Something About Google Fiber Doesn't Sit Right with Me - <AUTHOR> http://mikecp.net/post/31066632906/something-about-google-fiber-doesnt-sit-right-with-me

<comment><USER2> Ok, if we're going to talk about 'vibes' then lets talk about this one, "Why is someone who is a search engine marketer deconstructing on Google's infrastructure build?" and why is that same article posted to a tech news site by a user with the name of an entrenched infrastructure player? Ok, so it smells like astroturf, but let's set that aside for a moment.

Remember reading all those articles about how SpaceX was 'cheating' or risking safety because their costs were so much less than what 'people who knew how to build rockets' charged? Its a simple rhetoric technique, compare X to Y when X and Y aren't correlated or even have a casual relationship.

Anyway, rather than devolve into some sort of ad-hominem rebuttal, lay out what the costs are for putting fiber into an area. There are easement costs (ok the City covered that), there are facilities (cooling and power for a bunch of switches and routers), IP transit costs and general IP costs (like routable addresses or not). Then there are the sunk costs of installing this stuff.

So one source [1] puts getting fiber to the home at less than $1,000. How many homes are there in KS? The census puts it at about 463,200 [2]. So lets say the average house hold is 2.0 people so that represents 231,700 homes? or $231,700,000 to install fiber to all of them? A lot lower than the estimates put out by the OP.

What is the long term value of customers there? Well we can pretty much assume nobody would be stupid enough to pick Comcast or a bell company for Internet service (10x the cost for 1/100th the bandwidh) so lets say that Internet penetration is 60% [3] so 139 thousand homes, if they got the 'cheap' stuff at $70/month that is $9.73M / month. So how much does Google earn on that revenue? We don't know but we can work it backwards, lets say all up it cost Google 4x what it costs Verizon to lay fiber so $1B, lets further say that fiber is good for 20 years of lifetime. $9.73M$/month times 20 years of 12 months is $2.3B. That is double the investment of $1B back in 20 years. Now not a great rate of return, most would like to see it double twice in 20 years. But not an insane proposition either.

Personally, if ComCast is right and Google is making a huge mistake, I think they should just sit back and watch it happen right? So clearly going to fail at this, their job is done, they can just eat popcorn while the big G sinks under the waves and stops being a thorn in their side. Me though, I would not bet against Google on this one.

[1] [http://connectedplanetonline.com/mag/telecom_riding_fttp_cos...](http://connectedplanetonline.com/mag/telecom_riding_fttp_cost/)

[2] [http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&#...
[3] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/06/us-20th-in- broadb...

</comment><comment><USER3> These short-sighted comments really annoy me. I would give parts of my reproductive system to get a fraction of a Google branded fibre and people are getting angsty about what Google gets "in return".

No the sums don't add up. Tax payers will subsidise some of the costs and Google will undoubtedly analyse the traffic to deliver yet even more personalised advertising. The local government will subsidise parts of the installation and make it legally as smooth as possible. Google will probably get cheaper offices or easier planning application processes, and who knows, they'll probably have some sway when it comes to local lawmaking, like any major contributing lobbyist...

... But in return _Kansas City gets a bloody gigabit network_ for pittance. Free ADSL for anybody else.

It's practically unimaginable the services you could deliver to people with that sort of bandwidth because for a very long time it's been considered rude to assume anybody has anything faster than a 2Mbps connection. Google Fibre _could_ stream 4k (with h.265). Even being able to assume the user has some upstream bandwidth for once is a complete boon to developers. In the UK the ratio is 10:1 almost everywhere unless you're on a business line (for four times the price) or the new FTTC options that are available in like 2% of the country.

tl;dr: you get a lot in exchange for letting Google in, not least that you will probably become the testing bed for all sorts of snazzy new technology. Stop moaning, pay your taxes and enjoy being able to watch all the porn at once.

<comment><USER4> >"No the sums don't add up. Tax payers will subsidise some of the costs and Google will undoubtedly analyse the traffic to deliver yet even more personalised advertising. The local government will subsidise parts of the installation and make it legally as smooth as possible."

As much as I agree with you, this quote highlights something that cycles through my mind whenever I read about Google's ambitions. Basically, Google is doing and motivating people to do what our government should (and as we read, apparently somewhat _can_ in some ways) do to improve our communications infrastructure. It annoys me to think that we could simply be building a new (potentially more neutral) fiber "highway" across the country with a similar model, run by the government. If only people weren't so afraid of government and hell bent on handing things off to private sector instead of the public sector. It's disappointing, and I feel in the very long run it could very well backfire on all of us if google succeeds and becomes the next AT&T.

<comment><USER5> "It annoys me to think that we could simply be building a new (potentially more neutral) fiber 'highway' across the country with a similar model, run by the government. If only people weren't so afraid of government..."

The government has given us many reasons why we should fear a government- operated internet infrastructure. Do you really want the same government that's seizing web domains without due process to control the physical infrastructure as well? The same government that wants to vacuum up all the internet traffic of law-abiding citizens? That does warrantless wiretaps? That runs the TSA? Be careful what you wish for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is incredibly disingenuous I don't know whether to laugh or fucking cry.

We are talking about Kansas City here! A city that has long since been a shadow of its former self -- once a major US hub facilitating cross-statewide trade -- now a landscape of empty derelict factories and office buildings.

At least it was before the City Planners (read: OMG! The Government) did something about it.

For the last few years there has been a huge concerted effect to revive Kansas City and save it from a fate of "Detroitism". Is that so bad? No, it isn't, unless you're of the belief that all of America's cities' outside of LA/NYC should just "suck it up and deal with it" and be the subject of the next "Ruin Porn" hipster tumblr blog.

We are now starting to see some the fruits of these efforts: Sprint Center (Stadium), Kaufmann Center for the Performing Arts and many many other revitalization projects, including Google Fiber.

Spare me.

</comment><comment><USER7> This isn't about bandwidth. It's about content. The only thing standing between YouTube and the CableTV providers is bandwidth.

If Google cracks the bandwidth nut, they can essentially replace TimeWarner, Comcast, etc. in one fell swoop because they can easily replace 100% of the services those companies offer at a fraction of the cost.

Kansas City is essentially giving Google free reign to perfect their rollout and implementation processes. The next city that Google wires up will probably cost them a fraction of what Kansas City does because I'm certain that Google will automate every last detail that can be automated.

<comment><USER8> I've got to agree with you an many others in the comments. The thing that "doesn't sit right" is that Google is looking at alternative ways to benefit their company while benefiting the community. There's always going to be a risk of monopoly. In Australia, the fiber roll-out is government owned and funded, replacing a former government telco monopoly with a current government telco monopoly. If the price is right and there's still competition, I think we should be vigilant but happy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "To get that in writing, that's 91.58 Mbps down and 35.01 Mbps up."

No. That's how fast speedtest.net is. Google Fiber is much, much faster. Try it again with <http://speedtest.googlefiber.net/>

<comment><USER3> Yeah the 48ms ping was a dead giveaway that something in that test wasn't right. Bad wireless, dodgy connection, poorly chosen server.

An Ethernet→router→fibre→local-speedtest node trip should be closer to 5ms, if that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Of course Google is "doing this to upset the status quo". The status quo makes a lot of money providing a crappy product with crappy service. Google wants to disrupt that by providing a good product (probably with crappy, but better, service, if they hold true to form) so they can _become_ the new status quo.

And if KC invests in this and can see some knowledge worker jobs come to the Heartland, that seems like a true investment and not a dole.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's not the "way to good to be true vibe", it's just that people in the US think that they have the best of everything so how can we have something out there so much better for the same. When in reality the US is far behind in infrastructure in a whole. So why this upgrade looks amazing the truth is its the only thing on par with the rest of the developed world.

<comment><USER12> Define "rest of the world", in most of South America, people get 100kb/s down and 20kb/s up. I guess most of Africa and Asia bar Japan, South Korea and a few others aren't fast either.

<comment><USER13> I don't know if grandparent post has been edited but it says "rest of the developed world" now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Lachman's numbers are wrong. Not that those numbers are innaccurate, but that they aren't comparing the right numbers. According to Lachman, the price to connect a single home via fiber is $1250. The price that Google is selling it's service for is $70 a month. If there is no maintenance cost, the return on investment starts happening at month 18 of service. Assuming maintenance costs are a little less than half the installation costs, that gives us around $600 per year.

Cost to Connect: $1250 - $300 = $950

Cost to Maintain/Year: $600

Price/Year: $840

So, assuming that the income chart looks sort of like this, then the point at which it becomes profitable is 4 years. And this assumes that Google doesn't get more efficient.

</comment><comment><USER15> Google Fiber is supposedly about 10 times faster than that. Presumably, the bandwidth test server was being maxed out. His comparison based on the 91 Mbps result makes current ISPs look better than they should.

> For comparison, where with Comcast I can download a 1080p Breaking Bad > episode (1.86 GB) in about a half hour, Google Fiber would get it done in > under 3 minutes.

On Google Fiber, that Breaking Bad episode would be downloaded in about 15 seconds at max throughput.

<comment><USER16> Is it possible the WiFi, or a crappy laptop's hdd, are the culprits for the bottleneck?

