iPhone update for Meltdown-Spectre: before/after performance benchmarks - <AUTHOR> https://melv1n.com/iphone-performance-benchmarks-after-spectre-meltdown-update/ <comment><USER3> This article doesn't make any sense. The author is doing generic phone benchmarks. But the Spectre fix is a _webkit fix only_ , not an OS-wide fix. If they're seeing performance regressions across the whole OS because of fixing Spectre, something's seriously wrong with their benchmark methodology.

Edit: The author upgraded from iOS 11.1.2 to iOS 11.2.2. This isn't just a test of the Spectre fix. The most likely explanation here is upgrading to iOS 11.2 caused their iPhone 6 to start throttling due to battery wear (11.2 added throttling to iPhone 7, and it's plausible that it changed the conditions for throttling on iPhone 6). It's also possible that this is instead caused by the Meltdown patch, but these numbers are still way out of line with what was expected for Meltdown on iOS, whereas they're very much in line with what we've been seeing with battery throttling.

<comment><USER4> I just did a 11.2.1/11.2.2 benchmark of my iPhone 7: [https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/6303880?baselin...](https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/6303880?baseline=6303560)

The result is that 11.2.2 is slightly faster than 11.2.1 (around 2%).

And here's one of my iPad Pro 10.5": [https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/6304146?baselin...](https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/6304146?baseline=6303715) (0.9% increase in performance).

<comment><USER5> I did this same test with an iPhone X and iPad Pro 10.5" as well as a several year old Mini 2 and didn't see a difference. In fact, I saw what you did, my scores got better in most categories.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >> a significant decrease in performance on the iPhone 6 up to 50%

Something's up. I updated my 6S yesterday and have noticed zero in performance changes or battery loss. Still plenty of bugs though, I was reading an email and the 'flag/file/trash/reply/new' bar totally went away. At least the touchscreen hasn't gone unresponsive, causing me to have to hit sleep/wake to toggle it back on. Maybe they finally fixed that.

<comment><USER7> same behaivor here... no perfomance / battery hit.

<comment><USER8> 6 or 6s?

<comment><USER9> I have a 6S+. I noticed a performance gain going from 11.2.1 to 11.2.2.

Before: 2384.

After: 2541.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ok, I'm sceptical about the results. The reason is that there doesn't seem to be a massive difference between the tests. Since this fix is about speculative exec, why would it affect crypto code which is very register based and branchless as much as sqlite which is full of branches and memory/storage based? Why would it affect AES which is hardware accelerated as much as integer processing which is not?

I'm not saying this is impossible - maybe there's something that I'm missing. But it just doesn't add up at the moment. I'd love a more detailed / repeatable test.

<comment><USER11> I can't speak about these benchmarks (the site is down). But Meltdown is _not_ about speculative execution, it's about out-of-order execution. The fixes for Meltdown involve getting kernel data out of user virtual memory, and flushing the TLB if the processor does not have the pcid instruction. So context switches - including system calls - will tend to be more expensive, and if the processor does not implement pcid, _way_ more expensive.

See [https://meltdownattack.com/](https://meltdownattack.com/). I haven't yet read the Spectre paper, but I can say that the Meltdown paper is very readable and walks readers through everything. I anticipate the Spectre paper is as well.

<comment><USER12> This is about Spectre, not Meltdown, which _is_ about speculative execution. From the article:

> Apple released iOS 11.2.2 update to address Spectre security issues.

I'm not sure why Meltdown was added to the HN title...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've went through Denial, Anger, Bargaining, and now in an Acceptance stage after taking up to 31% performance hit on some of services managed by my team. Worst case has been Elasticsearch so far with our load pattern, taking that 31% hit.

Oh well, too bad, enjoying the ride.

<comment><USER14> What about using dedicated hardware and not running the patches? At attacker has to run malicious code on your server to exploit the vulns anyhow, right?

<comment><USER13> I usually don't trust people. More than one have we found things improperly secured and/or exposed to the outer internet, or otherwise at risk. We also run black-box software from third party vendors that provide compiled JAR files which is directly related to this fuss. Last thing I'd like to have is another attack vector at home.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I made similar benchmarks recently on my iPhone 6S, running iOS iOS 11.1.2 vs 11.2.1, before and after replacing the battery:

[https://twitter.com/enstyled/status/948892447765131264](https://twitter.com/enstyled/status/948892447765131264)

TLDR: It's 11.2.1 that is throttling the older iPhones, because of the battery wear.

</comment><comment><USER16> Sample size of 1, but I Geekbench'd my iPhone X before and after upgrade.

11.2.1: Single-Core 4137, Multi-Core 9315

11.2.2: Single-Core 4039, Multi-Core 9876

Anecdotally as well, I haven't seen a noticeable difference in performance. So your mileage may vary substantially based on what device you have.

</comment><comment><USER17> I just ran GeekBench 4 on my iPhone X on iOS 11.2.2 vs 11.2.1.

Single core: 4239 vs 4241

Multi-core: 10081 to 10203

So no difference.

<comment><USER18> The test done here was comparing 11.2.2 vs 11.1.2

<comment><USER19> Isn't 11.2.1 the battery patch?

<comment><USER18> You are correct, it appears to be that "patch".

Source: [https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8211392](https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8211392)

<comment><USER17> So basically, the difference in performance is likely almost entirely due to the battery patch and has nothing to do the Meltdown-Spectre fix.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm curious what the delta is between perf hit on an iPhone 6 and an iPhone 8. I'm guessing that, given the deadline apple had to get this out, most of the attention & optimization went to current devices versus near-EOL devices like iPhone 6.

</comment><comment><USER21> Is the Samsung S8 CPU also affected? I saw that some ARMs are not affected.

EDIT: It appears not the be on the list of affected ARMs [1]. The S8 Exynos 9 Octa 8895 is based on the Cortex-A53

[1] [https://developer.arm.com/support/security- update](https://developer.arm.com/support/security-update)

EDIT2: The Snapdragon 820 and 835 do appear to be affected which are the CPU in the US version of the S8

<comment><USER22> Assume that [EDIT: high-end - dogma1138 is right] smartphone-class processors and above are affected. Raspberry Pi and microcontroller-class ARMs are fine, though (but much slower!)

<comment><USER19> Most of them aren't affected mid range ARM and below aren't vulnerable, basically if you have a flagship product you should worry.

If we take the snapdragon example the 6XX's aren't affected while the 8XX are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Google cache:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?ei=jXNWWojdC4vc...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?ei=jXNWWojdC4vcjwSj2ozgCg&q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fmelv1n.com%2Fiphone- performance-benchmarks-after-spectre-meltdown- update%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fmelv1n.com%2Fiphone-performance-benchmarks- after-spectre-meltdown-update)

</comment><comment><USER24> This might sound dumb but.. with these Meltdown + Spectre bugs would an attacker be able to penetrate to gain full access only if a user downloads a native app or would it be possible through the browser/js?

<comment><USER25> This post, which I saw on HN yesterday, may answer some of that for you:

[https://webkit.org/blog/8048/what-spectre-and-meltdown- mean-...](https://webkit.org/blog/8048/what-spectre-and-meltdown-mean-for- webkit/)

Short answer: yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Haven't seen much coverage on how this affects game consoles like the Xbox and Playstation (which use AMD CPUs). Does anyone know if they've talked about patching it and how this would affect game performance (which is a pretty big deal for gamers who expect a consistent experience)?

<comment><USER27> Mike Ybarra has said there's no need for them to patch the Xbox One against these attacks:

[https://www.trueachievements.com/n31065/xbox-one-consoles- un...](https://www.trueachievements.com/n31065/xbox-one-consoles-unaffected- by-spectre-and-meltdown-chip-issues)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I will repeat these benchmarks on my iPhone 6 when I get home tonight...but in the meantime, the benchmark numbers in this article look almost exactly like the ones I had as a result of battery throttling. I bet the actual patch- related performance hit is pretty minor.

</comment><comment><USER29> I've more than a little skeptical of these results, I too am very disappointed in major CPU vendors (especially their PR and management teams), but these results seem more than a little smelly.

I am what I'd consider a heavy iOS user on multiple devices and I don't believe I've honestly noticed any difference at all. If these results were correct, I believe I'd notice at least a 10-15% decrease in performance - <USER2> no. What I haven't looked at is battery life so I cannot comment on that.

</comment><comment><USER30> I wonder how much extra revenue this will bring to AWS/GCP etc selling more instances to cover the performance loss on servers?

<comment><USER31> It's energy providers that will win the most.

<comment><USER32> All major cloud providers are buying renewables for their operations. Yay?

At least the additional renewable generation capacity built out will exist for decades (while processors should become more efficient as these security issues are addressed and new hardware rolls out).

<comment><USER33> >All major cloud providers are buying renewables for their operations. Yay?

Not yay. This is an overnight massive bump so they are going to consume from the same existing pool of renewables, forcing utilities to use more non renewables to make up for the demand difference.

Also, even when they do build out the renewable generation to make up the difference, it's still environmentally a problem due to the manufacturing of the renewable generation (solar panels, windmills, transformers, etc).

We have no surplus of renewable energy to absorb this kinda stuff so more energy usage is always bad at this point. It's just slightly less bad when they commit to paying to fund renewable.

<comment><USER34> I've read a few articles saying that there is so much Solar adoption in the U.S. that there is a surplus at some times (summer days I believe). It use to be that there was too much use from home AC systems so power was expensive during the day. It seems to be switching to night now as so much is generated during the day (with just 3% adoption of rooftop Solar).

