and adaptable

I would be careful with the word simple. Adaptable is the important component, and that seems to be related more to being small and not particularly specialized. Simple sounds like a description of the amount of genetic data the species contains. It has been a while since I took biology, but if I recall correctly, even small and adaptable species have a lot of genetic data. When a mass extinction event happens, once the environment stabilizes, the doors are open for large animals again, and the small ones already have the genetic complexity needed to fill those niches relatively quickly.

<comment><USER32> If adaptability (without simplicity) is the key component, that sounds like somewhat good news for humanity, us being a versatile type, and we can eat a lot of things for food. It's not quite clear to me that survival necessarily implies smallness.

Though I would imagine that a _lot_ of humans would die in the process. It would make the black plague look like child's play.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Can the CO2 be removed from the ocean and broken into C and O2? Is this geo- engineering we can do?

<comment><USER35> There is a proposed geoengineering approach, but the authors of this page don't recommend it:

[https://web.duke.edu/nicholas/bio217/spring2010/chang/GeoEng...](https://web.duke.edu/nicholas/bio217/spring2010/chang/GeoEngineering.html)

[http://www.cquestrate.com/the-idea](http://www.cquestrate.com/the-idea)

<comment><USER34> Are the authors against all geo-engineering or just this plan?

<comment><USER35> They seem very in favor reducing over-fishing, switching to clean energy sources, etc. They're only in favor of geoengineering if politicians can't get their shit together and we end up on the brink of a disaster.

"We do not promote the use of the [geoengineering] method highlighted in this section. We merely present it here as an interesting solution proposed by the field of geoengineering, a popularly growing discipline which seeks to provide technical solutions which manipulate the earth's climate in order to counteract the effects of global climate change."

"Any solution proposed by the field of geoengineering is akin to addressing the symptoms and not the source of the problem."

\-- [https://web.duke.edu/nicholas/bio217/spring2010/chang/Soluti...](https://web.duke.edu/nicholas/bio217/spring2010/chang/Solutions.html)

<comment><USER36> The symptoms are all we care about, why would anyone give a shit about CO2 levels if it didn't cause global warming?

It's not like it's toxic. If it's cheaper to geoengineer the CO2 away, why not?

<comment><USER37> Fossil fuels are not a long-term energy solution in any case, so it makes more sense to attack the problem from that angle.

And I suspect the answer is that it's not cheaper. I'm unaware of any cheap, scalable, safe method of reducing CO2 levels. It's difficult to conceive of a practical solution to global warming that doesn't involve drastically reducing the ongoing CO2 output. How are you going to balance out 30+ billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Is there any reason no one is talking about terraforming seriously yet? What kind of technologies can be used to draw the CO2 out of the atmosphere, how much would it cost to make a difference?

<comment><USER39> Basic thermodynamics can provide a lower limit : at least 9x more energy than was gained by burning it (except for oil burned in power plants, where it'd be 6-7x, but that's not much).

That seems to mean that without massive expansions in nuclear power it's just not in the cards.

<comment><USER38> But like with nuclear power, we don't have to do all the work. We don't need to generate electricity and then run conventional a CO2 filter. Hypothetically, if we dump 1 trillion dollars into genetic engineering, why can't we design some biological chain reaction that would do all the work?

<comment><USER39> Actually I sort of like the medieval approach : government prizes. We want this done, why not create a competition ? If a company can solve this problem, document how you've done it (AFTER the fact) and present it to a board of government scientists. If they believe you, you get the prize money.

And make the prize money something like $5 billion or so. Chump change for what you're asking for. Besides, it has to be an amount that would provide decades of comfort for a company of at least a dozen people + a nice reward for any investors.

This worked for draining swamps in the late middle ages. It worked for building things like clocks and compasses, and these sorts of prizes is how ocean-capable ships were designed in the first place. I would argue that the (early) prizes were for 'allow a ship to navigate without any visible markers on the ground', about as nebulous a concept as 'lower atmospheric co2 by 50% - or at least prove you can do it' would be.

<comment><USER38> I agree, that's probably more sensible than organizing another conglomerate. The question is, why hasn't this been done?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> It's sad to me that this is not the top post. It seems that fact is a reflection of the problem at hand. We don't care about the oceans as much as we care about Twitter. :(

<comment><USER41> I find it incredibly sad it has made the top post.

The article does not link to any peer review studies to prove it's point, which to me means it's probably bunk, taking a know issue and enlarging it to sensationalise.

And it's sad people fall for this.

<comment><USER42> With a little bit of research on your own you can find out for yourself that this is an incredibly important issue that affects everyone on the planet, and there is nothing "sensational" about the way it is reported.

<comment><USER41> Yet you seriously haven't included any links to this easy to find research the we are at an all time acidification high in 300 million years?

Pretty sure the title might actually get it right unlike the actual article "Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years"

It is the rate of acidification, not the acidification itself that is high.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is one more 'climate change' BS. It does not stop fascinate me how self important climate change advocates are. Humans are not geological factor. Besides no one really have time machine to check validity of such claims. And we know very small about actual chemistry of the oceans, especially when it is deeper than SF beaches.

Disclaimer: I participated in research of lake sediments looking for insights about metal pollutant trends.

<comment><USER5> Wait, so you're saying that despite the fact that: \- We have accurate measurements of ocean Ph and CO2 concentrations for the past 50 years \- We have a clear understanding of the emissions of CO2 from manmade sources and a record that goes back since the beginning of the industrial age \- We understand the effects of acidification on a large variety of ocean species \- We see a trend of ocean absorbtion of CO2 absolutely consistent with out knowledge of atmospheric chemistry

That means that it's BS?

If you had some evidence to back up the fact as to why a set of multiple thousands of studies in oceanography are flawed when they point out to a singular trend, with a margin of confidence greater than most of the so-called scientific facts that are out there, I wouldn't think what you write is plain denialism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> It's like playing Sim Earth on my dad SE30 as a kid. I could never get it right and always ended up with a desert or icy planet :(

</comment><comment><USER44> What does 300m years mean? Is that 300 or 300 Million?

