Building a Turing Machine Simulator With Ruby (Part 1) - <AUTHOR> http://reinh.com/blog/2011/09/03/building-a-turing-machine-simulator-with-ruby-part-1.html <comment><USER2> I'm not sure of the purpose of spending the first article on something as irrelevant as parsing when he could just be using Ruby's rich support for data literals.

One mildly interesting aspect of simulating a Turing machine is how you deal with the doubly-infinite tape. Haskell already has support for singly-infinite lists, so you can implement it very easily:

        data Command s v = Halt | GoLeft s v | GoRight s v
        type Tape v = ([v], [v]) -- Both lists must be infinite.
        type Next s v = s -> v -> Command s v

        turing :: Next s v -> s -> Tape v -> Tape v
        turing f s t@(l:ls, r:rs) =
            case f s r of
            GoLeft s' v  -> turing f s' (ls, l:v:rs)
            GoRight s' v -> turing f s' (v:l:ls, rs)
            Halt         -> t

If your Turing machine simulator is much more verbose than this, you are probably doing it wrong.

As an example, here's a Turing machine that counts the parity of the rightward run of 1s from the tape head's starting position, writes it to the tape, and halts:

        data Bit = Zero | One deriving Show
        data ParityState = Even | Odd | Done

        parityTM = turing next Even
            where next Even     One  = GoRight Odd Zero
                  next Odd      One  = GoRight Even Zero
                  next Even     Zero = GoRight Done Zero
                  next Odd      Zero = GoRight Done One
                  next Done     _    = Halt

To test it, here's a helper function that converts a Haskell integer into a tape containing all 0s to the left, a run of n 1s to the right, followed by all 0s, and runs the Turing machine on it:

        parity :: Int -> Bit
        parity n = head $ fst $ parityTM (repeat Zero, replicate n One ++ repeat Zero)</comment>


Should I tell you that your startup idea sucks? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.123ship.it/2013/03/should-i-tell-you-that-your-startup.html

<comment><USER2> Sometimes, you don't have to tell anyone their idea sucks. You can make them reach that conclusion themselves by asking the right questions - or you'll realise it's not so sucky after all.

"Hmm. How is your idea different from X?" (Instead of "but X does that already, and has a 12 month head start.")

"But what happens when Y?" (Instead of "As soon as Y happens you're screwed.")

"Do you really need W & Z?" (Instead of "You're overreaching. You don't need W and Z in your first iterations.")

Questions let you find out if you're missing the bigger picture, and hopefully let them figure out for themselves what the problems are. If they blow you off they're probably beyond telling anyway.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. But if can't figure it out and/or they blow you off, point out what you believe their problems are and encourage them to get a second opinion.

<comment><USER4> If they blow you off, they're telling you they don't want to hear bad news. How to react at that point is a matter of judgment; I've personally found telling people things they don't want to hear is tiring enough that nowadays I save it for emergencies, so in this kind of case I just drop the pointed questions, and nod and smile and say something pleasant that's vague enough not to be untrue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pretty much never

Every successful startup was pitched at some point to some experienced startup person who thought it was a crap idea.

Ideas change, and are a very small indicator of success to start with. Successful startups are exceptional, just because you have seen 'yet another social image sharing site' fail 50 times doesnt mean the next one will.

Pointing out challenges and not feeling personally excited by a startup is absolutely fine, but saying something sucks and shouldnt be pursued is generally arrogant and naive.

<comment><USER6> I would imagine if someone told me about a "microblogging" platform where people would submit posts via SMS to a shortcode I would have brushed it off as foolish.

<comment><USER7> A lot goes into to how the founders handle the "advice". Lots of items in this thread relate to how the commentor would explain something to someone else, but I think that the key is how you consume what you're told.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Two things that actual banking and travel industry experts told me in 1995: "nobody will do banking over the Internet" and "nobody will book travel on the Web".

The reasons they provided sounded completely plausible - but turned out to also be _completely_ wrong.

So I'd be careful about "experts" dismissing ideas based on _their_ incorrect assumptions.

<comment><USER9> But for somebody starting a company in 1995, online banking would probably have been a bad idea.