Here's an example of one article on the matter, which I just skimmed a little.

[http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity- solar/](http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity-solar/)

I'm guessing that CPU's use a whole lot less electricity than things like AC systems, so they probably don't affect total electricity used by that much. I was able to surmise that a 3 ton central air conditioner uses around 3500 watts per hour while an Intel I7 (whole system) uses around 150 watts per hour.

My theory, then, is that this won't affect total power use in the U.S. all that much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> tested with GeekBench 4 on iPhone 8 Plus if anyone interested: \- iOS 11.2.1: Single-Core 4257, Multi-Core: 10187 \- iOS 11.2.2: Single-Core 4259, Multi- Core: 10287

Looks like no performance impact at all.

</comment><comment><USER36> My iPhone X has been on 11.2.5 since the day it came out, and I haven't perceived any slowdowns.

Have not done any benchmarking, and I'm not saying performance is the same as before, but anecdotally I haven't seen a difference. Just one guy's opinion.

<comment><USER37> the latest iOS version as of today is 11.2.2

I don't think 11.2.5 exists

<comment><USER38> It has existed in beta for a while.

[https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/09/apple-seeds- ios-11-2-5-...](https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/09/apple-seeds- ios-11-2-5-beta-4-to-developers/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I just updated my 6+ and ran Geekbench before and after. No major difference in scores and the single and multi-core benchmarks are consistent with the comparison numbers for other 6+ phones. Battery is in good health.

</comment><comment><USER40> this leads me to a couple questions, hopefully you smart folk can answer:

1\. I thought Spectre was "Intel-only", and Meltdown was the general case, which is less severe but effectively nearly everywhere? If so, how is an iPhone susceptible to Spectre?

2\. Beyond that, I thought meltdown/spectre was an x86 problem. So why all this trouble on phones, with ARM?

3\. I've read the first, simplest variant of meltdown, and it is so beautifully simple. Is this "speculative execution + cache timing" thing an entirely novel exploit, or have we seen incarnations of this before?

<comment><USER22> 1: Spectre is the general case, Meltdown is the Intel-only evil cousin.

2: Spectre applies to all modern processors with speculative execution, which includes smartphone-class ARM processors. Raspberry Pi's and microprocessors ("toasters") are not affected.

3: There's some prior work - Spectre didn't fall from thin air - but using speculative execution as the basis of an exploit makes Spectre the first bugs in, I believe, a new class. (Meltdown, on the other hand, is just a silly mistake that shouldn't be repeated.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Can we get a before/after with a new battery vs a battery with 1k, then 10k, cycles on it?

</comment><comment><USER42> I benchmarked my 8 Plus yesterday, updated from 11.2.1 to 11.2.2.

No differences noticeable under same circumstances, maybe even slightly faster (Compute benchmark, Geekbench 4).

</comment><comment><USER23> Something isn't right with his benchmarks.

My iPhone 6 benchmarks:

 _Geekbench test taken on Dec 18, 2017 with iOS 11.2_

Single Core: 1566

Multi-Core: 2697

 _Geekbench test taken on Jan 10, 2018 with iOS 11.2.2_

Single Core: 1551

Multi-Core: 2675

 _Percentage slowdown:_

Single Core: 0.96%

Multi-Core: 0.82%

<comment><USER43> Do you have Geekbench test with iOS 11.1.2 instead of 11.2?

<comment><USER44> Shouldn't be needed if you go by absolute numbers - OP had 9xx instead 15xx .. so, clearly something is not right

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Can't wait to see before/after benchmarks for Android. Something tells me it's going to be even worse than iOS.

<comment><USER46> Depends on the phone. Lower end phones use cores like the A53 which don't have enough speculation HW to be affected at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is...highly questionable. 11.2.2 only updates WebKit, which shouldn't affect GeekBench.

</comment><comment><USER48> I keep getting bad gateway from some awful CDN, is there an alternative link?

<comment><USER49> That's Cloudflare and it's not sending the bad gateway, it's telling you that the upstream (the OP server) is returning a bad gateway.

<comment><USER43> Except Cloudflare is saying this: "However, because the site uses Cloudflare's Always Online™ technology you can continue to surf a snapshot of the site"

It shouldn't be telling you that the host is failing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Aaand it's down. Anybody have a mirror?

<comment><USER51> archive.org does: [http://web.archive.org/web/20180110193140/https://melv1n.com...](http://web.archive.org/web/20180110193140/https://melv1n.com/iphone- performance-benchmarks-after-spectre-update/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Why does Cloudflare tell me I'm able to browse a snapshot while the site is offline, but there is no snapshot?

<comment><USER53> This is because, humorously, the snapshot is actually of the 502 page. Apparently Cloudflare kicked in too late.

<comment><USER54> Is that how is's supposed to work? Because any time this happened in the past to a site where it is overcrowded and the Cloudflare banner is showing, the 502 page is showing as well, so I thought it's part of the Cloudflare error page?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Is this a "bug" we can recover from (in future hardware or software) or are we going to collectively take a lifetime -18 hit to our Moore's Law progress and lose the gains from this technique forever?

<comment><USER56> At least for Meltdown there are CPU microcode updates out there that should mitigate it, which means the OS level mitigations can be rolled back. And I haven't measured it yet, but I suspect the microcode mitigates are faster.

Regarding Spectre, I think it's too early to tell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Wow. After ios 10.2.1 halved performance on my iphone 6 due to the battery issues, I next avoided 11.0 as I accepted responsiveness would be slower on the older iphone6 model.

Now if we want these security fixes that's another -40%... Yikes!

However, it looks like ios 11.2.2 and a new battery is still slightly faster than ios 10.3.3 and an old battery! (geekbench single/multi core score from article of 924/1616 vs my 844/1379)

<comment><USER58> I don't understand this logic at all. The fixes are being made for a reason... avoiding the update just means you are getting more performance for a less secure system. Are you betting on a law of averages to break in your favor? Hoping you're not a target of hackers? what am I missing with this strategy?

<comment><USER59> All of these issues require local execution. It's perfectly fine for many single user, performance critical use cases to make this type of security trade off.

<comment><USER44> > local execution

Delivered via JavaScript

<comment><USER14> So don't browse the web from your server. Why are we updating servers?

<comment><USER60> It wouldn't be the first time that a buffer overflow somewhere led to arbitrary code execution. What we're patching is a mechanism that allows escalating from unprivileged execution to reading kernel memory, and a mechanism that defeats KASLR</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Julia v0.5.0 Released - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/blob/release-0.5/NEWS.md <comment><USER2> Quite a milestone for Julia, and an important step forward towards stability as well: I believe a core Julia team member (Viral Shah IIRC) said that there would be only one or two major releases between 0.5 and 1.0.

One thing I like about Julia development is how receptive they are to community ideas, while also making sure the suggestions fit into the larger pattern and rejecting those that don't. (The "Support for arrays with indexing starting at values different from 1" thing does worry me, since it has the potential to screw things up gloriously, but it seems[1] they predicted HN will gnaw at this one. :) And I'm yet to read the whole of that issue, maybe it'll end up convincing me it's a good idea.)

[1] [https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/pull/16260](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/pull/16260)

<comment><USER3> Given the long list of "breaking changes" and "Deprecated or removed" I think it is premature to suggest that they are moving towards stability.

<comment><USER4> I think the idea is that they're trying to make the breaking changes sooner rather than later. It should settle down after this release.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Prior discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12535072](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12535072)

</comment><comment><USER6> I take it, there is still no support for the production of stand-alone binary executables?

Rumours persist that this feature is planned. Or are they just plain wrong?

<comment><USER7> There has been ongoing work toward supporting this feature. See:

[http://juliacomputing.com/blog/2016/03/10/j2c-announcement.h...](http://juliacomputing.com/blog/2016/03/10/j2c-announcement.html)

[http://juliacomputing.com/blog/2016/02/09/static- julia.html](http://juliacomputing.com/blog/2016/02/09/static-julia.html)

<comment><USER8> How close are we to web assembly compilation?

<comment><USER7> I'm not aware of anyone working on it. There were some attempts with Emscripten which ran in to unsupported instructions; some of those may be supported by newer versions of Emscripten, but I haven't heard of any attempts to get this going recently.

<comment><USER8> Gotcha. Is it definitely technically feasible, or is that still unknown?

<comment><USER7> For Julia core it should be feasible, but possibly requiring patches to Emscripten, so the level of effort is still unknown. The other issue is the C and Fortran numerical libraries -- some of which use inline-assembly, others (Fortran) don't have a working LLVM frontend as far as I know.

<comment><USER9> Got it

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Last time I used julia was in Juno, the loading of package was really slow, is this problem solved now? It once gave me a lot of hope...but the result was a little bit disappointing given that it claims so much. It has macro, if only it has lisp syntax...

<comment><USER2> > the loading of package was really slow

Was this on a Unix or on Windows? This has been my experience too on Windows, both the initial startup of Julia and the loading of packages was pretty slow (this was in 0.4.2 I believe).

> It has macro, if only it has lisp syntax...

Honestly, it's a language whose audience is at least 50% non-professional- programmers (scientists, engineers, statisticians), so with a lisp-y syntax it would probably have died a sputtering death. There's a lot of other things to love about the language though, whether superficial (being able to say `2y + 3` or `if a ≠ b && e ∈ S` if you wanted to), practical (pretty good FFIs to C, C++, Python, MATLAB _and_ R already, decent-sized and quickly growing package repo), theoretical (mutliple dispatch, the type system).

