Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44252327 <comment><USER2> I am reading through the complaints,

The first one: [https://noyb.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/complaint- android...](https://noyb.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/complaint-android.pdf)

The User sets up a "new" (non Google) phone, and isn't given an option to decline consent to Googles ToS.

Now how does this work with a physical product? It needs to be compliant on the 25th of May 2018, but the version of Android may be old and not updated (given its Android). Even if there was an update waiting to resolve GDPR related issues, you would need to agree to the ToS to get that update, to enable opt-out?

In that point of view, it seems a rather unfair complaint. I havn't checked the other's yet, but I start to feel that perhaps these have been filed too early, without enough thought and examination, just to get headlines?

<comment><USER3> I'm pretty sure that's incorrect at least today, it's possible to skip through the initial setup on a stock Android device without adding a Google account or accepting a ToS.

<comment><USER4> If there is, they don't make it obvious. Whenever I've tried setting up a stock Android phone, I've looked for a way to do so without adding a Google account, but found no such option.

Perhaps it's possible to do so by pressing or holding some obscure sequence of buttons, but in that case it is reasonable to argue that a 'hidden' option isn't really an option at all. After all, you can't hide microscopic text on a paper contract and expect signees to be bound by it.

There may be stock Android phones out there that do provide a clear option to not use a Google account, but there are certainly many phones that do not.

<comment><USER5> I am using a chinese noname Android phone without a Google Account. It is somewhat useable even without Internet connection and without SIM card. For example, I can use a camera, radio, music player, a dictionary or offline maps.

<comment><USER6> China gets your data now.

<comment><USER5> That's why I thought about either routing all traffic through my server or replacing proprietary ROM with open source software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > "The GDPR explicitly allows any data processing that is strictly necessary > for the service - but using the data additionally for advertisement or to > sell it on needs the users' free opt-in consent"

This is the key point. As the saying goes, on Facebook, you aren't the customer, you are the product.

The GDPR just changed this -- rightfully, in my opinion.

<comment><USER8> Somebody has to pay for it in the end, so Facebook could simply say "agree to targeted advertising and use the site for free or do not agree and pay a monthly fee for the site".

<comment><USER9> Sign me up!

The sad truth though is that the users who are most likely to pay to get rid of ads, are also the users that are most valuable to advertisers, because that's a signal they have more money to spend than the rest.

<comment><USER8> What if they say it's $20 a month? And it's just facebook. Google also asks for $20, Reddit too, etc.

It won't be cheap.

<comment><USER10> So you are stipulating an account worth is 240USD a year at facebook? Instead of 20, why won't you say 100, make it round.

Seriously though, behemoths do fall and if facebook ceases to exist there will be no harm but good in my book.

<comment><USER11> The number that's been kicked around for he value of North American user is about $50/year. So $5/month will cover it.

<comment><USER12> The problem is that even if I pay Facebook this company is so utterly untrustworthy that I don't believe for one second that they wouldn't run their data sucking shenanigans on paid accounts.

<comment><USER13> And that's why you want to have regulations. In the case you suggest, you could ask e.g. EFF if you suspected that they are abusing the contract, to sue FB in behalf of the users. Or even kick-start a big court case yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think Facebook's lawyers have determined that they can use the 'legitimate interest' basis for showing targeted ads to their users [0]. This basis does _not_ require consent from users except as part of the take-it-or-leave-it initial terms of service.

Here are the parts of the 'legitimate interest' basis which are most useful to Facebook:

 _The GDPR does not define what factors to take into account when deciding if your purpose is a legitimate interest. It could be as simple as it being legitimate to start up a new business activity, or to grow your business._

So Facebook's lawyers can simply say, "It's in our legitimate interest to maximise advertising revenue".

 _You need to demonstrate that the processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests you have identified. This doesn't mean that it has to be absolutely essential, but it must be a targeted and proportionate way of achieving your purpose._

Facebook's lawyers can say, "It is necessary for us to use personal information about our users, such as their age and location, in order to maximise our advertising revenue".

 _The GDPR is clear that the interests of the individual could in particular override your legitimate interests if you intend to process personal data in ways the individual does not reasonably expect._

Facebook's lawyers can say, "People expect that we use their personal information such as age and location to determine what ads to show them, so the interest of the user does not override our legitimate interest of maximising advertising revenue."

[0] [https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general- da...](https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data- protection-regulation-gdpr/legitimate-interests/what-is-the-legitimate- interests-basis/)

<comment><USER15> If companies successfully argue that maximising revenue is a legitimate interest and thus, don't need users consent, then the GPDR will worth less the paper it was written on.

I would be extremely surprised if the EU goes through all this tome, effort, and money just to let corporations continue with business as usual

<comment><USER16> Eu cookie law is one prior example of this. That worked out to "business as usual" in the end, didn't it?

<comment><USER17> Think of the GDPR as a bug-fix release to remove the loopholes those legal hackers used.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is the crux of the problems with how companies are interpreting the GDPR. Every service I've seen with a privacy policy pop up within the last 24 hours has basically justified all of their current data collecting practices as being necessary for their business. The spirit of the GDPR is to improve privacy, not just make Terms of Service pages longer.

<comment><USER19> Actually the spirit of GDPR is also to make Terms of Service shorter by being clear and understandable. If you as a user is unable to understand what you are agreeing to then it is a violation of GDPR.

<comment><USER20> > unable to understand

What if he is not very smart? Or even better, what if he is very dumb?

At which level should those be written then?

<comment><USER21> The literal text of the GDPR is as follows:

>the request for consent shall be presented in a manner which is clearly distinguishable from the other matters, in an intelligible and easily accessible form, using clear and plain language

<comment><USER20> Yes, and before that it says ` If the data subject's consent is given in the context of a written declaration which also concerns other matters,` which means i can use legalese but only if it does not concern other matters in the same document? :)

<comment><USER21> You'd hope not, but I also thought the phrasing in that sentence was sloppy.

<comment><USER20> that's the whole issue with the regulation unfortunately :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I am trying to think what the secondary consequences of GDPR are going to be.

If any user can see their data on any service than any government can quickly plug-in to access all user data on any service. This is like NSA Prism for everything.

If a user can export their data easily from any service, they can easily resell their own data for money to services that seek to monetize that data. They could even rent out their data by the day for model training using the right to delete.

Account takeovers by hackers will lead to much more severe data breaches, since all data on that user in the system is easily accessible.

The information apocalypse is made all that more easy because acount takeover + deep fakes + lyrebird plus all that easily accessible juicy data = impersonate anyone.

Data renting will create a way to monetize account takeover. The account takeover will include all possible information used to identify a person so how are the data brokers supposed to know it isn't you and how are you supposed to get your data back once it's out there getting monetized?

<comment><USER23> The option to monetize your own data is an amazing idea: a startup that pays you to upload the data you can download from your google, apple, facebook, BIGNAME account, basically renting it daily until you revoke consent, then uses it to do all sort of shit you can with it. You'll get hypeprofiled and harassed with all sorts of advertising, but you're actually getting real money for that.

<comment><USER24> The problem with that model is... how much money is a single profile worth, really?

I'd love to be proven wrong and for a company to implement this. But as far as I know, it's not being done because the math doesn't work out. It's too cheap for regular people to be interested, and an incentive for spamtech to mass create fake profiles and get paid pennies for it.

In fact, the one variant I am aware of that works is survey sites, but that's because you get paid _per result_ rather than for your data as a whole. If you're just renting your data daily, you'd get a lot less.

<comment><USER25> > The problem with that model is... how much money is a single profile worth, > really?

I remember some estimates, facebook profile with a few years of history is around 1$, a few profiles from different sites of the same person 5$.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Targeted advertising has become such a big deal, and implemented at such high cost, that I wonder if the trade off is even worth it now. I could imagine Apple or Samsung simply "sponsoring" Facebook for a week or month at a time with banners and messaging - tastefully done of course! - and how much less _hassle_ that would all be, rather than aggregating millions upon millions of cookies and chasing people around the internet, winding them up, etc.

Targeting ads for anonymous searches, fine: search for cars, see car adverts. Simple!

I'm sure there is plenty of data that shows how terrible this whole idea is in terms of wasted ad spend, missed opportunities, so it'll never happen, but it's a nice dream :-)

<comment><USER27> Targeted advertising has always seemed pretty dumb, to me most advertising is done by Coke and their target is every where.

<comment><USER28> > Targeted advertising has always seemed pretty dumb, to me most advertising > is done by Coke and their target is every where.

Doc Searls made a good point: targeted advertising _isn 't_ advertising, it's really _direct marketing_ (like spam and junk mail).

Coke is doing advertising, but the adtech "targeted" advertisers are just spamming you using new technology.

[https://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2018/05/12/gdpr/comment- page-1...](https://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2018/05/12/gdpr/comment-page-1/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > forcing people to accept wide-ranging data collection in exchange for using > a service is prohibited under GDPR

Erm... I don't think that's true.

As long as you are open and transparent about what you are doing, and give users the right to request, update and delete the data you hold on them, then AFAIK this is allowed

<comment><USER30> Nope thats actually true. You cant force say tracking, if its not absolutely needed, for the product to work. And i think thats why a lot of the popups have dark patterns, to hide the fact, that you can no opt out to these things.