<comment><USER45> I was confused by this, as well. Given the scale of geologic time, I'd _assume_ they meant 300 million. But a single "M" often means thousand, especially if it's lowercase. So it's confusingly worded.

<comment><USER46> >But a single "M" often means thousand, especially if it's lowercase.

Where? I can find no reference to this.

<comment><USER45> Most often in financial accounting, though conventionally, in other domains such as academia. Depending on the news outlet, some magazines and papers will also use "M" for thousand and "MM" for million, though that practice is probably dying out in the popular press. And of course, the "M" in "CPM" stands for thousand.

"M" was originally an abbreviation for "mille," which is French for "thousand" (by way of Latin origins). Traditionally speaking, one "M" means thousand, and "MM" means thousand-thousand, or million.

Example:

[http://blog.accountingcoach.com/what-does-m-and-mm-stand- for...](http://blog.accountingcoach.com/what-does-m-and-mm-stand-for/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> And this might get worse because population is increasing so rapidly.

</comment><comment><USER48> Checkout this crazy theory:

[http://thecommonsenseshow.com/2013/03/16/the-mother-of- all-c...](http://thecommonsenseshow.com/2013/03/16/the-mother-of-all- conspiracies-pt-7/)

</comment><comment><USER49> Acidic loving species rejoice!

</comment><comment><USER50> The sun is going to burn out some day. When that happens, no one will care about ocean acidity.

</comment><comment><USER51> I think radioactive garbages in Pacific ocean from Fukushima would do better job.

<comment><USER52> Are you high? What does radioactivity from Fukushima have to do with ocean acidification?

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Kind of off-topic: if ocean temperatures are increasing, isn't this the same thing as the ocean having more potential energy? If energy generation from waves was increased substantially, would this cool the ocean or act as a dampener against the earth's rotation? Perhaps both?

<comment><USER54> Heat, ocean waves and the earth's rotation are so many orders of magnitude apart in terms of frequency that a machine designed to dampen one could not possibly have an effect on the others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> While I recognise this question might be abrasive, I feel compelled to ask it.

Why does this belong on Hacker News?

This isn't technology. This isn't legal news (i.e. software patents). This is in no way related to _Hacker_ News. I have no problem with interesting articles being upvoted, but I feel we need a place to put these or a tagging system similar to lobsters.

<comment><USER56> >This is in no way related to Hacker News

The vast majority of "show HN: my new disruptive pseudo-plagiarized wheel- reinventing RESTful scalable .js + go single-page site framework" or "_insert_valley_startup_here_ plans to revolutionize _trivial_consumer_SaaS_niche_" posts have little to do with actual hacking, either. Few complain about those.

Here we have a post that points out a _massive_ systemic problem we're facing as a species for which we have no current solution. Pretty sure we're in hacker territory. Much more so than in the case of the Yet-Another-Web- Framework or Disruptive-Instagram-For- Squirrels crap we normally get on the front page.</comment></comment>


Greatfire Wiki – GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/greatfire/wiki

<comment><AUTHOR> I shared this, because I think the issues section is worth reading. Apparently some sort of circumvention going on, as Github.com is not blocked by China's firewall

[https://github.com/greatfire/wiki/issues](https://github.com/greatfire/wiki/issues)</comment>


Ask HN: How do you help your team "level up"? - <AUTHOR> I'm the lead software engineer at a company with about 10 other software engineers. Part of my job is coaching them on technical matters.
We organize biweekly talks about various technical subjects. And while these are fun to do, I'm not entirely sure that this approach will scale as the company grows.
How do other lead engineers help their team grow their skills?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> I help them by bringing forth best practices. What is the state the project should be in? How do you get it there? How is logging, metrics, alerting, ci/cd (roll out and role back), tracing, performance monitoring, system level testing, unit testing, etc. Is there application state that can be removed? Can code reviews be improved? Auto remediation on alerting? Techniques for better project management. Maybe there are new packages or libraries that the team should investigate. Give projects to team members that require them to grow a bit, including presenting knowledge gains to others. There are few teams and projects where that is all perfect.

</comment><comment><USER3> Secure a member budget for online classes (e.g. Coursera), conferences and books. Have them do presentations on various subjects related to their craft (new things they've learned, new frameworks), add standards (coding, testing, linters, etc.) to the team's workflow, send them to conferences and have them do presentations on what they learned and how could help the team grow, etc. Voice your concerns, ask them to participate. Remember that ppl have difference backgrounds and learn in many different ways.

NOTE: None of the above should be done if the employers free time, except from the Coursera classes ofc which the company will have to pay if the team member agrees. A team needs to have at least some time per month spent in personal development, where you need to combine what everyone in the team likes with what is useful to the company/team. All the above needs to be decided on a team level, but as a leader you can drive the discussion.

</comment><comment><USER4> Personal growth is something you really have to do personally. In my team the developers are supposed to volunteer to work on stuff they have not worked with before.

We need to update our deployment pipeline and you have never worked with AWS before? Go for it!

Once they do, you can always do a bit of pair programming, but nothing really helps you grow more than the hands-on experience.

</comment><comment><USER5> A few thoughts, as a CTO with a small team:

\- not everyone needs the same leveling up, and it's not always technical. I coach one of my junior dev on improving his code, another one in being more confident of her skills. My lead dev is solid on code but doesn't always take into account the business perspective (i.e. in which context the code will be used, how often, etc)

\- my main method of coaching is to ask a lot of questions. How do you plan to implement this feature? Why this way? What'll happen when <edge case>? Why did you choose this architecture? Have you thought of <situation that'll result in a bug with the current implementation>? Whenever possible, I don't say how it should be done but try to bring them around to figuring it themselves. It's not (always) leading questions, either. I'm not cross-interrogating them, just trying to understand what they did and why

\- closely related to above, I let them make their own mistakes. Rather than try to convince someone that their approach won't work (if the round of questions isn't enough to clarify this), I let them go ahead. They either figure out on their own that they made a mistake (and then they're open to discussing alternative solutions), or when the code has become complex enough I ask them to demonstrate a few corner cases. When those fail, sometimes hilariously, we can go back to the design phase. I try to balance how long to let them flounder between "long enough that they learn something" and "not so long that they bear a grudge for being played"

\- refactoring their own code (for junior devs). I ask them to come back to a piece of code they wrote mostly on their own, a few months after they've worked on it (e.g. something they did as an intern, or one of their first projects). Can you figure out what your code is doing? Hmm, guess some comments and clear method names would come in handy now! How would you do things differently in hindsight? How would you reorganize your code? Once the code is refactored, a before/after comparison to highlight how much better the new code is.