<comment><USER11> To me it seems like it is professional programmers who are stodgy about their syntax. Non pros aren't as fussy when presented with something non standard because they haven't been married to the standard for 20 years.

<comment><USER12> I like to do math in C, J, Forth or Scheme which all have different syntax and a combination of prefix, postfix and infix.

I would like a Lisp syntax too, and you can go into Lisp in Julia, since initially it used femtolisp written by Jeff Bezanson (one of the creators of Julia). I am not sure how much functionality is available from the Lisp prompt in the console. There's also a Lisp syntax package for it IIRC.

I am waiting for it to stabilize more, and then I'll revisit it. I like now that I have the choice of zero-indexing, since I am used to that from mathematics, C, and J, although APL gives a switch to choose between 0 or 1 indexing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> duplicate of: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12535072](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12535072)</comment>


Ask HN: Looking for historical ip whois data – suggestions? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking to process (for a research project) some historical access logs that record the ip. As part of that, I'm using the ip whois data to map each access to an the entity listed by the ip whois data (yes, there a lot of caveats there).
I'm hoping to find a good source of historical ip whois data because the logs are old enough that some of the ips have changed ownership and so the ip whois data being returned isn't valid anymore.
From my research, arin has a very rate limited whowas data, and apnic has a pretty good service, but only for their IPs (not sure if the arin service covers non-arin IPs).
Are there any services that I'm missing? I'd love to find a good service with reasonable rate limit & api, even if it costs money. Or is this all there is? <comment><USER2> If you just want to know a unique identifier for an entity holding INR, look at the extended delegated statistics data, published daily by each RIR recording an opaque, but stable, identifier for the holder of a resource block.

[http://ftp.lacnic.net/pub/stats/lacnic/](http://ftp.lacnic.net/pub/stats/lacnic/)

[https://ftp.arin.net/pub/stats/arin/](https://ftp.arin.net/pub/stats/arin/)

[https://ftp.ripe.net/pub/stats/ripencc/](https://ftp.ripe.net/pub/stats/ripencc/)

[https://ftp.apnic.net/stats/apnic/](https://ftp.apnic.net/stats/apnic/)

[https://ftp.afrinic.net/pub/stats/afrinic/](https://ftp.afrinic.net/pub/stats/afrinic/)</comment>


Google faces first investigation by its European lead authority over GDPR - <AUTHOR> https://brave.com/dpc-google/ <comment><USER2> Google will argue that while this data is intimate (religion, age, personal preferences), it is not personally identifiable.

I have access to one of these data feeds of bid requests, and for the most part, they're right. Pick a random entry and even after hours of searching and correlating with the other data we have on file, it's unlikely I'd be able to identify exactly who it was (ie. Their name and address) on that website.

 _Some_ requests totally are identify-able though, for example if the user goes on to click one of our ads, buy something, and give us their postal address. In the eyes of the law, we have broken the rules there by re- identifying previously anonymous data.

While I think Google is technically in the right here, they're gonna loose big time because they're a foreign company and don't have much love with the public.

<comment><USER3> > they're gonna loose big time because they're a foreign company

I think it's somewhat irresponsible to throw out accusations this big without even feeling the need to offer any evidence for them.

FWIW I once summed up the various fines (anti-trust etc.) doled out by the EU by country/continent. It turned out that US companies were, collectively, fined slightly less than their share of economic activity in the EU, while Asian companies were fined more and EU companies were about level.

This corresponds rather well with a non-corrupt process largely blind to companies' nationality, assuming that US companies are rather well-regulated in the US compared to Asian companies.

I haven't done the reverse for US fines of European companies. But, subjectively, the cases that made the news (mostly VW and Deutsche Bank) gel rather nicely with my (Germany-based) impression of companies with malignant corporate culture and do not require any nationalistic motivation to explain.

I know it may seem like a minor point in this context. But if we always assume all institutions are corrupt, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Institutions such as the court system and, more generally, the rule of law, are the reason we (some of us) can enjoy life in peace, and shouldn't be torn down just by empty cynicism.

<comment><USER4> You're right it's important to unpack these allegations, but I don't think they are just random cynicism.

> US companies were, collectively, fined slightly less than their share of > economic activity in the EU,

I can imagine why you would control for economic activity, but I have no idea what impact that had on the results relative to other reasonable controls. If we're wondering about punishing bad decisions, you could have instead controlled for the number of decisionmakers from these companies in the EU. Or you could have controlled for the number of different endeavors or types of products or lines of business (because each different source of revenue is a source of malfeasance moreso than each individual euro earned). I'm really mostly concerned about that last one. What is the chance each revenue stream will get more scrutiny by being foreign? Court cases don't target individual euros earned, they target a certain product or way of doing business.

Regardless of controls, it doesn't change the tortured logic in some high profile cases comparing US and EU institutions under the same standard. If the Spanish media publicizes something as widely as it can, that's great, because it's good for the public to have that information. If an American tech firm allows people to access those publications, that's bad, because it's bad for the public to have that information.

I'd love to change my mind about the bias in the EU, I'm open to new evidence. All it would take is a few EU cases where they found that the big American company was blameless, but the small European company should be fined.

<comment><USER5> "French Supreme Court rules for Google in trademark cases" [https://europe.googleblog.com/2010/07/french-supreme- court-r...](https://europe.googleblog.com/2010/07/french-supreme-court-rules- for-google.html)

<comment><USER4> I find it irritating when people move the goalposts and don't acknowledge opposing evidence, so I think it's really important to stop here and acknowledge that this is relevant evidence, even though it wasn't exactly what I said I was looking for originally.

It's not a case where the US and EU companies are on the same side like I originally proposed, but those might be too rare to test anyway, so I was probably being a bit silly.

Failing back to these more common cases, I don't think (and shouldn't have implied that) one case alone in a decade completely decides the question of bias, but it should definitely shift the probabilities here, if you want to be bayesian about it.

EDIT for emphasis.

<comment><USER4> After digging in on this series of case law, it's also important to note it has its origins in the L'Oreal decision that lets Google off the hook but is mostly about fining eBay.

It's a complicated counterexample to the premise that the EU is preoccupied with fining US companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > hundreds of billions of times a day

How lucky for them the EU won't treat them the way RIAA persecuted file sharers. Hundreds of billions of violations every day, each single one a separate "count"!

<comment><USER7> At first I thought you meant to say prosecute. But persecute makes far more sense.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for pointing it out, because that changes what the parent comment says completely. I initially read it as prosecute, which tripped me quite a bit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's a shame an otherwise interesting article is plastered with the author repeatedly trying to promote and self-congratulate himself, and take credit for something which has undoubtedly been reported by hundreds, if not thousands, of people. Anyhow, I sincerely hope Google gets slapped with a huge fine, and that one day individual-user-targeted-ads will become illegal.

<comment><USER10> > and that one day individual-user-targeted-ads will become illegal

i don't understand this. why would anyone prefer generic ads over targeted?

<comment><USER11> I want no ads, but apparently it's impossible to build a business these days without also trying to manipulate me into buying random other stuff. If I can't go around them, I'd still prefer to ignore generic ads rather than targeted ones. It's easier to do and less creepy from their side.

<comment><USER12> The problem is people who would pay to avoid ads are those worth targeting... I'd love if a single service could let me opt out of all tracking and ads internet wide for a fixed fee, say $50-$100 a month.

<comment><USER13> Google actually provided exactly this service (for all Google-based ads, which is a high %) for a little over a year before it was discontinued, supposedly because nobody actually used it.

See: [https://contributor.google.com/v/beta](https://contributor.google.com/v/beta)

<comment><USER14> How much are they keeping for themselves? I'd really like to see this business model arise, but if means giving 30% to Google I'm not so sure.

<comment><USER13> I don't have the exact number (I had only just signed up as a publisher about a month before they closed it -- maybe someone else can pop in with exact numbers) but I remember it being really low, around 5-7%.

It was low enough that it wasn't really a factor when determining what to price your ad-free pages at (most people went with 1-2 cents per load) -- most people just priced at whatever average your ads were pulling in currently without worrying about the cut, since it was a fraction of a cent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Brave, I wish I liked you more. As much as I am cautious with trusting Google, your motives and history are somehow more questionable to me.

<comment><USER16> What in Brave's history and motives are questionable?

<comment><USER17> Some time ago there was a scandal because apparently they create profiles for content creators _which aren 't signed up_ on their platform and accept money on their behalf. Afterwards Brave spouted very dubious arguments with things like ominous legalese to HN comments with an "trust us, we're nerds too" vibe.

From a cynical perspective, it looked a lot like smoke and mirrors from an entity currently sitting on a pile of money acquired by impersonating people.

<comment><USER18> Isn't this anyway their own tokens? So no matter whether the providers do have an own account or not, if they don't cash it out then there's no cost to brave. So its.just that they were incorrectly giving the impression that someone is getting paid?

<comment><USER19> Yes, except when that person doesn't get paid, instead Brave gets that money.

<comment><USER20> That's not true. The tokens are returned the user. Those tokens may come from the User Growth Pool as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Disclaimer: I work at Google and did some GDPR verification on some products, but I'm not a lawyer and will try to avoid legal speculation. I worked with the advertising team but not on it; my impression of those folks is that they took legal responsibilities _very_ seriously. We even had to make new controls in Firebase for you to enable sharing your Firebase analytics data with your Firebase Functions.

I'm curious which kind of party Brave is accusing Google of being (Controller or Processor). I'm also curious what kind of "leak" Brave is accusing Google of making.