<comment><USER10> E-trade had $11 million in revenue in 1994. By 1995 there was clearly a market for online transactions to people that had the vision.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There are just so many good ideas that are originally decreed as failures that it seems like madness to try and stop somebody from trying. The Xerox R&D team that was told the gui would never really catch on. The investors that told Amazon nobody would purchase books of the internet. Even the Yahoo execs that turned down Google in 1997. Of course some ideas, like the chocolate tea pot, might seemed so doomed to failure that it would be cruel to not call them out. That is until chocolate tea pots become the next big food trend. For more concrete evidence of why this is a bad idea though you should look to the performance of stock market traders over the last 30 years, for the most part their average performance rarely deviates from a 50/50 success rate.

<comment><USER12> Unlike the stock market, the startup world isn't even close to 50/50. If you say that they will fail, you're much more likely to be right than wrong.

Note that Google had no way of making money in 1997. It was actually Overture that pioneered pay-per-click search engines -- and Yahoo bought Overture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> To the OP: if you feel that this knowledge imparted in the context of a 72-hour hackathon is of any importance, I have to question your overall context.

A hackathon is a social event with some potential learning involved. Any decent product and/or idea is going to have to survive beyond a 72-hour window. Your contributions during this timeframe, compared to the overall success/failure of a product, are meaningless.

Not trying to bash here, just recommend you don't overthink it. Go the hackathon, be a cheerleader and have a good time. And take the opportunity to sell all their mobile games as a challenge to yourself, much like a salesman's interview: sell me this pen!

</comment><comment><USER14> You can ask the right questions ("what problem does this solve?", "What are you going to learn by doing this?", etc) but if it's not your startup or project, you are not there to provide or judge the answers on your own.

</comment><comment><USER15> Yes, you should.

There is no space in the market for drama queens. If you can't give negative feedback now because of their feelings, how do you expect to give it to them when their company doesn't meet targets & expectations?

Negative feedback is priceless. It's toughening, it points people in the right direction and, sometimes, it helps to laser-focus (especially when it's pointless - eg remember when people asked for GANTT charts on Basecamp?).

</comment><comment><USER16> _should I focus on encouraging and motivating them to realize how cool it is to create your own product_

No. You shouldn't have to motivate someone to see how cool something is. Expose them, yes. Motivate them, no. If they can't see how cool it is on their own, then they shouldn't be doing it.

 _should I help them create a product that has a chance to succeed?_

In a hackathon? Really? What is the purpose of a hackathon, to create an outcome or to enjoy the process and the compansionship and maybe even learn something? Personally, I can't imagine a worse environment to create a successful product.

 _it could be devastating for a newbie_

That's a pretty perverted use case for the word "devastating". A serious accident? A loss of a loved one? _Those_ are devastating. Being told your idea sucks? If that's devastating to you, maybe you don't have the backbone for this and should be doing something else.

 _I was always very gentle with this situations_

Don't be. You're not doing them any favors by coddling them. They need brutal honesty. If they don't get it from you now, rest assured that they will from someone else later.

 _it's almost impossible to succeed with wrong assumptions, too big scope or incomplete team._

I would rephrase that "it's almost impossible to succeed _this time_ ". They will likely learn much more failing on their own than blindly taking some mentor's advice. When you taught your children to walk, did you ever let them fall? Personal failures provide the best feedback to toughen up and grow. Don't take that away from them.

 _They wasted the weekend_

You can waste a weekend getting drunk and watching TV, but you can't waste a weekend at a hackathon. Lighten up.

<comment><USER17> Why take such a hard line on your comments? Reading this post, I felt you were saying, "You clearly and obviously don't know how to handle situations like these and you don't get it - these poor folks were very unlucky to get you, not me." You just seem pissed off at OP and have a very holier than thou attitude in your comments. His take is different from yours, that's all. That doesn't make him wrong and you right. Lighten up.

<comment><USER18> _You just seem pissed off at OP and have a very holier than thou attitude in your comments._

I'm not seeing that at all. If anything, the author of TFA seems to have something of a "holier than thou" attitude. It's a bit grating and abrasive, honestly. If I were to write a reply, it would probably take a tone fairly similar to the one edw just wrote.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't think we need to be rude to say to someone that something is going to fail or something is not good. It is not a matter of time: –Look, I don't have a minute for you, so your project sucks. It is a matter of being a good persona. Simply use others words will make it better on the other people, and you will not be responsible of creating ravaged developers: –Look, your idea sounds well but you need this, this, and do this, and I don't see this happening right now, bla bla. 2 minutes speech is enough and better than saying "it sucks, and the doors is that way".