<comment><USER13> I've definitely had speedtest.net results constrained by wifi and a slow laptop that couldn't run the flash control that well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I get synchronous 200mbps from Webpass for $450 a year. They don't provide content or services on top of that, which means they don't have incentives to analyze my data, nor will they attain perverse infrastructural advantages over other online services. It is the proverbial "dumb pipe" many here wish they had. And I'm very happy with that.

I don't want a world where Google runs my internet connection any more than I want a world where Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Amazon or Facebook does.

</comment><comment><USER18> None of this should come as a surprise. Remember when Google was asking cities across America to apply for the privilege of being the first city to have Google Fiber? Cities were competing against each other for Google Fiber.

Google didn't choose Kansas City for no reason. They chose them because KC was willing to be abnormally accommodating in letting Google roll out. After all, if you're going to launch an ambitious, experimental project, you want regulatory red-tape to be the least of your worries.

</comment><comment><USER19> Wait, I think I know what it is..... Hmm, what's that word.....? Oh yeah.....

Privatization!

Of course it's less than ideal! In a perfect world, we'd have had a nationwide gigabit deployment years ago. Internet would be a global human right, yada yada.

</comment><comment><USER20> It never occurred to me that profitability was a goal for google fiber. From the start I took it to be a pilot program to understand how people would be using the internet a few years in the future.

</comment><comment><USER21> I remember an article, way back, which claimed that YouTube was running at a loss, based on a dramatic over-estimation of its costs. This looks like the same thing again: unsupported assertion that Google's costs are going to be huge (because other telcos, which are very wasteful in ways that Google isn't, have huge costs).

I also think this article may be understating the upside, from Google's perspective. It looks like Google wants to displace cable companies not just as ISPs, but also as television distributors, replacing them with YouTube. That'd be worth a lot of money, and it's something they could reasonably achieve - but they need something like Google Fiber to put them in a good bargaining position with the content producers.

</comment><comment><USER22> I fail to see how any of the things you mentioned are negative.

<comment><USER23> Taxpayers paying for a commercial service whether they use it or not sounds like one. Special privileges and fast-tracking is another.

<comment><USER24> You think _"taxpayers paying for a commercial service whether they use it or not"_ sounds like a problem. Other people think this sounds like economic development.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Who in there right mind ever thought there was not a 'make money' angle here. Still want it, still trying to get wife to move to KC.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm fairly sure that Google is paying a lot less than $1250 per customer.

1) it costs a lot less to wire a whole neighbourhood than to wire a single house

2) kansas city was chosen because they could run the fiber on telephone poles rather than digging trenches (and they're not paying anything for access to those poles)

Google has stated that the $300 cost they're charging is the cost of wiring up a home, and I believe thats what they think it will cost. There probably will be overages and complications they don't have in their model, but I think that $300 is fairly close.

</comment><comment><USER27> >Well, then. It seems many Kansas City taxpayers will be paying for Google Fiber whether they sign up or not.

I guess that's why google fibre includes a free service tier.

</comment><comment><USER28> re:

"It seems many Kansas City taxpayers will be paying for Google Fiber whether they sign up or not. It also seems that Google has a LOT of free and unregulated access in the city. Kansas City could become a testbed for many a Google project."

[because] 'Google received stunning regulatory concessions and incentives.' [quoted within article.]

Yeah. Google got regulatory concessions not available to the 99%. Is that a surprise? This is how "business" is done with local governments across the country. Big businesses routinely get special deals in return for major investment.

Many times, these "investments" don't pan out. Local governments frequently fail to include clawback provisions for those occasions when Scam, Inc., takes the money and runs. It's a bet every time.

As to whether Kansas City taxpayers will pay: the fact is, they have already paid for the infrastructure. (Or they're still paying, via bonds.) So what? Google getting access to rights-of-way sounds like a bet that's better than average.

Proof is in the numbers. (Nice download speeds and the end user costs.) I hope the City Council of New Orleans, LA can get as good a deal.

</comment><comment><USER29> What are the prices of competitors in the US? Here in New-Brunswick Canada, prices are:

80Mbps down & 30Mbps up: $69.95 /mo. for first 3 months then $100.95 /mo.

50Mbps down & 30Mbps up: $29.95 /mo. for first 3 months then $83.95 /mo.

20Mbps down & 15Mbps up: $29.95 /mo. for first 3 months then $68.95 /mo.

Seems to be not that far from Google's prices.

<comment><USER3> Not far from their prices - miles from their product. You're comparing 110Mbps for $100/month against 1000Mbps* for $70/month and saying they're near equal.

That doesn't make sense to me.

*I'm judging from a speed test posted on the blog post that the line is asymmetric and down and upstream add up to 1Gbps.

<comment><USER13> The speedtest result posted in the blog post is really bad. 91.58 Mbps down and 35.01 Mbps up add up to "127 Mbps" in terms of your comparison. Of course, Google Fiber is much faster than that.

For the record, I'm currently paying $30/month (normal price $62/month) for 25/2 DSL in Vancouver, BC. If you live in a wired-up building, you can get 25/10 for $38/month, 50/10 for $62, 100/10 for $83, and 300/15 for $113 from a boutique ISP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> "To get that in writing, that's 91.58 Mbps down and 35.01 Mbps up. For basically the same price, I'm lucky if I can get 9 Mbps down from Comcast here in Seattle. And that's probably the fastest residential I've had in my life."

I use Comcast in Seattle. I pay $109 a month (for Business Class). Right now, I get 55mbps down, 35mbps up.

</comment><comment><USER31> And think of the data they can mine by having full access to your Internet usage.

<comment><USER32> Please read the privacy policy before spreading misinformation:

<https://fiber.google.com/legal/privacy.html>

<comment><USER31> Please don't pretend that privacy policies are carved in stone:

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/03/googles-new- priva...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/03/googles-new-privacy- policy-what-has-changed-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> It would seem odd if there were multiple utility companies offering to provide the service and Google got an unfair advantage. If nobody else was offering anything then what is wrong with a government agency working with private company to provide service that is helping people?</comment>


Show HN: Hire.Bid: Improved Version - <AUTHOR> We got blasted last week on here for our Show HN. In response, we've made some improvements. (The feedback, while brutally honest, was helpful). Let us know what you think. There is still work to be done, but hopefully it is slightly better. https://hire.bid (and, for some reason, our post last week got flagged, which was kinda crappy, but oh well, the benefit of the post far outweighed the bad). <comment><USER3> Looks like you need another iteration on this, here is why:

1\. The starting page is still to cluttered, and loading time is awful due to using fonts that do not contribute any value for the user. 2\. You still have not been able to actually tell in one sentence what you are doing. "Elite" and "unique" is not a redeeming quality. 3\. Instead of using icons that reveal some text for how it works, why not actually position the usage of the service higher and make it useful from the get go? 4\. Working for large companies is not necessarily a quality. In general you are advertising with hot air way too much. Be more precise!

For me - as one of those potential professionals to be moonlighting - <USER2> question still remains what you offer and what your unique proposition is.

Why not just say something along the lines of: "hire experienced/seasoned professionals to efficiently solve your issues/tasks"?

Because the main point is not that these people work at google, Amazon, or whatsoever: it is the accrued real world experience that can be used to solve the hard to solve issues a company might face and not be able to resolve by hiring young (unexperienced) talent.</comment>


No explanation for 'outbreak of insanity' on planes - <AUTHOR> http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/story/2011/05/No-explanation-for-outbreak-of-insanity-on-planes/47067938/1 <comment><USER2> What are they trying to imply? That the explanation is some weird parasite that makes humans go crazy? I think this title is a bit sensational.

I mean seriously, one good explanation for this might be random chance. You are bound to see a streak or two with an event that is infrequent eventually.

I think the airline spokesman who said that the only reason people cared about this was because of the recent death of Osama Bin Laden was right.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was on a plane in 2003 where a woman tried to open the emergency exit. A few burly male passengers tackled her and she spent the flight zip-tied to her seat. Police escorted her off the plane before we disembarked.

</comment><comment><USER4> >Since airplanes typically cruise above 30,000 feet, the air pressure inside the plane is much greater than the pressure outside — and that pressure differential makes it impossible to open the door

Wait, what?

</comment><comment><USER5> The article answered its own question - the past week Osama got his. That was a game-changer.

<comment><USER6> But probably a game changer in terms of _selection bias_ \-- we're seeing it reported now. But it does happen from time to time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I believe the best solution to the problem of crazy people trying to exit a plane in mid flight is to provide them with an emergency airlock as opposed to an emergency door.</comment>


Using Aaron Swartz - <AUTHOR> http://www.basiscraft.com/misc/2013/01/using-aaron-swartz.html

<comment><USER2> This is creepy enough to be a Hacker News comment.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is interesting background I didn't know before.</comment>


What are the best "learn by doing" online coding courses under $350? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking for quality online coding courses that focus on building some particular project (usually a clone of some famous product like twitter, pinterest, etc.). The language is not as important as the quality of a course and an actual technology stack that can be effectively applicable for freelance. Any recommendations? <comment><USER2> Seems like something you could find, or start, for free.

* We are what we do | Meetup || [https://www.meetup.com/](https://www.meetup.com/)</comment>


Slate Star Codex update: NYT still at it, reopening on hold - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/i3rvzw/update_nyt_still_at_it_reopening_on_hold/ <comment><USER2> Some context?