\- I'll sometimes point someone to books or articles and ask them to read it, when I want to make a specific point. E.g. I asked a dev who wrote some very stateful js (lots of methods without a return value would would manipulate global variables in weird ways) to read _Learn You a Haskell for Great Good_ to get him to think about side-effects and how to avoid them when possible.

\- I haven't done this yet, but I thought about a team code advent where everyone would solve the same problem in the same language, and we would compare solutions. This implies setting out some time each day for everyone in the team to work on the problem, so needs a little bit of planning and finding the right time.

I realize that most of these ideas are time consuming, both for me and for the developer. It would be much faster to just tell them how things should be done (at least how I want them to be done), or to point out the mistakes as I see them unfold. But I believe that teaching a man to fish is a much better long- term solution than giving him a fish every day.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think one of the most valuable things a team can do to grow each other's skill is to practice good code review.</comment>


How not to run a ticketing website - <AUTHOR>

This weekend, I had the misfortune of attending Bloc Weekend, a music festival in London that was shut-down by police due to overcrowding (http://www.thecmuwebsite.com/article/bloc-weekend-shut-down-amidst-over-crowding/).
The ticket vendor, ironically named CrowdSurge, are wiping their hands clean of the incident:
"Upon release of any further information from Baselogic, in particular the refund process for which they are solely responsible, we will contact you again."
The really interesting bit for me is that there were obvious problems with the ticketing system with the barcodes not being scanned correctly, I saw numerous people experiencing this.
I had 3 tickets, each sent to me via email. The ticket contains a barcode, which was scanned at the door. Allow me to present the HTML from the ticket below, in all it's secure glory:
http://crowdsurge.com/et-TicketBarcodeBig.php?code=862484 http://crowdsurge.com/et-TicketBarcodeBig.php?code=862483 http://crowdsurge.com/et-TicketBarcodeBig.php?code=862482
Now I'm not saying that CrowdSurge are solely responsible for what happened at the event, but as you can plainly see above, it's not very difficult at all to fake a ticket. Buy one, you'll have the numeric sequence, print numerous, arrive early, you're in.
Obviously the barcode image URLs need to be protected by unguessable ids with some sort of brute-force velocity checking, not just a URL that you can pass any number into and get a valid barcode in return.
The really unfortunate thing here is that CrowdSurge are a startup trying to disrupt the industry, but surely they have to get their technology a whole lot smarter than this if they want any skin in the game. <comment><USER2> Well, let's be fair -- while the ticketing system is obviously rubbish and tickets can be spoofed, there are other organizational issues that were present. The article talks about on-site staff letting in anyone with a ticket, and that the wrong wristbands were given out, just to name a few of the issues.

It's bloody hard to run an event. I've done it for hundreds, and it isn't pretty. 15,000 is a lot, and if you don't have operational experience or a great ops plan, things get very bad very quickly.

So again, while the ticketing is a problem, the other issues would still be present had they used EventBrite or Ticketfly for their ticketing solution.

<comment><USER3> Tech problems are often the favoured problem space of HN'ers but in this case it seemed that staff training and logistics played just as much if not more of a hand in this failure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My comment on this:

[http://www.crowdsurge.com/et- TicketBarcodeBig.php?code=wowth...](http://www.crowdsurge.com/et- TicketBarcodeBig.php?code=wowthisisacrappysystem)

<comment><USER5> [http://www.crowdsurge.com/et- TicketBarcodeBig.php?code=icant...](http://www.crowdsurge.com/et- TicketBarcodeBig.php?code=icantbelievetheydontevenchecktomakesureitsnotaridiculousvalue)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Isn't a barcode easy to generate anyway without the provided URL? I could just make my own software to create the barcodes. A better system of verification would be perhaps matching the barcode ID to the name on the ticket when it's scanned (this data retrieved from a central database).

<comment><USER7> A barcode is just encoding a number. Creating a barcode is obviously easy, finding a valid number is supposed to be the hard part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was there too and don't believe that the problem was with the ticketing system. They overestimated the maximum capacity. The Swamp 81/Numbers stage was massively popular and had a max capacity of 700... for an event with 15,000 attendees.

</comment><comment><USER9> Well, they surely disrupted that concert.

</comment><comment><USER10> Oh the irony of the event being shut down for overcrowding, when the company is called crowdsurge

</comment><comment><USER11> For just £15 you can take them to small claims court if you're refused a refund, I'm not sure if you should be pursuing CrowdSurge (who are clearly inept) or the concert organiser. Either way, don't settle for less than your money back.

</comment><comment><USER12> You say that the barcode was scanned at the door, and still think you could get all your friends inside using the same ticket?

And how do you know any barcode you get from that website is a valid barcode? It's just a barcode, you can make one in Word if you have the right font..

Edit: Of course, having the ticket codes after eachother like that without any form of security check makes it a bad ticket system, but it doesn't necessarily lead to an overcrowded concert, just a lot of unhappy customers.

</comment><comment><USER13> A couple of friends of mine were planning on going to Bloc on the Saturday night. They didn't even get near the venue, and I was online immediately trying to piece together the story of what happened. Some reactions from people on Facebook: <http://twitpic.com/a4pei0/full>

Another nail in the coffin for British festivals. Sad.

</comment><comment><USER14> The numbering is really the issue, the barcode printing via a URL is no big deal. The barcode should be encoding a secret number, not just encoding some sequential number in a semi-secretive way.

</comment><comment><USER15> With a barcode that horribly long, wouldn't they have been better going with a QR code for reliability?

</comment><comment><USER16> Iterating the # gets another barcode, this is poor.

</comment><comment><USER6> Did you report this issue to CrowdSurge?