Simply, put on the table the facts, those ones will do the reasoning work inside the enterpreneur brain and tell him his wrong, lost, or behind the point he think he is. Steve Jobs is dead and I hope in peace. We don't need any Steveness on this world.

</comment><comment><USER20> No, I will not tell you it sucks (because who knows). But I will definitely ask you how you plan to make money. People who count on going viral to get some organic traction through a freemium model don't seem to have the slightest idea of makin a real sale.

</comment><comment><USER21> Some ideas really do suck, and in this case, yes, it's always kindest to say so before someone wastes their time.

It's a bit like telling someone they have bad breath. Yes, it makes you the bad guy, but it's the kindest thing to do in the long run.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think you should tell them, but not in those words. Carefully explain your objections. At worst it will be a good filter for teams that don't have the necessary commitment to carry through on their idea. If they are smart, they'll consider what you say, see what applies, and make any modifications that seem justified. If they quit, it's better they give up early in the process, because there will much more discouraging things hitting them down the line, and if they can't handle a few reasonable objections, they aren't going to make it even with a good idea.

</comment><comment><USER22> As a contractor I have said this to my client. I did it because he was a 20 years old student and I felt responsible for him. He went on with the project though. Yes, it was a failure.

<comment><USER23> This is a big one. When contracting/consulting, if I see a problem with client's vision or specs (and the problem is within the scope of what I was hired for), I feel it is my professional duty to tell them (often quite bluntly) exactly what is wrong and my ideas for fixes or workarounds.

I think this should also extend to any sort of critical relationship, such as when someone's success or failure depends very much on your actions and advice (for example, in mentor-mentee relationships as well as someone is paying you).

There are many good ways of pointing out faults that don't boil down to "this sucks" and trying to sugar coat, gloss over, or hint at major problems is doing a major disservice to whoever is on the other side of the relationship.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Regardless, civility and decorum should rule the day. Advisors and mentors are valuable for the introspection and internal analysis they induce. If you can find a way to encourage people to channel themselves in the right direction with tact and dignity, go for it. Otherwise it's probably best to just let people live their own lives, learn their own lessons, and earn their own success.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'd say that if nobody thinks that the idea will fail, it probably will. If it's so obviously good, why didn't anybody succeed with it yet?

That said, you should tell them. You should also tell them that they can change their idea any time they want, and that they don't need a great idea, a good one with great implementation is enough.

</comment><comment><USER26> _Should I tell you that your startup idea sucks?_

Yes.

<comment><USER27> I'm not sure.

I mean, I hear a lot of startup ideas on this site, and for almost 100% of them I think "that's cool, but I can't imagine ever wanting to use it".

Still, people like me don't make up very much of the market place, so I could think your idea is terrible and be wrong, and I like to see people make things.

There's a phrase I like (although I'm not sure of the source) : "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, while the unreasonable man attempts to adapt the world to himself. Thus all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

So for almost any startup idea, I'm going to think 'neat idea, but it'll never work and I'll never use it', and for most of them I'll be right, but by being an entrepeneur you've already accepted those odds and you probably have to deal with enough negativity without me adding any. I'd hate to be a cause of fewer cool things being made.

<comment><USER28> George Bernard Shaw, iirc

On the general question: there is an obvious distinction to be made between someone asking you for advice on what they plan to spend the next three years doing, and what they're hacking together on a single pizza-fueled weekend. The latter is a learning experience and even without your advice they'll fail fast if they fail, so don't sweat it.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Online of Offline calendar/todo - <AUTHOR>

What tool does everyone prefer for their life organization? Calendar, to-do list, etc.
I've used Outlook which I like but feels heavy for my use, I've also used Google Calendar/Mail/Todo but it requires a constant internet connection to update which I don't always have.
I've been considering going fully-offline and trying a paper organizer.
I'm curious to hear everyone's opinion on this topic. <comment><USER2> My life is in a text file. Org-mode FTW

</comment><comment><USER3> For my day-job, I use Outlook for a lot of things. At home, we have a pad of sticky notes that we use for making grocery lists, shopping lists, and notes of various kinds. It is centrally located and anyone can grab the grocery list if they happen to be going out. I had a freeware To-Do list on my computer at one time, but I stopped using it. I also email myself reminders, from work to home and vice-versa.