<comment><USER29> Hmm, seems you are right, I just found this PDF from the ICO: [https://ico.org.uk/media/about-the- ico/consultations/2013551...](https://ico.org.uk/media/about-the- ico/consultations/2013551/draft-gdpr-consent-guidance-for- consultation-201703.pdf)

"Avoid making consent a precondition of a service"

"consent requests must be separate from other terms and conditions. Consent should not be a precondition of signing up to a service unless necessary for that service"

I assume Facebook et al will simply find a way to make everything 'necessary'.

<comment><USER31> For consent this is true, but there are other legal ways for you to collect the data. One is legitimate interest, this one is more abstract but requires a bit more work from you.

I think a lot of the future court cases will be around trying what one can use legitimate interest for.

[https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general- da...](https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data- protection-regulation-gdpr/lawful-basis-for-processing/legitimate-interests/)

<comment><USER29> Legitimate interest is meant for when it's in the user's best interest... but I've no doubt that, given sufficient lawyers, Facebook et al could argue almost any data-hoovering is in their users best interest

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Oh, one thing important to note that people might forget/ignore: this is just the beginning. See: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect)

A lot of countries look up to the EU, have trade agreements with it. Unless the GDPR totally falls flat on its face (unlikely), more and more countries will realize the benefits of this kind of legislation.

Also the GDPR will act as an icebreaker and it will "soften up" company stance on this matter. As a result it will be easier for the second line of countries adopting such laws to demand things from companies.

I'd say: get used to it. It's not going away, it's not going to become easier to use and sell personal data.

<comment><USER33> The Facebook/Cambridge Analytica thing definitely seemed to open up more US legislators to the idea. Between the EU taking the lead on antitrust against tech monopolies, and now privacy laws, it honestly makes them look bad: The EU is doing the job most people would've expected the US to take the lead on back in the day.

As GDPR will not end the world or pop the tech bubble or whatever, it's increasingly likely that the US will just go "yeah, we want all that too".

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> If this is what Online Marketing Hell looks like, please tell me where one can apply for a job as Junior Devil

</comment><comment><USER34> It was expected that activist groups will say that these two companies are breaking GDPR, it is not so obvious that they will be actually fined (as the requests need to be processed by specific institution and might be found unwarranted).

</comment><comment><USER35> The 'loophole' here would be the definition of 'legitimate intrests', where businesses can defend not giving users a choice in many of these matters due to the activity being critical for the service to work or the business to survive.

I.e. Facebook _could_ argue that users would have to have their data collected and analysed, as this would enable them to sell ads which in turn is their core interest.

Another example could be automatic enrollment into newsletters or data collection/analyzation with the option to opt-out by going to settings. You don't _have_ to give users the explicit consent checkbox during signup if you can defend the activity by it being in your legitimate interests.

This article goes into more detail: [https://medium.com/mydata/five-loopholes- in-the-gdpr-367443c...](https://medium.com/mydata/five-loopholes-in-the- gdpr-367443c4248b)

<comment><USER36> Somebody on Reddit posted a list of Tumblr's "partners" that they share data with by default: [https://i.imgur.com/YCNvEMa.png](https://i.imgur.com/YCNvEMa.png)

I'm finding it difficult to believe that they can come up with a "legitimate interest" for all of those that would also actually hold up in court.

<comment><USER37> Twitter's "partners" are the same (you can request a list from your privacy settings)

<comment><USER38> Google's as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> And here I'm hoping for the EU GDPR to kick all of these guys in the balls pretty hard. In the last few hours, I have been getting dozens of emails. Basically: Take it or leave. Some of them sent an email "if you don't leave, you are taking it".

And you are not given a choice to download your data or temporarily access your account to sort out things. Your hands are getting forced to accept the rules or potentially be locked out of your account.

I'm taking note of these little evil services. And in all fairness, my banking provider actually gave two options: one is required and the other is optional (marketing data collection). I was able to unselect it successfully.

</comment><comment><USER40> My big problem with this is that the complaints are too quick (unless Google, Facebook, et al are stupid, which I don't think they are). First you have to make a request to see what they are using the data for. _Then_ you can complain that it is being used for the wrong things. Unless the aforementioned companies are blatantly saying "We're sharing your data for targeted advertising without consent", then I think we have to wait a month for _real_ complaints.

<comment><USER41> Isn't the tracking a claim they make to advertisers, and can I opt out without declining the entire ToS?

<comment><USER40> Edit: Just to be clear. I'm not in the EU, so I can't check the ToS. If they are being stupid, then that's pretty stupid of them ;-)

The thing is, it is possible that as of today they have stopped tracking. I agree that it's very unlikely, but unless they actually tell you that they are tracking you, how would you know? You get ads, but they could be completely random. Who knows? As of today, maybe all EU residents are getting random ads? Until you make a request, I think you can't quite complain (again, unless they are stupid and actually telling that they are tracking you).

<comment><USER42> FYI: GDPR provide a framework allowing investigations from the EU... So the EU might ask to get enough informations on algorithms - and even to audit code - to check if there's some hidden targeting ads. And then...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Considering that large sites with teams of lawyers are failing to follow the rules, how does a small site run by a few regular folks supposed to comply?

<comment><USER44> The easiest way to comply is to not collect any PII. That is only a problem for companies that make data collection their core business.

<comment><USER45> IP addresses are PII, as defined in the law. Every website you visit gets your IP. HN has yours now, and now had a headache to deal with.

<comment><USER10> Define retention policies and explain you would keep IP addresses up to xxx months to ensure service operation/troubleshoot/etc.

Prune the logs.

There you have it.

<comment><USER45> Sounds like a legal headache for anybody who wants to set up a personal blog or blog for their company, with a penalty of up to 20 million euros if you get it wrong.

<comment><USER46> What? You can setup log rotation in 1 minute. In 3 minutes you can write a small paragraph that explains you only use IP addresses for security reasons and only store them for a few weeks.

Also, the claim that you immediately get the maximum fine of 20 million euro for every small detail that you get wrong, is false: [https://www.joyfulbikeshedding.com/blog/2018-04-17-should- no...](https://www.joyfulbikeshedding.com/blog/2018-04-17-should-non-eu- websites-ban-eu-visitors-under-the-gdpr.html) (claim backed up by a book written by an IT lawyer)

<comment><USER45> You overestimate my abilities! You also overestimate the abilities of non- technical people.

Judge's discretion on the fine, and he probably won't like me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Where do I sign up? I was forced today to accept Facebook's new settings and I was presented with an option to either allow facebook to process my data for face recognition or not. Choosing not does not allow you to move forward in the settings, and it is deeply confusing - there is an "accept and continue" button, but there is some rather small text that states choosing accept and continue will enable face recognition. Closing the browser and reopening it at this point shows the same text, and only the option to accept and continue. Doing so and then checking settings will show face recognition to be disabled, but I am no longer sure what I accepted and continued with.

The whole scheme is scammy as anything. The text presented is something along the lines of "disabling this feature will allow other people to impersonate you" which at best is nasty fear mongering.

Fuck those assholes.

</comment><comment><USER48> It appears many companies try not to comply to the spirit of the law. Stack Overflow, for example, sent an e-mail claiming to have opt-in permissions to promotional messages, while not actually having them and only providing opt- out settings:

"With your continued permission, we will send you promotional messages based on your preferences. To see and change your opt-in preferences, manage your Email Settings."

I guess with such attitudes it's not going to be enforced much, otherwise there will be no one left to enforce it on.

</comment><comment><USER49> Absoultely every site that has had a new GDPR warning is just the same as the old cookie banner. "By using the site you agree..." Some have updated privacy pages which describes how you can delete or deny cookies... An absolute joke, nobody is following the law.

It should be simple. A new banner that asks "allow tracking", yes, no. Either option allows you to use the site freely.

</comment><comment><USER50> Serious question: How is this compatible with new GDPR? [https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/144551/how-to- dele...](https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/144551/how-to-delete-my- account-on-icloud-com?rq=1)

</comment><comment><USER51> Aside, I've found an interesting thread on GDPR in Mastodon (an open-source "Facebook competitor") here:

[https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/issues/7280](https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/issues/7280)

</comment><comment><USER50> Are they also planning to sue Apple? I can get it activated without creating account.

</comment><comment><USER52> There seems to be a fundamental dichotomy on HN that is either intellectually dishonest, or the result of hyperbolic reasoning. Everyone accepts that services have costs, and so someone has to pay for them. They're either paid for by user fees, paid for by ads, or paid for by charity (e.g. Wikipedia)

Every time a publisher converts to user fees (paywall), people react angrily. Yet, people complain loudly over ads too, and others complain loudly over ad tracking. Now, there's not necessarily overlap between these groups, but there must be some. So either people want to get away with paying nothing (one form of dishonestly), or they are virtue signaling over things they don't care as strongly about as they say (another form of dishonesty), or they are mad at something else.

I think it's a mix of both. Many people will say they care a lot of privacy and security, but behave in ways that show they really don't. From poor operational security, to bad passwords, to continuing business with firms that have already been hacked and exposed their personal information.

A lot of people complain also loudly over what they imagine is serious harm being done to them by ad tracking, but I would bet they are more annoyed by ads themselves, than by the theoretical and abstract (if distant background threat) of their info being harvested for harm. Because human being's reward system in their brain favors minimizing immediate pain.

Ads, whether targeted or not, are an annoyance, just like paywall dialogs, and people would rather see neither. I think this is the real nitty gritty, people unwilling to put up with the monetary cost of services, the hassle of signing up and paying, the performance detriments of ads, or the annoyance of having their attention interrupted by them and this is far and above the concerns over privacy.