The advertiser could certainly filter for some specific terms, but not PII. If you get a large group, differential privacy et. al. should protect the individual and protect a leak.

There's some interesting theoretical attacks in the threads but they involved a host site asking for the PII after the ad campaign.

Do any attorneys want to comment who the Controller and Processor would be in this situation?

Do any multi-site owners want to comment on whether any advertising UserIDs are even shared across sites, or are they salted per recipient?

<comment><USER21> A bit more digging. The google_user_id field is described a bit more here: [https://developers.google.com/authorized- buyers/rtb/cookie-g...](https://developers.google.com/authorized- buyers/rtb/cookie-guide)

From what I can tell it looks like advertisers who already have user IDs can use this in their ad campaign but all google_ fields are stripped from ad redirects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Just today attended a massive conference where they were showing how a pregnant customer goes on an real estate website,browses for a few properties,then goes on a website that sells cots,browses a few of them and gets served a customised ad from a bank.Once clicked on the ad,it opens the banking app with some details prefilled and ready to submit an application for a mortgage.I understanding I'm in this CRM industry and benefitting from it heavily, however this is just a way to far...

</comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if anyone can explain more about how ad bidding works? Does information from bidders (websites) go beyond the ad exchange? Do ad exchanges log bids? How does information leakage happen, and what gets leaked?

(Please don't speculate if you don't know.)

</comment><comment><USER24> There's a lot of stuff to dislike about the nuts and bolts of the GDPR. But I do wish that the U.S. would move in the general direction of protecting user data instead of the incredibly vague and stupid calls for "BREAK UP BIG TECH!"

All of the political stuff that's happening here blithely assumes that the problems with Apple, Google, and Facebook are pretty much the same and can be solved in the same way. There's a fundamental approach here of basically, "don't get too successful."

I'd rather see them approached specifically and recognize that they each present very different challenges. One of the biggest for ad-driven companies is that they're successful because of the way they use data. It's not really about how big they are. If you can regulate how people are allowed to make money off of user data effectively, that solves a huge part of the problem.

There's another part of the puzzle about what exactly it means to be an anti- competitive monopoly in the modern era, but I'm actually kind of okay with that being litigated for now. The system moves slowly, but it is moving. And for people saying the current system can't account for new technology, it's worth realizing that people do recognize the need for change, and the Supreme Court just recognized that old rules about how things work need to change.

<comment><USER25> > There's a fundamental approach here of basically, "don't get too > successful."

Of course. We want companies to compete, we don't want them to win because then there is no functioning market anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Could we change the link to something that isn't self-promoting? [https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/22/18635898/google-gdpr- prob...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/22/18635898/google-gdpr-probe- complaint-ireland-dcp-europe) is one link Google News turns up.

</comment><comment><USER26> It hurts me imaging the amount of paper required to clear something like this.

</comment><comment><USER27> The UK currently has larger complaint numbers than France or Germany [1] at around 6,000-16,000 each which is weird, but it does show that many people are taking individual privacy rights seriously

[1] [https://kyso.io/eoin/gdpr-complaints-for-various-eu- countrie...](https://kyso.io/eoin/gdpr-complaints-for-various-eu-countries-so- far)

</comment><comment><USER28> In all likelihood Facebook and google will be able to adequately address any issues related to GDPR and judo throw the regulation into allowing them to become further entrenched by suppressing any competition.

<comment><USER29> I think it is probable that big players would lawyer-up their way out but GDPR has little impact on honest competition, sure, if you want to join the dodgy- club without deep pockets and a legal department, it is gonna a bit harder, but tough cookies.

<comment><USER30> As long as you put up a half-page notice about those cookies :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Brave is a product built on Chromium - work of many Google engineers (mostly). And still they call Google an "evil behemoth corporation". And now this article - pathetic example of black PR and double-dealing.

<comment><USER32> If you go back far enough you find KHTML.

KHTML -> WebKit (Apple) -> Blink (Google) -> Chromium.

So while Chromium is undoutably the work of many Google employees it's not entirely the work of Google employees which is one of the reasons it's licensed the way that it is.

<comment><USER33> I think all things considered, today Chromium is probably 90% Google engineering. There is almost no Khtml code left and big chunks of webkit code are heavily modified and rewritten. Also, rendering engine is not the browser.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> ah, a classical govt shakedown in progress

<comment><USER35> Could you please work on increasing the information-to-inflammation ratio of your comments?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Life is an eternal struggle between Good and Google

<comment><USER33> I would not classify Brave as anything good.

<comment><USER36> What bad have they done?

<comment><USER33> Probably just the rotten smell that comes from their business model.

<comment><USER37> What do you find most stinky about their business model?

<comment><USER13> It's built on telling others "hey guys, we think your business model is evil so we're just gonna turn it off -- if you want [a smaller portion of] that money you need to go through us to get it now" or you get nothing at all.

It's kind of like walking into a store and saying, "I want this bag of chips but the way you're charging for it is evil. I'm going to eat it now, but if you want paid you can go across the street and get a money order from my mom in the car. Oh, and she'll pay what she thinks it's worth."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is another example of the EU trying to "tax" US companies through fines. If you disagree with how Google uses your data _you have a choice_, stop using Google!

<comment><USER39> Yeah there is just one problem... European companies are also getting fines when they don't play by the rules. And in some cases very hefty fines...

The whole "US taxing" argument is produced by people who would know how ridiculous that claim is if they would look further than US borders.</comment></comment>


Microsoft lets you crash drones and robots in its new real world simulator - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/15/14622074/microsoft-aerial-informatics-and-robotics-platform <comment><USER3> Sort of related: Drones as a service (DAAS) - let's you fly real drones via your browser. [http://cape.com](http://cape.com)

<comment><USER4> Careful. The "Fly Now" button makes it sound like you're going to put your email in and get to fly. In reality, you're signing up for their mailing list for when they get to Beta....

<comment><USER5> [co-founder of Cape here]

We're already in beta! But since our system involves physical drones located in the real world, we have limited supply of available flights. We currently load balance the demand from our users by having a waitlist from which we whitelist folks on a weekly basis, and a queueing system when all of the drones in our fleet are simultaneously in the air.

<comment><USER6> Fake "actions" on web sites, used to gauge interest, are disrespectful, and quite simply a jerk move. Just like those "sign up for our spam" pop-overs. There are enough things broken on the web without intentionally adding to them. Please don't be a jerk.

<comment><USER7> I agree, this is a dark pattern.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm a member of this team. Please feel free to ask any questions!

<comment><USER9> Can this be used for more than just multirotor drones? IE - what about other drone aircraft, as well as ground and water-based craft?

I'm currently working thru the Udacity Self-Driving Car Engineer nanodegree; as a part of the first term one of the projects used a Unity3D-based simulator to train a CNN to drive a vehicle.

It would be nice to have a more generalized simulator for this kind of work, to be able to simulate potentially more accurate environments (off road, especially). I could also see interesting work being allowed for underwater ROV environments as well...

As it is, I have considered (for an off-road and more general use) re-tasking TORCS or Trigger Rally (though after just doing some research, it seems like there are ton of these simulators - so maybe one more isn't necessary).

Still - I'm curious whether other environments and vehicles are being considered...

EDIT: It looks like Udacity recently open-sourced their simulator (one thing I have noticed about this course is that sometimes they do things, but don't let the students know about it - that, or maybe I've just been too focused on my work to notice, which is a very real possibility!)

<comment><USER8> You are absolutely at the right place. We have gone to extra length to design our code so that vehicle specifics are abstracted away behind interfaces. Also things are easily switchable. For example, don't like our physics engine, bring your own! As mentioned in release notes, we are working on other vehicle types. However water based crafts are not on our radar. My guess would be that physics would be more expensive and less accurate in general for water based vehicles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> GitHub repo: [https://github.com/Microsoft/AirSim](https://github.com/Microsoft/AirSim)

</comment><comment><USER11> Neat but this makes me sad because I remember Flight Simulator and how Microsoft killed it.

<comment><USER12> Quite the contrary - it's alive and well! Just under a different company and/or name.

Flight Simulator X Steam Edition is available on the Stream store.[1] It's the FSX you remember, but upgraded a bit. It's published by Dovetail Games now, since Microsoft sold the "consumer grade" version of their Flight Simulator to them a few years back.

Prepar3d[2] is owned by Lockheed Martin (the defense contractor/aircraft manufacturer), and is what was called ESP when Microsoft owned it. ESP was Microsoft's "professional" Flight Simulator, with enhanced mechanics and military support (missiles, bombs, etc). It was meant to be used in real world simulators used by the military and FAA certified flight schools. However, ESP was sold to Lockheed Martin, and you can pickup a copy of the rebranded Prepar3d which takes FSX to a new level of realism.

I personally fly Prepar3d these days.

[1] [http://store.steampowered.com/app/314160/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/314160/)

[2] [http://www.prepar3d.com/](http://www.prepar3d.com/)

<comment><USER13> I believe the Prepar3D license forbids personal / private use as they only sell commercial licenses. Something like that.

Also there is X-Plane!

<comment><USER12> > I believe the Prepar3D license forbids personal / private use as they only > sell commercial licenses.

While technically none of the licenses support "entertainment purposes only" (a product of Lockheed buying ESP and not the consumer flight simulator) - <USER2> can purchase the Professional license (or Academic license if you're a student) for "training, instruction, simulation, or learning"[1]... which just about covers all the bases.

Nobody said you can't be having fun while learning and simulating!