I have been mulling this same question over myself the past few days and considered asking a similar question in terms of specifically how do start-ups organize themselves in regards to time, appointments, making sure things get done. I seem to be suddenly on the right track for some of my goals in that regard and wondering if I need more "organization"/structure. So I am looking forward to hearing other ideas on the topic.</comment>


Amazon's data could rock Google and online advertising - <AUTHOR> http://www.techvibes.com/blog/amazons-data-could-rock-online-advertising

<comment><USER2> Now _this_ is earth shattering news. Amazon is getting into ads, and has a HUGE database of real peoples real purchasing habits. Woah.

facebook has some twee new feature, and bought out some other company, not so much.

<comment><USER3> And people come to amazon just to buy products. Its not facebook or something. This is going to be seriously exciting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There was an excellent interview with Jeff Bezos (I believe in HBR), where he discussed how the company chose to enter the cloud computing market.

Faced with many excellent proposals, lots of cash to invest, and a talented employee base, they could well have chosen to pursue all of them.

Instead, they chose just one to focus on completely.

It's not news that Amazon can enter many more markets. But if they do start new ventures, expect a whole-hearted and long term effort. (Kindle is one such effort that is just getting started, so I'd be very impressed if they launch another so soon.)

</comment><comment><USER5> No form of advertising captures intent like search advertising. No data source, statistics, or demograpic information comes close to a user saying "I want to buy widgets, show me your widgets." Until Amazon or Facebook or whomever capture intent like Google does, their advertising will be doomed to being fractionally as effective.

<comment><USER6> When/If Amazon positions amazon.com as the place you go to search for anything you want to buy, that's when Google really needs to start worrying.

<comment><USER7> They kind of already are, for me at least. I know that if I decide I want to buy something that I think Amazon probably sells, I'll just go a look it up on Amazon directly. I have a couple of other sites that I also know and trust for IT stuff but Amazons prices and fulfillment are generally very keen, especially now with that they do 2nd hand and marketplace stuff. Even if you could save a currency unit or two somewhere else, it's not really worth the time investment to find out - Googling for random products is a massive pain - you just get way to much shopping/price comparison/aggregator type crap back. On reflection, this is the only time that I actually use a 'vertical' search engine for anything. Although Amazons massive product range belies the term vertical, everything else that I search for goes through Google, basically, so this would make Amazon - roughly - my vertical 'purchasing' search engine.

<comment><USER8> Disclaimer: I work for Amazon, but my opinions do not necessarily reflect the company, yadi yada.

One of the things that you touched on that needs to be fleshed out more is the fact that Googling for random products _is_ a massive pain. Not only in the sheer volume of data you get back, but also because so little of it is trustworthy.

Say I want to buy a new digital camera. I look at the Nikon D40 and wonder "is it any good"? I Google up "Nikon D40 reviews" and I get a gigantic list of pages. Some are clearly spam, others clearly astroturfing for Nikon, and others look like they could be legitimate reviews... but you really don't know. Signal to noise for consumer-level research _really sucks_ on Google.

Now take Amazon on the flip side (that I use all the time, and not just because I work there). I trust the reviews that are there - because I know that bad/good reviews are not removed or otherwise manipulated. The star rating isn't spam, isn't fake, isn't bought and paid for like millions of "review sites" scattered across the tubes.

Yes, there are ways to break Amazon's review system, but for the most part it is a trustworthy metric, and although not a _complete_ replacement for in- depth research, particularly for big-ticket items, it is still extremely helpful for everyday shopping.

<comment><USER9> _Yes, there are ways to break Amazon's review system_

Why would anyone want to break Amazon's review system? There is no incentive to do it. There are gazillion review sites because they make money through ads, affiliate marketing etc, and lots of them are junk/spam.

The ROI in breaking Amazon's review system doesn't justify even trying it. That is why so many people trust Amazon's reviews than any other site's.

<comment><USER8> I can think of at least one person: the manufacturer. If my product is receiving poor reviews on a much-visited and trustworthy site, it would be in my favor to skew my reviews on said website to the high end.