No doubt, many people will say no, I'm wrong, they truly care extremely strongly about data mining, but I think the people who care that strongly as a small minority like the people who are rabid anti-vaxxers, or anti-GMO, hyperbolic fears of tiny risks, not shared by the mainstream.

</comment><comment><USER53> Solution: Pay a few bucks a year or see ads. What's so difficult about that? That could solve the problem somewhat at least...

<comment><USER54> for europe it would be around $20 i believe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> It's about time to see no-win no-fee services to file a complaint against companies for GDPR breach. How long will it take?

<comment> GuB-42 It is not how it works in Europe. No-win no-fee is a typical American thing. We don't have class actions either.

It doesn't mean it won't happen, but that would be unusual.

<comment><USER38> That's not exactly true. There are services which take your cases for delayed or canceled flights for keeping a percentage of the redeemed money. It must be said that carriers brought that to themselves by stonewalling customers despite pretty clear laws. But this is rather an exemption.

Personally I would love to see similar services for GDPR. However the structuring of the law makes this unlikely, I believe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I'm gonna need more popcorn :)

</comment><comment><USER57> I used Hope Fulwood to confirm the infidelity of my ex-wife and i am forever grateful to him. He helped my hack her phone which he held so dearly and i found out-numerous dating sites she was registered to, her emails, all her social network apps and even text messages. I was heartbroken but its better to know and act upon your knowledge than being played a fool. i will recommend Hope Fulwood and you can contact him via email...

GMAIL: trusthackerslounge2018 WEBSITE: [https://trusthackerslounge.wixsite.com/mysite](https://trusthackerslounge.wixsite.com/mysite)</comment>


The USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US (2006) - <AUTHOR> http://www.resilience.org/stories/2006-12-04/closing-collapse-gap-ussr-was-better-prepared-collapse-us <comment><USER2> I think this gets at the core of what we see going on today and will continue to see:

"Just look around you, and you will see boondoggles sprouting up everywhere, in every field of endeavor: we have military boondoggles like Iraq, financial boondoggles like the doomed retirement system, medical boondoggles like private health insurance, legal boondoggles like the intellectual property system. The combined weight of all these boondoggles is slowly but surely pushing us all down. "

And then when I read this:

"I want to make a boondoggle that runs on hydrogen" – by all means encourage him! It's not as good as a boondoggle that burns money directly, but it's a step in the right direction."

I couldn't help think of that we'll come out this all right if we have the ingenuity to create boondoggles without realizing by simply adapting to the larger movements of the economic system.

P.S. who wants to help me with my boondoggle to get the name, location, and place of employment of people by simply visiting any webpage? I already have an mvp! :P

<comment><USER3> I thought that already existed, as Facebook Likes boondoggles.

<comment><USER2> True, but my boondoggle doesn't use Facebook ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Certain Soviet state enterprises were basically states within states. They controlled what amounted to an entire economic system, and could go on even without the larger economy." (explanation for slide 25)

No, they didn't! The planned economy of Soviet Union also planned an intentional dependency among enterprises over the most of the territory. After the collapse, especially after republics' separation, lots of mammoth industrial compounds got stranded, deprived of much of the previous supply and demand and just rooted or struggled for a while on state support bankrupting it in the end.</comment>


Transatomic Power's Safer Reactor Eats Nuclear Waste - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-05/transatomic-powers-safer-reactor-eats-nuclear-waste <comment><USER2> MSRs have two systemic problems:

1) separation of molten salt and "burned" fuel

2) molten salt being higly corrosive to the plumbing

I fail to see how this "new" design fixes these two inherent problems.

<comment><AUTHOR> Co-founder of Transatomic here.

I'm not sure what you mean with your first point, but your concern with corrosion was solved in the 1970s at Oak Ridge National Lab, where they operated a molten salt reactor for four years. That reactor demonstrated that extremely low corrosion with a high-nickel alloy called Hastelloy-N, which is similar to the metals widely used to handle other high-temperature molten salts in industries like aluminum refining.

You can find more information on corrosion and material compatibility in section 2.5 of our technical white paper:

[http://transatomicpower.com/white_papers/TAP_White_Paper.pdf](http://transatomicpower.com/white_papers/TAP_White_Paper.pdf)

<comment><USER3> The white paper was pretty interesting. I'd certainly like to see Transatomic build a demonstration reactor. If you can really meet the promises of a half the cost and better safety, this could be key in getting carbon emissions under control.

A few questions (which hopefully are not stupid ones):

1) How does the auxiliary containment make the fuel safe? Does it just need to be large enough to let the fuel spread out and eventually cool down?

2) Is there any concern about maintenance of the auxiliary containment unit? Seems like the sort of thing that might have corners cut around it.

3) If the worst happens and plug unfreezes or the reactor breaks and fills up the auxiliary containment, what happens to the reactor and the surrounding area? Can this sort of thing be cleaned up and the reactor restarted or is this a bury it in concrete and leave it alone for 200 years sort of thing?</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Twitter graph monitoring over time, SocialGrapple - <AUTHOR>

Ever wanted to track who unfollowed you last month? Or who followed your competitor last month? Or how your social graph is growing over time? SocialGrapple does this.
I've been working on SocialGrapple for a few months (since stepping down from imoveyou.com, YC2010S), this week I got the core product to the point where I'm proud of it so I want to show it off: http://socialgrapple.com/
I wrote up a blog post with some screenshots that will get you an idea of what SocialGrapple looks like:
"SocialGrapple snapshot: @limedaring's social graph growth after her HackerNews publicity" http://shazow.posterous.com/socialgrapple-snapshot-limedarings-social-gra
Screenshots: http://i.imgur.com/OzTIb.png http://i.imgur.com/tghcT.png
The gist of it is: I pull the account's social graph every night (soon to be every hour) and do a diff from the last known state, then create an event log based from that. Then I do a bunch of graph operations like intersection between following/followers to determine stalkers/stalking/mutual, annotate the feed with metadata useful for skimming/ordering/filtering, intersecting two accounts to see how growth relates to somebody else, etc.
Backstory: I built Tweepsect some years ago (http://tweepsect.com/) which lets you intersect your followers/following as it currently is. It's still one of my most-used projects, and a lot of people were asking for more like support for larger accounts, data over time, charts (a lot of people use Webnumbr to track their follower count over time), track who unfollowed them (qwitter and similar stopped working months ago). This is where SocialGrapple comes in, with an angle on competitive intelligence too.
I would love some feedback. What would it take to get you as a paying customer? <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable links –

Blog post: [http://shazow.posterous.com/socialgrapple-snapshot- limedarin...](http://shazow.posterous.com/socialgrapple-snapshot-limedarings- social-gra)

SocialGrapple: <http://socialgrapple.com/> (Make sure you have a look at the blog post first)

Screenshots: <http://i.imgur.com/OzTIb.png> <http://i.imgur.com/tghcT.png>

</comment><comment><USER2> This is great and something I see as an immensely valuable tool for social measurement. It'd be nice to integrate Facebook into the mix as well, showing fan counts and competitive analysis.

As a potential customer, I see this as valuable as a free resource for basic insight, but a paid monthly service for more extensive analysis.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been looking at Facebook and originally all my language was service- agnostic in the event that I toss Facebook in there, but now I'm kind of backing away from it.

1\. Facebook doesn't give good access to the more granular stuff, mostly just superficial counts. Especially if you don't own the page/account. 2\. Facebook already does pretty decent analytics. Is there a big thing they're missing?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> <http://i.imgur.com/OzTIb.png>

This screenshot is why I really love using SocialGrapple for my account – in the quick overview of what happened yesterday to my account, you can see that I followed one person who followed me that day ("mutual" tag on it), and who the most important accounts are by follower count (x2 means twice as many followers as following, and a better ratio usually means a more important person).

I love Twitter and using it to meet new people, but when 100+ people follow me in one day, it was really awesome to have SG to help me parse the data.

</unsolicited review>

</comment><comment><USER4> Got this error when trying to sign up for tweepsect:

Traceback (most recent call last): File "/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/1/google/appengine/ext/webapp/__init__.py", line 515, in __call__ handler.get(*groups) File "/base/data/home/apps/jsoauth/2.346920482575371317/main.py", line 127, in get token, secret = client.get_credentials(oauth_token, oauth_secret, oauth_verifier) File "/base/data/home/apps/jsoauth/2.346920482575371317/oauth.py", line 150, in get_credentials return self._extract_credentials(response) File "/base/data/home/apps/jsoauth/2.346920482575371317/oauth.py", line 165, in _extract_credentials raise OAuthException("Problem talking to the service") OAuthException: Problem talking to the service

<comment><AUTHOR> Hrm this happens sometimes when the Twitter API fails in a weird way. Try again?

One of the cool things of Tweepsect is it runs 99% in-browser JS (including all the API calls). There's only a small piece of the OAuth that had to be done server-side which lives on AppEngine. I need to add better error handling to that someday. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just curious: how do you deal with the increasing limits of the Twitter API? I noticed you don't require me to log in with my Twitter account (which is great), so it seems you are not using user's request quotas, but your own.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, I tried to make the experience as non-intrusive as possible. One of the biggest complaints from Tweepsect was that people didn't want to OAuth to try it out. Especially if I play the angle of "use SocialGrapple for corporate intelligence" I can imagine users may be weary to give away their true credentials, which is fine.

I applied to have my @SocialGrapple account whitelisted 6+ months ago (a bit pre-emptive, but not enough), but they never got back to me and then last month they announced there will be no more whitelisting. This sucks.

