U.S. government limits exports of artificial intelligence software - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-artificial-intelligence/u-s-government-limits-exports-of-artificial-intelligence-software-idUSKBN1Z21PT <comment><USER2> It's funny: it reminds me of "strong cryptography export ban" in the 2000's (btw, Oracle java still have it: you must download strong crypto package separatly)...

Obviously, it failed! You can stop a single vendor with unique technology to provide hardware components with bans, but you can't stop a whole field spreading knowledge!!! People come and go, meet, talk, write, exchange knowledges... so sooner or later (and more soon now as long as the internet is not limited to US) the software will implement these ideas.

The only one that will be challenged will be "big corps" relying on IP protection. But if i remember correctly, Google has a research center in China... so knowledge will aleady be in China and won't even need to be "exported"

<comment><USER3> I don't think the government actually wanted to stop math [1] from leaving the border. It was just a tool to use against people they suspected being involved espionage. Just another reason to put you in a cell.

[https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_algorithm](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_algorithm)

<comment><USER4> > It was just a tool to use against people they suspected being involved > espionage. Just another reason to put you in a cell. > [https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_algorithm](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_algorithm)

The wiki link you provided does not have the words "export" or "espionage". Are you trying to imply that R,S, and A were suspected of espionage? You'll need a real source for that..

<comment><USER5> The link is for simple English Wikipedia, which does not use those words. Perhaps the standard English Wikipedia article would be a better reference: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_(cryptosystem)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_\(cryptosystem\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Additional details are present in the unpublished rule (document 2019-27649 [1][2]).

\-- cut --

Geospatial imagery "software" "specially designed" for training a Deep Convolutional Neural Network to automate the analysis of geospatial imagery and point clouds, and having all of the following:

1\. Provides a graphical user interface that enables the user to identify objects (e.g., vehicles, houses, etc.) from within geospatial imagery and point clouds in order to extract positive and negative samples of an object of interest;

2\. Reduces pixel variation by performing scale, color, and rotational normalization on the positive samples;

3\. Trains a Deep Convolutional Neural Network to detect the object of interest from the positive and negative samples; and

4\. Identifies objects in geospatial imagery using the trained Deep Convolutional Neural Network by matching the rotational pattern from the positive samples with the rotational pattern of objects in the geospatial imagery.

Technical Note: A point cloud is a collection of data points defined by a given coordinate system. A point cloud is also known as a digital surface model.

\-- cut --

[1] [https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/06/2019-27...](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/06/2019-27649/addition- of-software-specially-designed-to-automate-the-analysis-of-geospatial-imagery- to-the-export)

[2] [https://s3.amazonaws.com/public- inspection.federalregister.g...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/public- inspection.federalregister.gov/2019-27649.pdf)

<comment><USER7> The "graphical user interface" bit is weird. I suppose you are fine if the software is driven entirely by keyboard shortcuts.

<comment><USER8> IMO that's an indication that this was made for a specific piece of software and trying to limit the collateral damage.

<comment><USER9> Same here. They are framing a specific software, possibly a very specific business deal from happening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Bernstein's case established that he had a First Amendment right to publish source code under the law in effect at the time; he argued, successfully, that this was the form in which his research was communicated to other researchers. He won his case, but it took many years, and of course court cases are political processes; they may be decided differently when different judges have been appointed to the bench. It seems that machine-vision researchers may now need to make the same argument. It's probably worthwhile to save the neural network parameter vectors you currently have access to somewhere outside the US while that is still legal.

<comment><USER11> The ethical argument for why everyone should have access to cryptography is a lot stronger than why everyone should have access to satellite imagery recognition algorithms.

Also, cryptography requires both sides to use the same algorithm, while companies don't need to use the same recognition algorithms.

It also helped, in the crypto case, that you could print some version of it on a T-shirt or mail it on a postcard. It looked like speech, while neural net parameters don't.

So the free speech case seems much weaker.

<comment><USER10> Lawyers have made strong cases on both sides of the cryptography argument; probably they can on both sides of the satellite-imagery argument as well. Maps are the primary result of satellite imagery recognition and are a public good. Most covert activity visible on satellite imagery is environmental damage, which is often illegal and generally harms the public. Satellite image processing can be very useful for increasing agricultural production; restricting that to one country, or granting one country's companies an effective worldwide monopoly on increasing agricultural production, would be ethically unconscionable — in times of drought, it amounts to letting people starve instead of telling them how to raise adequate food.

But Bernstein's case didn't hinge on the likely consequences of strong cryptography being widely available; rather, he argued that he had a First Amendment right to publish his research.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I recall similar happening during Bush admin during 2000s. Many of our software customers were international. To obtain an export license we were required to scan our source code with an approved Dept of Commerce scan software vendor to look for all kinds of inappropriate code like a too strong cryptography algorithm in the licensing portion and plagarism of copyrighted code. The first couple of releases this was done were brutal. Many of the developers not far our of the university were used to taking anything from the internet/open source if it saved effort. There was not a clear company policy about this until the export restrictions. Sometimes there would be a half dozen chain of borrowing before a culprit turned up. We muddled through and fixed hundreds of flags. If I was the program manager, I'd schedule and export code scan every week to avoid late problems.

AI code is just another layer in this odorous process.

<comment><USER13> lmao this is hilarious. Imagine dealing with such stupidity while other countries don't have to, instant competitive disadvantage

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> We're in an early and explosive growth stage of AI where well-established statistical knowledge is having an unreasonable effect when combined with computing power. I've yet to see any AI platform that is mindbending vs doing basic math with a multivariate normal distribution. The eyewatering stuff is the number of Hz of computing power being thrown into simulating Go games, etc, etc.

Assuming that among 1.4 billion people there are a few good coder/statistician people and using supercomputers [0] as a rough proxy for available computing power, it isn't obvious the US is even going to inconvenience the Chinese military. Presumably they are going to have a parallel AI effort anyway given that they have been investing in the area.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOP500#Top_countries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOP500#Top_countries)

<comment><USER15> They are Dumb and they are just Reacting out of some "fuck we have to do something" instinct driven by jobless fucks like Peter Thiel/Graham Allison/Kai-Fu Lee constant rhetoric about AI and falling behind and how its going to effect everyone.

This is Fear based Decision Making 101. All it leads to is more absurd outcomes such as Endless Wars, Huge Monopolies, More consolidation of power and resources in the hand of few therefore more inequality.

These people and this thinking style would have more credibility if they had stopped Wars, reduced inequality, disrupted monopoly and oligopolies. They have not done that.

The can't imagine a Chinese AI team and American AI team working together to solve problems in humane way. They can't imagine constructing orgs that push that through. They can't imagine punishing their own who cross lines out of fear that the other side wont.

When we allow Fear based thinking to dominate decision making Imagination dies. Outcomes are consistently shit. And way below the potential of what people collaborating and communicating across artificial bullshit boundaries are capable off.

Pick a side and don't back Fear based Decsion makers in your org. These guys hold back progress, are the reason climate change research is hidden, endless Wars keep getting funded and monopolies cling to power way past their expiry date.

How can it be the age of information and knowledge when fear wins?

<comment><USER16> > All it leads to is more absurd outcomes such as Endless Wars, Huge > Monopolies, More consolidation of power and resources in the hand of few > therefore more inequality

This is going to persist regardless of this decision

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Unlike the space race, where Russia and the US were significantly ahead of everyone else, the field is far more level in AI. Arguably there will be areas where the US could even be behind in some areas.

Wonder what the real world impact of this will be. Not much, I expect.

<comment><USER18> >Wonder what the real world impact of this will be. Not much, I expect.

Here's a thought experiment I use to imagine the impact of AI:

Imagine you've got a million people at your disposal. At zero cost and with no downtime, these people can remotely operate robots, understand text, interact using natural language, or classify objects in images, all with human-level intelligence and accuracy. Now what?

Obviously there are areas where AI can outperform humans, like mechanical accuracy and mathematical computation. But in general, I find this experiment works pretty well.

<comment><USER19> Now imagine doing crowd control. 10 frames per second, 100k people, if you need just 1 second to recognize a face, you've just saturated your 1m human- AI. The point of digital AI is that it can scale, almost indefinitely.

<comment><USER18> OK, then imagine 100 billion people. Scale isn't the point of the experiment - the point is bounding expectations based on probable (maximal?) capabilities.

Perhaps a post-Singularity AI will have wild capabilities beyond our comprehension, but that is outside the scope of this experiment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is pretty bad. Or good depending on your perspective.

I'm based in Australia, and we started playing today with analysis of geospatial imagery for bush fire imagery (because the country is on fire).