So while there's no reason for _Amazon_ to break the system, there are certainly many _others_ who would.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why would Amazon get into PPC advertising when they can just market their own products? Or sell their competitor's stuff in their stores for huge commission fees?

I mean think about it, Amazon has pretty much everything, Wouldn't they rather display a TV that they sell, that has a $100 profit margin, instead of a display ad for a competitor, with a $.50 cost per click.

<comment><USER11> First, for a lot of products on Amazon, you can choose from multiple vendors already.

Second, I'd imagine ads like this–where you know the visitor is ready to buy–will fetch more than $.50.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Thid could be big. Amazon customers have the "shopping chip" turn on. Obviously they are going to be more engaged in ecommerce than traditional keyword pased google placement.

Amazon already runs an API which can we used to build widgets and interactive media to sell products. What I would like to see is Amazon opening its platform/API to allow product page interactive applications, somewhat like facebook did but ecommerce centric.

</comment><comment><USER13> _With undoubtedly the best data in the world when it comes to purchasing habits_

I'd imagine Walmart has pretty good data also... granted, not identifiable in a browser session.</comment>


Elementary proof that e is irrational - <AUTHOR> http://fermatslibrary.com/s/elementary-proof-that-e-is-irational <comment><USER2> very cool and concise proof. but minor soapbox rant: practically every other proof I've read while casually studying number theory and group theory (I didn't make it very far, especially for GT) seems to use the word "clear". While the proof is supposed to be the nuts and bolts holding together this important, indisputable logic, they gloss over how "clearly" some supporting element is (without proving it). It was irritating to me because it defies the spirit of proving something.

Even in this proof, the author says "clearly" the right hand side is between 0-1. That's not automatically clear to me. It seems to be true, but at a glance, I can't automatically be sure that the statement is always true for all values.

It got really bad in the group theory book, because the "clear" sub-proofs were very primitive concepts, important things (sorry I can't recall an example) but that we normally take for granted. So when I saw them gloss over it with "clearly" I always felt suspect, like they were hand-waving.

<comment><USER3> Anecdote has it that a professor at my alma mater was presenting a proof to students, stating that X was obvious, before halting and wondering aloud: "Is this really obvious?" He examined the blackboard and started pacing for a good 15 minutes mumbling and thinking, before exclaiming with a triumphant expression on his face: "Indeed it IS obvious!"

That said, obviously no proof can function without assuming some mathematical background knowledge. This is a paper from a research journal, not a textbook and the readership of the journal where it was published would presumably find this clear.

<comment><USER4> This professor is a widespread urban legend and there's no source to prove it actually ever happened.

<comment><USER5> It (or something like it) has happened to most working mathematicians.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those that did not notice: if you click the second comment by the margin, you get a comment with a step-by-step decomposition of the proof.

<comment><USER7> Looks to me like there are errors in the transformation. The sum term corresponding to the resulting equation of the proof has a wrong sign in the second summand of the left term (+ instead of -). Also in the original manuscript the right side always starts with a positive alternating series term, which is correct. In the version on the margin the sign of the first term of the right side depends on the evenness of a.

<comment><USER6> I see your point. There are indeed a couple of errors in there. But the point still holds.

The sign is wrong on the sum of the left hand side. And a (-1)^(a+1) is missing on the RHS. But these do not change the "this is an integer" claim.

Further down, it does assume that 'a' is even, without saying so . But if 'a' was odd, things would still be the same but we would have a ]-1,0[ interval.

Anyway, I'm not a mathematician so I'm probably missing stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is from a volume of The American Mathematical Monthly from 1953. I looked around this site for some kind of reference but couldn't find it. I find it hard to believe (even these days) that this site just puts up papers without saying where they came from, so I assume I'm just finding the UI obscure. Where's the reference? (I found it thanks to Google Scholar.)

</comment><comment><USER9> But a number between 0 and 1 could be arbitrarily close to 0 and 1, which I thought could be proved to be equal to 0 or 1, which are integers. So isn't this not necessarily a contradiction?

<comment><USER10> If 0 < a < 1, then a can't be equal to 0 or 1. There's no "arbitrarily close" for numbers, just sequences of numbers (like the partial sums in the series).

<comment><USER11> But in this case the right side is exactly that, the sum of an infinite sequence of numbers (which equals the limit of the partial sum for that sequence if it converges (which this sequence of partial sums does)).