If you tell them, then they'll probably come up with a solution, and in the process you would be helping a startup.</comment>


Invite HN - Boston meetup: Harvest Party October 25th - <AUTHOR> http://anyvite.com/events/home/5fqnculmmv

<comment><AUTHOR> We've learned so much more here than we could ever give back. Hopefully this is just some small way to say thanks! We'd love to meet as many of you as possible.

<comment><USER2> I know exactly where you're talking about - it's BEAUTIFUL out there. I love Lincoln, I worked out there for 4+ years and it's a wonderful place. I'd encourage folks to go for the scenery alone!

Is the software you're working on Knowhi? It's not clear from the event posting, I'm just assuming from your profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes and yes! :)</comment></comment></comment>


Upcoming Firefox Support Changes (dropping Win2K, XP RTM, XP SP1) - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.com/futurereleases/2012/03/23/upcoming-firefox-support-changes/ <comment><USER2> ... but this support change allows us to significantly improve Firefox performance on Windows by using a more modern build system.

Does anyone have any info on the new build system? Last I checked they still used make which is installed via the mozilla tools.

<comment><USER3> Apparently the big change is to use Visual Studio 2010 for the Windows builds.

[http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2012/01/end- of-f...](http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2012/01/end-of-firefox- win2k.html)

<comment><USER4> In particular, the current version of Firefox kept struggling to link within a 4GB address space. Hence the comments about "having had to back out and ultimately delay some important new features like SPDY": nothing about SPDY itself, but it happened to push the link above 4GB and cause builds to fail, so it got temporarily dropped.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder why they don't apply [http://tedwvc.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/how-to- get-visual-c-2...](http://tedwvc.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/how-to-get- visual-c-2010-mfc-applications-to-run-on-windows-2000/) to fix it and keep it runable on Windows 2000, even though Uniscribe might still show some bugs with Arabic text, etc.

</comment><comment><USER6> See also: [http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2012/03/the- end-...](http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2012/03/the-end-of- support-f.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> > _In the years since Firefox 3.6, we've make incredible improvements to > Firefox, including . . . Firefox Sync_

This is off-topic, but Firefox Sync screwed up my bookmarks on more than one occasion. Nowadays, most of my 5K+ bookmarks have taken refuge in Pinboard, but Firefox 11 with Sync enabled still occasionally loses, duplicates, or randomly reorders the handful of local bookmarks that remain. People used to complain about this when Sync was first released as an add-on to Firefox 3.6. They still haven't fixed it!

Overall speed and reliability, on the other hand, has improved beyond recognition. Maybe I should thank Chrome for nudging Firefox to improve.

<comment><USER8> _People used to complain about this when Sync was first released as an add-on to Firefox 3.6. They still haven't fixed it!_

I did a cursory search on Mozilla's Bugzilla and did not find any bugs with this issue involving a recent version of Firefox. Have you filed a bug (or voted on an existing bug) about your issue?

<comment><USER7> Similar issues with bookmark synchronization have been raised over and over by many people, on various versions of FF ranging from 3.6 to 9.x, on various platforms (including mobile), all with inconclusive results: see bugs 721635, 718154, 627830, 622588, etc.

I wish I could contribute some definitive bug report, but it's really difficult to reproduce the strange behavior and I often don't find out until several days or even weeks later, by which time the logs are gone.

Unfortunately, the addons.mozilla.org thread where a lot of people reported the same behavior seems to have been deleted when the Sync add-on for FF3.6 was removed.

<comment><USER8> _Similar issues with bookmark synchronization have been raised over and over by many people, on various versions of FF ranging from 3.6 to 9.x, on various platforms_

Of the bugs you mentioned, only one of them [1] involves a desktop version of Firefox later than 3.6.3. The reporter there is also syncing with his Android phone and an iOS device. The developers who responded suggest that it might have to do with the Android Sync implementation.

 _...when the Sync add-on for FF3.6 was removed._

The aforementioned bug notes [2]:

 _Most of the issues with bookmark sync occur as a result of using the old Firefox Sync add-on and not the version of Sync bundled with Firefox itself._

This would seem to be confirmation that the old Sync addon had issues, but that they should now be fixed. The fact that the majority of reported bugs involving Sync involve Firefox 3.6.3 (or are resolved, like some of the bugs you mention), and that there are none that I can fix involve versions 10 or 11, do not support your assertion that Sync has issues with bookmark sync that "still haven't been fixed."

I understand you want to create a "definitive" report, but it would be good to still go ahead and create a bug about your issue (where actual Sync developers could help you debug it), instead of complaining about it on Hacker News.

[1]: <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=721635>

[2]: <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=721635#c3></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Michael Crichton, Science Studies, and the Technothriller (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://histscifi.com/essays/radin/technothriller <comment><USER2> I highly recommend Michael Crichton's autobiography, 'Travels'. It chronicles his time beginning in med school, where he began writing on a whim, to his post-fame struggles. Time periods are framed in short stories that are entertaining and thought provoking. I never would have guessed he even had an autobiography and now I find myself reading it once a year.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sometimes all it takes is one novel to lose _all_ respect for an author and any pretence about their relationship to science. One that's not mentioned in this article. State of Fear, which had the added bonus of being a novel with dozens of charts and graphs and incredibly heavy going. He should have stuck with the sillier stuff.

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

<comment><USER4> I loved the book, but I utterly repudiate his denialist position espoused in it. It feels to me like loving Ian Fleming but abhoring the sexism inherent in James bond. Michael Chrichton wrote pot-boiler thrillers really well and to relax on a long flight I still read them, including this one but the climate denialism is a royal pain.

<comment><USER3> I enjoyed the likes of Jurassic Park, Timeline, The First Great Train Robbery hugely. Found State of Fear too much like hard work.

I think I might be similarly disappointed with Fleming if he had held a well publicised stance about equality and women's rights through his career, and _then_ put out James Bond. Course the Bond movies were very different to the books.

<comment><USER5> You should definitely read Sphere and Prey if you haven't!

Also avoid the Timeline movie at all costs unless you are trapped on a flight.