ECCN0D521No.1 from [https://s3.amazonaws.com/public- inspection.federalregister.g...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/public- inspection.federalregister.gov/2019-27649.pdf) covers pretty much everything I'm doing.

I guess if I want to look at the positive side, it means I don't have to compete with any US vendors if I want to sell my work.

<comment><USER21> > I guess if I want to look at the positive side, it means I don't have to > compete with any US vendors if I want to sell my work.

Until the Australian government gets the same idea

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Seems way more narrow than the title implies

"The rule will likely be welcomed by industry, Lewis said, because it had feared a much broader crackdown on exports of most artificial intelligence hardware and software"

<comment><USER23> That doesn't make it ok. It's just the Overton Window[0]. Say something ridiculous so what you really want is deemed "not as bad."

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This assumes the US is ahead of China in image recognition. Is there any justification for that?

<comment><USER25> It is meaningful if the US is ahead of any cooperating bloc of powers in any covered area of image recognition. This is much broader than being ahead of specifically China on the whole. For it to not be true would essentially imply that no new research is happening in the US.

<comment><USER26> I doubt the US is ahead in this area. China gains heaps upon heaps or practical experience in CV by sheer virtue of the breadth of its surveillance networks. Not to say we aren't doing the same here in the US, but efforts seem to be much more scattered

<comment><USER27> I can see the surveillance network providing vastly more training data. But isn't that orthogonal with developing the algorithms?

Or is it that training data provides experience, which improves the algorithms? Or the application of the algorithms?

<comment><USER28> It's a positive loop. More effective surveillance network -> Larger investment (from government or government contract) -> more application/startup/new programs -> more research funding/aggressive hiring -> higher recognition for CV/ML researchers/Engineers -> More and more people doing CV/ML -> More data, algorithms and applications-> more effective surveillance network. Btw it got deployed at scale in real world which is a huge advantage for progressing any CVML research

Not to mention nowadays Deep learning is pretty much a big data game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Seems like China is way ahead in the AI game, including by applying it for mass surveillance and oppression.

I highly recommend the Frontline documentary on AI in China.

[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/in-the-age-of- ai/](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/in-the-age-of-ai/)

They see AI as the next industrial revolution and have decided to make sure they are at its forefront. And likely they will, which means that we'll be the ones trying to import their tech.

</comment><comment><USER30> Didn't the most advanced AI research come straight out of China?

The ResNet Project [1] of 2015. It was used as the core algorithm behind Google's AlphaGo in 2017.

The 4 computer scientists behind the paper were Chinese nationals. They were all educated by the Chinese educational system, and got their PhD there (one guy was from Hong Kong). They worked at Microsoft at the time, so Microsoft paid them a salary for their work, but I think Microsoft benefited more from their research, as did the other Silicon Valley and American companies.

Three of them went to start or lead other Chinese unicorn companies, and one guy went to Facebook in Silicon Valley, so Facebook benefited here.

[1] [https://macropolo.org/china-ai-research- resnet/](https://macropolo.org/china-ai-research-resnet/)

</comment><comment><USER31> Considering that AI is whatever marketing folks want it to be, it'd be interesting see their legal definition AI. Anyone have a link to the actual document?

<comment><USER32> I think it's this: [https://s3.amazonaws.com/public- inspection.federalregister.g...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/public- inspection.federalregister.gov/2019-27649.pdf)

Page 4 and 9 have the technical definitions.

My off the cuff interpretation is that the rule would only cover convolutional neural nets that are trained to identify _and_ determine the orientation of specific objects in geospatial imagery. If the neural net's input/output aren't wrapped in a GUI it sounds like they still might be OK to export without a license

<comment><USER33> _1\. Provides a graphical user interface that enables the user to identify objects (e.g., vehicles, houses, etc.) from within geospatial imagery and point clouds in order to extract positive and negative samplesof an object of interest;

2.Reduces pixel variation by performing scale, color, and rotational normalization on the positive samples;

3\. Trains a Deep Convolutional Neural Network to detect the object of interest from the positive and negative samples; and

4\. Identifies objects in geospatial imagery using the trained Deep Convolutional Neural Network by matching the rotational pattern from the positive samples with the rotational pattern of objects in the geospatial imagery._

What counts as "geospatial imagery"? Could this apply to any training UI for self-driving cars, maps, street view, etc.?

<comment><USER32> Probably anything taken from a satellite or aircraft

<comment><USER34> I believe you are correct and I am not sure why you are being downvoted. I suggest that downvoters read more about the military use of these terms. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geospatial_intelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geospatial_intelligence)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Naieve question: Are there any repositories (e.g. Hosted at github) that one should mirror?

<comment><USER16> Good question, bumping for visibility

<comment><USER23> This isn't reddit. Replies don't "bump" posts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Other countries/companies will thank for the economic opportunity.

<comment><USER37> My initial instinct exactly, because major corps are global now, which means they can easily set up shop anywhere on Earth: subsidiaries, but also quasi- independent structures which might only be related through distant funding or meta-agreements.

So you can be an American company with tons of "friends" in the EU, Asia, Latin American and now Africa, doing stuff (research, product) and you would just happen to buy/sell from/through these independent actors. _Fiction- Google: "Oh but that 's not us! It's Oogleg, a Swiss company! It's true 95% of our private shareholders also have shares in Oogleg, but that's only circumstancial, these are large funds you know... they actually have shares in 95% of businesses altogether through ETFs and mutual funds dilution. + some legalese blabla."_

There goes your protectionism, State governments! You'll get your import taxes for physical goods and on-prems services but overall, it certainly won't impede or even touch the thriving heads, the global leaders of the business world. Not anymore. That was in another time, before global networks.

And actually, we might think Fortune 100, perhaps 1,000; but in truth it's probably much more (cue 80% of GDP in the form of SMBs) because how do you enforce a restriction on remoting to contribute to some repo somewhere?

Note that this is true as of 2020, factually from a technical standpoint, but given a few decades and some generalized country-based firewalls (it's coming, in all likelihood) + convenient surveillance and you get all the means necessary to enforce such policies anew.

<comment><USER38> I don't understand why you mention ETFs. If Google said it was meaningless that they were in a total market index fund with almost every other public company, then they would be right. But whether they were or weren't they could do business with somebody just the same. Did you think that companies can't interact if they're not subsidiaries of the same organization? Not only can they do whatever they want bilaterally, but often companies or other organizations set up a joint board or company or something with representatives to work on something of common interest. It probably has to be done the right way to avoid antitrust, but it's done a lot, and by government agencies too. This is not a mutual fund or ETF; the joint entity is controlled by the members, not vice versa.

<comment><USER37> Oblig. disclaimer, IANAL and not a financial advisor either.

> Did you think that companies can't interact if they're not subsidiaries of > the same organization?

Of course not :) I however wonder if defending anti-trust from a subsidiary strategy would work — at least in France, I'm pretty sure taking half your execs and hiring them in a subsidiary which you control will _NOT_ get you past anti-trust regulation.

You might say "but it's legal!" and the judge will kindly ask you not to mock the court by disingenuously failing to address the case at hand — are you or are you not _effectively_ in a monopoly, or cartel situation? Legal or not in terms of legal structure doesn't matter because antitrust is 'above' in the hierarchy of norms (so to speak, my law studies are really far away now, and I was more into public than private law).

Case in point though, shareholding is even legally restricted in some sectors (e.g. media, and that was a strong motivation for e.g. Facebook trying not to be filed as a media group, at least in the EU).

I have absolutely no idea how this would fly in the US. I bow to your expertise, here.

A good example, I think, will be the shareholding structure of Libra (if it ever comes to fruition), where many actors essentially hide their participation behind layers of companies, like some onion (there was a good infographic which you might google on the topic). It's _legal_ , technically, but would it stand in front of a supreme court antitrust case?

As far as I know from history, even legal lines tend to become blurry in major antitrust cases because these are, by essence, out-of-bounds of 'normal' operation, they're fringe cases that sometimes requires a new ad hoc law to take where we want to (I seem to remember elements of Teddy Roosevelt's opposition with Rockefeller, details of the Bell system breakup too, but I'm really not sure. Here in the EU, it's really common —all things considered— to just make new law whenever the current letter fails to live up to the desired spirit).

Thank you for the remarks, I'll probably refrain from speaking about antitrust in the US until I have a better understanding of those.

<comment><USER38> I don't have any expertise in either area, I was just trying to say that "X owns Y" <> "Y owns X".