[1] [http://www.prepar3d.com/product-overview/prepar3d-license- co...](http://www.prepar3d.com/product-overview/prepar3d-license-comparison/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This reminds me of Gazebo, [http://gazebosim.org/](http://gazebosim.org/), which I used extensively in college for scenario simulation when working on robotics projects, especially great when used alongside ROS :).

</comment><comment><USER15> I really thought this was an Unreal/Unity plugin at first. Now that I have read the article, I wonder does anyone know which 3D engine they are using (Rendering, Physics...)?

<comment><USER8> It is Unreal plugin! [https://github.com/Microsoft/AirSim/blob/master/docs/build.m...](https://github.com/Microsoft/AirSim/blob/master/docs/build.md)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The _Fly Now_ button signs you up to a waiting list.

</comment><comment><USER17> looks like unreal engine and the "modular neighbor pack" asset by dokyo. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5CKj0gBo2c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5CKj0gBo2c)

</comment><comment><USER18> So, jerky gta 5 with an api</comment>


Show HN: Publisheet – Publish Excel sheets as interactive web pages - <AUTHOR> https://www.publisheet.com <comment><USER2> This looks sleek and well-made! However, this is a pretty crowded space. Spreadsheet Converter ([https://www.spreadsheetconverter.com](https://www.spreadsheetconverter.com)) and Spreadsheet Web ([https://www.spreadsheetweb.com](https://www.spreadsheetweb.com)) are directly comparable and have been around for years. (Like Publisheet, Spreadsheet Converter offers an Excel add-in.)

Then there are lots of web app builders, including Calculoid ([https://www.calculoid.com](https://www.calculoid.com)), Calconic ([https://www.calconic.com](https://www.calconic.com)), uCalc Pro ([https://ucalc.pro](https://ucalc.pro)) and Calcapp ([https://www.calcapp.net/lp/website- calculators/](https://www.calcapp.net/lp/website-calculators/)), that require more work to get from an Excel sheet to a web app, but get the job done with an end result that doesn't look like a spreadsheet. How does Publisheet improve on the competition?

(Full disclosure: I'm a co-founder of Calcapp.)

<comment><AUTHOR> When I started Publisheet, the idea was that it would allow users to create static, web-based reports from their spreadsheets, including textual information that would be written as Markdown (with a WYSIWYG editor) directly in one or more cells. I thought that it would be an easy way to create complete financial reports, for instance. The landing page's images still reflect that.

But as soon as it launched, I noticed that no one was using it for text-heavy reports. People just wanted to publish their spreadsheets online, as is, with formula support. So, I started focusing on that and ended up in this crowded space, as you correctly state.

I think that Publisheet's main selling point is that it's really simple to install and use. There's no .exe to install, there is no need to upload the Excel file in the browser, there is no form builder. Also, it works on Windows, Mac and in Excel Online. You basically click Publish and it's done. But I am aware that all the systems you listed are way more feature-complete than Publisheet and it is something we'll have to improve.

By the way, congrats on Calcapp, it looks really polished!

<comment><USER3> > including textual information that would be written as Markdown (with a > WYSIWYG editor) directly in one or more cells. I thought that it would be an > easy way to create complete financial reports, for instance. The landing > page's images still reflect that.

> But as soon as it launched, I noticed that no one was using it for text- > heavy reports.

I think the issue with that approach is that text-heavy reports don't perfectly overlap with the web. Speaking for basically all Wall St investment bankers out there, we spend our days generating reports from Excel into PowerPoint.

If something existed for Excel + PowerPoint that worked similarly to RMarkdown + Rstudio > PDF, I think it would be a game changer, even if only used to generate a few of the more "automated" reports.

There you go, free killer business idea for you ;-)

<comment><USER4> > If something existed for Excel + PowerPoint...

Isn't that SlideShare you're asking for? If not can you explain more please?

<comment><USER3> I'm not familiar with SlideShare, but from Wikipedia that seems to focus on sharing presentations rather than building them.

Here's what I mean, specifically: advisory work done by the big consulting companies and Wall Street M&A shops usually consists of lots and lots of Excel files being carefully massaged to create certain outputs that are then dropped in as images into PowerPoint with some text around them, mostly following the exact same formatting guidelines, which are then printed, bound and shown to clients.

Currently, you have to train people to not only know how to come up with the data (i.e. corporate finance, accounting, management consulting) but also teach them how to use powerpoint, think about formatting, make sure they memorize the right color palette, etc. Sometimes formatting alone is 50% of the work – your boss will always tell "you used the wrong shade of blue"...

A lot of these pages are the exact same across assignments. One example is a standard page with valuation multiples over time, comparing client company against a set of peers and/or the S&P500. Or a stock price performance chart.

Annoyingly, you have to set up pages manually virtually _every_ time, and there's no separation between presentation and content.

With RMarkdown + RStudio, you can write Markdown code and embed images into your resulting PDF. Banking / Consulting is doing the same thing, except using PowerPoint. But PowerPoint is a slideshow app, not a PDF authoring tool.

My hypothesis: creating a PDF authoring tool that embeds data from Excel / other sources with formatting kept separate (think a separate CSS file) would be a game changer and revolutionize the industry (though admittedly Wall Street hates changes and convincing people to use this would be an uphill battle)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is amazing, but there is no way that my firm will send any excels with our data to a relatively small and unknown third-party provider who will host it on a public URL. Are you thinking about allowing users to run this on-site?

<comment><USER6> I was about to say the same. I'd pay for a license to use a self-hosted version.

<comment><USER7> Sheetjs.com seems in the same space and you can self host.

<comment><USER8> you need a dev to make that work. I guess OP value is "no dev needed"

<comment><USER7> That's true, though the things in the demos directory would simplify that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm surprised MS Office development seems to have just...stopped.

Powerpoint can't import an SVG (it turns it into a low res raster image). Powerpoint can't export SVG either, if I want to use a Powerpoint diagram in a web page. I opened a JSON file in Excel expecting to see nested values and nope, it doesn't support that file format. Office isn't even available in the Windows app store.

When Microsoft's going full steam ahead with stuff like Terminal, VSCode, OneDrive, Edgium, etc Office seems to be stuck in 2005.

<comment><USER6> Has it stopped, or are you maybe not the target/average user?

Most Office users have no idea what SVG or JSON files are or why they'd use them.

My experience is that Office has prioritized usability and automating tedious tasks, like theming, creating charts, and linking data back and forth.

Every major version over the last 15 years has made some large usability improvements (e.g. format painter), but perhaps you'd only notice them if you're using the applications in certain ways. I've noticed them and feel like I'm stuck in molasses whenever I have to use an older version of Office.

<comment><USER9> A lot of people who work with data use Excel and JSON. Not most Excel users, but about as many as who know what VLOOKUP is.

<comment><USER6> Excel is huge in finance, accounting, and marketing. I don't know why anyone in those fields would routinely use JSON files.

If there's JSON somewhere that's relevant, a dev will usually just change output to CSV or something.

<comment><USER9> You don't know people in finance who use JSON? Have you heard of R, SciPy or NumPy?

Additionally data science / stats folk use JSON and Excel too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice! Using spreadsheets as a DB are trend now. Also Spreadsheets are pretty good CMS as well, so people can use it to create websites without code. I made an app called [https://Sheet2Site.com](https://Sheet2Site.com) which takes your Google Sheet of items/objects and translates it into an app, with filters and images

<comment><USER11> _> Using spreadsheets as a DB are trend now._

Not just a trend now, it has been a pattern for many years: if you worked in/with/for many office environments you'll be exposed to a great many "database" uses of Excel & similar and you will find features specific to such uses in spreadsheet products. Some businesses, including large investment banks, would completely grind to a halt if Excel stopped working!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very cleanly done - though I really doubt this needs to be a subscription. I'm gonna keep this in my notes - it may come in handy someday for a one-off report or presentation, for which I would gladly plunk down a few bucks.

</comment><comment><USER13> Check out Molnify www.molnify.com that both have support for formulas, and allows you to publish them as APIs (disclaimer: I built it)

</comment><comment><USER14> Why not just share or publish a locked Google sheet?

</comment><comment><USER15> Really nice, tried with a chart and worked smoothly.

Just for fun: would be nice to know max publishing - I just tried 1k * 30 columns and it errored out. I wanted to see how I could interact with a large chart of data.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, we haven't defined a limit yet but letting it error out is definitely not acceptable. We'll fix it, thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This looks really nice but I'd like to see a more complex example with several complex functions and updating at least 500 fields at the same time. Then we see how fast it is...

<comment><USER17> in case of complex functions / many fields it is more logical to use a database and BI tool that displays/visualizes data from this database as a report.

<comment><USER16> If the tool has limitation it should say somewhere, before someone spends time building a complex example and finds out it crashes the browser.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Cool idea. I like how focused it is. I'd love to be able to see an example without signing up though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haven't gotten around updating the landing page yet but here is an example: [https://www.publisheet.com/demos/quotation- demo](https://www.publisheet.com/demos/quotation-demo).

Just tap the screen or move your mouse over the page and you'll see which cells are editable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Not necessarily exactly like this but Google Sheet does web publishing of sheets.

</comment><comment><USER20> Any chance of a Google Sheets version?

</comment><comment><USER21> Could this be done via a Google sheet?

<comment><USER22> Andrey Azimov built a very similar app for Google Sheets - [https://www.sheet2site.com](https://www.sheet2site.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Cool idea! Clean and simple UI.

</comment><comment><USER24> what use case would this serve?