<comment><USER4> I rather liked the timeline book, but it's juvenalia. I liked his reasoned (if entirely hypothetical) comments about the mistakes we make visualising the past as white, because we see whitewashed walls, when they were probably as polychromatic as they could be in the circumstances. And I liked his characterisation of the poor as probably predating everyone they could, not some robin-hood fantasy of nice people waiting for gifts of food. But the whole quantum foam and nasty scientist at home angle was just trashy. Geniuses like this don't rise to the top of corporations. Oh wait.. hang on...

<comment><USER5> I did like the Timeline book as well, but I read it at around 13.

It did really change a lot of images I had of the period though. One thing that sticks out in my memory was a comment on how much distance the average serf could cover in a day from walking since it was their only mode of transportation.

The movie, though, is just completely middling. It's not bad enough to be fun but not good enough to be exciting. I watched it on a plane, which adds two points to any score I would give a movie, but if I was at home I would have probably turned it off after 45 minutes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have trouble taking Michael Crichton's stories seriously partly because of his odd obsession with theme parks.

In Westworld, androids indistinguishable from humans are used for an amusement park. In Jurassic Park, it's engineering of fossil DNA to recreate dinosaurs that is used for a theme park and in Timeline, if I recall correctly, the first idea of a billionaire who manages to develop time-travelling technology is to use it to open a medieval theme park.

Given any of those technology, I think this kind of use would lie pretty low on the list of either interesting or profitable things to do...

<comment><USER7> Among his 25+ fiction books plus screenplays, Crichton wrote just two books (Jurassic Park, The Lost World) and one screenplay (Westworld) about theme parks. Not sure how that's an obsession, especially he had to be talked into writing The Lost World by Steven Spielberg, who wanted source material for a sequel movie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Andromeda Strain is amazing and is one of my favourite books.

</comment><comment><USER9> Another overlooked work of Crichton's is his screenplay for _Looker_ , which covers and pretty much predicts our media-obsessed society. Oh, and synthetic humans replacing live ones on TV.

</comment><comment><USER10> I had to read a Michael Chrichton novel called 'Timeline' for a college course once. Its insulting to have been raised in a society which perceives this author with so much cachet ... Calling his writing 'not good' is ... overly generous.

<comment><USER11> I haven't read it, but enjoyed The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park. Perhaps I have no taste. What's so bad about his writing?

<comment><USER12> I never read the book but the 1971 Andromeda Strain movie is still one of my favorite moves.

[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066769/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066769/)</comment></comment></comment>


Solving FizzBuzz with CSS - <AUTHOR> http://dabblet.com/gist/2628265

<comment><USER2> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe you need any of the :not statements, and instead or (3n) and (5n) you can just use 15n for the 'fizzbuzz'.

The cascade of the CSS will take care of the cases the div is a 'fizzbuzz'.

Sorry I can't post the example, Dabblet is working strangely for me this morning.

CSS that should work:

      /**
       * FizzBuzz with CSS
       */

      body {
      	counter-reset: fizzbuzz;
      }

      div {
      	width: 100px;
      	height: 20px;
      	background: #ddd;
      	margin: 0 0 10px;
      }

      div::after {
      	content: counter(fizzbuzz);
      	counter-increment: fizzbuzz;
      }

      div:nth-child(3n)::after {
      	content: "fizz";
      }

      div:nth-child(5n)::after {
      	content: "buzz";
      }

      div:nth-child(15n)::after {
      	content: "fizzbuzz";
      }

<comment><USER3> This should also work:

div:nth-child(3n):after { content: ""; }

div:nth-child(3n):before { content: "fizz"; }

div:nth-child(5n):after { content: "buzz"; }

<comment><USER2> I retract my answer in favor of this. Clever.

<comment><USER4> I think your answer is a lot more readable, though. I have to squint at jontro's version for a while before determining that it'll actually product the string "fizzbuzz".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Heh... how this looks in IE 8: <http://i.stack.imgur.com/Fz3jT.png>

<comment><USER6> To be fair, isn't that what most sites look like in IE8?

<comment><USER7> hahah win.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> No rest until CSS is Turing complete.

<comment><USER9> You mean like this CSS-implementation of Rule 110? <http://eli.fox- epste.in/rule110-full.html>

<comment><USER10> For those who tried this in Chrome, like me, it won't work :(

Try it in Firefox instead.

<comment><USER11> Worked fine for me.

<comment><USER12> ditto

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Goes to show how many (greatly needed) programmatic features CSS is adding. Also shows that some people love a creative way to attack a problem.

<comment><USER14> As God is my witness, CSS will need to be split into a presentation language and a logic language. /s

<comment><USER15> You know, that's not such an outlandish claim. CSS is accumulating features that seem to me completely out of place in a styling language. Then again, HTML isn't perfect, nor JavaScript, nor PHP or any language—but we still get stuff done with them, so who am I to complain?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is this some regional drinking game? Like Three-Man?</comment>


Chinese Billionaire Building $300M Cryptocurrency Hub in Hartford, CT - <AUTHOR> https://cryptodisrupt.com/chinese-billionaire-building-300-million-cryptocurrency-hub <comment><USER2> If anyone else is having troubles accessing this link here's an alternative one:

[https://www.businessinsider.sg/fintech-college-being- built-2...](https://www.businessinsider.sg/fintech-college-being- built-2018-7/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Things are looking up for New England's rising star!

<comment><USER4> Do they actually still call it that?

I recall thinking that was a terrible slogan 20+ years ago. At some point, it's not that the star you see is rising--it's a distant headlight on high beams to make up for the other one being busted.

<comment><USER3> I don't know really. My wife, who is from the region, is the only person I've heard call it that now that I think about it. I find it amusing though so now I do too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great! I love to see new research centers, especially in the US. My company has my office in the university research park at UIUC (Urbana/Champaign Illinois). A great environment for innovation, supporting startups and entrepreneurs, etc.

I have been an working in AI since the 1980s and I am just becoming interested in blockchain (I can recommend the edX blockchain classes).

Hartford is an interesting location to choose. I think cost of living is reasonable there and it is only 1+ hours from Boston and not so far from NYC.

</comment><comment><USER6> For those reading headlines, at first I thought this was a $300 million mining operation, and was wondering how Hartford CT was a competitive power supply.