And it seems common for A, B, C, ... to jointly govern Z, without antitrust problems, like (first thing I could find) the W3C.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Seems pretty narrowly targeted, probably similar to things like ITAR, quantum, and crypto - which already require regulatory disclosure. Probably just to make sure that US companies aren't doing Project Maven (or the like) for China. Currently, best I can tell, there's nothing in place to prevent such a "collaboration".

</comment><comment><USER40> They say it doesn't apply to Canada. What prevents a Chinese company to open a business in Canada and get access to US A.I software without the license?

<comment><USER41> Canada counts as the US for several national security purposes. There's a lot of cooperation to prevent this type of loophole.

<comment><USER42> Can you point to some of that cooperation or legislation regarding it, that sounds quite interesting.

<comment><USER43> My guess it's related to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes)

<comment><USER44> It more likely has to do with NORAD.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I used to put on my tinfoil hat and imagine that cryptography was the field to study if you wanted secret government agents to visit you. Maybe next time I will instead imagine that computer vision is what summons the secret agents.

More seriously, computer vision is going to be important and it appears to be far less known than machine learning and has higher barriers to entry. I'd exchange a few introductory machine learning books for more good computer vision introductions.

Any suggestions on how to get started with computer vision?

</comment><comment><USER34> As other commenters have stated, this export ban seems both very narrow and an extremely good idea. My interpretation of the meaning & intent of the ban is that it is banning GUI-based tools for training CNN's to automatically identify specific types of objects in aerial imagery (e.g. distinguishing a limousine from a different type of car). These CNN's being trained are almost certainly intended for use in autonomous targeting of airstrikes by fully- autonomous weaponized UAV's. Here is the text of the specific ban: [https://s3.amazonaws.com/public- inspection.federalregister.g...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/public- inspection.federalregister.gov/2019-27649.pdf) Here is a really good book for background on this topic: [https://www.amazon.com/Army-None-Autonomous- Weapons-Future-e...](https://www.amazon.com/Army-None-Autonomous-Weapons- Future-ebook/dp/B073VXYD5P)

</comment><comment><USER46> I guess these guys will be affected: [https://www.planet.com/](https://www.planet.com/)

</comment><comment><USER47> Not related to AI but instead related to geo-spatial imagery, I'm pretty sure I saw YT videos of ISIS commanders coordinating suicidal VBIED attacks in Syria using Google Maps aerial imagery. That was happening back in 2014-2015, when such videos were not instantly banned on /r/combatfootage and /r/SyrianCivilWar .

</comment><comment><USER48> I sold AI software (for building expert systems) for Xerox Lisp Machines from 1982 to 1985 and the lawyers at my company complained that the $5K license price did not make up for the hassle for foreign sales (I sold to customers in Japan, Norway, and Germany). So, export controls are not such a new things.

<comment><USER49> Oh that sounds interesting. What problems did your AI software solve in the 80s?

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Because this is so incredibly broad, there's a good chance that >20% of people here will be working on something that falls under this at some point in the next decade.

While we patiently await for a HN user (or, let's be honest, one of the ancient cryptologist-lawyers who come out of the woodwork every time something like this happens and sue the government) to fix this by suing the government on free speech grounds, don't forget that git, mercurial, fossil, bazaar and more are all decentralized, can't actually be censored at scale, and can be effectively hosted and mirrored trivially.

I actually think it's a well-intentioned law, and it's not like it'll harm most people, but it's still something that should be stood against on principle.

<comment><USER51> It actually sounds far more narrow than the title implies?

> _Under a new rule which goes into effect on Monday, companies that export > certain types of geospatial imagery software from the United States must > apply for a license to send it overseas except when it is being shipped to > Canada._

<comment><USER50> _The measure covers software that could be used by sensors, drones, and satellites to automate the process of identifying targets for both military and civilian ends, Lewis said, noting it was a boon for industry, which feared a much broader crackdown on exports of AI hardware and software._

"sensors, drones, and satellites" used to target _anything_ means that you can't even send a Ring camera to Europe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> What the threat (of an ability the US doesn't want other nations to have) here and how does geospatial imagery and point clouds fit in?

This seems to target one or a few products so they dislike that someone uses the software for that purpose

<comment><USER53> Most likely autonomous drone navigation (particularly very low altitude terrain following) and targeting. That is how cruise missiles work:

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

There was a big drone attack on a Saudi Arabian oil processing facility last year: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Abqaiq%E2%80%93Khurais_at...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Abqaiq%E2%80%93Khurais_attack)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I have open source deep learning projects on GitHub. Should I be worried?

</comment><comment><USER45> Prior to this "rule", was it possible to break the law and get in trouble for doing nothing more than publishing source code to the world?

Has that now changed?

Is publishing personal code on GitHub "exporting"?

<comment><USER55> In the US, at some point cryptography code was considered "munitions" and you needed permission to export it. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States) and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States)

<comment><USER45> Definitely worth mentioning, thank you. However, I was aware of that and believe there are currently no cryptography related restrictions (right?), so I'm still wondering if this is a zero-to-one situation. Has the software export restriction been switched from off to on?

<comment><USER56> An Intel subsidiary was fined for exporting encryption between 2008 and 2011 without permission.

[https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/all-articles/107-about- bis...](https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/all-articles/107-about- bis/newsroom/press-releases/press-release-2014/763-intel-subsidiary-agrees- to-750-000-penalty-for-unauthorized-encryption-exports)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> The reason for this has to be economics / lobbyist driven. It makes no sense technologically (because it could not be effective) and there are far more dangerous examples of American companies developing technology that assists the Chinese military, such as private search engines and social credit systems that leave the general populace unable to make democratic influence on military actions or government policy.

</comment><comment><USER58> The main impact of these regulations is not going to be on the software availability overseas but on the _software jobs_ availability for foreign nationals, IMO.

I work on ITAR-regulated software and, even though, the software itself is exported all over the world, I would not be able to write it if I had been a national of a restricted country, working in the US on a temporary visa.

</comment><comment><USER59> Progress in AI tech has been due to open sharing of knowledge, so much so that even companies such as Apple which tend to keep its research under closed doors started publishing open Machine Learning journals to attract talent.

AI tech is too powerful to be monopolised, if not democratised it might become another 'semiconductor' industry.

</comment><comment><USER60> There was a tangential discussion on SAR imagery and North Korea here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21955246](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21955246)

</comment><comment><USER61> "... boost oversight of exports of sensitive technology to adversaries like China, for _economic_ and security reasons..."

I think _economic_ is the keyword here. From what I gather this is not the first time the US is doing something like this. I am pretty sure other countries have done the same in their particular areas of concern. They're just not as mighty and famous as the US so nobody pays attention. So much for free market.

Anyways I think it is a little too late and all it will accomplish is - opening a window of opportunity for other players.

Also because it formulated way too broad and has an escape clause (apply for a license) then it might offer an unfair advantage right inside the US. Big companies will get it and for smaller it nay be more difficult. Same as patent system. Company like Apple can patent my cat with little troubles. Me: not so much and I speak from experience.

</comment><comment><USER62> How could they possibly enforce legal limits on software distribution in the age of the Internet?

Anyone can slap their code onto a private Gitlab installation in an hour. Hosting a tarball on an HTTPS server is even more trivial.

<comment><USER63> Threat of punishment. Same as how any other law is enforced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Does this mean Nvidia can't export GPUs to China?

<comment><USER38> Is that snark?

Google suggests Nvidia GPUs are probably made in Guangdong by PCPartner.

The actual chips, I don't know, but TSMC does have fabs in China.

<comment><USER65> I bet it is yet another law to bring back knowledge and manufacturing to US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Can anyone illustrate this with current examples?

What financially or technologically significant exports are going to stop? How military or nonmilitary are they?

</comment><comment><USER67> China doesn't need American AI technology.

</comment><comment><USER68> Hmm. Doesn't the point cloud and deep conv section cover a good percentage take of self driving car tech?

</comment><comment><USER69> Is there anything that people outside of the US should download now in order to get access to software?

<comment><USER70> The rule refers to products, not freely available source code.

Companies don't sell stuff from GitHub, they sell proprietary stuff. It may well be based on open source code, but they own it to sell (license) it.

There's lots of examples of products in the geospatial domain that are not "AI" yet are restricted or even classified.

For example, ship detection from space-based radar. There are numerous public papers on the topic yet any software that purports to do this is subject to ITAR rules in the US and CGP rules in Canada.

Just because you may know how to do something doesn't prevent a government from restricting you from selling it, or talking about it. Even if it is "public". Machine guns are an old tech and yet are restricted. As they should be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> A protectionist response to the US losing power, & trying to stave off brain drain. They should be considering any person who knows how to program with Tensorflow a munition. Mitigating brain drain is a hopeless endeavor. US should make their immigration more liberal to try encourage US as a destination for brain drain, as opposed to a source. Drain or be drained

<comment><USER72> Are there any studies or reports that point to the US falling behind technologically in regards to software research?