<comment><USER25> That was my question. Any type of shared spreadsheet I always use Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Love your logo!

<comment><USER27> Is this the OP posting? Out of everything on the page, the logo is possibly the worst part of it (a 'P' in a circle). And this made you create an account and then post here?</comment></comment>


Happy Tau Day - <AUTHOR> http://tauday.com/ <comment><USER2> I have found the idea of tau useful even though I have never used it in writing.

One argument in favor of tau is that in many formulas pi often has the multiplier 2 in front of it. If these formulas are written in terms of tau, they may become slightly easier to memorize and manipulate. Perhaps so, but I don't really care about this. It's not a big difference. Besides, there are also lots of formulas that are easier to memorize and manipulate using pi instead of tau. The probability density function of the standard Cauchy distribution f(x) = 1/pi * 1/(1 + x^2) is one example.

However, to get a deep understanding of mathematics, I want to understand the connections between different parts of mathematics. If I see a mathematical formula with the constant pi in it, I ask myself: "How is this connected to circles?" The idea of tau taught me that that 2pi is the natural state of affairs. If I see pi by itself, I need to ask myself: "How is this connected to half-circles? Or has the multiplier 2 been cancelled away?"

So, why does the pdf of the standard Cauchy distribution above contain pi instead of 2pi? What is the standard Cauchy distribution anyway? Take a gun that shoots particles in random directions, and place it one unit distance away from an infinitely long wall. Standard Cauchy distribution is where the particles will hit the wall. The particle will only hit the wall if it is shot in a direction towards it. This corresponds to 180 degrees - and there you have it: the connection to half-circles. Of course, you also have to work out the technical details. But on an intuitive level, when I see pi in the pdf of the standard Cauchy distribution I don't think about how the missing multiplier makes it easier to remember a bunch of symbols; I think of particles hitting a wall.

<comment><USER3> Your Cauchy argument is actually misleading and runs right into my joking example elsewhere in this thread about needing to define a new constant Sigma=4pi to work better with steradians.

Pi doesn't always represent _only_ a pure circle. Eg, in solid angles there are 4pi steradians over a sphere. Or 2tau. Or what I define as Sigma.

This extra factor of two when using Tau should be just as disconcerting to tau enthusiasts for steradians as pi is for radians.

Your example is talking about shooting particles in all directions over 3D space. This calls for a solid angle approach. Which means you should be integrating over steradians just as you'd use radians for an angular system. There are 4pi steradians over a sphere's full solid angle, the wall only covers 2pi steradians. Meanwhile the extra factor of two comes from the integration of decreasing infinitesimal wall cross sections over the azimuthal angle.

The fact that it comes out to 1/2 tau is merely happy coincidence. Ie, the geometry introduced an extra factor of two because it's just as easily 1/4 sigma, and for a solid angle system (shooting particles in all directions) you should be using steradians. Hence sigma.

<comment><USER4> Surely the Cauchy distribution you're replying to doesn't have any steradians going on, right? It's a 1D distribution and the gun described would point towards a random point on a circle, not on a sphere.

<comment><USER3> Argh, you may be right.

I was actually thinking of a separate example from physics (years ago) calculating the classical flow of particles through an aperture. Where you assume particles have maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of speeds and consider them travelling in all directions over 3D and also the effective size of the aperture vs the azimuthal angle of travel. It's quite similar to this example actually but given the speeds you also must account for which velocity range [v,v+dv] as a function of angle will put a particle through the hole in time dt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If mathematics has a bikeshed, this is it.

I enjoy the ridiculousness of it all, but people who consider this anything other than a well-executed joke really should get a hold of themselves.

<comment><USER6> You're right about the bikeshedness, but that doesn't mean there isn't a clearly better bike shed design. I also find that these sorts of inefficiencies/inelegances compound. One or two are trivial, but when you have 30 of them, suddenly the mental tax becomes noticeable.

Furthermore, the cost falls mostly on the students, while the experts have already paid it and don't see the need to worry about it anymore.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, but this bikeshed got decided hundreds of years ago.

Its only appealing to internet hipsters who want to brag about their organically grown free range tau.

Making the next generation of math students use "2 pi" in their formulas is going to be vastly easier than literally rewriting all the books.

<comment><USER6> As a practicing physicist, I found it illuminating and non-trivially useful to know this when it was first introduced to me years ago. This is true even though I will never use in a paper, and even if I only rarely write it in my notes. In my head, 2\pi is a single character, to the point that I often write \frac{1}{2} 2\pi.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I feel very fortunate that the tau vs. pi argument was around when I went back to study math in earnest. I found tau much more intuitive and it helped me to visualize and learn the material more effectively.

I now use tau whenever I can. However, I don't find switching back and forth to accommodate pi loyalists that taxing. You don't really have to choose one exclusively.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's just the same useless argument every year. Just use what you want. I've been taught pi since secondary school. I understand it well and can use it effectively. Never have I sat there and thought, "if only there was a shortcut to multiplying this by 2". There's whole sites, videos and movements to get tau popular. I just personally don't understand the point.

<comment><USER10> That's exactly the issue. You are _thinking_ in terms of pi, so it might be hard to see from a different perspective.

It's like using a slightly off abstraction for a concept. At first you have to make a small effort to hold it in your head, then at some point it's committed and you can manipulate the concept directly.

<comment><USER11> Let x be a randomly chosen real number in [0,1]. What does it mean to "manipulate x's concept" or "think in terms of x"?

Do these phrases attach themselves to the real number, or to the expression language? If the latter, do you say two number-expressions are equivalent if applying some normalization function yields two equal expressions? Do you consider two number-expressions distinct if they evaluate to the same real number, but cannot directly be related to each other?

For example, let:

        S = { (x, e^(ix) + 1) | x in R, x > 0 },
        T = { x | (x,y) in S, y = 0 },
        c1 = min(T),
        c2 =  6 * sqrt(sum(n^-2, n > 0))

If my memory's right, c1 and c2 evaluate to the same real number which happens to be equal to Pi. What does it mean to manipulate c1's concept or think in terms of it? Does c1 have the same concept as Pi?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The choice between Pi vs. Tau is completely arbitrary and should be based on minimizing the friction of use. Everyone knows Pi, few knows about Tau. I see no point in spending any more energy than that on this kind of nonsense decisions.

<comment><USER13> "Because that's the way we've always done is" is __never __a valid argument.

<comment><USER14> Often it is. It's a perfectly good answer to, for example, "why do we drive on the side of the road that we do?"

<comment><USER10> If the choice really is arbitrary then yes. If there was a compelling argument to driving one side or the other then it would cease to be a good answer IMHO.

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

<comment><USER15> Given that most people are right handed and right eye dominant it's surprising there isn't a widely accepted 'right answer' for the best side of the road to drive on.

<comment><USER16> Maybe it's because driving involves both eyes and both hands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> While choice between tau and pi is arbitrary from mathematical point, things like pedagogy, notational simplicity and aesthetics matter.

The reason why I think π is probably better choice is because small multiples of constant are cognitively easier to process than fractions. 2π is easier to write and see as single object than τ/2\. All we need to do is to make slight cognitive adjustment and think and teach 2π as a number instead of 2×π.

<comment><USER18> My favorite example of why τ is the true circle constant is actually the equation A = 1/2 τ r^2. It fits the usual quadratic form and shows how circumference and area relate: c = dA/dr = τ r and so A = ∫ c dr = ∫ τ r dr = 1/2 τ r^2. At first glance those 1/2s seem superfluous and like it would be nicer to just have a 2 in the other terms, but the 1/2 shows that differentiation and integration with respect to r are happening, where the "1/2" and the "^2" anhialate each other on differentiation and then re-form on integration.

<comment><USER19> Reminds me of Taylor series. The factorial terms eluded me for so long until I realized it was a cancelling factor for accumulated derivation of polynomials. Now there's this link in my mind between powers / derivation / factorials.

<comment><USER20> What polynomials are being derived, and from what premises? Are you thinking of how to derive series solutions to differential equations or something? I'm unclear on what you're getting at here.

(Or, oh: did you mean "differentiation" when you said "derivation"? That would fit what you've said. Sorry for the pedantic post; I'll just leave this here in case anyone else is confused.)

<comment><USER19> Sorry for the fuzzy vocabulary. TBH I wasn't even convinced I understood taylor series correctly. A quick search on wikipedia hint at that derivation is used sometimes; derivative; differentiation etc etc.

About the point:

        d(n)(x^n.dx)
        = n d(n-1)(x^(n-1).dx)
        = (n * (n-1 * (...)))
        = n! * x
        hence the 1/n! term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I just wish instead of celebrating these days on arbitrary month/day combinations, that we'd instead use some physics or math based use of them. Pi day should be when we've gone half way around the Sun and Tau, New Years Day.

<comment><USER22> Multiply the current dates by 2 and to a very near approximation (~1% off) that's what you get :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> As today tauday is tuesday,

the Angle programming language now knows tau:

⦠ assert tau / 2 = pi

True

 __[https://github.com/pannous/angle](https://github.com/pannous/angle)

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm in favor of keeping pi because of one simple equation:

       e^{i\pi} + 1 = 0

This is, IMHO, the most beautiful equation I've come across. It's concise and it relates all the most basic constants in mathematics. It's also useful, for example, for operating on the logarithm of a negative number:

        e^{i\pi} + 1 = 0
        e^{i\pi} = -1
        i\pi = \ln{-1}
        \ln{x} + i\pi = \ln{x} + \ln{-1}
        \ln{x} + i\pi = \ln{-x}

For more see Euler's Identity[1].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler%27s_identity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler%27s_identity)

<comment><USER25> This simultaneously illustrates how e^(180') is halfway round a unit. Tau (literally/numerically?) > Pi

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'd rather multiply by 2 75% of the time than divide by 2 25% of the time (just a wild-ass guess of how often one or the other appear in common equations)

<comment><USER27> It's probably closer to 98% and 2% of the time for serious math, engineering, and physics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> On to more important matters, Gamma function or Pi function?