Right now I just try to use the API as efficiently as possible and spread jobs out to avoid hitting the limits. In the future, I might need to distribute the load across multiple auths or request the user to sign in.

I tried to make the pricing in-line with the parts that are "expensive" to me, both in terms of limited API calls and data storage/performance. I hope this is transparent enough to the users and doesn't get in the way.

I have looked at using gnip (Twitter's official bulk data reseller) but the pricing structure is way out of my league (starting at $500/mo). Can't blame them though, since they dedicate an EC2 instance to each customer. Pretty cool scaling model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> (From the superficial complaint dept.):

I assume that your using <http://html5boilerplate.com/> to some extent, along with the default favicon and icon.png that it ships with. I'd recommend replacing that with an original icon or at least one that's less identifiable. Great project nonetheless.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ooof, you're right. Good catch! Keep em' coming, making a list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Would you consider sharing the technology stack that you used to create this application?

I love the visuals. How perfect for a brand manager to show that doing X can result in Y.

Thank you!

<comment><AUTHOR> The stack is Pylons (behind uwsgi+nginx), PostgreSQL, and my own task scheduler[1]. Right now it's hosted on Linode. Will be moving to DotCloud eventually. :)

[1] <http://github.com/shazow/turnip>

<comment><USER7> Thank you for the details!!!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I really like the followers-over-time graph.

Question: is there a way to embed the graph into another "dashboarding" tool? I.e. through an API or even a simple URL?

<comment><AUTHOR> Data export via API is on the list. It'll be done as soon as someone actually needs it. :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm hesitant to pay since I can't see any examples of what I'd get. A short trial would be great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, you're right. Check out the link to the blog post? That has a pretty good insight on what the premium meat looks like. I'm working on better non-user facing stuff as I write this. :) Takatakataka

<comment><USER9> I got distracted after the first link to the product :) This is right up my alley, so I'm definitely going to try things out and hopefully have good reasons to pay.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sweet! Send me a note with what I need to do to get you as a customer. :) My email is in the footer when you're logged in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow this tool is just great and something I've always wanted.

Will be using it extensively for poaching clients from competitors. Also will love to see the effectiveness of competitors and my PR campaigns. Can't wait!

I have already signed up for a premium account!</comment>


YouAreListening.to - <AUTHOR> http://youarelistening.to/deepthought

<comment><AUTHOR> Three APIs joined together via Javascript in one page: RadioReference.com, Soundcloud, Flickr</comment>


Cleaning up Earth's orbit: A Swiss satellite tackles space debris - <AUTHOR> http://actu.epfl.ch/news/cleaning-up-earth-s-orbit-a-swiss-satellite-tackle/

<comment><USER2> I don't know how viable is to launch a satellite to deorbit another. If the janitor satellite could attach itself to a couple dozen other satellites, then it would be a much better option, bu they would have to be in similar orbits for that to work (or you would have to maneuver an increasingly large dead mass).</comment>


Apple Will Go All-OLED in 2018 - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-29/asia-display-makers-dip-on-report-apple-will-go-all-oled-in-2018 <comment><USER2> This looks like a completely unsubstantiated manufactured news article.

As an aside, any notion that OLED is the next generation, or natural successor, is questionable. I've gone though a long line of both OLED and LCD smartphones, and each has its advantages.

OLED is lower power _if the screen is dark_ , but if the screen is bright it is a significantly higher power user. OLED burn-in is still a very serious problem, and many users don't realize that the "burn-in proof" screens (something claimed as a new innovation each year since the first introduction of OLED) do it by intentionally wearing out other parts of the screen to try to equalize the fade. After not a long time an OLED screen is much dimmer than it started, and they usually start fairly dim. And even then you'll still see grain and other wear on it.

OLED is an amazing technology, especially for occasional or passive use devices. I still want my heavy use screens to be LCD for now.

OLED is great for non-rectangular, low brightness uses. It's great for non- flat displays. Otherwise its merits are oversold.

</comment><comment><USER3> This title is misleading. The article suggests that all iPhones will use OLED displays in 2018, not all Apple devices including Macs and iPads.

<comment><USER4> Not to mention that in the article they talk about 2019 not 2018.

<comment><USER5> It's a bit like that old Radio Yerevan Soviet joke.

Caller: Is it true that Comrade Petrov in Leningrad received a car from the Party?

Radio Yerevan: Yes, it is true! Though it wasn't a car, instead it was a bicycle. And he didn't get it, his bike was taken away by the Party.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I had a Galaxy S2 with an AMOLED display. I used it for more than five years, no burn ins, no color issues. I've got a Sony with a LCD screen now. The AMOLED was better. Black is black (the difference is very visible at night) and it could be dimmed much more (useful before sleeping.) I don't understand why LCDs are still a thing. Cost?

Edit: another comment pointed out that phones dim the screen to hide burnin. The screen of my old phone did got dimmer over the years. So maybe it got burnin after all.

<comment><USER7> I have an iPhone X, and compared to the 6S I had before, I really enjoy that I can dim the display a lot more. It's also surprisingly readable in sunlight.

But the colors are terrible. If you slightly tilt the device, you immediately get a blueish tint. It was jarring when I first started using it. But I got used to it.

I still use my 6s for playing games with my kids occasionally, and I don't really see a big difference between the displays in typical usage.

So my conclusion is that the difference between high quality LCD and OLED is small, and both have advantages and disadvantages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This looks like the original article that everyone is basing this information on:

[http://www.etnews.com/20180528000239](http://www.etnews.com/20180528000239) (in Korean)

> Apple has decided to adopt organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) next year > for all new iPhone models. In addition to premium smartphones, we will also > adopt OLED in entry-level models.

> According to industry sources on the 28th, Apple recently launched a new > iPhone model in 2019 and decided to adopt OLED for all three. In the > meantime, the industry has released two iPhones, one with OLED and one with > LCD, and will make the same choice next year.

<comment><USER9> Recently in 2019. Interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not an Apple customer, but it's moves like these that really make me glad sometimes that it moves the industry like this. Consumers stand a lot to gain from OLED. Lower power consumption has obvious benefits such as either a longer battery life or lighter/thinner phones, depending on what manufacturers believe consumers want, but also non-obvious ones like always-on displays such as those on the Samsung Galaxy and on a lot of smartwatches, which for me are almost a game changer for some daily functions.

One point that this article missed, however: OLEDs suffer from burn-in.

<comment><USER11> Honestly, I'm not interested in buying an OLED device until it can be confirmed that burn-in won't be a problem for at least 4 years. That's just me being stubborn....

<comment><USER12> Burn in will always be a problem for self emissive displays its simply the nature of any such display and cannot be overcome completely however the actual problem is drastically overblown.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The article's just full of people saying this isn't what will happen so who's saying it will happen exactly?

<comment><USER8> South Korea's Electronic Times

The source is in the first sentence of the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ugh. Between burn in and PWM, OLED is not ready for prime time yet. (And it may never be at this rate.)

<comment><USER15> Is flickering the issue with PWM? The article does mention Apple's research in microLED.

Edit: iPhoneX flickering: [https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2018/03/iphone-x-eye- strain-how-t...](https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2018/03/iphone-x-eye-strain-how- to-stop-oled-flickering-in-just-three-clicks/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Someone at Bloomberg owns stock in screen manufacturers.</comment>


A chrome extension to protect your email inbox - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/simplelogin-protect-your/dphilobhebphkdjbpfohgikllaljmgbn <comment><USER2> If you're interested in privacy or protecting your email address and you're still using Chrome or GMail you need to start by eliminating those and de- googleifying your life as much as possible.

Although it seems like a lot of people are forced into Google products by work, I can see the value of this for them.

<comment><USER3> This extension is also on Firefox. You don't have to use Google to use it, it works well with my protonmail email.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just tried it. Simple to use and seems to work reliably but the UI is a bit ugly. I like the fact that this extension doesn't ask any permission.</comment>


Ask HN: Please recommend credible product/appliance review websites - <AUTHOR> I'm researching product review websites and I'm interested in recommendations. Thanks <comment><USER2> [http://m.thesweethome.com](http://m.thesweethome.com) [http://m.thewirecutter.com](http://m.thewirecutter.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> we are building a platform that is vertical agnostic and prodcut/ appliance review is one area we are exploring but much earlier on the production timeline

please check out www.crowdraising.co</comment>


Everyblock.com releases an API - <AUTHOR> http://blog.everyblock.com/2010/nov/01/api/

<comment><AUTHOR> This should benefit anyone who is looking to use the awesome everyblock data in their local news/data/etc apps.</comment>


Duke Engines' compact, lightweight valveless axial engine - <AUTHOR> http://www.gizmag.com/duke-engines-axial/33631/

<comment><USER12> This isn't a new engine, it isn't a new idea, and it isn't a particularly good idea.

Duke Engines have been around since 1993, and built their first prototype in 1996[1]. Axial engines themselves date back to 1911; Their practical use is limited to torpedoes, where the cylindrical form-factor is an advantage.