The reason it still works is because it's actually 0 < s_0 < a < s_1 < 1, so even if a approaches s_1 arbitrarily close it still won't be equal to an integer (same is true if it goes arbitrarily close to s_0 of course).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> the "usual" proof can be found on Wikipedia using the argument of Joseph Fourier (of Fourier series fame) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_that_e_is_irrational](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_that_e_is_irrational)

The idea is the same, that all the truncated series 2 < 1 + 1/2! + 1/3! + ... < 3 lie between two integers can cannot be integer.

This is a different outcome than the geometric series 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ... = 1 which converges to a whole number.

[http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/476939/proving- the-i...](http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/476939/proving-the- irrationality-of-en)

[http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/713467/prove- that-e-...](http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/713467/prove-that-e-is- irrational)

[http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/425963/is-there-a- si...](http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/425963/is-there-a-simple-proof- that-e2-is-irrational-using-a-positional-numeral-syst)

</comment><comment><USER13> Does someone have a link to the notation to decipher this?

<comment><USER14> Which particular notation? Maybe Factorial [0] and Summation [1]?

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factorial](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factorial) [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summation)

<comment><USER15> Are the big braces in the second equation just supposed to be parentheses?

<comment><USER16> As zodiac said: yes.

I think the printer knew he needed large parentheses, but didn't have them available (or he had used all of them elsewhere in this edition of this journal), so he went for something similar that he had instead.

Knuth's rationale for writing TeX is full of this kind of observations on mathematical typesetting: letters that become larger in some places, italics that disappear, tiny font changes, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Am I blind or are the papers not sourced? The proper placement for the source, the date of publication specifically, would be somewhere at the top.

</comment><comment><USER18> He writes 'but the left side is an integer'.... IMO the left side of the last equation is equal 0.... Any comments?

<comment><USER19> It is clear that the left hand side has to be zero, however I do not see a straightforward way to prove that without using the contradiction itself and he does not need it to be zero to choose that there is a contradiction, so the claim the left side is an integer sidesteps an entirely optional technical difficulty.

[Edit:] The argument I had in mind is bad, my point is that the value of the left hand side does not matter for the proof, so it is not calculated. (I leave the comment up for context of the answers below.)

<comment><USER14> The left side does not need to be zero, and it does not follow from the assumptions.

The proof only uses the fact that the left side is an integer, since all terms are integers (a!/n! ∈ Z for a > n)

<comment><USER19> You are right, see my edit above.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Movement to Close the Gender Gap in Mathematics - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/carolina-araujo-is-building-a-network-of-women-in-mathematics-20190122/ <comment><USER2> What is the ultimate aim of movements like this?

To pick on parenthood. Is the ideal that men and women look after children equally? That parents get preferential treatment coming back into work, or what?

I ask because we _seem_ to be getting to a point where there is equality of some kind. This isn't an article about sexism per se, but under representation. Is that a problem? Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus and all that. Does it do either gender any favours to start implementing 'positive' discrimination, if that is indeed what is being asked for. Is there anything wrong with women just not being that interested in maths?</comment>


Show HN: Twig.im – simple console.logs for cloud development - <AUTHOR> https://twig.im <comment><AUTHOR> I've been developing a lot of serverless over the last 18 months. And oh boy, the logging tools for cloud based infrastructure are either a) to heavy or b) painfully tedious to dig through when all I want is to read console.logs.

So over time I built up this tool that I now call Twig, which I use a lot in the early stages of a project when things are moving fast. A few months ago a coworker asked if I could bundle it up for her and so here we are…

Would love to hear what you think.

<comment><USER2> It looks like you forgot to publish the '@twig-tool/logs' package. It is not available neither in yarn registry nor in npm.

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.npmjs.com/package/@twig- tools/logs](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@twig-tools/logs)

hmmm, does it not show up at that link? i just checked and it is listed as public

<comment><USER2> Oh, your documentation in console says "twig-tool", not "twig-tools": >yarn install @twig-tool/logs

Better fix it

<comment><AUTHOR> ah yes, a lovely typo. thanks for pointing it out. fix deployed</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Army That Never Existed: The Failure of Social Bots Research - <AUTHOR> https://michaelkreil.github.io/openbots/ <comment><USER2> Well, I was always wondering if the Facebook-and-Russia-stole-the-election theme wasn't at least in part an excuse for not changing anything about policy or choice of candidates.