[http://mathoverflow.net/questions/20960/why-is-the-gamma- fun...](http://mathoverflow.net/questions/20960/why-is-the-gamma-function- shifted-from-the-factorial-by-1)

Obviously, the Pi function is the right one since Pi(n) = n! for all integers n.

</comment><comment><USER29> Using tau would uglify euler's equation, wouldn't it?

<comment><USER30> You be the judge of that. Compare

        e^(iπ) = -1

to

        e^(iτ) = 1.

The whole business of re-writing the identity as

        e^(iπ) + 1 = 0

is nothing but a hack to get around the weirdness of π as a constant.

<comment><USER31> Writing it equal to 0 isn't a hack, it's a common method of understanding a function. You factor polynomials by setting them equal to 0, for example.

In the case of Euler's identity, what we're really asking is "what values of _x_ make e^(i _x_ ) + 1 = 0 true?" and the answer is "every multiple of π". Using τ instead hides half of the answers.

<comment><USER16> You mean "every multiple of 2π, shifted by π". The value -1 only comes around once per revolution of the unit circle!

The solutions to

       e^(ix) + 1 = 0

are

      { π, 3π, 5π, ... }

Whereas the solutions to

      e^(ix) - 1 = 0

are:

      { 0, 2π, 4π, 3π, ... }

i.e.

      { 0, τ, 2τ, 3τ, ... }

Also, note that when we set a polynomial to zero, the roots appear subtracted on the opposite side from the independent variable:

      (x - r0)(x - r1)...(x - rn) = 0

In the Tau-oriented Euler formula written homogeneously, there is a vague analogy to this since we're similarly subtracting that 1:

      e^(ix) - 1 = 0

<comment><USER31> Poor phrasing and math-before-coffee on my part. The point I was going for is that e^(i _x_ ) has real values for each multiple of π. That is mathematically interesting, and is obscured if you use τ instead.

<comment><USER16> Yes; similarly, that a sinusoidal crosses zero twice in each period is obscured by a focus on the period itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Angular frequency (ω = 2πf) is related to this:

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

Note how convenient ω is when squared, in the expression of angular acceleration, eliminating a ridiculous 4 factor.

<comment><USER32> This ties into "ħ" vs. "h" as well:

E = ħω

E = hf

I don't mean this as an argument for anything; I just felt like mentioning it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> OT, but Michael Hartl's RoR tutorials are amazing and helped me learn so quickly. Worth checking out[0] if you're looking to learn

[0]: [https://www.railstutorial.org/](https://www.railstutorial.org/)

</comment><comment><USER34> i totally suck at math, however i think i know what is a circle, i can draw one with a compas. then i think i know what is the diameter of this circle, i can draw it by drawing two more circles and a line with a ruler. because a mathematician told me that the product of this diameter by a number is the circumference of the first circle i believe him, but if another mathematician ask me to draw two more circles and another line to define the same circumference... i will probably believe that the first one suck less than the second one at maths! (sorry for my english!).

</comment><comment><USER35> Pi is better because 'a slice of pie' links nicely to radius and makes it easy for kids to remember. QED.

<comment><USER36> But pi isn't a slice of pie – it's half a pie, right?

<comment><USER37> But half a pie is a slice of pie, right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Wow, they've really redesigned that site's look. Not sure I like it... the figures especially look bad.

</comment><comment><USER39> What's a nice infinite series summing to tau that isn't merely 2S(n) where S(n) sums to pi?

<comment><USER39> Ha. I've said a lot of continental-philosophy stuff that gets downvoted by the techie culture, but this is amazing.

<comment><USER32> Just checking: Do you mean that your comment amounts to continental philosophy?

<comment><USER39> I'm saying this comment should be far less contentious than my comments that somehow cite Heidegger or Deleuze.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Okay, tau is a little better.

Meanwhile, millions of lines of code are written in languages with no type system to speak of, millions of Americans use imperial measurements, _billions_ worldwide speak languages that are inefficient and ambiguous, and many many people aren't even educated enough to know about pi _or_ tau.

We have much more damaging problems than multiplying by 2. Given the gigantic amount of effort it would take to fix this one, I think that effort could be better spent.

<comment><USER41> > millions of Americans use imperial measurements

There are two types of countries: those using 'metric' units, and those who have been to the Moon.

There's absolutely nothing fundamentally wrong with standard units (indeed, they are better for concrete manipulation). One can do science and engineering just as well with grains as with grams, with cups as with litres, with inches as with centimetres. They could do with a bit more regularisation (e.g. to make a fluid ounce a cube exactly 1, 1¼, sqrt(2) or 2 inches — each has advantages — and adjust the ounce accordingly), but they're each completely acceptable for their purpose.

The advantage of the standard units is that they are easy to physically convert: cutting a yard into feet or a foot into inches is each (⅓ in one case; ⅓, ½, ½ in the other); dividing a gallon into cups is easy (½ × 4); dividing a pound into ounces is easy (½ x 4).

The number of times a person converts between barleycorns and parsecs in a lifetime is approximately zero, while the number of times he takes one physical quantity of a unit and breaks it into smaller quantities is pretty common; optimising for the former is IMHO kinda foolish.

<comment><USER42> But I think the standard unit system is one of many reasons engineers rely on formulas for 100% of their calculations. When you have that many conversion factors just to get between energy, force, distance, power, etc., you lose out on the universality of physics. At that point you find someone who has already done all the unit conversions and isolated it in a nice factor out front.

Also, IMO stuff in decimal is almost always easier to compare than fractional. When someone asks me for a size up from an 8mm wrench, I know to grab the 9mm. When someone asks me for a size up from 5/16", it'll take me a bit to get to 11/32".

<comment><USER41> > Also, IMO stuff in decimal is almost always easier to compare than > fractional. When someone asks me for a size up from an 8mm wrench, I know to > grab the 9mm. When someone asks me for a size up from 5/16", it'll take me a > bit to get to 11/32".

A lot of that is just due to how we teach fractions — but decimal notation really is nice. I wish that we used duodecimal instead: all the advantages of decimal, but with a far better base.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why We Age - <AUTHOR> http://mitchkirby.com/2015/05/19/why-we-age/ <comment><USER3> You might also see the great short introduction to the conservative scientific view on aging here:

[http://senescence.info/aging_theories.html](http://senescence.info/aging_theories.html)

You'll also find a good introduction to the modern "aging is damage" viewpoint in the SENS distillation of consensus positions from various per-disease research fields:

[http://sens.org/research/introduction-to-sens- research](http://sens.org/research/introduction-to-sens-research)

That is one synthesis of which damage is primary and important. Another is the Hallmarks of Aging:

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3836174/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3836174/)

</comment><comment><USER4> It would be great to stay young.

I'm happy to report that scientists have been seriously testing if stuff actually works for over a century (Slonaker, 1912).

They typically try an intervention, like diet or exercise, on lab animals, and then see how long they live.

For what it's worth, I maintain the world's biggest spread sheet of these life span experiments.

It summarizes over 14,000.

One column is the intervention (diet, exercise, etc..) another is the change in lifespan (+10%, -2%, etc...) another is the species (human, mice, etc...) and so on.

It's interesting to see what works.

More info is at

[http://morse.kiwi.nz/kingsley/doku.php?id=science:start](http://morse.kiwi.nz/kingsley/doku.php?id=science:start)

<comment><USER5> You want $1,000,000 to get the report of life span experiments?

<comment><USER6> Also he has stripped electromagnetic waves to just get magnetic waves and he doesn't know about man-made climate change because of correlations.

<comment><USER5> Whoa, he should submit his results to Nature!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting and thorough article, very good read.

I've posted about some of the interesting stuff going on regarding stem cells, particularly around hockey legend Gordie Howe's rather miraculous recover from a stroke earlier this year. I'm really not sure why this isn't getting more news nationally, or even why on HN it isn't getting any traction/discussion:

[http://www.freep.com/story/sports/nhl/red- wings/2015/05/18/g...](http://www.freep.com/story/sports/nhl/red- wings/2015/05/18/gordie-howe-stem-cells-detroit/27536175/)

<comment><USER8> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9566335](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9566335)

<comment><USER7> That's my original post yesterday for this story. No discussion or interest/upvote.

So is it simply that the average HN'er is around 28 years old and just doesn't care about aging or stem cell research that is mostly aimed at fixing 'old people'? Is everyone just assuming this stuff will get sorted out in the next 20 years by time the average HN'er actually needs to worry about it?

Or is it because the stem cell medical centers that provided Mr. Howe with the treatments are outside the US? Aka, not invented here so must be BS?

It's puzzling, I mean we all have parents that are aging and having gone through watching a parent lose a lot of their capabilities from a stroke last year (and eventually dying from the strokes fallout a few months later), all I can say is this stuff can become front and center to your personal interest very rapidly when it hits home.

<comment><USER9> _" That's my original post yesterday for this story. No discussion or interest/upvote."_

The surface area of HN is so broad, the number of readers interested in pretty low. This is a observable problem. I often see lots of votes and zero responses for interesting posts.