[Edit]

> NYT Is Threatening My Safety By Revealing My Real Name, So I Am Deleting The > Blog

Ref: [https://slatestarcodex.com/](https://slatestarcodex.com/)

<comment><USER3> There were a few recent threads that provide some additional context:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23639335](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23639335)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23913340](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23913340)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm sure I am opening myself up for some "whataboutism" criticism, but there does seem to be a discrepancy between the respect this site shows for Brian Krebs and the support shown for SSC in the face of NYT intentionally planning to doxx Scott.

</comment><comment><USER5> He's really milking it, isn't he

<comment><USER6> His blog, his rules.

Regardless on the merit of his claims (at this point everybody knows who he is and if anything he'd be bringing _more_ attention to his RL identity by continuing to pull these stunts) it's still appalling that the NYT insists on applying that double standard of protecting identities only when they please.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not particularly impressed by Alexander refusing to put 'skin in the game' when it comes to his public and only perfunctorily anonymous writings. This all seems very petulant.

<comment><USER8> This is a curious comment as skin in the game doesn't mean entire body in the game. I think Scott Alexander exhibits skin in the game through the risk that he has with the site in general.</comment></comment>


Canada's forests emit more carbon than they absorb - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/canada-forests-carbon-sink-or-source-1.5011490 <comment><USER2> I'm not sure what the author is playing at, but I think at the very least he is trying to be a bit clever.

His argument is based upon that forest biomass is shrinking and therefore forest are causing CO2 emissions:

"When you add up both the absorption and emission, Canada's forests haven't been a net carbon sink since 2001. Due largely to forest fires and insect infestations, the trees have actually added to our country's greenhouse gas emissions for each of the past 15 years on record."

Forest only reduce CO2 when they photosynthesising, so if the forests are being killed by fire or insects, then the forests are not ingesting CO2 but are expelling.

They way this article is titled leads one to believe that forests are causing the problem and that it is implicitly okay to be reducing forest biomass. I think the title is misleading and disingenuous.

<comment><USER3> It's difficult to fit nuance into such a small title. And titles are not supposed to convey the entire message -- if they did, what would be the point of the article?

I understand where you are coming from, but that title is pointed, topical, and expanded upon in detail throughout the article.

<comment><USER4> "Damage to Canada's forests makes them emit more carbon than they absorb"

T,FTFY

<comment><USER5> And the forest fires and beetle vulnerability are not unrelated to current climate change (at least in California last I read), so that might help close the non-anthro-centricity argument they are using for different accounting methods.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't think this should be too surprising. Forests don't destroy carbon, just store it in the form of trees. When the trees decompose, or burn down, it is released again. So for a mature forest you would expect it to have around net 0 emissions. As far as I know the main way a forest can be a carbon sink is if it is expanding, which I don't think Canada's forests are doing.

<comment><USER7> Not sure about Canada, but my understanding is that for the US we've gained forests compared to 50 or 100 years ago due to replanting, repurposing land and having dedicated paper pulp tree farms.

<comment><USER8> Also fire suppression. That's become a bit of a problem, as the forests are a lot more flammable now than they were historically.

<comment><USER9> That really depends on the state/region. You can see in this [1] report that states like Florida and Georgia are burning millions of acres a year in prescribed burns, while California burns a few ten thousand.

[1] [http://www.stateforesters.org/sites/default/files/publicatio...](http://www.stateforesters.org/sites/default/files/publication- documents/2015%20Prescribed%20Fire%20Use%20Survey%20Report.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well, then it is not the forest itself. It is the humans managing the forest, if I've understood correctly.

<comment><USER11> fta, recent fires and pests.

<comment><USER12> Caused by global warming (human?), fta.

<comment><USER11> The term "global warming" appears nowhere in tfa. That of course does not mean it isn't the case but it does mean that you are mistaken.

<comment><USER12> You are correct, I misattributed the top comment as part of the article, was an honest mistake.

 __" Old growth forests tend to exist in a carbon steady state; younger, growing forests tend to be net carbon uptakers. This situation is due to natural disturbance regimes in forests, like fire and pine beetle, having historically signifiant impacts in large part because of climate change."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Peservation of mass holds as it always did. The forest only absorbs CO2 if the total mass of the trees grows. For a mature foest this is usually not the case.

<comment><USER14> Trees don't stop growing. Trees also die, fall to the forest floor, and a % of the carbon is released as CO2 during decomposition but the remaining % is retained as soil. The coal we mine to burn is from the retained % of ancient forests. The oil we drill to burn is from the retained % of algae and plankton that ended up trapped under rock and essentially pressure cooked into oil.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Semi-serious question: should a country have to account for volcanos in its territory as well?

<comment><USER16> Do volcanos emit CO2?

<comment><USER11> Yes but they also emit ash which has cooling effects.

<comment><USER17> More critically, they emit huge amounts of sulphuric compounds, which are what really sick around and tend to cooling. Unfortunately when those same compounds don't reach high altitudes, you get a lot of acid rain. All told however, their net effect is strongly cooling over the first few years, and then milde cooling over longer time frames.

<comment><USER4> Fantastic, thanks for the explanation. Can you please point me to a source? Need to send it to my dad who taught me everything I know but has now turned into a climate change denialist who says it's all a globalist / marxist / leftist plot to make money off solar panels.

<comment><USER17> Absolutely, and I wish you the best of luck in representing your views to your father. I know how painful such a disconnect can be.

This is a good intro to the broad issue of volcanoes and climate: [http://www.cotf.edu/ete/modules/volcanoes/vclimate.html](http://www.cotf.edu/ete/modules/volcanoes/vclimate.html)

A more in-depth treatment of sulfur aerosols in the upper atmosphere: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_sulfur_aerosol...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_sulfur_aerosols)

Here's a breakdown of all the gasses typically releases during eruptions and their various effects: [http://volcanology.geol.ucsb.edu/gas.htm](http://volcanology.geol.ucsb.edu/gas.htm)

If there's anything else I can do, please don't hesitate to ask.

<comment><USER4> Thank you so much! I will send them all three. Just because you offered and you seem so knowledgeable, he has also claimed the CFC damage to the ozone layer was a hoax created to promote alternative refrigerants... If you have anything on that I could use a link as well!

<comment><USER17> My pleasure, and I have a great link that goes into the exact mechanism of how CFC photochemistry destroys the ozone layer.

[https://scied.ucar.edu/ozone-layer](https://scied.ucar.edu/ozone-layer)

Here's one with more technical analysis along with the exact chemistry:

[http://www.theozonehole.com/ozonedestruction.htm](http://www.theozonehole.com/ozonedestruction.htm)

Here's a broad overview with historical perspectives from the American Chemical Society: [https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry...](https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/cfcs- ozone.html)

I hope this helps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wonder if petrifying trees after they absorbed CO2 would help our emissions problems?

<comment><USER19> Yes, it would.

But if you are turning trees into coal, and burying them, why on Earth are you also digging up coal, to burn it?

Sequestration is going to be far more work then simply not generating emissions in the first place.

<comment><USER20> Tell me if this is incorrect thinking:

An advantage of sequestration is location. Something like you can emit the CO2 in a distributed manner (think car tail pipes) and then sequester it nearby but in aggregate (think a facility just outside city limits)

<comment><USER19> The problem is that, in a market economy, like the one we live in, we can dig up and burn coal much faster then we can grow and bury trees.

Coal can be mined for $30/tonne. That's 3 cents/kilogram. At that price point, it's nearly free. How can you keep up with sequesteration, when you are competing with nearly-free?

Sequestration makes sense when we are talking about an economy that derives ~5-10% of its energy from liquid fossil fuels, and everything else from renewables. It doesn't make much sense when 50% of energy generation comes from fossil fuels. It's just too labour intensive to make it work.

<comment><USER21> Not just a market economy - a market economy that does not account for externalities, like carbon emissions in the atmosphere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> fun fact: many trees at around 30 years of age, become carbon positive, releasing more carbon than they absorb.

</comment><comment><USER23> TL;DR: stock vs. flow.</comment>


Chinese Paddlefish Declared Extinct - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2020-01-chinese-paddlefish-declared-extinct.html <comment><AUTHOR> "Things became difficult for them when the Gezhouba Dam was built in 1981—it split the paddlefish population in two and prevented those fish trapped below it from spawning"</comment>


Why I'm saying goodbye to Dropbox and hello to SpiderOak Hive - <AUTHOR> http://dougbelshaw.com/blog/2013/08/28/why-im-saying-goodbye-to-dropbox-and-hello-to-spideroak-hive/ <comment><USER2> Chicago? Last time I checked, that city is within the jurisdiction of the United States and not immune to national security gag letters.

 _No thanks._

Swiss based Wuala.com is a much better solution.

<comment><USER3> Isn't switching from one closed source backup system to another closed source system overlooking the elephant in the room? These companies are legally required to rat you out when the government comes knocking (some even doing so without demanding a valid warrant, and profiting from LEO requests).

SpiderOak has been saying they "expect to make the SpiderOak client code open source in the not-distant future" [1] for years now, and their code still is not fully open-source. I completely understand their situation and know it's not always possible to fully open up the code, but I'm not able to overlook this deal breaker either.

Encrypt locally using only open source tools, then sync with whichever online backup/sync provider you like. It's the storage version of a 'dumb pipe', maybe we call it 'dumb containers'. Everything else is marketing bullshit which will evaporate once that first official demand for your data arrives.