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> Sounds like something straight out of Terminator movies. I think they are afraid this technology will get out of hand in the near future and I can't really blame them. I remember that video with the Google Assistant making a hair dresser appointment. Pretty scary stuff

</comment><comment><USER74> When does this export ban get executed?

</comment><comment><USER75> This wrong, we are going to lose on that.

</comment><comment><USER76> These dummies never learn, do they?

</comment><comment><USER77> Why not ban heuristics altogether?

</comment><comment><USER78> There is no such thing.

</comment><comment><USER79> Is it time to label current AI stuff by its real name - statistics?

<comment><USER80> I think as opposed to classical statistics, except for the important subfield of statistical learning theory, machine learning relates much more to functional analysis, differential geometry/optimization over manifolds, and measure/probability theory. "AI" is whatever marketing people want to define it as.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Google, Amazon, Microsoft are in military and oil business now because of AI [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3n8txX3144](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3n8txX3144)</comment>


How to work effectively with WordPress Experts - <AUTHOR> https://codeable.io/work-with-wordpress-experts/

<comment><USER2> There are 2 specific areas I let folks know about before securing Wordpress development help:

1) Plugins: Discuss with the developer their thoughts on plugins and how they should be implemented. Does the developer want to write their own? If so, discuss ownership and existing support. Leverage existing plugins? DIscuss conflicts of support among changes developer made vs. plugins.

2) Hosting: Non-technical people sometimes don't understand the effects hosting can have on a small business website. I suggest to them to ask the developer for their thoughts, especially if the developer is doing the hosting.

Wordpress is a great platform for small businesses.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting points here, specifically 2). What do you mean by asking the developer his thoughts about hosting?

<comment><USER2> Here is the text of an email I sent a relative when they were looking for WP development. This is the part about hosting.

"The dev sounds pretty sharp. About the hosting ... it's great they want to offer a one stop for the development effort, but keep in mind a few things:

1) If you discontinue your relationship with the developer, it might be difficult to "take your site" to another host if your agreement includes hosting.

2) The developer might be a reseller for a hosting company, which is usually ok. Try to find out which hosting company it is and let me know. Some hosting companies are better suited for the sales you are trying to drive versus an informational site.

3) Find out if the developer is responsible for regular maintenance of the back end (web server serving pages and security updates to the operating system). "

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I agree that this advice is good, but kinda general.

A few things I've found (both as an occasional WP dev and outsourcing our WP dev):

* Hosting: many WP shops want to resell their own hosting, whereas you may want to keep it on your servers or use a high-end provider like WPEngine. If you defer this to the end, you may find they made decisions that won't work on your hosting environment.

* Plugin management: It won't be long before you have a red badge indicating a plugin needs updating. Clarify who keeps them up-to-date, and what the policies are regarding compatibility.

* Licenses: If the developer uses commercial plugins, who pays for and owns the license? This is critical as they may have purchased N licenses for Gravity Forms etc. The same applies to plugins that license by the year (again, Gravity Forms is a good example of this) Also, verify theme licensing: you don't want them to purchase a theme once and then use it on yours and others' sites if the license doesn't permit it.

* Theme compatibility: I've run into a situation where a designer did a Genesis sub-theme that wasn't compatible with Wordpress 4.0+, and we had to push back on this issue.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm not sure what this has to do with Wordpress or Wordpress developers specifically. It seems a more apt title would be "some really broad tips on outsourcing development tasks." I'm assuming this is content for the sake of the search engines and the targeted keyword phrase is "Wordpress Experts".

<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote about WordPress just because it's what I've direct experience with. Within the post, in fact, I wrote that these tips apply to other CMSs and other development-related jobs you outsource.

Do you have any tips related to WordPress I should add to my list? If so, let me know :)

<comment><USER4> > Within the post, in fact, I wrote that these tips apply to other CMSs and > other development-related jobs you outsource.

Exactly, your article isn't about working with Wordpress "experts" and does not really touch on this topic. If it were, I would expect to read about specific issues you have come across when dealing with external Wordpress developers or even freelance PHP developers and how you've mitigated them.

My argument is that the headline contextually has little to do with the generic tips you are giving. It just seems like you are generating content for the sake of content and the search engines. Which is fine, but not really productive for a site like this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Working within Wordpress every day and also being a developer of WP, this is solid advice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks man, happy you enjoyed it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Awesome... :)</comment>


Ask HN: Which Go Web Framework (Pros and Cons)? - <AUTHOR>

After playing with the net/http package to understand how it works, I tried Gorilla and Beego.
Beego is a "batteries included" Framework, it seems very similar to Django (Python), on the other side Gorilla is more a set of components that can be used together, Gorilla feels more like a microframework Flask-like (Python).
I would love if we can talk about our experience with Web Framework.
Which Framework are you using? How you compare it to your former web framework? What are the Pros/Cons?
Here a short list of the popular Go Web Frameworks:
- Beego : http://beego.me/
- Revel : http://revel.github.io/
- Gorilla : http://www.gorillatoolkit.org/
- Gin-gonic : https://gin-gonic.github.io/gin/
- Goji : https://goji.io/
- Martini : http://martini.codegangsta.io/
- Traffic : https://github.com/pilu/traffic
- Gooo : https://github.com/aaronlifton/Gooo <comment><USER2> Don't use any framework.

You can use a dispatcher library like httprouter to get slightly more convenient URL routing and parameter capture. There are a whole bunch of "middleware" libraries that intercept requests and provide sessions, CSRF protection, &c --- and no one "framework" provides all of them.

But keep net/http visible in your code. It'll maximize compatibility with other libraries, keep you from having to write bizarre shims, and ensure your code is idiomatic.

When someone writes a library that coherently unifies persistence and request handling and view rendering, it'll be time to consider frameworks. But current Golang frameworks aren't ambitious enough to be worth the headache of, in effect, coding to an idiosyncratic alternate universe of request handling.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you want to render HTML, there's a lot of security features that you won't get with micro-frameworks. And even Beego and Revel have a lot to do to catch up with Rails and Django. So for this type of apps, I would stay with Rails or Django for now (depending on your preferences).

If you make REST APIs, then you can use a micro-framework because there will be less boilerplate to get to what you want. Goji and Gin offer great performances compared to Gorilla, Martini and the others.

I see a lot of companies using Rails or Django for their main app and Go for their background processes. I think this approach is a good first step to get better performances and knowledge of Go, keeping the productivity of these frameworks to render HTML apps.

<comment><USER2> Yes, I also think, if you're the kind of developer who _wants_ a framework: Rails is probably an objectively better choice. My default "stack" is Rails front-end and Golang for JSON RPC stuff on the backend. Golang is nowhere close to Rails in terms of flexibly converting an SQL database to HTML.

My experience of building complex web stuff in Golang is very similar to my experience of doing the same with Sinatra: you inevitably realize about 1/3rd of the way in that you're really just building an underspecified, undertested version of Rails itself.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have been long time Django/Flask users, and undoubtedly a good web frameworks give you some structures, security and impose good practices to new programmers, that's what I'm trying to find out. I'm not very aware of how advanced Go Framework are, but if there is something that could replace nicely my current Python web stack, I would be happy to give it a go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I use martini, I know it's notoriously the most hated framework for go, but I find myself very productive. With martini and gorm/mgo I can get apps up and running VERY quickly. Its never been a bottleneck for performance for me. I know down the line I'll try something more efficient, but the fact I'm able to develop CRUD apps at a rapid rate helps my job and helps me find more work.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm enjoying beego. It provides most of what I need. I don't use the ORM because I like the flexibility of lib/pq + sqlx.

I could do without it, but I like what it offers. The bee tool is nice. It lets you quickly bootstrap an app and using bee run provides hot recompile when your code is changed.

Beego docs are pretty good and the developer is very responsive to github issues.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've tried them all. I went from the extreme of Revel (very rails-like) to straight net/http. I ended up using Goji for my most recent API and really like the feel. It's very close to net/http with just enough candy to make it easier on me without losing straight net/http compatibility.

</comment><comment><USER7> Happy Revel user here. If you have any questions I'd be happy to share my experiences.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been reading this before trying beego and it kind of push me to try Beego first [http://madewithdrew.com/blog/choosing-a-go-web- framework/](http://madewithdrew.com/blog/choosing-a-go-web-framework/)

What did you build with Revel? How would you compare to your previous web framework?