Actually this idea is crypto-focused college campus, research park, and coworking spaces.

</comment><comment><USER7> Make it $250M.... $200M... $700M... $3M... GONE :P With the crypto market cap down 70% since January (and general interest with it) they better hurry. Even entrenched players in the crypto space are moving into traditional assets. Makes me wonder if they're not just trying to move money out of the mainland.

<comment><USER8> Money. Laundering. Bitcoin lets one convert power bills paid with renminbi into cryptos sellable for hard currency. Switching up the crypto makes it look less suspicious.

<comment><USER9> Never mind RMB. The same can be done with dollars. Why does your building use so much power? Must be those cloud computers. Oh, not very profitable? That's technology...

<comment><USER10> Because (1) China subsidizes power production but (2) enforces currency controls. Bitcoin conveniently allows you to arbitrage the power subsidies and circumvent the currency controls in a single scheme.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cars, chickens and a distracted Android Colonel - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnDK17zP9BI

<comment><AUTHOR> What could go wrong?

Explaining the audio latency problem and the current need for larger buffer sizes.</comment>


General and Fractional Hypertree Decompositions: Hard and Easy Cases (2016) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.01090 <comment><USER2> Some new database technologies released this year on Github are starting to explore new ideas along these lines including

[https://github.com/attic-labs/noms](https://github.com/attic-labs/noms)

Which is using the concept of Prolly Trees

[https://github.com/attic- labs/noms/blob/master/doc/intro.md#...](https://github.com/attic- labs/noms/blob/master/doc/intro.md#prolly-trees-probabilistic-b-trees)

Which are Probabilistic B-Trees...

</comment><comment><USER3> Great post, but you don't need the year (it's from this Nov.), and since you link to the abstract on arXiv (thanks!) you can skip the pdf-tag as well.</comment>


The Secret History of the Plot Against Gawker - shaki-dora https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/hogan-thiel-gawker-trial/554132/?utm_source=feed&single_page=true <comment><AUTHOR> This is not about a billionaire who silenced a publication that did proper journalism. By proper, I mean following the law. NYT fields many lawsuits from the powerful, but their existence isn't under threat because the law is on their side

If you consistently and knowingly break the law, billionaire or not, truth has a funny way of winning. Case in point - "the news of the world". Theil being a billionaire only accelerated the eventuality</comment>


Dear recruiters: Please treat me like a person, not a diversity stat - <AUTHOR> https://www.lever.co/inside/dear-recruiters-please-treat-me-like-a-person-not-a-diversity-stat <comment><AUTHOR> Lever started as part of YC Summer 2012. From the early days we've building a company that earnestly values diversity and inclusion. As one of our founders, I'm so proud of the authenticity of this post!</comment>


Snowbrawl [video] - <AUTHOR> https://kottke.org/19/12/snowbrawl <comment><USER2> Apple has a short 'making of' video here, too: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAJwbyu-2mE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAJwbyu-2mE)

I think it's interesting to note that for the majority of these 'shot on iPhone' videos, there are likely hundreds of thousands of dollars of production work and accessories provided, including:

      - Production staff and crew
      - Location scouts / grips / etc
      - Stabilization gear / gimbals
      - Video monitors and edit stations

It is nice to know that 'the camera you have with you' is of high enough quality to get decent 4K footage, but that has been the case (well, at least with 1080p) for the past few years. What makes videos like this _watchable_ is the creative minds, the crew, and everything else you don't see in the final frame (well, besides the talented individuals doing the stunts and blasting each other with snow).

I don't want to be negative, but it's kind of like saying "you can build a competent Kubernetes cluster with Raspberry Pis". Sure, you can (and I maintain one—see www.pidramble.com). But the Pi is nowhere near a professional tool that makes it _easy_ and as painless as actual purpose-built tooling.

And if you're talking about having small cameras that can mount anywhere, something akin to a GoPro is even better suited for this purpose than your $1,000+ phone, which you also want to make sure is available for browsing HN later in the day (and wasn't crushed by a gnarly smash into a tree, then doused in melted snow).

<comment><USER3> I feel like you're missing what 'shot on iPhone' is trying to convey. The point of the campaign is that the iPhone camera is good enough to be used in a professional shoot, not that it automatically makes high production-value commercials on its own. A RED camera would be 'purpose-built tooling' but would still require all the same production as using the iPhone camera.

<comment><USER2> My point is that almost all consumer cameras these days are good enough to be used in a professional shoot—GoPro, heck even cheap consumer point-and-shoot cameras from Nikon or Canon can produce the same (or usually better) images, and are much cheaper than an iPhone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Snowflakes are usually hard to capture. Most of the time very snowy scenes in photos or movies have some sort of post production or visual effects that either adds them or enhances them. Does iPhone render them differently in post processing or was this done in post production editing?

</comment><comment><USER5> Looks cool. Does anyone know if the compression artifacts are from the camera or youtube?

<comment><USER2> YouTube, mostly; if you've ever watched SloMoGuys videos where they do things like explode paint or liquid things, you can watch the YT compression algorithm go bananas.

It's not tuned for tons of small details moving erratically, and it shows whenever there's rain, snow, fire, things like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well, not the "highest quality", according to DXOMARK [0]!

[0]: [https://www.dxomark.com/](https://www.dxomark.com/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Here's the direct link to the video:

[https://youtu.be/cM8DcCoZulw](https://youtu.be/cM8DcCoZulw)

</comment><comment><USER8> Why does it have Verizon's logo at the end? That's the first time I've seen another logo on an Apple advertisement.

<comment><USER9> They paid for it. Just like broadcast Apple-produced iPhone ads are co-branded with some regionally-appropriate service provider.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Haha that was great. That young lady is a future action star.</comment>


SFTP Direct to Digital Ocean, AWS, Azure and Other Cloud Storage - <AUTHOR> https://couchdrop.io/sftp <comment><USER2> Nice service! Neat and quick way to get things to and from my S3 bucket</comment>


All about whiteboard markers - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/graphicfacilitation/all-you-need-to-know-about-whiteboard-markers-2a25d1249911 <comment><USER2> This is without a doubt, the strangest, most well researched article I've ever seen on Hacker News.