[1][https://spideroak.com/faq/questions/35/why_isnt_spideroak_op...](https://spideroak.com/faq/questions/35/why_isnt_spideroak_open_source_yet_when_will_it_be/)

<comment><USER4> I recently created a "petition" for SpiderOak to open source the client (and allow people to build it themselves from source) so that people can let SpiderOak know their thoughts. The petition signatures are sent to SpiderOak.

It's still available at the link below if any SpiderOak user (or potential customer) wants to use it to "show the numbers" on a single site (as opposed to scattered comments): [http://www.change.org/petitions/spideroak-http-www- spideroak...](http://www.change.org/petitions/spideroak-http-www-spideroak- com-open-source-all-client-software-code-3)

There's an online backup service called Cyphertite (cyphertite.com) that provides the sources for its client programs on all the platforms it supports. So I don't really see why SpiderOak, with its prominent proclamations of "zero knowledge", cannot walk the talk.

Of course, I understand that certain competitive advantages may take longer to provide in the open (until factors other than the client source code and backend architecture become competitive advantages). But I have to admit that SpiderOak has been dragging on opening up the source.

Edit: Let me also admit that I do like SpiderOak and the emphasis it places on privacy and in educating users about privacy. We need more services that strongly support what ought to be basic rights.

<comment><USER5> You already have what you want. The source is here:

[http://duplicity.nongnu.org/](http://duplicity.nongnu.org/)

Actively in development, stable, ready for enterprise use.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, buggy and unstable and just hangs when you throw large quantities of small files at it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> SpiderOak user here.

Just remember to not use the Web UI: if you do so, your plaintext password is sent to the servers, because decryption happens on the servers. This is mentioned in their FAQ. Unless things have changed since the last time I checked.

<comment><USER8> They don't utilise https? Please tell me that isn't true.

<comment><USER9> HTTPS doesn't matter. Without client-side decryption, you are forced to give the server your password so it can decrypt the file for you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've seen a lot of people recommend Lastpass lately, but couldn't the government force Lastpass to create a backdoor for them to get the passwords before they are encrypted?

I'd also worry about a catastrophic event of Lastpass losing those passwords somehow, and then remaining locked out of many websites.

And what about Bittorent Sync with an old PC as an alternative? They even have an iOS app now.

<comment><USER11> I personally use keepass and keepassx (the alpha compatible with keepass2.x) and sync my passwords with SpiderOak. That's worked pretty well for me, and I don't actually have to trust a website with my passwords. Even if there's an insecurity in SpiderOak, they'd only get my encrypted keepass database which they'd then have to also decrypt.

I definitely recommend keepass over lastpass.

<comment><USER12> Exactly what I do too, for exact same reasons. Crazy imho to store your passwords in a cloud service, using only their encryption.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I just use Truecrypt volumes within Dropbox for anything I'd really care about losing. I guess it's an extra step, but I find I just like Dropbox better than the competition. And things I really care about (tax returns, for instance) I find I access rarely and always on a PC.

<comment><USER14> This solution has 2 issues though that kind of drive me crazy.

1) It won't sync the truecrypt volume while it's open (cause the file is in use), so if you want to encrypt stuff you work on regularly, you have to close the truecrypt volume regularly to sync it, which is a PITA.

2) Since it's one big volume, it takes forever to sync up even if you only modified a single file inside it. Say, for example, I have a 5 GB truecrypt volume containing some project I'm working on. If I open it, update the readme, then close it, it has to resync 5 GB...

So overall, this is far from an optimal solution...

<comment><USER15> EncFS keeps files separate (with encrypted filenames), avoiding this problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The best cloud security solution is one where you control the encryption keys AND stuff is encrypted on your device BEFORE uploading to the cloud.

We tried SpiderOak but the security was hard for our users. We ended up using Syncdocs which encrypts Google Drive. It lets our team share and use Google Docs normally, but secure folders we need to keep encrypted. They also disclose their AES encryption source.

[http://www.syncdocs.com/forums/topic/syncdocs-encryption- is-...](http://www.syncdocs.com/forums/topic/syncdocs-encryption-is-superior- to-googles-recently-announced-drive-encryption)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the new 'Hive' feature makes things a whole lot easier. Just drag-and- drop (as you would with Dropbox) :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm embarking on my own backup solution: For $1.38 USD/month (Ramnode OpenVZ SSD-Cached 128mb RAM VPS with 31% off for life coupon) I get 50gb.

I just need to setup a synchronization/encryption schedule. I'm thinking rsync remotely to the server. Not sure on encryption yet.

I'm also using the servers as development and minor hosting for myself. It's practically a free storage solution?

Am I crazy?

<comment><USER18> I do something similar, though I use git-annex / assistant to manage the files. It can have remote data repositories using rsync with transparent encryption (using GPG keys).

I also have a bigger drive at home mounted on a raspberry, which stores both the important files (as a second backup) and a lot of unimportant crap.

<comment><USER17> Thanks for the tip!

I'm hoping to look at rsync in order to do partial changes, so I could synchronize VM disks and other large files.

I don't like keeping my PC turned on to perform a sync, so I would love to setup a Raspberry pi to do the work for me, but it only has USB 2.0...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> SpiderOak does have one problem. It has no arm build for linux (and they apparently have no plans to make one soon). If you frequently use a Raspberry Pi or linux on an arm Chromebook then you'll be out of luck on syncing your files.

I wish they'd release simple sourcecode for a headless sync client or that someone would reverse engineer it enough for that to happen. As it is, you can sshfs mount a folder synced by one of your x86 computers, but that's definitely not ideal.

Other than that complain I've enjoyed using SpiderOak and it's a great piece of software.

</comment><comment><USER19> Cloudfogger[0] has an interesting solution. Anything within the cloudfogger folders gets encrypted before it can be synced with the cloud service. It also changes the filename to add its own extension. When you open a file, cloudfogger uses the password cached on your system to decrypt and then run the file, providing a fairly seamless experience.

The one main problem is that it's not an open source client, which seems like the ideal solution.

[0] [http://www.cloudfogger.com/en/](http://www.cloudfogger.com/en/)

 _Edit:_ Why downvotes?

</comment><comment><USER20> I have only seen one outdated blog post benchmarking upload speed of the various services being suggested here. [http://www.proposedsolution.com/downloads/online-storage- ser...](http://www.proposedsolution.com/downloads/online-storage-services- performance-test/)

As a Dropbox user, I find that the files get synced very quickly and I wonder if these alternatives (Spideroak/Wuala) being suggested will match that speed. That will be a factor as well to consider.

</comment><comment><USER21> What's disappointing about SpiderOak is the inability to do two-way sharing of your data - so it's not really usable in a corporate setting.

Oh, you're saying it wouldn't be possible with client-side encryption? I say it should be, using a mix of symmetric and asymmetric encryption:

\- have all data of a repository encrypted using a symmetric key, at first known only by the repository owner.

\- the symmetric key gets sent on the cloud host's server, encrypted using the owner's public key.

\- every new device or share with a new user will require a previous user (in this case the owner) to decrypt the symmetric key using his private key and encrypt it using a new public key that the new user / device has sent together with its access request.

\- the cloud host simply grows a table of encrypted symmetric keys, with one entry per device/user, besides the actual encrypted data. note that the cloud host still can never decrypt the data, as long as the private keys never get sent around.

<comment><USER22> It's coming! Existing SpiderOak accounts all contain a 3072 bit RSA keypair, which is reserved for this future purpose. But it's not as simple as it seems. Things like garbage collection, and space accounting, and various race conditions between parties become the hard parts.

In any case, it's on the way, and it's entirely open, built with Crypton.io, our new open source framework for building zero knowledge applications. (Which we'll eventually port the main SpiderOak desktop app to use.) For details [https://crypton.io/](https://crypton.io/) and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn9DAwggza0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn9DAwggza0) (...and to be clear, the threat model is intended for for HTML5 desktop and mobile apps, not browser Javascript.)

<comment><USER21> Thanks, good to know. The challenges you describe are interesting, I'd love to read an article about it ;-).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So I go to the Startup Guides, then to Getting Started. I open the PDF and under step one I see:

"NOTE: Curious about how we retain 'zero-knowledge' privacy while password creation happens on the web? Click here for more details."

But no link. So... is this a joke? why can't they explain this in their FAQ instead of having to get a PDF then a (non-existent) link to it? I've been searching the FAQs and under Privacy and Passwords and all I can find is:

"More information about this is on our website in the engineering section of our website, which talks about our zero knowledge approach, the password policy, and encryption specifications."

Engineering section? I can't see where it is.

My point is, if "security and privacy" are one of the main selling points of the product... yet you have to jumpo through hoops and loops to get some details on the implementation and STILL don't have the info... smells fishy..

<comment><USER24> The Sign-up process is explained here: [https://spideroak.com/blog/20111206101528-new-browser- based-...](https://spideroak.com/blog/20111206101528-new-browser-based-signup- process-maintaining-zero-knowledge-privacy)

This is the Engineering Page with Encryption Specifications: [https://spideroak.com/engineering_matters](https://spideroak.com/engineering_matters)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> @Doug: have you tried our (free) product: [http://ncryptedcloud.com](http://ncryptedcloud.com)? We currently work with Dropbox and will eventually with Google Drive & SkyDrive. Our product works with Windows, Mac OSX, iOS & Android. We also have the Cloud Web Portal which allows you to see your secure file via web. Keys are generated client-side. We use open standard. We don't have access to your data AND you can securely share your files with other people (nCryptedCloud user or not!).