I don't doubt Russia would be interested in using social media to influence opinion, since radio, TV, newsprint, pamphlets, and basically every other medium ever invented has been used to influence opinion. But some of the concerns seem, not so much overblown, as an excuse. But, I would be interested to hear if any other HN readers know of other research on this topic?</comment>


Xkcd book tour announced - meet Randall Sept 22nd at Y Combinator - <AUTHOR> http://breadpig.com/blog/2009/09/08/xkcd-book-tour-announced/

<comment><AUTHOR> The YC crew has graciously let us use their space for the event. I can't think of a better setting for a meet & greet with Randall then to be surrounded by Trevor's robots.

</comment><comment><USER2> I have a feeling that I ran into Randall on the train in Tokyo last week. There was a guy that was wearing a shirt that said "XKCD" and I said "I like your shirt."

He just said thanks, and something about his expression made me wonder if it was him. It didn't dawn on me until after he stepped off.

I could be wrong (obviously wrong if he wasn't in Japan last week :-) ) but it sure did look like him.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't see information on the SF event. What time is it at, and where is it?

<comment><AUTHOR> We're also doing a [reddit-powered interview with Randall]([http://www.reddit.com/comments/9ihy8/ask_randall_munroe_xkcd...](http://www.reddit.com/comments/9ihy8/ask_randall_munroe_xkcd_anything_hear_him_answer/)) - he'll answer the top 10 questions at the SF event (if you can't make it, we'll be live [on justin.tv](<http://justin.tv/reddit>).

Geek Reading starts at 7 p.m. at 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco. Please RSVP to firstname.lastname@example.com. Admission is $30, and attendees must be 21+.

<comment><USER4> Somebody's used to reddit's markdown syntax. :)

<comment><USER5> Why _doesn't_ HN use markdown?

<comment><USER6> HN _does_ use Markdown...it's just a very incomplete implementation. Since HN is written in Arc, there would have been no off-the-shelf parser, and I assume pg opted to use the simplest subset that would work. There also seems to be an aversion to fancy-pants stuff on HN, so it may be intentional. Why get clever when clarity isn't improved by doing so? (That said, I kinda miss having full Markdown link support.)

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the explanation; but I don't really think that hyperlink anchors, block quotations and lists (ordered and unordered) qualify as "fancy-pants". :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> No Boston? Darn.

<comment><AUTHOR> Working on that one. It's a short commute for Randall :) so when Berkman had some snags, we didn't fret.

<comment><USER8> No Brisbane, Australia. Darn.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's on the Green Line, isn't it?

<comment><USER9> Just past Chestnut Hill, actually.

<comment><USER7> I catch the green line out just past Chestnut Hill every day and there certainly isn't a Brisbane, Australia out there, or I'd be at Gelateria Cremona every day.

(I'm from Brisbane originally)

<comment><USER8> I actually took my now-wife to the Gelateria Cremona on one of our first dates. Had completely forgotten it existed ... I sense a return sometime soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Bid is in. Looking forward to this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I don't know that in Lao, but the future students of the 'xkcd school for kids who can't do romance, sarcasm, math, and language good' no doubt appreciate it as much as I do.

edit: or maybe they're all Garfield fans. We can get them on the right path.

<comment><USER11> It's approximately "koap chai". To make it extra enthusiastic, throw a couple of "lai"s on the end.

(mr_luc once learned enough Lao to do basic public speaking in that language, for reasons that the mists of five years ago have now rendered hazy).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What a fantastic announcement. Sadly I live nowhere near any of the planned stops. I'm definitely looking forward to the book though.

</comment><comment><USER13> Come to Amsterdam :)</comment>


Facebook Shows There's a Sucker Born Every Minute - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304065704577422643666002940.html

<comment><USER2> I spent three years at one of the world's largest hedge funds. I was a banker for a year before that. Most important lesson I learned: Don't play individual stocks and think you have anything more than a gambler's chance of success.

There's a public perception that stocks as an asset are simple to understand - good company=stock goes up! - that is hugely far from the truth. Equity is a complex instrument. The factors influencing the movement of equities are complex.