Axial engines have inherently high reciprocating mass compared to conventional piston engines, which is a catastrophic flaw in a performance engine design. Higher reciprocating mass increases inertia (reducing throttle response) and increases the forces at the end of the stroke (reducing maximum RPM). They offer no meaningful advantages in terms of fuel efficiency, and are likely to be less efficient in many applications due to the difficulty of implementing existing efficiency technologies (VVT&L, valve deactivation etc)

Both the current Duke engine and their hypothesised next-generation engine offers poorer specific power than current naturally-aspirated designs. The cylindrical form-factor is more difficult to package than a traditional piston engine; Camshafts offer enormous flexibility in terms of layout, allowing the engine to be squeezed into a multitude of shapes and sizes. Axial engines are inherently balanced, but balance is practically a non-issue in modern engines, even for layouts with very poor inherent balance.

[1][http://www.dukeengines.com/technology/overview/](http://www.dukeengines.com/technology/overview/)

<comment><USER13> Do the pistons rotate, or does the disk? The disk would have less mass I suppose.

<comment><USER14> The pistons rotate. Not just the pistons, but the cylinders and the connecting rods as well. It's basically the entire engine block rotating against a stationary cylinder head.

The large rotating mass problem is basically what killed off the pre-WWII- style rotary engines, and the Duke engine suffer from the exact same problem.

<comment><USER13> So why not connect the disk to the shaft, and have it rotate instead? Not a mechanical engineer, but that would have way less mass, way less clever mechanical linkages for valving, spark.

<comment><USER15> The disc contains systems that are not easily reciprocated: the intake and exhaust ports, as well as the ignition system. You can be sure that if it were possible to simply swap the rotation, Duke would have done it. The issue of reciprocating mass is well known by engineers who work with axial engines.

<comment><USER13> I guess I still don't understand. Lots of engines don't put the valves and ignition on a disk - so don't. The idea of valve-less cylinders via rotating ports can be done either way - rotating cylinders or rotating shaft - <USER2> reverse them.

I know, that's not a Duke engine. Just wondering who got it wrong the first day and went down this path. Like the old 'drum memory' systems that rotated the heads and left the magnetic memory stationary. Didn't take but 2 years to turn that around and invent disk drives.

<comment><USER15> So, you believe that sitting in your armchair, you've identified some fundamental flaw in the Duke engine design that they overlooked from day 1?

Yes, ported intake/exhaust solves the problem of rotating the disk instead of the cylinders, but porting comes with its own set of drawbacks. Ask any engineer who has worked on Wankel Rotary engine design and they'll tell you all about it. Ported engine designs include the Wankel Rotary design, as well as 2-stroke, reciprocating, piston-in-sleve (traditional 2-stroke ICE) engine designs. Both have issues meeting emissions requirements because of inherent limitations of ported engine designs.

Cam operated valves have some very specific advantages that play a large role in the ICE's ability to reach current specific output levels. With a ported engine, you cannot vary the intake/exhaust profiles; with a cam, you can. Variable overlap in intake/exhaust, as well as variable intake/exhaust opening area are key aspects of state-of-the-art ICE design. You give up both of these with ported engine designs.

Wondering about these kinds of things is great, but be conservative with your assumptions, and generous in your interpretation. It's condescending and narcissistic to assume that you can take a cursory look at the Duke engine, wave your hand, and solve a massive design flaw.

<comment><USER13> Oh get off your high horse! I'm speculating. You condemned the design in an earlier post, right? There are all sorts of possible geometries, and many have been tried; some are found wanting. Elsewhere I speculated about using such an engine for constant-speed operation e.g. a generator. It might be a win there, where the ICE responsiveness is not a priority.

Its great to hear from an expert, though one that's clearly invested in the current popular technology to the exclusion of admitting any benefit to this one. I thought you'd be right on board with speculating about where this went wrong. Sorry to have misjudged.

<comment><USER15> I'm a novice, not an expert. I have a great interest in cars and engines in general, and I've pursued them to some degree, but I'm not an engineer. I have no where close to the level of expertise that the Duke engineers do.

> I thought you'd be right on board with speculating about where this went > wrong. Sorry to have misjudged.

You've misread me. There's no thing wrong with asking questions. For example, take the question:

"Why can't we rotate the disc instead of the cylinders?"

Versus your statement

"The idea of valve-less cylinders via rotating ports can be done either way - rotating cylinders or rotating shaft - so reverse them."

You state this as if it's obvious, and it is obvious. It's also obvious (to someone with domain knowledge) that it's not a simple matter. I took us part way down the rabbit hole, and I'm always happy to do that, but it really gets under my skin when questions are states as presumptuous declarations such as, "so reverse them." Not to mention this one:

"Just wondering who got it wrong the first day and went down this path."

This presumes that the Duke solution is the wrong one, and your solution is the right one, but you aren't even familiar enough with ported engine designs to know the basic drawbacks. Again, I'm not an expert, but I know enough to know that I can't make these kinds of presumptions. You don't, and my suggestion is that you should recognize and start with questions rather than insulting someone else's work.

I know this comes across as a scolding, but I genuinely don't mean to be harsh. I just felt like I should say something because of the way your writing came across.

<comment><USER13> Cool, I apologize if I offended. But if we're talking radical engine design, then nothing is off the table. Including solving the existing problems with the Duke design. They haven't had 2 centuries of tweaking, so criticisms about where soot collects are getting ahead of things.

And also including turning the problem on its head. If shaft momentum is such a well-known and pernicious problem, then its not out of line to question why somebody went down that road at all. Obvious really. Its called returning to fundamentals, and anybody can do it.

So, what's the problem with using rotation to port air and exhaust, if the disk is turning instead of the now-stationary cylinder block? A mechanical linkage between the disk and a ported sleeve should do the trick. If its still desirable at all - a stationary cylinder block lets you do it the valve way too if desired.

Anyway, I'm actually astonished that anybody ever thought it was a good idea to rotate essentially the entire engine. Centripetal forces, heavier bearings, linkage issues - it invents all sorts of problems. Whereas the idea of pushing against a tilted disk doesn't require that at all. I can't get over that fundamental notion, and I'm sure its fair to ask "where did they go wrong" without being accused of backseat driving. If there's some obvious need to NOT rotate the disk, I'm all ears. But I didn't read that anywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> No mention of meeting fuel economy and emissions requirements. Both of those are big topics that engine builders have to consider, with the 35mpg fleet- wide average that cars sold in the US must meet in about a decade. Having grown up in an age filled with car exhaust from carburated engines, I don't miss it a bit -- I _like_ having clean air.

One of the comments to the article mentioned the difficulty in keeping high- pressure seals working. It was in conjunction with Wankel rotary engines, which have always had problems with the rotor tip seals leaking (ask any Mazda RX owner...) This engine has the same problem on the intake/exhaust end, as the piston carrier rotates past the openings.

<comment><USER17> Thank you. I'd wondered how this would compare to a rotary engine. It's interesting how enthusiastic the rotary-engine crowd is, since my takeaway was always "well if it's so much better why isn't it more common".

<comment><USER18> As an RX8 owner (and enthusiast), I can tell you Wankel Rotaries aren't categorically better, or worse. They have strengths and weaknesses:

\- The vast majority of rotaries will need a full rebuild before 100k - <USER11>

\- They rev to 10,000 RPM with an unbelievably smooth power delivery - <USER8>

\- I'm lucky to see 22 mpg - <USER11>

\- The engine is so small and light that the RX8 has perfect 50/50 weight distribution - <USER8>

\- If you turn the engine off before it's warm it can flood - <USER11>

\- 231 bhp from a 1.3 litre engine? - <USER8>

Oh, and the noise - BETTER!

I do believe with more time and money invested the Wankel Rotary could be better than a standard Otto Cycle IC engine in every way. But electric is the future now, so that won't realistically happen.

<comment><USER19> Learned stick on my second gen RX-7...

-Almost no torque at low rpm - <USER11>

-Easy to flood, then once flooded major work - <USER11>

-Feed it a quart of oil every 1,000 miles - <USER11>

<comment><USER18> No torque at low RPM is true, but I've not found it to be an issue. I use the engine in the same way as I do on my motorcycle - pretty much always above 4000.

The flooding issue I mentioned. It may have been different with the RX7, but the RX8 has a de-flood procedure that works 9 times out of 10. And failing that a bump start usually does it. Although I've never flooded mine, I'm always careful not to shut her down cold.

Oil usage in the real world is not much worse than many other performance cars, in fact it's better than most Honda S2000s. But for people who are not used to having to regularly top up oil I could see it being a ball ache.

<comment><USER19> > I've never flooded mine

Neither had I...just never let a valet, mechanic, or relative try to start your old RX-7 ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Axial engines go back a long way, to at least 1917.

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

That format is widely used in hydraulic systems, and is the basis of continuously-variable hydraulic transmissions. Classically, it has problems at high RPMs, but is well behaved at low ones.

It's an idea that might be worth looking at again. With better materials and controls, it might work. The geometry is more flexible than with Wankel engines. The elegant Wankel geometry means there aren't many parameters that can be adjusted to improve combustion. In a piston engine, you can design piston face geometry, cylinder head geometry and fuel and air injection points for better combustion. With a Wankel, you're kind of stuck with the geometry. We'll have to see how this new approach works on pollution control.

</comment><comment><USER19> The only ICE advancement that really seems interesting to me is adding an extra cycle to inject distilled water into the cylinder for an extra power stroke.

The idea being that the heat from the prior explosive power stroke is used to turn the water into steam. Now you're using wasted heat energy and removing the need for cooling components.