I've written about the problem of cloud security and cloud privacy here: [http://vuongnguyen.com/personal-business-cloud- security.html](http://vuongnguyen.com/personal-business-cloud-security.html).

We're just a startup who was trying to solve our own problem with the cloud security & privacy. Would love to hear from you.

-V.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Appreciate the link. I have looked at some third party add-ons, but don't want to use two cloud products when one will do.

I will take a look at ncryptedcloud.com though in case it's useful for people I advise. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Interesting solution, but the reason why I use Dropbox is due to the ever increasing storage space limit for non-premium users. I have about 6 GBs of space available to me, and as soon as I get remotely close to that capacity, they usually give me an additional half of a GB.

</comment><comment><USER27> Cached/mirror: [http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?d=1033629403347&mkt=en- US&set...](http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?d=1033629403347&mkt=en- US&setlang=en-US&w=VK2A0hF5_W8dUTufWle_RZ8HydZJ3Gfb)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, it's the first time one of my posts has made the front page of HN and it kind of took me by surprise.

The cache should be able to deal with it now, but I appreciate the mirror. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> One fail in the article: "It's worth saying at this point that I don't, to my knowledge, do anything wildly illegal."

The definition of illegal varies over time and you have no control over it at all.

<comment><USER29> He's almost certainly done something illegal.

[http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.asp...](http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.aspx)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, I agree. What I'm trying to say is that I'm not a Silk Road user or hosting illegal images.

+1 to changing definitions of 'illegal' (along with 'madness', etc.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> All well and good ... until Spideroak stops syncing, customer support can't explain it and you're told it will be ... get ready ... at least one month before one of their tech guys can look at the problem. I was with Spideroak for over a year before this happened to me, and I switched to competitor's product. sure, no real security, but at least it's backing up my files.

<comment><USER22> I agree our ability to scale support is a problem. Very sorry it didn't work out for you. Unfortunately on our side it's a big challenge to provide detailed troubleshooting with individual users, especially if they are not paying. We took Patio11's advise and offer a money back guarantee for paid users, but we also do try to investigate and support them much better.

Since the product is zero knowledge, we can't just look at the server to see what a problem might be. Trobleshooting involves analyzing logs from the end point devices, find out all the relationships involved in the sync (one machine is Mac using case preserving insensitive unicode form D, the next is Windows with relevant regional settings, another is a Linux NFS server, a FAT32 volume that doesn't preserve certain characteristics and has a limitations for MAXPATH, etc.)

It often take a couple of hours of analysis to understand what a specific situation's problem might be, and the median case is that it comes down application level things that SpiderOak can't do much about other than explain to people why syncing (for example) Quickbooks files between two open and running instances of Quickbooks at the same time is not going have the effect they desire. Or any number of combinations like that. People put very weird stuff in filesystems.

In any case, sorry it didn't work for you. We did recently finally resolve a couple of long standing edge cases in the Unicode sync logic in the 5.0.3 release. Let me know if you'd like to give it another try. In any case, thanks for your interest in SpiderOak.

<comment><USER30> Just to clarify, I was a paid user, and am still yet to receive my refund. As I've recommended Spideroak to my clients, and several of them are also paid customers of yours, this puts in me in a difficult position.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I would love to find a replacement to Dropbox that 1Password supports. Was looking at AeroFS but turns out not to support 1Password at this time.

</comment><comment><USER32> In related news, the Chinese operator TenCent is offering 10TB online storage for free. [http://www.weiyun.com/act/10t.html](http://www.weiyun.com/act/10t.html)

At least your data will be behind a strong firewall

</comment><comment><USER33> Although having your data encrypted everywhere is a good idea in principle, using closed-source tools like LastPass and SpiderOak Hive isn't a good way to do it since you have no way to verify that the data is encrypted well or at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good point and I'm certainly not saying this is a full tinfoil-hat solution. But's it's better than I had before and an easy change to make for the 99% :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> How does their data-encryption relate to something like Mega ([https://mega.co.nz/](https://mega.co.nz/))?

<comment><AUTHOR> Mega's Privacy policy says:

"Your data is encrypted by you before upload to our system and therefore we do not and cannot access that content unless we are provided with the decryption key. You may give access to others by providing them with a link and decryption key and you shall be responsible for their compliance with this Policy."

But they also say that they'll comply with legal requests. These article explain it better than me:

[http://www.technewsdaily.com/16484-mega-encryption- flaws.htm...](http://www.technewsdaily.com/16484-mega-encryption-flaws.html)

[http://gizmodo.com/5977265/how-megas-encryption-will- protect...](http://gizmodo.com/5977265/how-megas-encryption-will-protect-you- but-mostly-kim-dotcom)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> How about using btsync and hosting your own cloud?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, lots of suggestions to use BTSync. I am using it, just not for this particular use.

I want to backup and sync at the same time to an offsite server.

While I _could_ roll my own solution, I want something that I can recommend to family/friends/my network (and that's congruent with _their_ technical skills). :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Not open source - not possible to trust it. I switched to duplicity and a cheap storage (shell) provider accessible via ssh.

</comment><comment><USER37> also, there's the weird and confusing details / thread from yesterday where dropbox seem to be relying on security through obscurity - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6286674](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6286674)

</comment><comment><USER38> could you pls document your experiences after some weeks of usage, how it compares to Dropbox?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, I'll do that. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I've racked up 7.9GB on my free Dropbox account. Until there is an alternative that offers more for free, I probably wouldn't consider switching. However, I'm encouraged by the amount of cloud hosting services emphasizing privacy, maybe at some point dropbox will follow suit.

<comment><USER40> Microsoft just upped their SkyDrive to 25 gigs I believe.

Edit: Actually, I guess that's for their basic paying account.

<comment><USER41> Or, if you'd had a SkyDrive account before the change.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Why Hive and not AeroFS?

<comment><USER43> Once you use AeroFS you might as well use BitTorrent Sync.

<comment><USER44> Im not familiar with AeroFS, could you elaborate?

<comment><USER43> AeroFS is a filesync clone that operates without any central storage cloud, but you still need to make an account that connects to their central server.

This means they control your access to the syncing your own files.

BitTorrent Sync lets me do the same thing, but under my own control. Only thing missing there is being able to choose your own tracker.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I prefer RoachBirch Anthill, or occasionally BeePine Mound.

Think of your files as termites. BeePine Mound is like a secure mound in the cloud for all your stuff.</comment>


Pariah moonshine - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00660-y <comment><AUTHOR> New symmetries for elliptic curves. It seems like these pariah groups could be used to speed up cracking elliptic curve cryptography. Does anyone have an informed opinion?</comment>


How to Launch a Startup, Step-by-Step (according to GroundWork Open Source) - <AUTHOR> http://talktech.tv/2008/09/18/groundwork-part-2-startup-tips-for-entrepreneurs/

<comment><USER2> I wish the reporter would stop interrupting so I could actually listen to the answers.</comment>


Foursquare dataset free to download and analyze - <AUTHOR> http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~sarwat/foursquaredata/ <comment><USER2> Obligatory:

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

[http://techcrunch.com/2006/08/06/aol-proudly-releases- massiv...](http://techcrunch.com/2006/08/06/aol-proudly-releases-massive- amounts-of-user-search-data/)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/technology/09aol.html?page...](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/technology/09aol.html?pagewanted=all)

TL;DR: It's fairly easy to deanonymize datasets like this, provided they are somewhat complete.

<comment><USER3> The dataset comes with GPS locations of users and venues. With that data alone you can retrieve individual addresses in not too densely populated areas. Missing links will get caught in the social net.

We already learned that Warhol's 15 minutes of fame should read _15 megabytes_ , but, to cut the "it's the users choice to post that data" apologists short: almost no-one I speak to understands the implications of all possible interpretations, classifications and groupings that their online traces allow.

<comment><USER2> Furthermore, it's not the users' fault that 4sq isn't sufficiently rate limiting or otherwise protecting this data. Why should arbitrary users be able to see the social graph of others they're not friends with? Also, why should people outside of your immediate one-hop social graph be able to see your checkins?

Giving it to 4sq for data mining is different than giving it to UMN and/or the whole internet for data mining and/or deanonymization.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Jesus Christ. The bulk scraping in violation of the TOS is egregious enough, but redistributing it with a mandate that the researchers get credit? For what, scraping a generous public API?

<comment><USER5> This is usually common practice. It serves two purposes 1) Makes it easier to find the dataset that was used for experiments. And 2) Improves citation count for the author which is usually important in research.

<comment><USER6> That's true, but here is the paper from Microsoft Research and it seems to be lacking in how those data files were generated:

[http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/156453/icde12_lars.pdf](http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/156453/icde12_lars.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> That doesn't look like Foursquare has handed that over. What's the legality of scraping a service for their data in this way?

<comment><USER8> That doesn't look completely legal to me either.

<comment><USER9> I don't get why scraping publicly and freely accessible data would be illegal. The redistribution under their own terms is another matter, though.