Interesting enough to click, glance over, but not enough to think about and comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The more I read about aging, the more interested I become about the subject, especially after Google created Calico and after watching some talks by Aubrey de Grey.

Reversing aging seems like such a science fiction thing, but then you take a look at how things were 50 years ago and how things are right now and you realize that a lot of the things that seem impossible right now might very well be possible in 20, 30 or 50 years.

<comment><USER3> We are living in the midst of the early phases of a biotechnology revolution every bit as profound and transformative as the computing revolution from the 1970s on. It is less apparent than it might be to the average person in the street because (a) next to no-one really spends much time thinking about medical research unless they have to, which is a whole massive issue with our society in and of itself, (b) regulatory burdens on medical technology ensures that the clinic is 10-20 years behind the bounds of the possible in the labs. Medical tourism does its part to help keep that delay lower than it might, but it's still a huge burden, and a huge cost in life - especially now that the upward curve of progress is potentially so steep.

The potential to be able to treat aging and begin to bring it under medical control within the next 20 years - IF the right research fields begin to dominate the mainstream, IF the funding arises, IF the public wakes up and regards aging research in the same was as they regard cancer research - <USER2> very real. That is why people like me spend time and effort to bang the drum, conduct grassroots fundraisers, and support progress in SENS-like rejuvenation research focused on repair of the cellular and tissue damage thought to cause aging. For example, clearance of senescent cells, an approach which has just now reached the point of credible demonstrations in normal mice, but needs much more support to make it into the mainstream. Is Calico funding this? No, not yet, and they won't until it gets more support:

[http://www.scripps.edu/news/press/2015/20150309agingcell.htm...](http://www.scripps.edu/news/press/2015/20150309agingcell.html)

Advocates and the research community are making progress, great progress when you look at 2015 in comparison to the state of things in 2005, but we need more people to take the step, become philanthropists, and materially support this and other early-stage research with the aim of bringing medicine under medical control. That support really does make a difference.

<comment><USER10> Thank you for your answer and for supporting this research! I know it's very hard to do, especially with things in such a young state, but do you think you could provide any more information of where we might be in 10, 20 or 50 years?

<comment><USER3> A toolkit for producing true rejuvenation in humans will require a range of different therapies, each of which can repair or reverse one of the varied root causes of degenerative aging. Research is underway for all of these classes of therapy, but very slowly and with very little funding in some cases. The funding situation spans the gamut from that of the stem cell research community, where researchers are afloat in money and interest, to the search for ways to break down advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs), which is a funding desert by comparison, little known or appreciated outside the small scientific community that works in that field.

While bearing in mind that progress in projects with little funding is unpredictable in comparison to that of well-funded projects, I think that we can still take a stab at a likely order of arrival for various important therapies needed to reverse aging. Thus an incomplete list follows, running from the earliest to the latest arrival, with the caveat that it is based on the present funding and publicity situation. If any one of the weakly funded and unappreciated lines of research suddenly became popular and awash with resources, it would probably move up in the ordering:

1) Destruction of Senescent Cells

Destroying specific cells without harming surrounding cells is a well-funded line of research thanks to the cancer community, and the technology platforms under development can be adapted to target any type of cell once it is understood how to target its distinctive features.

The research community has already demonstrated benefits from senescent cell destruction, and there are research groups working on this problem from a number of angles. A method of targeting senescent cells for destruction was recently published, and we can expect to see more diverse attempts at this in the next few years. As soon as one of these can be shown to produce benefits in mice that are similar to the early demonstrations, then senescent cell clearance becomes a going concern: something to be lifted from the deadlocked US regulatory process and hopefully developed quickly into a therapy in Asia, accessed via medical tourism.

2) Selective Pruning and Support of the Immune System

One of the reasons for immune system decline is crowding out of useful immune cells by memory immune cells that serve little useful purpose. Here, targeted cell destruction can also produce benefits, and early technology demonstrations support this view. Again, the vital component is the array of mechanisms needed to target the various forms of immune cell that must be pruned. I expect the same rising tide of technology and knowledge that enables senescent cell targeting will lead to the arrival of immune cell targeting on much the same schedule.

Culling the immune system will likely have to be supported with some form of repopulation of cells. It is already possible to repopulate a patient's immune system with immune cells cultivated from their own tissues, as demonstrated by the limited number of full immune system reboots carried out to cure autoimmune disorders. Alternatives to this process include some form of tissue engineering to recreate the dynamic, youthful thymus as a source of immune cells - or more adventurous processes such as cultivating thymic cells in a patient's lymph nodes.

3) Mitochondrial Repair

Our mitochondria sabotage us. There's a flaw in their structure and operation that causes a small but steadily increasing fraction of our cells to descend into a malfunctioning state that is destructive to bodily tissues and systems.

There are any number of proposed methods for dealing with this component of the aging process - either repairing or making it irrelevant - and a couple are in that precarious state of being just a little more solidity and work away from the point at which they could begin clinical development. The diversity of potential approaches in increasing too. Practical methods are now showing up for ways to put new mitochondria into cells, or target arbitrary therapies to the interior or mitochondria. It all looks very promising.

Further, the study of mitochondria is very broad and energetic, and has a strong presence in many areas of medicine and life science research. While few groups in the field are currently engaged in work on mitochondrial repair, there is an enormous reservoir of potential funding and workers awaiting any method of repair shown to produce solid results.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the detailed write-up. Very interesting reading!

I don't understand what you're saying about pruning the immune system. What is that trying to fix? What goes wrong with the immune system as it ages?

<comment><USER3> The immune system operates more or less as a limited capacity system. It has low levels of replacement of immune cells in old age. For reasons that may have to do with exposure to persistent herpesviruses there is an expansion of memory cells and related types at the expense of the naive T cells needed to deal with new threats.

So the quick and dirty solution to this, which has some support from animal studies in the past few years, is to selectively kill off the undesirable excess memory cells. Perhaps via one of the targeted cell killing technologies developed in the cancer research community. This should free up capacity and spur the generation of more naive T cells to replace the lost numbers. It isn't a reality yet, but all the pieces are more or less in place. Someone just needs to do it.

A similar thing was demonstrated for B cell destruction in mice (innate immunity, not adaptive immunity): the bad cells were stripped out, and fresh new cells were generated as a result, and the innate immune response improved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For anyone interested in why we age and what research needs to be done to cure it, I'd recommend this article

[http://protein.bio.msu.ru/biokhimiya/contents/v78/pdf/bcm_10...](http://protein.bio.msu.ru/biokhimiya/contents/v78/pdf/bcm_1061.pdf)

The most interesting part is that a relatively simple medical procedure called plasmapheresis or plasma exchange, might be used for rejuvenation. The process would be to exchange the blood plasma of an old person with that of a young person many times over a period of time.

The blood plasma contains signaling molecules and there is strong evidence that some of them are used to synchronize the current age throughout the body, perhaps to a master clock somewhere. This causes telomeres to be shortened, DNA repair mechanisms to be turned off, stem cells to stop dividing etc. If the clock could be reset with young plasma, the stem cells would be reset to a young state and can start dividing again to regenerate tissue. Experiments on rats suggests this is indeed happening and a number of academic labs and even a startup called alkahest is now working on getting this tested in humans.

</comment><comment><USER12> I find the life expectancy vs. heart rate graph very interesting. The human point is the only one that lies well off the line of correlation, and it's tempting to see the distance as a result of our technological achievements. In other words, we're the only animal to have pushed ourselves to the right of that line by being able to fix at least some of what goes wrong.

<comment><USER13> There is another theory about this: older humans are not 100% useless, they provide wisdom and skills to the younger people. As such communities with (not a burden) elder people have an advantage. And this removes some of the selection shadow.

<comment><USER14> Humans are not the only species for which this is true though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This article was very well presented, clear, and informative. Thank you. I look forward to your next one(s).

</comment><comment><USER16> I love this article! The author points out that as lifespan goes up the effect of aging on fitness goes down. So provided that an organism lives long enough, aging is not penalized by Natural Selection.

</comment><comment><USER17> > _If you think about it, nearly all things age. Your car. Wine. Cheese. The > electronic device you're reading this on._

Actually, no. Those things don't 'age' like you age.

BTW, trying to answer existentialist questions with biological theories is futile.

<comment><USER18> At the bottom, it's all an increase in entropy. That's my standard answer, probably informed by my college studies (Physics, not CS).

The layers on top might be different, but at the very bottom of things, it's always entropy "trying" to increase. That's why computers eventually break, that's why living things age and die.

To counteract this tendency, you'd have to somehow prevent the entropic increase within each system. Technically doable, but the devil is in the details. Life itself fights entropy, the problem is that whatever anti- entropic mechanisms it employs, they're not stable long-term, at least not for pluricellular organisms as separate systems. The biosphere as a whole has actually been remarkably resilient so far.</comment></comment>


ACE 2018 to Be Shut Down by "Anti-Free Speech Protests" - <AUTHOR> http://ace2018.info/ <comment><USER2> Just curious, why was Steve Bannon set to be the keynote speaker at a computer science conference? Seems fishy?</comment>


IOS Web App Icons & Startup Images - <AUTHOR> http://taylor.fausak.me/2012/03/27/ios-web-app-icons-and-startup-images/

<comment><USER2> No where to leave comments on the post, but I wanted to point out that the iPad has twice the pixel density on both axis' meaning that it has exactly 4x the resolution. So, icons should be set to 144x144.</comment>