<comment><USER7> A simple data gathering and report building app. The previous web framework was Perl/Mojolicious, but that is not a good comparison.

I looked at net/http and needed something a little more, but not too much more. I like that it only has 1 templating choice and no notion of a database / ORM. It feels like net/http on steroids.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> goji, mainly because it supports einhorn</comment>


Speech: The future of online advertising regulation - <AUTHOR> https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2019/07/speech-the-future-of-online-advertising-regulation/ <comment><AUTHOR> _From what we've seen it appears many real-time bidding practices are unlawful. What we're less sure about is whether industry players are aware that what they are doing is unlawful, or whether they do and are continuing to flout the law regardless._</comment>


Show HN: I built a new portfolio site because I need a new job. Thoughts? - <AUTHOR> http://resume.michaelcolenso.com/

<comment><USER2> Some of your :hover transitions are a bit wonky in Chrome.

Hovering over, say, "JavaScript" under your TeamCoco job bumps your span.label from 70px width to 72px width. My guess is that this is from Chrome rounding partial pixels weirdly in your transitions, but it's clear that you didn't mean for the other elements in line to move.

Also on Chrome, not sure you've got your Fjalla One font included properly. Even though computed style is showing that as first choice for your header elements, my machine is defaulting to Helvetica Neue. This is due to you calling it "Fjalla+One" instead of "Fjalla One" in your css.

</comment><comment><USER3> I see you have an extensive background in construction project management. Why did you choose design? I bet your background could produce many opportunities as a project manager. Perhaps you should learn to apply your lessons from construction to software development. Then you can market yourself as an expert in project management, which could pay significantly more than designing.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't like that I can't read all the words in your "built this myself website" to me usability trumps design and if I have to highlight it to read it you've already lost me.</comment>


Show HN: Connect for Mac – Send and receive calls from your Mac over Bluetooth - <AUTHOR> http://connectmacapp.com/

<comment><USER2> I claimed a code earlier, and am back to share some thoughts.

I have been looking for this app since I owned a Treo. Setup was a breeze, and everything worked exactly as I expected it would. Call quality was clear, although I noticed a little delay that I'm not sure if was the result of cell network or just being able to hear the person calling me in the other room. I was pleasantly surprised to hear the computer ring the same as my phone (not sure what I expected, though), and the little battery and cell meter are excellent additions. Reading the address book for the image was also awesome, and another pleasant surprise. Aesthetically, it's pretty, but it also works easily and well - what I expect in Mac software.

Some things I don't like: The app is a space hog on my screen. Ideally I'd prefer it be in the menubar, and only be a drop-down text box that I can type a name or number in to, and the icons can be the signal indicators (optionally, of course, and defaults to a phone). Failing that, I'd prefer the window be resizable at least. I don't need a full dialpad since I'll be dialing from my keyboard anyway. On the note of the keyboard, I like that the caller image was the iOS-7-style rounded icons, but the dialers are old, square keys. Lastly, it looks like you made all of the integrations and just stopped - the menus are sparse, and feel like you just ignored they were there in a default Xcode project. If I'm dealing with phone numbers or address book data, I don't need any text editing beyond maybe cut and paste (see the Edit menu - all of that text stuff is unused. Also, "Help isn't available for Connect" isn't helpful at all. Make it friendly ("Help is on the way, but not here yet.") or have it open Safari to your support site, email, something.

All in all, I like it, and as I said, I've been looking for this app for over a decade. With that comes a price critique - I would have gladly paid a lot of money for this in the past, but nowadays so much of my communication is through the iPhone's other capabilities, and my calls are rare anymore. At $0.99, it's a no-brainer. At $3, you're going to need reviews that defend the app's functionality and compatibility since it's out of the impulse buy window. Luckily, you've got one of those coming shortly. Best of luck, and great job on the app!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm the dev for the app and was hoping to get some feedback from the HN community. Here are some promo codes, please comment with some feedback if you use one.

JTM6WFMLTYM4 49J7KRXTA4WY JH9YMKLHFYLJ RLFH4JYNKMNF 6P39L66ANY3M JHT37PJKWFR7 6WH3M46JH49H A7X44MKEJWP6 FMKLTJX4JKJL 6AMX34A9HKFX

<comment><USER3> And the awesome keeps on coming, I can access Siri from my Mac!

You've no idea how much of an accessability bonus this is, I've never been able to access Siri without physically touching the phone before. Obviously not much touching going on with us quadriplegics!

You should think about writing an application that focuses on just this aspect alone, you could do a massive amount of good and help a lot of disabled people like me.

This has seriously made my day!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I bought it, but will be requesting a refund. It interferes with my Magic Mouse when it's in use and my mouse will skip around.

This is on the Late 2013 rMBP 15" and a 5S.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey thanks for trying it. We've tested it with many different people and machines with bluetooth accessories, and never ran into that issue. I personally use pair of magic mouse/keyboard on both of my Macs. Can you please try replacing the batteries in your mouse and try again. On a technical level this should never happen since your smartphone and your human interface devices utilize Bluetooth on your Mac through different profiles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a bit late to the boat as well but I would also love a code too.

</comment><comment><USER6> Late to the boat but would love a code if you are sparing anymore

</comment><comment><USER7> Any more promo codes? looks like these are already used up =)

</comment><comment><USER8> Thanks, I used 49J7KRXTA4WY and I am currently testing.

<comment><USER8> Here are my results (using Mac Mini and iPhone):

1\. Setup/pairing: Clear instructions, worked perfectly

2\. Access to phone book: OK and can be denied and then requires manual dialling

3\. Making calls: OK

4\. Receiving calls: OK, gives a notification.

I like the app, it works great. Good job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> hey i would like to test it before buying it. are there plans to release a trial version?

</comment><comment><USER10> just realized, i need to have mavericks for this to work. off to upgrade.

</comment><comment><USER11> Do you have any more codes?</comment>


Tunneling KFC To Gazans Craving The World Outside - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/16/world/middleeast/tunneling-kfc-to-gazans-craving-the-world-outside.html?hp&_r=0

<comment><AUTHOR> This bizarrely reminds me of the SouthPark episode on KFC.</comment>


Fractals for Fun and Profit - <AUTHOR> http://gideon.smdng.nl/2014/04/fractals-for-fun-and-profit/ <comment><USER2> Excellent discussion - and the application area (cross-correlation of sensor network data) is actually quite a bit more popular than one might think! Avalanche/landslide detection, earthquakes, bridge monitoring, industrial settings...

On a tangent, if those cross-correlations are big-ish a frequency domain (FFT) correlation could be more efficient, assuming that hasn't already been tried. This would probably save storage memory as well, though I am not 100% sure. If you could get the sensors to send the FFTs directly that could be even better!

This also has echoes of a previous HN discussion on space filling curves [0], which led to the purchase of this book [1]. I still haven't dug into it yet, but maybe these are useful references for others who are interested.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7480857](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7480857)

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Space-Filling-Curves-Introduction- Appl...](http://www.amazon.com/Space-Filling-Curves-Introduction-Applications- Computational/dp/3642310451)

<comment><USER3> Original author here. Thanks for the spacial data structures link, I'll look into it.

The correlations are done in the frequency domain. And, although I didn't look into it, I suspect they have pretty good algorithms to compute the correlations themselves. At least they have very smart people working on that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The pseudo-code for cross-correlation implements the naive method, which is O(M*N), M and N being the lengths of the arrays being correlated. I think it might just have been used to illustrate, but just in case, the proper way of computing the cross-correlation is with the FFT, as that is "linearithmic" in time. It's commonly called "multiplication in the frequency domain" or just frequency domain convolution. Basically, take the FFT of both input sequences, multiply them, and take the inverse FFT of the product.

If you're curious, the basis of this algorithm is the convolution theorem: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convolution_theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convolution_theorem)

Here is an example implementation of cross-correlation using the FFT, with NumPy:

[http://www.eliteraspberries.com/blog/2013/08/application- of-...](http://www.eliteraspberries.com/blog/2013/08/application-of-chirps-to- radar.html)

<comment><USER3> Original author here. They do this already, the pseudo function 'correlate' operates in the frequency domain. It doesn't negate the fact that you still correlate the signals of different stations pairwise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> [http://fractalfoundation.org/](http://fractalfoundation.org/)

This is a bit unrelated, but Albuquerque has a great fractal community. Friday night 3d fractals in the planetarium is an amazing thing.

</comment><comment><USER6> looks very similar to fractal curve approximation of traveling salesman and fractal indexing.