<comment><USER21> I saw an article about that idea a few years ago, and wondered if it might be possible to combine it with a rotary engine. I ended up creating this rather odd-looking model:

[http://sandbox.mikepurvis.com/design/engine.svg](http://sandbox.mikepurvis.com/design/engine.svg)

Completely impractical, but an interesting experiment. There's some more general info on Wikipedia: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six- stroke_engine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-stroke_engine)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> "Duke Engines' 3-liter, five cylinder test mule is already making a healthy 215 horsepower and 250 lb-ft of torque at 4,500rpm – slightly outperforming two conventional 3 liter reference engines that weigh nearly 20 percent more and are nearly three times as big for shipping purposes."

Seems convenient to use a pretty lame reference engine to make yourself look good. 3 liter engines have made near 1000HP for years now.

<comment><USER23> The best naturally aspirated piston engine is 166 hp per liter. The best naturally aspirated Pistonless rotary engine is 188 hp per liter [1]. The Duke is at 71 hp per liter; it has a long ways to go but it's already better than a naturally aspirated Diesel engine (44 hp per liter).

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automotive_superlatives...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automotive_superlatives#Highest_specific_engine_output_.28power.2Funit_displacement.29)

<comment><USER24> I always find it interesting that when hp/l stats are quoted they often neglect to include motorcycle engines... which have been in the 180-210 hp/l realm for about 5 years now.

And a high hp/l isn't necessarily the best piston engine as it's often at the cost of massive valve train losses resulting in poor fuel efficiency.

<comment><USER15> It's difficult to compare the specific output of engines of dramatically different displacement. As a general rule, displacement and specific output are inversely correlated. That's not to say that motorcycle engines aren't an absolute marvel of engineering and technology, but it's not possible to compare them directly to engines with twice the displacement because you can't simply scale up the motorcycle engine and get the same results at the larger displacement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The money quote, for the TL;DR crowd:

"Duke Engines' 3-liter, five cylinder test mule is already making a healthy 215 horsepower and 250 lb-ft of torque at 4,500rpm – slightly outperforming two conventional 3 liter reference engines that weigh nearly 20 percent more and are nearly three times as big for shipping purposes. With an innovative valveless ported design, the Duke engine appears to be on track to deliver superior performance, higher compression and increased efficiency in an extremely compact and lightweight package with far fewer moving parts than conventional engines."

<comment><USER26> 215hp out of a 3 litre is shockingly low except for a naturally aspirated carburator engine from the 80's.

For example the 2 litre 2015 Mondeo Turbodiesel gets 210bhp.

The article is interesting but reads like a marketing release, the weight saving is the interesting take away I think if reliability matches a modern diesel.

<comment><USER27> I do agree with you but a turbo diesel isn't a valid comparison because it is:

1) turbo charged 2) diesel fueled

An inter-cooled turbocharger setup on this engine would likely net an additional 100 HP without much issue (presuming the sealing issues aren't horrific). Generally 100 HP per litre of displacement is the gold standard for naturally aspirated engines (see Ferrari).

<comment><USER26> I used diesel as historically cc for cc they have lagged behind petrol engines (though that has largely ended).

The turbo is irrelevant though, the IC has a turbo, they work and are reliable the rotating engine doesn't but that doesn't rule out a basis for comparison.

It comes down to fuel efficiency, emissions, maintenance and cost and I can't see this engine winning (for cars).

<comment><USER27> The turbo is not irrelevant because it has a direct impact on the ratio of power delivery / fuel consumption due to the recaptured energy from exhaust gasses. The volumetric efficiency (ratio of cylinder pressure pre-compression to atmospheric pressure) of engines with turbo-chargers is almost always >1 while the volumetric efficiency of naturally aspirated engines is always (excluding rare high-performance vehicles in specific ranges of operation) <1.

I don't have time to do more thorough research right now, but the Ford Duratec 30 series of engines [1] is roughly comparable in both displacement and cylinder count and produces between 200 and 240 HP depending on configuration which puts this engine slightly ahead of normal engines from a performance perspective (smaller form factor and lighter).

Is there any apples to apples comparison that you can find that actually makes this development look substantially inferior? I get that you used a diesel because historically that gave the ICE an advantage but with modern diesel technology and forced induction they aren't the same animal.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Duratec_V6_engine#3.0_L](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Duratec_V6_engine#3.0_L)

Edit: changed 'pre-combustion' to 'pre-compression' for clarity on volumetric efficiency definition.

<comment><USER26> In this context it is irrelevant since my comparison was purely one of power output against displacement.

The Turbo allows a given displacement to output more power for a given displacement, indeed volvo have 2 litre putting out 450hp (uses staged turbo's one of which is electrically driven), I _wasnt_ comparing the nearest ICE equivalent to the rotary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It seems to share some things in common with the rotary, like moving the ignition chamber past the fuel/exhaust ports, rather than opening/closing valves. So it will need some way to seal the cylinder during compression/ignition... will those seals tend to break up at 100,000 miles like a rotary's apex seals?

</comment><comment><USER17> I assume the application most people have in mind is cars. As others have said, electric _seems_ to be the future there, so while this may be a revolutionary engine, it's possible the timing won't help it.

What about other applications? Would this work well for marine, aviation, factory, or other purposes?

</comment><comment><USER29> Looks interesting, but I'm guessing there is a lot of stress on the recipricator mechanism that the pushrods connect to, pushing against an incline to cause the output shaft to rotate.

<comment><USER30> It can be as beefy as it needs to be. There is no constraint there to limit the design.

It is actually an extremely flexible concept from what I can tell. Need a longer stroke? Add more angle to wobbler. Need more Torque? Expand the wobbler diameter.

<comment><USER31> There is a limit on the available angle that can be "wobbled". Once you exceed ~20 degrees IIRC, the displacements perpendicular to the stroke start causing problems.

I think the more interesting interaction is between the number of pistons and the size of the pistons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Wow. That looks inspired by a helicoptor's swashplate driven from the rotor side. Always fun to see an alternative engine design.</comment>


Folly - The Faceboook open source library - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/folly-the-facebook-open-source-library/10150864656793920 <comment><USER2> This is all pretty great stuff. Make sure you read through the docs; I'm unlikely to use Fb's C++ code, but I'm sure as hell going to look at making my C vector code do some of what FBVector does:

[https://github.com/facebook/folly/blob/master/folly/docs/FBV...](https://github.com/facebook/folly/blob/master/folly/docs/FBVector.md)

<comment><USER3> Hmm,

I recently created a private memory allocator so the discussion on the page is somewhat interesting...

 _Only a tiny minority of objects are genuinely non-relocatable:_

Hmm, I'm not exactly what is meant here. Moving a block of memory from here to there in the most general case will leave your pointers dangling and crash you in no short order. Things that pointed to the data you moved just don't any more. If you are disciplined and don't have raw pointers in the block moved, you're good. But as far as I know, that situation requires a very complete understanding of the data in the block you are moving. You can do that. It's just not easy or something that makes sense to stuff "anything" into.

<comment><USER4> If your object is in a vector, it's already possible for the vector to move the object without updating any pointers to it. The only question is whether it is safe for the vector to move the object with memmove instead of invoking a copy/move constructor, essentially skipping the step of telling the object that it is being moved. This will only fail if the object contains pointers to its own sub-objects (or the move constructor updates external pointers). This is fairly rare, especially for objects that you would store directly in a vector.

std::string is a key exception to this, but fbstring is not.

<comment><USER5> Could you elaborate at all on what it means to put an object in a vector/why you would want to do that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm going to be taking a serious look at this for my own projects.

I like Format: [https://github.com/facebook/folly/blob/master/folly/docs/For...](https://github.com/facebook/folly/blob/master/folly/docs/Format.md)

Histogram is going to come in handy. :)

fbstring seems to be exactly what the doctor ordered.

I like the emphasis on cooperating with the memory allocator in fbstring and fbvector. If the entire library does that, that's going to a big win for long- running programs: memory fragmentation can slowly increase program footprint, requiring the use of fancy arena allocators etc.

I had fun reading their vector doc: [https://github.com/facebook/folly/blob/master/folly/docs/FBV...](https://github.com/facebook/folly/blob/master/folly/docs/FBVector.md)

I like dynamic: [https://github.com/facebook/folly/blob/master/folly/docs/Dyn...](https://github.com/facebook/folly/blob/master/folly/docs/Dynamic.md)

<comment><USER7> Modern heaps typically have some low-fragmentation technique built-in, for example, Windows ships with Low Fragmentation Heap, which is turned on by default since Vista.

<comment><USER8> What is "low-fragmentation heap"? Why would anyone want "high-fragmentation heap"? (since you imply that it's an option)

<comment><USER7> Low-fragmentation heap puts object of similar size together, so once object is freed, this memory can be reused for other object of similar size without fragmentation. Because of this is has more "slack" - unused memory at the end of the objects that are smaller than their buckets. On other hand, application in steady state is not going slowly increase it's memory use over time.

Also it puts consequently allocated objects (of different size) far away (and thus reduces cache locality), which, in turn may reduce performance for some "allocate a lot of stuff at the beginning and then serve it", etc scenarios, but this is pretty esoteric problem.

Benefits outweigh the concerns, so most apps benefit from the low- fragmentation heaps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm Tudor, one of the main folly authors. I wrote format, Arena / ThreadCachedArena, DiscriminatedPtr, GroupVarint, TimeoutQueue, and various other pieces (parts of String.h, ThreadLocal, etc), and I'm pretty well-versed with the entire library so I can reasonably answer questions (or poke the appropriate people to make a HN account and answer). Ask away.