<comment><USER10> > publicly and freely accessible data would be illegal.

Data is not "publicly and freely accessible" if accessing it requires you to agree to separate terms of service for it that restrict your ability to access and redistribute it.

(Whether or not one believes the data _should_ be freely and public accessible is a separate matter, but given the above, it's hard to make the case that it _is_ ).

Amusingly, this data _still_ isn't "freely accessible", because these people have attached their own, separate terms to reusing and redistributing the data.

<comment><USER11> If you have to apply to specific terms, but are able to access everything without complying to these terms, this effectively means that the data is publicly and freely accessible.

Rules on itself don't restrict anything, enforcement does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hLI5FqD...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hLI5FqDixY8J:www- users.cs.umn.edu/~sarwat/foursquaredata/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk)

(the direct link is not working, but this confirmed that was freely available)

</comment><comment><USER13> No mention of the data format. Is it json, csv what? I know you can always head -n the file but a little hint would be helpful!

<comment><USER14> It looks like an ASCII-formatted table. Pretty disappointing that it isn't machine readable out of the box.

<comment><USER15> What's not machine readable about an ASCII table? A fixed width table has its own advantages over eg CSV - for instance, to read a specific field you can reach it by offset rather than having to count delimiters.

<comment><USER16> fixed width might have technical advantages but CSV has the advantage of being able to be read by a lot of things out of the box.

<comment><USER15> So does fixed width. Excel, MySQL, R, Perl... :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > This data set contains 2153471 users, 1143092 venues, 1021970 check-ins, > 27098490 social connections, and 2809581 ratings that users assigned to > venues

The number of check-ins seems to be low compared to other numbers.

</comment><comment><USER18> Could anyone recommend some solid introductory material on data analysis/data visualisation?

I'm thinking this data set seems like a fun way to fill a rainy weekend, going for a dive into these worlds :)

<comment><USER19> The Social Network Analysis course on Coursera started yesterday. [0]

0: [https://www.coursera.org/course/sna](https://www.coursera.org/course/sna)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Look's like it's been removed. Damn.

Edit: Not removed, just unaccessible. 403.

<comment><USER21> I'm quite sure it will surface somewhere. Looking forward to it. :)

EDIT: I would love to get my hands on this data... anyone? :)

<comment><USER11> I have it, but "The user may not redistribute the data without separate permission."

But if you have any questions about it, I can try to answer them, my username here also corresponds to a gmail account I use ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Looks like the data is only up-to-date as of July 2012 (judging from the zip compression times).

</comment><comment><USER23> sounded too good to be true. I guess we'll have to find it on bittorrent.

<comment><USER24> filename was "umn_foursquare_datasets.zip" in case that helps

<comment><USER12> [http://ul.to/betfn1vh](http://ul.to/betfn1vh)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The data set has been removed?

<comment><USER26> [http://archive.org/details/201309_foursquare_dataset_umn](http://archive.org/details/201309_foursquare_dataset_umn)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> why was this not posted as a torrent?</comment>


Google Voice Integrated Into Gmail. Make And Receive Calls From The Browser - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/25/google-voice-integrated-into-gmail-make-and-receive-calls-from-the-browser/

<comment><USER2> I think now Skype has some real competitor. This is also going to add lots of value to Google Apps product.

<comment><USER3> Only if their network is more stable and call quality is equally good or better, and they hopefully offer an API... and expand it outside the US... and to Apps domains.... Skype has such momentum, and with partners like VoSky allowing corporations to tie Skype to their PBXes, it's going to take more than an integrated client to shake the tree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm rather confused on why Google Voice isn't tied into Google Apps domains yet. Take Google Voice, add some management tools and say "Hey guys, for the $50/user/year you'd pay for email, docs, etc we can be your PBX too!".</comment>


Mobile Open Source: Inside the Pre - <AUTHOR> http://www.funambol.com/blog/capo/2009/06/inside-pre.html <comment><USER2> What's awesome is the root code: "up up down down left right left right" is the well known cheat code in Konami games: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_Code>

</comment><comment><USER3> This is great. "Slimy bastard users" indeed! Why did Palm leave source comments on the phone?

<comment><USER4> Maybe because the Pre is still in development and the leaked rom is some sort of dev build used by palm.

That's my 2 cents.

<comment><USER3> But from the article it sounds like they're on the actual phones, not just the leaked ROM.</comment></comment></comment>


Patent US8762879 – Tab management in a browser - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/patents/US8762879 <comment><USER2> The title is wrong. The patent is about how you place the tabs which are opened from already open one and a specific way of closing them. It definitely doesn't patent opening and closing in general. It's more about UI placement and the UX. From the patent itself: "Some browsers provide a tabbed interface. The FIREFOX 2 browser, available at [http://www.mozilla.com/](http://www.mozilla.com/), is an example of a browser with a tabbed interface."

Edit: title was wrong (was about google patenting opening/closing tabs), now updated

<comment><USER3> I completely agree. People should make sure to look at the claims, particularly under 1 at C:

"rendering, on the computing device, the tab management area such that a close button of a remaining tab is located at the screen position, wherein the rendering (b) comprises, when the tab management area was determined to be full in (b), translating the remaining tab to the left such that the remaining tab maintains the same width"

This is a patent on Chrome's mechanism for resizing the tabs after you move your mouse away from the tab bar, which is nicer than the standard method of resizing them while other tabs are still being closed. It's not a patent on opening and closing tabs in general.

Disclaimer: IANAL, but I have worked directly on patents.

<comment><USER4> Ugh. Does this mean firefox will not get this feature now?

<comment><USER2> Depends on the patent licensing. They can always ask the authors to add it to OPN ([https://www.google.com/patents/opnpledge/](https://www.google.com/patents/opnpledge/))

Currently the licensing terms are not published ([https://covalentdata.com/patent/US08762879B1](https://covalentdata.com/patent/US08762879B1))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Software patents need to be banned entirely and this is a perfect example of why. Google's ideal outcome is that no other browser would have tabs, making them inferior to the point of not being usable. That is literally their desired outcome from filing this patent, and indeed it is the basis for every software patent. You can see just from the list of patents cited that Microsoft and many other companies have all taken out patents on obvious incremental design improvements on browser GUIs, and the reason that they do it is to gather ammo for some theoretical ultimate showdown that they imagine will end with their browser as the only remaining legal product. None of them are dealing in good faith, and this should confirm forever that Google no longer subscribes to "don't be evil" as a behavioral maxim.

<comment><USER6> > Google's ideal outcome is that no other browser would have tabs, making them > inferior to the point of not being usable. That is literally their desired > outcome from filing this patent, and indeed it is the basis for every > software patent.

Spoken like someone who has not even looked at the claims, and probably doesn't know what the word "claim" means.

<comment><USER7> Hey, Ad Hominem

<comment><USER6> That's not an ad hominem. "You're dumb, so we shouldn't care what you believe" is an ad hominem. "What you believe could only be believed by someone who's uninformed" is not.

<comment><USER7> And your response is only possible from a stupid boogerhead who doesn't even know what a 'claim' is. Not an Ad Hominem. Sure.

<comment><USER6> It was sort of insulting (probably needlessly so), but it was not an ad hominem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Glad to see the title has been changed. Previously it was yet another example of someone who has no idea how a patent works, but still feels qualified to get all outraged about them.

</comment><comment><USER8> Can you patent something invented before by someone else?

<comment><USER9> Thank Congress for the recent "first to file" change to patent law.

<comment><USER8> Apparently was an [Obama's initiative]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_to_file_and_first_to_inv...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_to_file_and_first_to_invent#The_USA.27s_change_to_first- inventor-to-file_.28FITF.29)). Let's hope this decision helps to remove software patents.

<comment><USER6> How would the decision to grant one particular patent to Google "help to remove software patents"?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to Pitch an Investor in 90 seconds - <AUTHOR> http://venturefizz.com/blog/how-pitch-investor-90-seconds

<comment><USER2> How you do it in 5 seconds: show them you're profitable.</comment>


Artificial Intelligence's White Guy Problem - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/opinion/sunday/artificial-intelligences-white-guy-problem.html <comment><USER2> IMO, no one wants to acknowledge simple facts for fear of retribution/being labelled racist, instead we keep dancing around this issue forever getting more and more ridiculous.

Also, trust me i can talk about this because i'm not white...

fact - people prefer people like them. Not even consciously, this is basic shit hardwired into us. I don't blame white men for being subconsciously biased to hiring white men, literally any other group would do the same. sure we can try to fight that bias, but its not at all evil or wrong to have that bias, only natural.

fact - taking an "agnostic" approach the way science does, of course the algorithms will reflect "biases". if men are statistically more likely to be programmers, or black people are more likely to commit crimes (STATISTICALLY), then the algorithm will pick that up. They are biases sure, but also statistical realities.

Now we can debate whether we should actively engineer algorithms to fight these "biases" on a case-by-case basis (for example, focusing more on women might be a win if you can find talent no one else can), but there's no reason to start pointing fingers at the "evil white guys" on top who planned this from the very beginning... it's just more stereotyping.

hypothesis - she wrote this crap to gain publicity.