I've mostly used Expo markers and it was weird skimming this because I felt like I had some weird brand allegiance, even though I have no reason to really care much about markers.

<comment><USER3> Same for me. I was looking at my huge collection of Expo markers going "Yeah Expo!"...which makes no sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If anyone is interested, here's how you can build your own 8 foot by 4 foot whiteboard for about $15 (they normally cost around $200):

[https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/build-your-own-8x4-foot- white...](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/build-your-own-8x4-foot-whiteboard- for-15-dollars-instead-of-200)

I've been using Expo markers for a long time. They rock.

<comment><USER5> Can confirm it works well. I even found some 1/8 trim plastic (also at Home Depot, don't recall the section, think it was flooring or where they have molding for walls). Slipped right over the edges and cut at an angle for corners it looks pretty professional.

Only downside is I left a DB schema on the board for months and now can't get it off. Probably there is a solvent that would do it but haven't really looked yet. That might be a problem with regular whiteboards also though.

<comment><USER6> Try going over the image with a fresh marker. My daughter figured out that you can then easily erase the image.

<comment><USER7> That technique is also quite effective for removing permanent marker from a whiteboard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Was on a review visit to Princeton with about 12 other people from various colleges and universities. We saw that Princeton was installing boards, I assumed it was whiteboards. I said just now installing whiteboards? No we are replacing all the white boards with chalk boards, because evn Princeton Professors can't tell the difference between a Sharpie and a Dry Erase marker.

Everyone in my group stated laughing and I just thought as the guy in charge of classroom equipment, hmm how can we get rid of these $5,000 document readers at my school no on can figure them out.

<comment><USER9> Do you mean things like [1]? That's my university, which was using them 12 years ago while I attended.

It's a high resolution camera pointing straight down at an evenly-lit sheet of ordinary A3 paper.

The "board" (the projector screen) was at a height that everyone could see. The lecturer could write with whatever pens they wanted; could continue from the previous lecture easily; could look forwards at the students rather than having their back to the class. They could show a page from a book, or bits of a robot or circuit board. There was no chalk dust, no marker smell, no dirty boards, no worn-out faint markers, no mistakes with permanent markers.

No-one ever had trouble using it. Most rooms had two projectors, and the touchscreen on the right selected an input for each projector (desktop computer, laptop, DVD player, visualiser etc).

[1] [http://www.imperial.ac.uk/ImageCropToolT4/imageTool/uploaded...](http://www.imperial.ac.uk/ImageCropToolT4/imageTool/uploaded- images/charingcross-brian-01--tojpeg_1448987676485_x2.jpg) or [http://www.imperial.ac.uk/events-and- hospitality/venues/char...](http://www.imperial.ac.uk/events-and- hospitality/venues/charingcross/)

Presumably this is the manufacturer: [https://elmoeurope.com/product- category/visualiser/](https://elmoeurope.com/product-category/visualiser/)

<comment><USER8> Yes but ours were Wolfvision.

The reason why I wanted to get rid of them was A) The professors would try to fold them down and pull and break the arms and the damage the table. B) They ended up eating a ton of my equipment budget.

For some reason the staff as a whole decided that it was ridiculous the college spent so much on the equipment (Up to $100,000 per large classroom) and revolted on touching anything because they didn't want to be responsible for damaging them. No one on my staff ever threatened anyone nor did the administration. After a few years I left but man the document reader was always the drama point. When I was in the classroom teaching I would go out of my way to use them all the tim.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Fun fact: You can use a dry erase marker to erase the writing of a permanent marker. Assuming a smooth surface, scribble the dry erase marker over the permanent mark and erase.

<comment><USER11> Spray deodorant also does the trick

<comment><USER12> Any organic solvent will do it. Acetone is ideal, in a metalworking shop Sharpie marks are constantly being cleaned off metal using acetone.

<comment><USER13> I hate recommending acetone flippantly. Sure, it will definitely take it off, but I'd bet that for a lot of the whiteboards in use today it would also take off the surface of the whiteboard. I do love acetone but it's my solvent of last resort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Expo and Sharpie go next. They are OK to hold and work. But ladies might > find their caps a bit challenging to attach/disattach — it really takes some > physical effort.

Can't speak to the Sharpies, but Expo caps require a completely uncommentworthy level of effort to remove. \- lady with Expos

<comment><USER15> I don't know about other brands, but the juvenile in me loves how the expo caps stack on to each other to make swords/what have you

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I actually prefer markers with a smell, and wholeheartedly disagree with its placement in the "cons" as part of an evaluation criteria. I'm also sure that I am not alone in the enjoyment of the olfactory sensations such markers provide, there are probably dozens of us who feel the same.

<comment><USER17> Whiteboards are usually used for collaboration, and your coworkers or candidates can't really "opt out" of a smell, so it does make sense to be thoughtful about this (some people have strong aversions)

<comment><USER18> Thanks for being thoughtful. The smell bothers me so much that I removed the whiteboard from the wall of my office so that visitors couldn't write on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I prefer chalkboards so much more.

Reason #1: You can tell how much chalk is left.

Reason #2: Not filling up landfills with plastic.

<comment><USER20> I HATE chalkboards. I hate the feeling of chalk on my hand, I hate the sound chalk makes on a chalkboard, I hate the chalk dust, I hate the feel of chalkboards themselves.

<comment><USER21> I am on the opposite side of your spectrum. Serious question: Are there any bad experiences from school that you might associate with chalk and chalk boards?

The only thing I hated was to clean the board, if the sponge was old and stinky. But I always liked the idea that chalk is so simple. There is always this feeling of guilt when I have to use a whiteboard, because of the eco balance.

<comment><USER22> Mining and shipping chalk isn't environmentally free either.

<comment><USER23> Virtually no consumption of any kind is environmentally free. But some things are less costly than others (like chalk is to plastic)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm surprised Velleda doesn't get a single mention. They were* synonymous with whiteboard markers here in Spain. Quality and durability were very high. The smell was strong but I liked it much more than other markers.

I can barely find any information about it before it belonged to Bic. It used to have the brand "Conté".

* and still are, making it even more difficult to find information.