<comment><USER10> Not necessarily specific to Folly, but I've wondered why _vector_ classes don't have a "short vector optimization" like _string_ classes do. That is, why don't they store 24 bytes or so in place? Is it because the required iterators would take-up too much space anyway?

<comment><USER9> folly::small_vector does just that (and it lets you use one bit for a mutex, too! -- we have a lot of memory-constrained apps so we had to design data structures for them).

We might unify that with fbvector eventually.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> i just attended alexandrescu's talk on some of the optimisations that went into this [rami sayar liveblogged it here: <http://ramisayar.com/fb-cpp- conf/>]. very interesting and inspiring remarks on instruction-level parallelism [<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instruction_level_parallelism>] and ways to help your code achieve it.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm surprised they used mixed-case file names when their class names are lowercase. You have to remember both capitalizations. Mixed-case file names can also be problematic when porting to case-insensitive file systems like Windows' or Mac OS X'.

</comment><comment><USER13> ++ for being nicely documented

</comment><comment><USER14> I suppose I'll have to be the first to express shock that they decided to name it Folly. I feel like Poe's Law is expressing itself.

<comment><USER15> "Folly" started as an internal codename loosely based on "F"acebook "O"pen source "LL"ibrar"Y". When the time to choose an official name arrived, we found "folly" too funny to not use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Now with discussion group: <https://groups.google.com/d/forum/facebook-folly>

</comment><comment><USER16> Very nice addition to my C++ toolset.

</comment><comment><USER17> Is the 3 "o" intentional?

</comment><comment><USER18> Very nice.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is a conspiracy theory, but what if there are bugs in it that they can't find and so they're open sourcing it in the hope that someone else will fix it.

<comment><USER20> That isn't a conspiracy, it's one of the major reasons that anyone open sources anything ever.</comment></comment>


Comic Books on Tablets Could Be Amazing - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5463681/comic-books-will-look-incredible-on-the-ipad

<comment><USER2> Good read, thanks!

I never considered comics on the iPad, but that could be really cool. Comics are something of a guilty pleasure for me - I have really enjoyed comics on my iPhone, specifically "The Umbrella Academy".</comment>


Variety of tech jobs at social games co. omgpop - <AUTHOR> http://www.omgpop.com/#/info/jobs We are hiring product people, ruby and flash folks to help us continue to grow in making real time multiplayer games! <comment><USER2> You are overdoing Flash. Theres _no_ reason why something like job listings should be done in Flash when good old HTML would do.</comment>


Does Personal Finance Still Work in Our Changing Economy? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/smarter-living/does-personal-finance-still-work-in-our-changing-economy.html <comment><USER2> No it doesn't work. Mostly debt problems. We Need to get rid of student loans and healthcare debt as a thing, but we as society are too complacent imo. We need to be wearing yellow vests blocking intersections like France until our elected representatives take notice.</comment>


Companies Start to Think Remote Work Isn't So Great After All - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-start-to-think-remote-work-isnt-so-great-after-all-11595603397 <comment><AUTHOR> Archive link: [https://archive.is/KmHGU](https://archive.is/KmHGU)

</comment><comment><USER2> We're in the middle of a world health and financial crisis so productivity naturally goes down.

Also a lot of people have little kids at home, hard to get work done like that.

These are not normal times, WFH has nothing to do with it

<comment><USER3> You just mentioned one of the greatest distractions caused by WFH:

 _a lot of people have little kids at home, hard to get work done like that._

And then you said "WFH has nothing to do with it."

<comment><USER2> Kids are at home due to the pandemic, If they were running around at your office it would have been the same

<comment><USER3> _If they were running around at your office_

Which happens how often exactly?

<comment><USER2> I have been WFH long before the pandemic as well and have little kids. My kids were at school / kindergarten and I had no distractions. I was saying that we should compare this situation with little kids at home while WFH to a situation of kids running around at your office. I agree it doesn't happen often but having kids 24/7 at home while trying to work from home did not happen often either, before the pandemic...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think the one thing that gets lost in the work from home push is that it really takes good managers to make it work. You need a manager skilled at making sure that people are working at a good pace. Doing one-on-ones in person for a good people manager is a lot easier than over a video call where only a portion of you is visible, so a remote manager needs to be really good at remote one-on-ones. You need a manager that can fairly rate their reports so they push for promotions/raises/rewards based on their accomplishments. Without this, good performers get angry and leave. You also need a manager who can figure out if someone is not doing a good job and how to help them or move them out of the org. The manager also needs to have the skills to onboard new hires since mentorship is going to be a bit more difficult when done remotely since nearly no company has good documentation for new hires.

A decent manager might struggle with these skills when going fully remote. It could be easy for them to fall back on some rudimentary metrics of productivity because they have a hard time judging what people are doing. You will probably see managers who have "favorites" lean more heavily on a few people because they are a known quantity to the manager. You'll probably see new hires take a lot longer to get up to speed with merely competent managers.

I wonder if we actually have enough good managers to make work from home scale up.

</comment><comment><USER5> Lots of anecdotal experiences with no empirical data. I'm gonna chalk this one up to clickbait.

<comment><USER3> You can't always wait for hard data.

Sometimes (especially when it comes to life-affecting questions like "will my company / job survive or not?" it's necessary to draw inferences from unstructured observation -- _a.k.a._ "anecdotal data".

It's a very useful cognitive skill, in fact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some managers find that their goals are reached fasters, some find that they stop seeing certain kinds of issues.

Maybe we should rather say that some managers are skilled at managing all kinds of teams, and some stop getting results with remote teams. Or that some managers find themselves less lazy when communicating with people in person. After all we rely on productivity as reported by managers, not an objective measure per se. So managers must be skilled at measuring productivity in this particular environment.

That may be a common thing: how much of the communication in any team is that of coordination, and how much of it is that of maintaining status?

Also one cannot discard a totally different explanation: maybe it was the _change_ in the mode of work that made people more efficient, instead of remote work by itself. If it was true, then coming back from remote would also increase efficiency for a short time.

</comment><comment><USER7> Well, I refuse to work for anyone else unless it's remote. Every single colleague I've talked to said the same. I've been in the professional working world for 22 years across many companies ...I have many colleagues.

</comment><comment><USER8> Some people in my team are doing barely anything.

</comment><comment><USER9>
      "One benefit of working together in person, many
      executives said, is the potential for spontaneous
      interactions.
      ...
      She noticed that she was soon having conversations
      with peers that wouldn't have happened in a remote
      set up—a discussion sparked by a passing question
      in the hall"

I can relate to this. I miss the impromptu conversation about idea -> whiteboarding session -> JIRAs -> new features, new design, etc.

WFH was great for the first month or so but at this point I find myself missing going into the office. Once the vaccine arrives I plan to switch to around 4 days on site / 1 day WFH.

</comment><comment><USER10> no surprises here</comment>


Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Makes Its First Acquisition, Meta - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-23/chan-zuckerberg-initiative-makes-its-first-acquisition-meta <comment><USER2> Hmm, I hope they got a good price. This doesn't really seem like a pain point for researchers (at least not for me). We are all pretty adept at using existing tools to find the papers we need to find. The bigger issue is time to properly read them.

That said, I like the idea of CZI acting as a hub for tool development that will enable all researchers broadly. There are a bunch of tools that are incredibly useful to making logistics of a lab simpler.

1\. Lab management and logistics: quartzy and others

2\. Online paper writing: overleaf and a few others

3\. DNA Bashing: benchling et al

4\. Bioinformatics: They could do a bunch here

I worry that a lot of things in this space right now will disappear pretty quickly once the VC gravy train runs dry. More importantly, I think this is something that CZI might have expertise to do well and sustainably.

<comment><USER3> I don't know how meta works, but currently there is no quick way to do queries like: Find all studies which test compound X in concentrations between A and B sorted by organism, much less tools that use machine learning to extract the relevant information from thousands of papers and make simple summaries.

What would be much more useful that making logistics of labs simpler is cheaper and more flexible lab automation to make all tasks in a lab programmable and automated.

<comment><USER2> Pt1. Again, not sure this is useful, and has been tried many times with no useful end. The major issue is that simple summaries assume papers to be true. Just aggregating papers and making summaries is basically like search and reading abstracts. Understanding the true differences when within the morass is the hard part and usually is often very subtle.

Pt2. A lot of people talk about automation, but biology has changed so fast in the last decade that any serious automation efforts in this space have become quickly outdated. It's useful when you are doing the same thing a million times, but such things are often already automated.

<comment><USER3> I don't disagree with that, but I do think there's massive improvement waiting to be done on scientific search engines. Not sure if there will be any big breakthrough until computer can read and understand the content of scientific papers to a much higher extent than today though.

As for automation, I think that flexible automation solution shouldn't become outdated so fast. I think automating a lab to a large extent would be the same as automating a kitchen. You need to take thing in and out of storage, in a lab this would usually be different types of freezers, refrigerators, incubators etc., then you do stuff like mixing, slicing, dicing, heating, cooling, shaking, transferring liquids and solids between different types of equipment.

Smaller labs often don't have much automation. There's plenty of labs that don't even have lab robots, even though they do plenty of pipetting. Automated storage solutions are also rare as far as I know. Just deploying existing solutions and making them cheaper would help.