<comment><USER3> > if men are statistically more likely to be programmers, or black people are > more likely to commit crimes (STATISTICALLY),

I think you meant black people are more likely _to be convicted of_ crime. The problems with crime 'statistics' is that on the surface, it all seems coldly scientific, yet they are generated and derived via very biased, very human, very unscientific processes - there is a lot of bad data. The ACLU did research that showed that there is no statistically significant difference in the possession of weed between white and black people, yet more black people are convicted[1] for possession.

Here's a mind experiment: after watching this YouTube video[2], how skewed do you think the statistics for white female criminals (bike thieves) vs black criminals would be?

1\. [https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu-thewaronmarijuana- rel...](https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu-thewaronmarijuana-rel2.pdf)

2\. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge7i60GuNRg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge7i60GuNRg)

<comment><USER4> If that's the case, there must be a hell of a lot of unconvicted white murderers to make up for the 7:1 disproportion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The last person I met from Google's machine learning group in search was female and Chinese. The big name behind machine learning is Andrew Yan-Tak Ng; he was a professor at Stanford and is Chief Scientist at Baidu now.

They're complaining about Nikon cameras not recognizing Asian faces properly, and this is discrimination? Nikon is a Japanese company. Headquarters is in Tokyo. The CEO is Kazuo Ushida.

<comment><USER6> My experience as well. I'm from Seattle and have met (at my office and others) and overwhelmingly large number of asian, and especially female asians working in data science and machine learning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7>
      But similar errors have emerged in Nikon's camera
      software, which misread images of Asian people as blinking,

Ah, Nikon, that famous White Guy company. Founded by white guys in Tokyo in 1917, and headed by notable white men Makoto Kimura and Kazuo Ushida.

<comment><USER8> I think their point was the training data may have a lot of white guys. I don't know what Nikon used but if they just googled the web for images they'd probably end up with quite a lot of white subjects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The reason why this is garbage, is that there is not a single naturally occurring domain in society in which groups can be found to be represented equally. I'm pretty sure this is true in nature as well. So one can literally at their sole discretion, analyze any area of life and make statements like "systemically oppressed this", "unequally represented that". It's like staring at an ink blot and being asked what you see.

I have the nagging sensation that if were up to todays hyper-sensitized media on how society should look and function, we would all be grey globs in a grey world, devoid of any differences.

The more depressing truth? Striking these chords are an absolute goldmine for ratings and clicks. Everyone is naturally curious about how they might be currently oppressed or disadvantaged, it plays to our instinctual tribalism.

So please, realize you can do anything you want in this world, and don't be seduced by hate and bitterness from some writer sitting in Soho that has a click-quota to meet this month.

</comment><comment><USER9> Lord, the comments here are as bad as I feared.

This article makes a perfectly valid point- AI is only as good as the data you use to train it. If you feed it bad, biased data, then the AI will behave in bad, biased ways.

These biases can be major (no Amazon delivery to black neighborhoods) or minor. I'm reminded of a gaming podcast I heard (can't remember which one) where a guy recounted watching a female journalist try VR goggles that couldn't detect her eyes because she had mascara. Apparently no one making the headset had tested the effects of that kind of makeup.

The article is right. If we are serious about creating products that revolutionize everyone's lives, we need to involve more kinds of people. Our perspectives are limited. We can't understand everything. That's the point of having a diverse team. Like Ben Thompson says, there's a very strong business case for diversity because "You don't know what you don't know."

<comment><USER10> While I agree that the article raises an important point, I don't really see how more diverse development teams would have fixed any of the problems raised.

<comment><USER11> There are a number of evidence-based case studies, reports, and other scientific papers that support the assertions in the OpEd. I'd recommend reading them before jumping to contrary conclusions. See, e.g., [https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2016/05/04/big-risks-big- opp...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2016/05/04/big-risks-big- opportunities-intersection-big-data-and-civil-rights;) [https://bigdata.fairness.io/](https://bigdata.fairness.io/).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This article falls in the same fallacy as a lot of more postmodern social science articles.

The whole point of AI and machine learning is to find things that are not immediately obvious but backed up by the data.

The author of this article is suggesting that if the conclusions of this research are politically unfavorable, then there has to be bias/racism/sexism somewhere. race/gender/socioeconomic agnostic.

Which runs immediately counter to both machine learning and research in general. "Dang it, run the numbers until it supports the conclusion I support."

It's like the author doesn't understand the basic premise of machine learning or research. If the datasets are restricted in some way unfairly, that's something to be looked at. Algorithms are generally fair and unbiased.

</comment><comment><USER13> Should science in general not be attempted until the scientists performing the research are at adequate diversity levels?

<comment><USER14> Be hilarious if the double-slit experiment only works when white males are watching.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "In the United States, this could result in more surveillance in traditionally poorer, nonwhite neighborhoods, while wealthy, whiter neighborhoods are scrutinized even less."

More policing reduces crime. The author seems to think that people living in these poor, nonwhite neighborhoods would rather see the police resources go to wealthy, white neighborhoods. But the studies show that minorities and people living in high-crime neighborhoods mostly do approve of police. There is a lot of cognitive dissonance here: is crime reduction through more policing in poor nonwhite neighborhoods a right goal despite sometimes justified skepticism of the police or not?

[http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/02/more- pol...](http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/02/more-police- managed-more-effectively-really-can-reduce-crime/385390/)

[https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/197925.pdf](https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/197925.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER16> It makes the world worse to try to "include" everyone. There's a reason we have grades and exclusivity.

Equality is about opportunity, not results.

</comment><comment><USER17> Its a combination of two separate problems- the skewed demographics of software engineers and the continued requirement of an intuitive understanding of the problem AI is being developed to solve. If you're building an AI system to help police predict crimes, you want to have a detailed enough understanding of the places its going to be applied to know what the impact of its predictions would be and how to shape the system to actually produce a desired result. Like with UX design, going from a specification to a logically valid implementation isn't necessarily going to produce results people actually want.

Its much the same way as, say, startups trying to market products to new mothers or highschool students have a hard time because they can't "eat their own dogfood" if they're all late-twenty-something white men. Huge markets lie unserved, I'm sure, because they're demographics that don't tend to produce software engineers or entrepreneurs.

</comment><comment><USER18> > The reason those predictions are so skewed is still unknown

Well, I bet the reason are historical statistics of recidivism, which presumably were used to train these algorithms.

But hey, this is NYT, they cannot simply acknowledge the existence of differences in crime statistics between races, so 'the reason remains unknown'. Hilarious.

</comment><comment><USER19> The demonization of "white guys" in tech is getting rather appalling.

</comment><comment><USER20> god damn white guys, why you have to be so racist

<comment><USER21> Hell, we can't help it! The definition keeps changing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> They need some political correctness network training for their AI systems.

</comment><comment><USER22> Other HN thread on the same story by Bloomberg:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11980557](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11980557)

At least this article has a _slightly_ less hostile title, but the fact remains: it's not white men's fault that they have been innovative and early in the field of AI. If one absolutely must drag identity politics into AI it would be more accurate to say that women should participate more, and that's on them. Not white men.

Regardless, I don't see how being sexist and racist (as these articles are) helps anything.

<comment><USER23> Perhaps there are systemic barriers that make it more difficult for women than men to participate in the AI field.

<comment><USER22> The beauty of computer science is that no one can stop you from doing it. Anyone who can afford a computer can excel in the field if they put their mind to it. If you want to talk about helping people who can't afford computers, that would be worthwhile. That's definitely not a gendered discussion though.

EDIT: I fully agree with WalterBright below but have been banned by HN from continuing my conversation in this thread for daring to suggest insulting white men might be racist and sexist.

<comment><USER24> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you%27re_a_dog)

In the D language community, we have many strong contributors who we actually have no idea who they are, other than their online persona that they create themselves.

We don't know their age, race, gender, religion, nationality, politics, nothing.

It's as close to a pure meritocracy as is probably humanly achievable.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask yourself: what would Bill Gates do? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.123ship.it/2013/03/ask-yourself-what-would-bill-gates-do.html <comment><USER2> "I know most of you can't stand the guy"

Really? I thought people took objection to Microsoft but generally thought of him as an intelligent, charismatic and, more recently, very generous man.

<comment><USER3> No, I hate Microsoft because they destroyed Borland, Lotus, WordPerfect, etc. They gobbled up everything (Visio, PowerPoint, etc). They killed off Netscape the company, stuck us with IE6 for a decade by "making it part of the operating system." They embraced, extended, and tried to extinguish everything they could. (e.g. Java->C#, OpenGL->DirectX).

Bill, however, I greatly admire. He took no prisoners. :-) I've got his book on my shelf somewhere. It's 20 years old now. I should go back and read it.

<comment><USER4> Apple has arguably destroyed/killed off RIM. Microsoft's "destruction" is today's startups' "disruption". (At least in HN circles I think we applaud AirBNB or Uber doing damage to the hospitality or transportation industries). Twitter and Google are gobbling up and often times killing products of value.

I think Microsoft did a lot of things we value: disrupt and grow. Looking back, I think we see it through a different lens, but modern startups (or those who have eclipsed that label to be "big") can be Microsoft (or at least little Microsofts). Probably the only thing separating Microsoft from many companies is the presence of a moral compass at the company level.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Even fearing downvoting I must say these articles, most of them I've been reading in the past month from that site are just plainly wrong assumptions. This article for example try to argues that you can be like BG and try to sell something without actually having it. I say BG had the OS in that time, he just didn't bought it but he knew the SO was right away to be bought (and cheap).