</comment><comment><USER25> Is there something off about those photos, or are all those "green"s very cyan?

<comment><USER26> Good point, not sure what to make of that. Given the nightmare that is color management, hard for me to guess what went wrong.

<comment><USER27> If I had to guess, then maybe something to do with the poor spectrum of the office lights (fluorescent?) that combined with narrow enough spectral response of the camera sensor make the curious effect. I think it is interesting how uniformly cyan the greens are, suggesting maybe that they are based on a similar dye?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Its amazing what HN can do for you. I have never cared about whiteboard markers but just spent 20 minutes reading about the differences and then looking on amazon to see what the price differences are.

</comment><comment><USER29> Time for some heresy... I just do not understand the obsession with whiteboards that seems to be almost a requirement among programmers and software engineers. I've probably used a whiteboard by choice two or three times in the last ten years. They are terrible; I'd much rather scrawl on a regular sheet of paper, if it's throw-away stuff, or fire up Visio if it's something worth keeping.

<comment><USER30> My working assumption is that it makes a certain type of person feel like they're doing Real Academic Stuff, and not just showing off that they can remember syntax without an IDE highlighting their screwups.

(full disclosure: I cannot remember syntax without an IDE highlighting my screwups)

<comment><USER31> I'm at a workplace where 5 of our walls have been coated into being white boards. We also have a couple of whiteboards on wheels. We don't write code on whiteboards. Instead, we tend to write: data diagrams, UI mock up discussions, project planning, month end acknowledgements, scrum board notes / grids, brain storming (often in meetings), retro columns of good/bad/ugly, announcements to the office like new wifi password or when people are away

Recently we started a new project. I worked out a database schema around the concept of an Entity Component System. You have an Entity table with a primary id column & nothing else, & no other table has a primary key. I scribbled out some tables manually & was able to demonstrate the flexibility this enables to the team

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> the most important thing is to have a huge stock of whiteboard markers, like 40 of them, and order more when it gets down to 20. much time is wasted searching for good whiteboard markers. bad markers add mental overhead of deciphering faint lines when the material presented is already challenging. chalk has neither problem.

<comment><USER33> I would take either of those downsides over the sound of chalk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Am I the only one that finds the caps on Expo markers tear the tip apart after a few dozen open/close cycles?

A brand new Expo marker is a joy, but a month-old one tends to be a piece of shit.

<comment><USER35> I use them for months without that ever happening, and I'm very particular about capping them every single time I even pause for a short time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Side point: can I suggest we all throw away whiteboard markers that don't work any more? In my experience, people will just place them back in the tray and keep trying other markers until they find one that works. There is probably someone whose job it is to replace markers, but they would just replace missing ones rather than try every single one to see if they still work. So throwing away dead markers speeds up the process.

Or use refillable markers, of course.

<comment><USER37> JDB's Whiteboard Marker Org Health Metric: The ratio of dead whiteboard markers to working whiteboard markers at an organization is proportional to the health of the workplace culture.

Lots of dried out markers signal a workplace culture where people are too lazy to throw the markers out and replace them or where working markers are not available (possible money issues).

<comment><USER37> Corollary: if you are interviewing for a job and there are lots of dried out markers you may not want to work at the company.

<comment><USER38> Great, because the whole hiring process needed another voodoo variable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Got way too much pleasure from this! I use these all day. Will now never not think about this every time I pick one up.

</comment><comment><USER40> I feel it's necessary to post this equally obsessive companion piece about whiteboard cleaners:

[http://rumkin.com/reference/whiteboard/cleaners.php](http://rumkin.com/reference/whiteboard/cleaners.php)

<comment><USER41> I bought the MB10W cleaner on the recommendation of this article and have been very happy with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Somewhat validates my preferences, as well. Work seems to have both Staples- branded markers and Expo markers. I'll go for the Expo markers every time, primarily because the Staples ones don't erase well at all after being on the board for a few days.

</comment><comment><USER43> As a coworking space operator, I thank you for this treasure trove of whiteboard marker research.

</comment><comment><USER44> This is a great example of knowledge that should be on a webpage somewhere. I feel the Medium format is really limiting the presentation of the information.

</comment><comment><USER45> I've purchased markers from Dollar Tree. I wish he had compared to those. For my purpose they work and a hell lot cheaper.

<comment><USER46> I wish he included Amazon Basics markers, because in my experience they're garbage and I'd like some validation. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Quartet makes my favorite dry erase markers. I'm curious how they would have fared.

[https://smile.amazon.com/Quartet-Accessory-EnduraGlide- Assor...](https://smile.amazon.com/Quartet-Accessory-EnduraGlide- Assorted-5001M-5SK/dp/B0054TMPZU/)

</comment><comment><USER48> Slow day in the office?!

I use a roll of dry erase film for the walls of my lab. They stick to wall with static charge. I can keep pieces of work on the wall for reference for weeks by just moving them to out of reach areas. It does make me look a little mad...

</comment><comment><USER49> Found these to be a good and cheap whiteboards, have them all around the house for notes, reminders and brainstorming: [https://teslaamazing.com](https://teslaamazing.com)

</comment><comment><USER50> Are there best practices for clearing a whiteboard?

After a day with writing left on the board, I usually have to get a couple folks to help me scrub it down with Lysol wipes and dry that off with paper towels just to get it back to clean.

<comment><USER51> Water works fine. I have left things up on my white board for more than a _year_ , and I can get it off with water, paper towels, some grit and patience.

<comment><USER52> > some grit and patience.

I think the point is to avoid that when it is trivial to do so.

<comment><USER51> When water is readily available from multiple sources literally _on tap_ , I'll happily just use that.

<comment><USER52> That's totally fine.

But if using water requires "grit and patience", and this is something you do regularly, it's reasonable to want to replace "grit and patience" with a solvent.

<comment><USER51> Grit and patience is only required when I leave things up for a year. Which does happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Why would anyone want a grey marker?

<comment><USER52> To write with lower contrast. What you write in grey will (hopefully) blend into the background, allowing your mind to focus on the other colors.

This is a common tactic with text editors: drawing comments using a very low- contrast color.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> This is a beautiful thing.</comment>