</comment><comment><USER7> [http://me.veekun.com/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad- de...](http://me.veekun.com/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design)

Ah crap... I will not troll anymore on HN. ::slap:: I will not troll anymore on HN. ::slap:: I will not troll anymore on HN. ::slap:: I will not troll anymore on HN. ::slap::</comment>


Best way to spread smartphone app? - <AUTHOR> I have created a game for smartphones. It is in the testing phase and I plan to release early next year.<p>Besides emailing all my friends, what is the best way to spread it? Is it OK to post a thread here? What about on reddit and other sites? If there is I suppose everyone else uses it as well so you drown in the competition anyway? <comment><USER2> You can post here using the Show HN. As for Reddit, I find that /r/SideProjects is a decent place to show your stuff. It isn't as popular as /r/startups but it is a place to show your work without the taboo

<comment><AUTHOR> Do people tend to post negative reviews to the Google Play Store or just give feedback in the thread? I want feedback in the thread and positive reviews in the Google Play Store but I don't want to get a lot of downvotes in the Google Play Store right away.</comment></comment>


The 9 common UX mistakes of mobile apps - <AUTHOR> http://www.kinvey.com/avoiding-common-ux-mistakes?utm_source=referral&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=ux-ebook

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a short, free ebook I wrote with Kinvey. Those guys were great to work with and they have some other really good content as well. Enjoy!

</comment><comment><USER2> Signed up twice and received nothing, and there's nothing in my spam folder.

<comment><USER2> Ah it arrives 30 minutes later</comment></comment>


OpenPGP support in Thunderbird 78 (summer 2020 release) - <AUTHOR> https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:OpenPGP:2020 <comment><USER2> > Enigmail requires the use of extension mechanisms, which will no longer be > available in future versions of the Mozilla platform.

I hope zat komma does not belong zere.

> Instead of relying on users to obtain and install external software like > GnuPG or GPG4Win, we intend to identify and use an alternative, compatible > library and distribute it as part of Thunderbird on all supported platforms.

> We intend to identify and use another existing library that provides support > for creating and processing OpenPGP messages

That sounds rather optimistic.

> Thunderbird 78 will not reuse the GnuPG file format, but will rather > implement its own storage for keys and trust.

Great. I love keeping stuff in sync.</comment>


This is not Steve's Apple - <AUTHOR> http://threads2.scripting.com/2012/november/steveWouldntHaveShippedTheIpadMini <comment><USER2> Silly. Unlike Dave Winer to post such a one-sided rant.

He may not like the mini's screen, but it's evident lots of people do. Generalisation rarely makes for good arguments.

As for Apple not compromising before Jobs died? Are you kidding? If Apple should be known for any particular modus operandi, it is precisely that they make compromises - but the right kind of compromise, which they believe will deliver the best product. Microsoft is much more likely to make no compromise, and therefore try to do everything at once.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a blog post. Do you know what a blog post is?

Hint: It's where someone tells you what they think based on their personal experience.

<comment><USER2> What I'm criticising is not the personal viewpoint - that's fine - it's the huge generalisations coming off the back of it: "I don't like the iPad mini for this one reason and therefore Apple is fucked an Jobs would never have let that happen!"

<comment><AUTHOR> Can I make a suggestion that you not put "in quotes" things the person you're conversing with did not say. That's a fairly hostile thing to do. Speak for yourself, not for the other guy.

Everything in everything I write has an implicit IMHO.

So ease up there buddy -- and don't get all derailed just because someone had an opinion you don't like or agree with. It's the beauty of life -- we all get to have our own opinions and act on them.

YMMV.

<comment><USER2> > _Can I make a suggestion that you not put "in quotes" things the person > you're conversing with did not say. That's a fairly hostile thing to do. > Speak for yourself, not for the other guy._

You do realise that you just used quotes in a way that contradicts what you just said, right?

I (and many others, you included, it seems) use quotes to single out a statement or phrase. In this particular case, I used them in an even more boring way: to mark a statement that I felt paraphrased your post.

I don't see how that's hostile. You seem to have a thing about quotes, though, since you remarked on them to someone else on this thread!

Anyway, I'm not the one who's worked up :-) I'm certainly not "derailed" (am I allowed to use quotes this time? Cheers!)... I was merely stating my opinion in response to your opinion!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Some people obsess over typography, I don't get it, they are just letters. Others obsess over pixel density (that I understand a bit better having started on a 16 line x 64 character screen stretched across a converted TV set).

The point Dave tries to make as far as I can tell, is that there principles that define a company (for example Wallmart defines itself as the cheapest source of things, Round Table Pizza as an 'honest' pizza). And when the company does something out of character from their perceived principles it makes one wonder.

His complaint is that the iPad Mini seems like it was there to address the 'portability' issue of the 10" iPad and yet it stepped backwards on the 'principles' of high density displays that Apple has so successfully leveraged since they first shipped one on the iPhone. The argument that they have 'cheapened' themselves to have a product bounded on either side (iPod touch, iPad 10") with high PPI displays.

Those kinds of moves can be disconcerting.

However that Apple will change as it ages should not be unexpected. Tim Cook is not Steve. Move on people, different doesn't have to be bad.

That said, it seems like Apple is moving to high PPI displays across the board so I would expect the mini to get one as soon as they are available in sufficient quantity.

<comment><AUTHOR> Outstanding quality is what defines Apple. Imho of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is quite amusing, boiled down "Apple has released a product that I don't like that much, so I think Apple is done. FYI, Steve would have hated this". Except unless Apple had an astonishingly quick run on this the prototype was probably blessed by him at least 18 months ago.

Guess what Apple also did when Steve was alive? They sold an iPhone that didn't have a retina display, to large numbers whilst selling one with a retina display. Guess what Apple did when Steve was alive? They sold an iPod Mini that a lot of people thought was pointless as the storage space was so small.

Apple will happily sell a product that has trade offs because they believe in the product. I had a choice between buying an ipad 3 and an ipad 2, I quite happily picked the 2 and off I went, no regrets. The Retina displays are utterly fantastic but for a lot of people it's an optional extra. Apple isn't doomed because they've made a product with a feature you don't like, they're going to sell these hand over fist.

Postscript: I saw an iPad Mini in the flesh today, the display still looks fantastic unless I shove it all the way up to my eyeball and declare I can see the pixels. They're also selling second hand for an £80 markup. Seems consumers are still keen.

<comment><AUTHOR> I never said those words that you put in "quotes."

I love it when people argue with words they "made up."

:-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's what happens when people are idolized beyond common sense. Everyone now believes that a multibillion company with some of the greatest minds in the market can't keep their shit together because the enlightened leader left for greener pastures.

Apple had flops with Jobs around also. Stop assuming that he had the answer to every problem because he didn't. Many of his predictions were way off (as it should, no one is God to know everything). Steve this and Steve that. Well the guy is dead, get over it.

Assuming that the market will devalue Apple to the point that would signal their demise is utter nonsense. Microsoft have had a decade of flops and they're still alive and kicking. Apple will be around for many years to come and I'm sure they'll be as innovative as we've come to expect them.

</comment><comment><USER6> Apples's Steve Jobs is awesome at compromising. It nearly always picks the right compromises. If all your products fit on one table you have to be.

Here are the trade offs involved in the decision of whether or not to bring a retina screen to the iPad mini:

Weight vs retina

Volume vs retina

Battery life vs retina

Price vs retina

Weight, volume and battery life are all related and weight plus volume can also be traded off with reduced battery life.

Apple seems to believe that weight, volume and price are preferable to a retina screen. To me that sounds like a pretty reasonable trade off, especially given that one of the principal complaints about the iPad (and also mentioned in the article) is that it's so damn heavy.

</comment><comment><USER7> The crux of this article seems to be that Steve Jobs would never have let a non retina iPad ship after retina displays became available because he wouldn't like to ship anything that could be perceived as inferior in any way.

Here's the problem with that: Outside of geeks, the retina display matters a lot less than most of us would think. You'd be surprised at how many people can barely tell the difference between the two displays.

The high resolution display is simply not as an integral part of the experience as the author seems to think. The display _is_ just a feature. Like disk space and RAM.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually people who are not geeks whose vision isn't that great can really see the difference. I happen to be such a person. Even though of course I am quite technically proficient, which I suppose would make me a "geek."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > "Steve never would have shipped it."

One can only hope that by 2050 this daily Steve-o-rama lament will be replaced by something slightly more interesting.

> "Steve's Apple never deigned to do something as crass as "competing."

The yearly iTunes connect shutdown for "winter holidays" looks crass enough and it should suffice.