The only way to make thing really programmable though, is to automate everything. One challenge is that most machines and equipment only have interfaces for humans. If you were to place all your equipment in a kind of rack you could have a mix of conveyor belt for moving materials and robot arms on tracks in the roof to do manipulation tasks. Still it would be challenging to operate much of the equipment unless it is rebuilt to have standardized interfaces, but perhaps improvement in computer vision etc could eventually mitigate this. Another challenge is to make lab equipment communicate and compare data in completely different formats etc. There's lots of challenges but building a lab robotics system that can completely replace humans in doing the lab work should be possible even without hard AI and the hardware wouldn't necessarily have to be extremely expensive either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Also check out Semantic Scholar. It's a publicly available tool from the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Currently supports CS research and neuroscience research, but we're working on expanding the domains in the upcoming years. One of the cool features is citation influence. You can see which citations are actually influential in an article.

[https://www.semanticscholar.org/](https://www.semanticscholar.org/)

<comment><USER5> Also check out [http://pubmed-watcher.org/](http://pubmed-watcher.org/) for biomedical domain

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've never heard of Meta, so, like any normal human being I went on their website. [1]

TLDR: From a glance, this entire organization's existence is centered around the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. There's no indication of anything useful they've done for real. I'm sure I could find that information if I bothered to look more, but for an organization that describes themselves as "mission- driven", and one that is "working on problems that matter," I fail to see any of those problems, or how this organization has contributed to the solution. I mean, not even a link to "Solutions" or "Mission" or "About". Nada. I'm very curious to how this page looked [yesterday].

Organizations that actually do stuff don't hesitate to put it front and center of their website, for example:

\- [https://www.change.org/](https://www.change.org/)

\- [https://www.planet.com/](https://www.planet.com/)

This is literally a sentence by sentence breakdown of everything on Meta.com at the time of this posting.

> "Most scientific breakthroughs have been preceded by the invention of new > tools that help us see and experiment in new ways."

Great! Oh, this is just a quote from Mark Zuckerberg, linking to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. OK. Moving along.

> Meta is joining the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

OK, got it. There's a bunch of corporate speak that you'll see if you click it. I won't click it because I want to know what Meta does outside of the whole CZI thing.

> Reserve a free account

> Meta is a tool that helps researchers understand what is happening globally > in science and shows them where science is headed. Pending shareholder and > court approval, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is acquiring Meta to help > bring its technologies to the entire scientific community.

Sign up now to reserve your free account.

Neat! If you go to [https://meta.science/reserve](https://meta.science/reserve), where you actually can reserve you'll see more CZI stuff. Again, there's no indication of what these people do, in practice.

> Join a mission-driven organization working on problems that matter

Awesome! Oh, wait, this is just a link to their hiring page.

What exactly do these people do, specifically? Sure they "help researchers understand what is happening globally", but that's so vague. Google and Wikipedia technically do that too in a way.

[1] [http://meta.com/](http://meta.com/)

<comment><USER7> Well, if you bothered to click on the second link that you for some reason didn't want to because of "corporate speak" \- the associated Facebook post explains pretty clearly what Meta does.

> "Meta's tools can dramatically accelerate scientific progress and move us > closer to our goal: to support science and technology that will make it > possible to cure, prevent or manage all diseases by the end of the century. > Meta will help scientists learn from others' discoveries in real time, find > key papers that may have gone unnoticed, or even predict where their field > is headed.

The potential for this kind of platform is virtually limitless: a researcher could use Meta to help identify emerging techniques for understanding coronary artery disease; a graduate student could see that two different diseases activate the same immune defense pathway; and clinicians could find scientists working on the most promising Zika treatments sooner. In the long run, it could be extended to other areas of knowledge: for example, it could help educators stay up to date on developmental science to better understand how children learn."

<comment><USER8> oh well when you put it that way...

a platform with virtually limitless potential. WOW WOW WOW WOW! limitless. potential.

why didn't you just say that in the first place? all my potentials have been limited so far. finally something with limitless potential.

<comment><USER9> Meta: We're like zombo.com, but for research.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> AI for Science, but not for the Arts & Humanities.

With that slight snark I applaud this philanthropic move. :/

Tried out Meta once but couldn't get it to surface similar material to a set that I fed it. I don't need Meta to recommend by citations, I need it to recommend by topical similarity.

Still though, props to team Zuck and I can see Meta complementing G Scholar or possibly supplanting it.

<comment><USER11> CZI is focused on disease. A focus on biomed research is reasonable...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm troubled by the fact that they cannot open the tool immediately and that it will take "some time". I also don't see the value proposition over say Google Scholar+alerts or Researchgate trends. Wait and see I guess. The current website doesn't have much information other than the fact that Meta got bought and some generic blurbs.

I'd much rather see Zuckerberg buy out an entire niche of science journals and Open Access them and keep them that way while keeping the high standards and impact factor in tact. Bioinformatics would have been a decent fit. I think freeing domains one by one with wads of tech-donor-$$$ might be the easiest stept towards open science.

</comment><comment><USER13> "All of Biohub's findings -- along with everything that is studied in the Chan Zuckerberg Science initiative -- will be open source and available to all." [1]

I wonder if this extends to Meta?

[1] [https://www.engadget.com/2016/09/21/chan-zuckerberg- initiati...](https://www.engadget.com/2016/09/21/chan-zuckerberg-initiative- to-invest-3-billion-to-cure-disease/)

<comment><USER14> The article mentions "free to researchers", so apparently not all.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, even if it's just for researchers, I interpreted that as "free to search", but not that the platform or data (citation graph w/ metadata) would be open source.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Facebook have produced a surprising amount of powerful tools recently, so getting into the research (as in research tools) space seems like it should be good for all (and obviously if they are deeply into AI research, having a good indexing tool is crucial).

<comment><USER16> Some similarities to Kodak maybe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Would it be accurate to say that Meta is essentially a social network for researchers and scientists?

</comment><comment><USER18> Here is another "Chan Zuckerberg" initiative I'm sure everyone will be proud of: Hawaiians call Mark Zuckerberg 'the face of neocolonialism' over land lawsuits

It seems greed knows no bounds. Throwing money at things is not charity.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/23/mark- zuck...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/23/mark-zuckerberg- hawaii-land-lawsuits-kauai-estate)

<comment><USER19> Nobody lost their land to a bloodthirsty colonialist. These indigenous families opted to sell their land and were compensated at some point. So please elaborate on what you mean by Zuckerberg's boundless "greed"?

Were I indigenous, I think I'd actually find this kind of Western academic white-knighting slightly offensive. You'd be essentially questioning the agency, sovereignty, and decision-making capacity of my people's ability manage resources.

The partial land-owners with lineage to the original 14 parcels of land on the North Island are being compensated for something then never knew they had, and are not being evicted from the land. Those that sold their land also initially knew what they were doing. So it's unfair to hold Zuckerberg solely accountable for the market forces that dispossess the indigenous of their land.

<comment><USER20> I hope you are trolling, because just about everything you said is false. Further, what do you have to gain by defending Zuckerberg? Anyway, let's break it down:

> These indigenous families opted to sell their land and were compensated at > some point. So please elaborate on what you mean by Zuckerberg's boundless > "greed"?

Yet the linked article states "complicated history of land ownership in Hawaii and can result in owners being forced to sell their land at auction. In some cases, defendants are even required to pay the legal fees of the plaintiff – in this case, the world's fifth richest man." Now, the article may not be the most unbiased source, but I certainly trust it more than some armchair colonial apologist on HN.

> Were I indigenous, I think I'd actually find this kind of Western academic > white-knighting slightly offensive. You'd be essentially questioning the > agency, sovereignty, and decision-making capacity of my people's ability > manage resources.

An interesting (if emotionally baited) spin on it, possibly an appeal to incredulity. Zuckerberg can easily afford the best Hawaiian property lawyers on the planet. It doesn't seem like a fair fight to me.

> The partial land-owners with lineage to the original 14 parcels of land on > the North Island are being compensated for something then never knew they > had, and are not being evicted from the land. Those that sold their land > also initially knew what they were doing. So it's unfair to hold Zuckerberg > solely accountable for the market forces that dispossess the indigenous of > their land.

Poor old Zuckerberg is just an innocent free-market agent? He's just drifting with the tide of capitalism? Bullshit. A guy like this only sees the world in terms of opportunity. He has no morals (show me evidence of the existence of these morals). He just weighed up the cost of dealing with the indigenous population vs bullying the locals with better lawyers.

<comment><USER21> As far as I know, he could have just bought the land from the local governmental body, but he decided to pay for investigation of the family trees just to find the current land-owners and make sure they get their money. Don't see how that is bad. Also, they aren't paying him anything in any kind of lawsuit. There was another article recently posted that explained the whole process better.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Binary, Hanoi and Sierpinski (Part 1) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SUvWfNJSsM <comment><AUTHOR> There's a beautiful use of _recursion_ here, to solve Towers of Hanoi.

It can sort of be summarized as "do the smallest, minimal bit of work here (in the function body), then call ("the recursive function"/"ourself") recursively to do all of the rest of it; that is, the "heavy lifting"...

(Which is, interestingly enough, related to Chicken-And-Egg problems, although this video doesn't make that connection.)

Also:

Binary, Hanoi, and Sierpinski, part 2

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdMfjfT0lKk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdMfjfT0lKk)</comment>


Alain de Botton: A kinder, gentler philosophy of success (video) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtSE4rglxbY

<comment><AUTHOR> I think most of us are quite ambitious and really want succes. Alain de Botton presents his view on succes. If you like it, his book Status Anxiety is also a great read on this very subject.

<comment><USER2> All of Alain de Botton's books are a complete delight to read.</comment></comment>