<comment><USER6> It wasn't finished though nor available and didn't know how much work required to be ready to sell it.

They just knew that they couldn't let that opportunity pass away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> In the same vein as how Microsoft sold IBM an OS that didn't exist, one of my favorite stories is Excite bidding $3 million to be on Netscape's browser circa 1996 or so (while having $1 million in the bank), prodded on by Vinod Khosla (they didn't get the deal, but it's still a great move).

[http://bnoopy.typepad.com/bnoopy/2004/09/persistence_pay_1.h...](http://bnoopy.typepad.com/bnoopy/2004/09/persistence_pay_1.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> Don't forget that the businessman is the new political savior.

We all love the oh so charitable landlord who by day evicts his tenants and by night donates cardboard boxes to them for shelter now that they're homeless.

Isn't it so wonderful that the man that's taken more of a share of the world's wealth than any human in history gives some of it back? It should be obvious that if you want to change the world, don't vote or organize, buy more copies of Windows!!

</comment><comment><USER9> If being dark lord of the evil empire is what you want, you would follow in his steps. Beware of the jedi order that is 'us' though.

<comment><USER10> Let's put that another way: if you're not afraid of _being seen as_ the dark lord of an evil empire in order to get what you want (which, in Gates' case, seems to be "billions of dollars to solve the most important problems the world has to offer") then you should follow in his footsteps.

In other words, if you have world-changing vision, and want to succeed on a truly massive scale, you probably have to Think Like A Supervillain ([http://dirtsimple.org/2009/02/everything-i-needed-to-know- ab...](http://dirtsimple.org/2009/02/everything-i-needed-to-know-about- life.html), <http://lesswrong.com/lw/gp7/think_like_a_supervillain/>).

<comment><USER9> If you are destroying a part of the world to fix another, you are not good. You may be evil even. Because you are selfishly choosing the part to fix, in expense of the part you destroy. If you are good, you should do no evil, or at least strive to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Those who don't know how Microsoft once operated need to read this book:

Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure [http://www.amazon.com/Startup-Silicon- Adventure-Jerry-Kaplan...](http://www.amazon.com/Startup-Silicon-Adventure- Jerry-Kaplan/dp/0140257314)

Hell, _anyone_ doing a startup needs to read it anyway.

<comment><USER12> Just ordered it. Can't wait to read it. Great find Mike!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> those are the worst suggestions to be given to a startup guy today. Gate's business strategy isn't something we should learn from.

I can't believe people like those exist that want to learn and reprocure what Gates did to apple and the rest of the world.

In a way I'm glad ballmer is the ceo now, you reap what you sow microshit

<comment><AUTHOR> I was only pointing that one special situation, not his whole career. He behaved like a sales genius on that occasion and it doesn't have anything to do with his futher strategy. I wouldn't advise to copy the whole Microsoft strategy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Bill Gates also shipped the office assistant, windows ME was done mostly under his command and got the attention of the DOJ anaconda on microsoft. And I would recommend against doing this things.

All great people have a track record of good and bad decisions. And you cannot take only the ones you like.

Also I had this pretending to be done project once ... one year later we were still struggling, the customer was losing money daily and I was happy watching my management being roasted on a slow fire for not listening to us lowly techies.

<comment><USER15> You're also forgetting WinFS. WinFS was apparently his baby during the development of Windows Vista (aka Longhorn), but was one of the things cut when shedding cruft. I can't find a reference to it, but I recall hearing that there were grumblings from the rank-and-file about 'making a pig fly' (not exactly, but something similar) with regards to Gates' focus/drive on WinFS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> If Bill wanted to uncover a hidden talent or keystone habit of his, or to rediscover what made him happy, why, he would revert to his Last Known Working Configuration: [http://zerotosuperhero.com/mindhack/find-your-lifes-last- kno...](http://zerotosuperhero.com/mindhack/find-your-lifes-last-known- working-configuration/)

This "hack" was super useful for me for identifying what habits and activities really improve my quality of life. May be of help to others as well.</comment>


Why is the Sky Blue? No, Seriously - <AUTHOR> http://news.discovery.com/earth/why-is-the-sky-blue-no-seriously.html

<comment><USER2> So the article doesn't actually provide the answer to the question, which is Rayleigh scattering [1]. Higher energy (shorter wavelength - blue) photons are more likely to be scattered (reflected in a random direction) by molecules in the air than lower energy ones (longer wavelength - red), so the further it travels through the atmosphere, the more blue is removed from direct sunlight. The blue component is scattered in all directions, which means the sun's disc appears yellow, and the rest of the sky appears blue.

The methane/orange sky theory is news to me, does anyone have any ideas what might cause this? Rayleigh scattering's high-energy bias is independent of the type of gas. Methane itself is colourless, so I suspect sunlight must be causing either ionisation or a chemical reaction which splits the molecule, with the reverse reaction emitting orange light? Or am I way off?

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh_scattering>

<comment><USER3> It's worth telling the folks roughly why Rayleigh scattering is independent of the type of gas. ^_^ I'm only a physics grad student; but let me try.

Okay, so basically, atoms are really small. They're so small that they're smaller than light -- light has a size over which it likes to interact and interfere called its wavelength, and thousands of atoms can fit side-by-side across the visible wavelengths. (Smaller light also has a little bit more kick to it per photon, which is why we physicists tend to think that cell phones cannot cause cancer.)

The smaller light is closer to the size of the atoms that it's scattering over and that's principally why it scatters more strongly. It's what we call elastic scattering; the light doesn't lose any energy and therefore keeps the same color, rather than becoming redder. So the light bounces off of the air without kicking it.

One curious fact that you might think about, which bugs me a little bit, is that the color of the sky is not isotropic. It really depends what direction you're looking. Imagine that you're facing the setting sun, and you look up, and the sky's still actually pretty blue, but over "next to the Sun" the sky is pretty orange. But now teleport yourself to the distant fields that this sky is right above, and you will be jumping closer to the Sun -- so the Sun will actually be higher, there will be less red in your sky, you look up and the sky also seems quite blue to you. Step back and look at the globe rotating from space, half black, half in light -- as sunset comes, you're rotating away from the Sun, into the black. The only isotropic way to get a red sky around the Sun is to have the horizon be a sort of red band of sky, but that would have to "wash over" the sky as we crossed over it. I mean, I'm sure that if you looked from space the _objects_ would seem redder, because the Sun gets all coppery as it sets, but the color of a given box of air in our atmosphere is actually as far as I can tell different in different directions, and nobody ever seems to want to calculate this.

Point being, it's not like a blue wall, where the wall is glowing blue in all directions. The same sky glows in different colors in different directions.

As for your specific question, if you're right that methane is colorless (i.e. that it has no absorption frequencies in the visible spectrum) then that's certainly strange, yes. Are you sure it's not colorless in the sense that air is colorless -- that you need to look through some kilometers of air before you see some tiny-in-probability scattering event?

Some searching on DuckDuckGo reveals that there are a couple of different effects; one is that methane might form smoggy cloudy effects as on Titan and Venus which are not colorless; but that without those effects methane does indeed weakly absorb red. They claim that this might cause the sky to become blue-green under our sort of illumination:

<http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=534194>

<comment><USER4> And if you need more proof that the color is not isotropic, try looking to other wavelengths. If you look through a near IR filter, you'll see a bright sky near the sun and a very dark sky far away from the sun. (Okay, so technically you'll see black everywhere because the human eye is so insensitive to IR.)

This is a major reason why IR photographs are so dramatic looking -- the isotropic sky allows photographers to create a black sky with white clouds in full daylight, and foliage is also fairly bright to IR.

<comment><USER2> That gels pretty well with the general observation that the sky becomes "bluer" at angles further away from the sun. IR scatters even less than visible red, so you'd expect its angular distribution to be more strongly skewed as well.

I'm having a hard time trying to qualitatively estimate the angular distribution of perceived spectrum at a particular location, as opposed to the distribution of the angles of scattering events. I may have to try simulating this when I have some time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you could go back in a time machine, I confidently predict that, despite being orange, it would still have looked relatively blue to you.

Why? Our eyes are very, very good at adjusting to ambient light and factoring it out. Thus things still look to us like they have the same colors when viewed under natural light, or when viewed under incandescent lighting (which is far more red). Ditto if you wear colored glasses or goggles for a bit. Even though the ambient light would have been orange, Rayleigh scattering says that the sky would still have been blue relative to the ambient light, so would look blue.

The exception is if the sky actually reflected light from the ground or blocked it out. Then it would have looked white or dark, and the natural color would have become evident. (This happens with clouds, and is why a cloudy sky does not look so blue to us.)

<comment><USER2> Interesting way of looking at it (as it were), though in principle if there was some other scattering effect specific to methane, I don't see why this couldn't dominate the effects of Rayleigh scattering. (as I've said in the other comments, I'm not convinced that such an effect actually exists)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I love reading articles like this. They've done a great job at simplifying a bunch of complex information into a short, easy to read post. I know it's certainly peaked my interest in a couple different subjects I'll be searching for on Wikipedia later today.

</comment><comment><USER7> from Clifford Stoll's Cucckoo's Egg (PhD defense)

[http://books.google.com/books?id=9B1RfCAar2cC&pg=PA339&#...</a></comment>