</comment><comment><USER9> Taken in combination with Apple's fumble of the recent court-mandated apology and issues with map functionality, it's easy to understand why their share price has retracted. They are still at the top of the mobile food chain, but these recent events are frustrating.

</comment><comment><USER10> Summary: Jobs wouldn't have shipped the iPad mini with a non-retina display.

<comment><USER11> And Apple are starting to do things to compete with, for instance, Google and Amazon. Steve's Apple didn't have to compete because they were years ahead; there was no competition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> _Not my idea of what Apple is, and definitely not Steve's._

Because Steve and me, see, we were like peas in a pod. He would have run this whole iPad Mini thing past me first.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah!

I should have put "imho" at the end of every sentence.

You got me!! :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hurts my eyes to read this kind of stuff, so I had to stop. OMG it doesn't have the shiny little pixels, I can't do this, this is horrible. (gun in my head)

</comment><comment><USER14> ouch. Spot on. The lack of Retina Display is a deal-breaker and a weird backslide.</comment>


What is the correct JSON content type? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/477816/what-is-the-correct-json-content-type

<comment><USER2> I usually hate people that say this but... why has this been upvoted?

Usually these stack overflow posts have interesting answers, but this one is literally "use application/json"

Is there something I'm missing?

<comment><USER3> First submission of a barely 2 weeks old account with no other submissions or comments takes 14 points to get to the frontpage. Definitely seems like some algorithm isn't performing properly.</comment></comment>


Amazon disables account for having too many damaged deliveries - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/pa_jorgensen/status/270861230070173696

<comment><USER2> Amazon customer services have a great reputation. I've read many stories about them accepting returns and/or sending it again without questions.

If they decided that in the case of this customer things escalated beyond reasonable, they must have their motives.

In the end, both parties are satisfied: Amazon won't lose money sending to an address with a high damage rate, and the customer won't receive damaged merchandise, at least not from Amazon.</comment>


How to get your first 10 customers - <AUTHOR> http://danshipper.com/nothing-happens-until-the-sale-is-made <comment><USER2> > They conclude that the product must suck and that nobody wants it, because > Mark Zuckerberg did exactly the same thing to launch Facebook at Harvard and > look at how that worked out for him

Maybe I'm just sleepy, but I'm starting to get tired of condescending advice from newly-born entrepreneurs.

</comment><comment><USER3> Couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, there's a gap between what many lean approaches advocate (Adwords), what startups think they need (features/press) and what actually works.

The most effective way to learn is to go out and find the people who should be using the product, and talk to them.

<comment><USER4> I'd disagree.

AdWords is great for validating B2C products because you NEED the opinion of MANY people to judge the viability of your product/idea.

In B2B your customer typically has money on the line, and it's quite straightforward for them to evaluate your value proposition: "Does this make me money, or lead to making me money, how much?".

In B2C the question becomes: "Do I like/enjoy/have fun with X product?" typically far more subjective and whimsical. Subjectivity shines in small samples (<10 people) and shrinks in large samples (>1000 impressions).

I agree regarding features/press however.

<comment><USER5> I never understood why everyone suggest that a B2B software MUST generate (or lead to) money for the client to reason the purchase. For example, what about security software? It won't generate any money and in most cases won't even prevent losing money due to security issues (as it doesn't happen SO often), yet almost every company values security so much they will happily pay a lot of money for a bulletproof security software.

<comment><USER6> The expected value of security software is how much money it saves via actually securing stuff and earning customer trust.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great post. I wanted to pass along the tool rapportive, which is a built-in email address validator for Gmail with social feeds. It's a killer free tool that no sales team should omit.

Chrome web store link: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rapportive/hihakjf...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rapportive/hihakjfhbmlmjdnnhegiciffjplmdhin?hl=en)

<comment><USER8> Here's a better link to Rapportive's website. They have addons for other browsers as well.

[http://rapportive.com/](http://rapportive.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Good post. I think many of us focus on the product and modifying it first (before questioning sales / marketing tactics) because we are developers, we know how to code, and in fact we actually enjoy tinkering with our product; it gives us a sense that we're doing something consequential that could change the dynamics of the situation.

The unfortunate truth is that early in a product's lifecycle, I suspect the quality (as programmers measure it) of the product, the beauty (or lack thereof) of the codebase, and even outright bugs, misfeatures, and poor performance, are not the reasons the product does or does not get traction. As OP says, what gets traction is product/customer fit -- the NEED a potential customer feels for the product. And if the wrong customer is pitched, and the right customer does not know about your product, all the tinkering and new features and bugfixes and refactoring in the world will not change that situation.

TL; DR: Programmers have code hammers, so they just bang the product nail again and again.

</comment><comment><USER10> Certainly agree, but depending upon your market it can be very difficult to... "Find companies that fit the bill" ...especially when you're more going for B2C or B2SmallerWebsites. Really for me that's the challenge that brings out the need for advertising and such - to even find these customers.

<comment><USER11> Strongly disagree for the first few customers.

If you're going B2C or B2SmallerWebsites then you're aiming for much less per sale, and therefore to get legs you'll need to be able to sell to a lot of them. So potential sales targets are all around. You won't be able to find them in sufficient volume to make a difference until after you have advertising turned on. But you still need to figure out your business. And talking to people in person is a great way to do that.

<comment><USER10> When your customer is anybody from a forum on toyotas to donuts, how do you find them. I am currently advertising, not with too much success. I'm just following the points of this article that you don't know whether it's bad ad copy or product.

<comment><USER11> If your customer base is really that broad, then start talking to random people. It won't be long until you find a potential customer. Make your product work for that customer.

Also you should read [http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html). Pay close attention to the section labeled "Well". Odds are that, no matter how much you like your idea, you've chosen a poor idea to make a startup out of. Try to find a more focused variant to start with.

<comment><USER10> It certainly would be much 'easier' to have a niche to target.

I spent a year work on a product based on some informal surveys and a lot of assumption. Luckily it doesn't cost me a lot to run it, so I can keep it going and continue plucking away, but while it was a good learning tool, I also learned that trying to find a niche would be much nicer to start with.

Thanks for the link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Am wondering if it is okay to cold email potential clients? Isnt that considered as spam?

<comment><USER13> Yes definitely. In general as long as you're not mass emailing 1000s of potential prospects, you target specific people that you think would be interested, you tailor each email individually to them, and you're respectful and up-front about what you're doing things work out fine.

<comment><USER12> Suppose I customize and email 1000s of potential clients. Is that considered as spam? Would you recommend any nice template/examples to use? Should I send these emails from a generic email box or from my personal email? If I include an "unsubscribe" option, won't the receiver think "hey, I never subscribed to this, let me mark it as spam".

On a side note, I used to contact potential clients years ago and then GoDaddy marked my domain as spam and made me cough up $199. The email wasn't even sent from the same domain (google godaddy spam scam). I moved off to NetworkSolutions. Anyone sending cold emails, please beware of this.

<comment><USER14> You can't customize 1000s of emails. Sure you can mail merge in their name, but putting their name in the first line is not customizing.

Customizing would be looking up information about their company, researching their competitors, talking to people who know them, figuring out what kind of food they like, and then crafting an email to them. That is not spam. That is hustle and marketing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Very interesting concepts and ideas. I was looking for something like this for my startup.

Especially the bit about "Shut up and listen to them". I had the same experience the other day at Start Up Weekend, where the best advice was when you listened to the mentors.

Thanks Dan.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'd also recommend looking at local resources such as chambers of commerce. Join them (or just attend some of the events), meet their members (businesses), establish yourself as an expert (and trust) by giving free talks at events, and then proceed up the sales chain.

</comment><comment><USER17> There's always something 'wrong' about tech people wanting to meet face to face. What is the point of the telecommunication tech YOU created? Did you not do a good job?

There's a better approach than what the blog outlines - imagine that you have infinite wealth and begin to build what you personally want.

In most cases you will not be able to create the whole thing, but you can tackle a piece of the problem.

Example - you want a flying car. Imagine that you have 1 trillion dollars at your disposal. What would you do? Hire engineers. How would you hire them? What software is required. Look around, if it does not exist already, that's your first product. If it the hiring problem is already adequately solved, look for the next thing. How do those engineers communicate? etc.

These series of questions will lead to finding niches of opportunity, and it is always a software problem (organizing workflows).

<comment><USER13> You can definitely talk over the phone. But real business seems to happen more quickly in person, even today. Email certainly doesn't cut it.

The problem with the thought experiment is that it assumes infinite knowledge. It's very hard to imagine what things would actually be like if you had a trillion dollars and you wanted to build a flying car. You can definitely come up with things that you think are likely, but I've found that often times you know much less than you think, and the actual problems are MUCH less obvious than they seem.

It's kind of like a non-engineer imagining what problems he would run in to if he had to build the Golden Gate Bridge including design and construction. You can definitely foresee certain things, e.g. you need a lot of materials, pens and paper, but there's still a ton of uncertainty and real gritty problems that only come out when you're in the thick of things.

<comment><USER18> "But real business seems to happen more quickly in person, even today."

Cost and time tradeoff and also what you get for closing and how often you have to close a sale.

You can send out more emails than you can postal letters.

You can do more postal letters than you can phone calls.

You can do more phone calls than you can in person cold calls. All depends of course on the product you are selling and the situation.

In any case going for the low hanging fruit to start (say sending an email to the IT manager at a university) doesn't mean you can't send a postal letter or a phone call or try to setup a meeting in person. But it makes sense in many (not all, many) situations to start with the easiest thing you can do and work your way up.

Example: I just closed a deal with a guy who has a reality show and all it took was an email which he replied to because he was interested in what I was selling. That's only one example I've obviously done the other things as well.

Lastly, negotiating in person also has it's drawbacks. Personally I prefer to negotiate by email in most cases. Depending on the other party and your own skills an in person does't always work out the way you would like.

Just another perspective.

<comment><USER19> _Lastly, negotiating in person also has it 's drawbacks. Personally I prefer to negotiate by email in most cases. Depending on the other party and your own skills an in person does't always work out the way you would like._

I think it totally depends on what you're selling, who you're selling it to, and many other factors.

For example, a guy emailed me one day about a domain I owned, and wanted to know if I'd part with it. None of the domain appraisal tools rated it as having any significant value and I wasn't emotionally invested in it, and had no specific plans for it, so I emailed him back and offered to sell it. He made an offer, I accepted, and told him to Paypal me the money, and then I'd transfer the domain to his GoDaddy account. No "escrow", no face to face meeting, no weird stuff, just email and two strangers trusting each other over $100.00 and a domain. And if F2F had been required, it would never have happened, since I was in NC and he was in Canada. So, totally an appropriate case for doing everything via email.

Now... our startup is in the business of complex, B2B enterprise software solutions which will sell for 10s (if not 100s) of thousands of dollars for a subscription. This stuff will need to integrate with existing legacy systems, and - if successful - will have big implications for the way people get work done. We are not going to get anywhere without some serious face time when it comes to selling this stuff.

Of course, those are two extremes, but I think there are a lot of cases where the higher bandwidth of face to face communication is still very valuable.

<comment><USER18> "None of the domain appraisal tools rated it as having any significant value"

Well first let me tell you that means practically nothing.

Especially on the end of "no significant value". Although I've seen more errors with domains with value being said to have "no value" than I've seen with domains with clear value "having no value". (Can't off the top see if I mean "false negative or false positive" but you get the point.)

"He made an offer, I accepted"

In general, in any deal to sell there always needs to be some "kickback". Otherwise someone might feel they have left money on the table. General rule. Kickback doesn't have to be "more" or "less" money. It can be as simple as "ok but only if you..." (some non monetary item that makes the other party feel you are borderline on their offer).

"trusting each other over $100.00 and a domain"

Easy because the total amount at risk is $100. (Would you do the same if you had a domain and someone offered $20,000 for it and that was the value?).

"We are not going to get anywhere without some serious face time when it comes to selling this stuff."

Agree.

Let me know if anyone ever approaches you to sell any other domains.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I am and have been getting 403 Forbidden for the entire domain. Any idea what could be going on? I'm using Firefox Beta for Android and have tried to access it from a couple of different IP addresses in Melbourne, Australia.

</comment><comment><USER21> Good post with useful tips & tools. It describes exactly what the title states. Nothing more. Nothing less.

</comment><comment><USER22> regarding email address guessing, rapportive turned out to be quite useful at this (xobni's smartr perhaps as well).</comment>


Why the iPhone Costs Us Billions - <AUTHOR> http://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/2015-10/iphone-apple-taxes-europe <comment><USER2> I don't think this article explains "why." I don't like the clickbaity misuse of "why." Here are the article's headings:

> Apple is the iPhone

> What does this mean for Europe?

> What kind of taxes are paid in Europe on profits of 34 billion euro?

> So how much has Apple actually paid in taxes in Europe?

> What could Europe have done with that additional 8 billion euros?

> How we made our calculations:

Underneath "So how much has Apple actually paid in taxes in Europe?" we get one sentence: In Europe, Apple funnels most of its taxable income through Ireland, a tax haven.

This isn't even an answer to "Why the iPhone costs us billions." The answer to that question would include why and how tax havens were created and how they continue to exist. You can tell, because me answering, "Well, Ireland is a tax haven" doesn't satisfy.

Instead of providing the past and present of tax havens, the article gives for example where the missing tax money could have gone: a rescue program for refugees in the Mediterranean Sea. This reads like, "Hey Apple, if you paid your taxes, we could be saving refugees." This decontextualized argument does not persuade me.</comment>


Claytronics or Gershenfeld: Why You'll Be Able to Make Almost Anything - <AUTHOR> http://singularityhub.com/2009/07/23/claytronics-or-gershenfeld-why-youll-be-able-to-make-almost-anything/

<comment><USER2> This is a mindblowing concept, truly something that would change the world if it could be made cost effectively (and trained not to become a T1000). I am curious the predicted development time frame. They talk about sub-mm resolution, but that is terrible. 3D printers have much higher resolution now, and are constantly criticized for their rough finishes. That said, the ability to program and interact with matter is fantastic and there would certainly be useful applications where surface finish isn't a paramount concern, but that car modeling demo seems to be a distant prediction.

The demo is really exciting and is a vision of tech that would be as transformative or more than the internet.

<comment><USER3> This would be a change in line with the printing press, industrial revolution, and the Internet; if not bigger. Question is how can those particles be made in such massive amounts and at low enough price.

The article also touches on another interesting point: that given access to appropriate tools, people can solve a lot of their problems. I personally know how frustrating it is to get an idea and not being able to try it out just because I have no means. Maybe providing such $20k shops to poor regions can have as much impact as providing schools and education.

<comment><USER4> > Question is how can those particles be made in such massive amounts and at > low enough price.

I'm more worried about how we stop them once they are successfully programmed to self-replicate. I actually think that 'Gray Goo' is a far more likely scenario for the demise of mankind than it is given credit for:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo>

<comment><USER5> I think the best argument against a "grey goo" apocalypse is that it hasn't happened yet, despite the fact that the earth is already full of self- replicating nano-machines.

<comment><USER6> Or it HAS happened and WE are the goo! Seriously, there's more bacteria in the human body then human cells. And it's not like the world is short on self replicating nano-machines outside of our bodies. There's self replicating goo _everywhere_!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Engines of Creation: <http://e-drexler.com/d/06/00/EOC/EOC_Table_of_Contents.html>

Nanosystems: <http://e-drexler.com/d/06/00/Nanosystems/toc.html></comment>


Paris night drone mystery deepens - <AUTHOR> http://bbc.com/news/world-europe-31619099

<comment><USER2> I don't think people realize that France has a huge number of drone aficionados. They race drones and have plenty of competitions for amateurs.

To me those drones are nothing more than a few amateurs taking pictures of the beautiful city of lights. No mystery there... simply a few non-threatening people having some fun with tech.

<comment><USER3> Right. All these stories fail to mention that you don't really need any special reason other than the perfectly obvious (Paris at night!!!) to want to fly a drone there. Plus once it makes the news, you better get your pics quickly, before it's too late.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9106905](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9106905)

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah just noticed this, maybe url was a bit different and allowed dup. can a mod delete this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I predict that some cities will eventually desire persistent aerial surveillance systems like [http://www.baesystems.com/product/BAES_162772/ARGUS- IS](http://www.baesystems.com/product/BAES_162772/ARGUS-IS) for many reasons, this being one.

The best way to tell who is operating a drone may be to play wide-area surveillance video backward and trace the drone back to where it was launched.

Wide-area surveillance is a slightly scary technology. But it may be more good than bad if used appropriately.

</comment><comment><USER6> Since it should be relatively straightforward to weaponize these drones, is this all leading to a ban on civilian drones in the foreseeable future?

<comment><USER7> I think so. This article somewhat shows that there's no real control over the drones and it still takes manual labor to track and identify the owners. Right now there are only a few drones, and it's taking days to get them out. If these were weaponized it would be far too late. That's only with a few of them. All it would take is a small military/ops budget to launch like 50 drones and then there's no chance.

This + the whitehouse drone incident = impending crackdown on drones...</comment></comment>