For the retail investor, the best move is a balanced mixed of assets designed to capture long term market beta - effectively the tendency of asset classes to gain value over time. That's not so easy either, but if you gamble, it's better to gamble on a cornerstone of capitalism as a whole rather than an individual company.

<comment><USER3> Did your hedge fund outperform an S&P 500 index fund during the long run? Investing in stocks does not have to be complex.

<comment><USER4> There's a great infographic that pits human lifespans against this old idea - that investing in the stock market is always a good idea because it goes up in the long run. There were many, many times in the last 100 years where "the long run" was longer than a normal human lifespan.

<comment><USER2> It's really important not to think of this as just "invest in the stock market." It's "invest in assets with positive expected return." That means you need to diversify across asset classes, and that doesn't mean domestic and foreign stocks.

Also, re: stock market - most people's perception is based on the last 30. That happens to be the longest sustained bull market in history.

<comment><USER5> Including two crashes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article is dead on!

The warning signs were there; ballooning shares offered, late uptick in IPO price, companies saying facebook advertising sucks, etc.

People got suckered and are crying foul. Welcome to the stock market. Suck it up, learn from your failures.

</comment><comment><USER7> "Investing" is stock market is a gamble: the easiest way to learn that it is casino is by experience (invest and learn).

The problem is that the new generation will not listen suggestions of people which already learn things the hard-way - so there will be always fresh influx of suckers which think these 'old' people don't get it.

However, this does not mean that investment in stock market is a bad idea - but you need to consider it as 'poker': money management is very very important, learn to cut loses fast, you need to hedge (especially for unforeseeable events while market is closed), don't bet blind, etc.

</comment><comment><USER8> All Facebook has to do is tie the advertising platform to having a business page on Facebook to force businesses to spend something on ads. Individuals should be able to use Facebook free but not businesses. Once that happens the stock will go way up.

<comment><USER9> They already do this. <http://allfacebook.com/promote-your-page-button_b89788>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You know who made out well on the FB IPO? People who sold in secondary markets pre-IPO on the hyped pricing.

</comment><comment><USER10> I am all for justice but this type of behaviour happens all the time. It has just made the front page news because of retail investors discovering shares go down (as well as up). I know this message will get down voted but the financial markets are a fickle place. Sorry.

</comment><comment><USER11> I work for a financial-services company and I _still_ think investing in the stock market is crazy. There are people who spend their days figuring out how to separate "investors" (basically, gamblers) from their money either without getting caught or in a legal-but-underhanded manner. I know I'm stupid enough to have my money taken from me without understanding how, but I'm not stupid enough to actually subject myself to that.

<comment><USER12> I still look back to the old old days when stocks actually meant you owned a part of the company and could expect to turn your stock back in for a payout from that company in the future. Those are stocks that make sense to me.

Nowadays you're literally buying into the opinion of a company. Sure we use things like P/E and future growth to form that opinion, but in the end it's a lot like Bitcoin, it has value because people believe it has value, many of these stocks have no hard requirements that peg their value. You as a stock holder aren't entitled to any of Facebooks profits, and voting rights are worthless.

<comment><USER13> Actually currency is the same thing. The dollar has value because we all agree it has value. It's not based on gold any longer (though one could argue it's based on oil). It's based on a host of indices that we, as a group set. And those indices are traded and have a set value. Decided by the buyer (us) and seller (us).

I'm not complaining. I'm just pointing out that all of our economy is based on the same principe/model; as long as the vast majority of the group (us) believe the dollar is worth something, it will be.

Anyone who invested in FB at any time (and that includes the big boys) believed that FB was a good investment. In other words, they believed the hype and didn't understand the business. Until someone who they trusted came along and told them to bail. And here we are.

I actively trade. All the time. But FB I didn't touch. I asked myself, at ANY time have I ever clicked an ad on FB? The answer: "No". That meant FB is vapor. People are betting that people (all of us - including the people making the bets) might, sometime in the future click on ads. Or that FB might come up with something. Something. (And I bet it's gonna be selling out personal data - what we browse, like, etc, etc. It's the only real value FB has).

<comment><USER12> I understand that we could get very abstract about the concept of value, but what I meant to say is that many stocks have no guarantee behind them. If I buy a big mac, there's a pretty good guarantee that I can eat it, oil I can burn, a movie I can watch, virtual swords I can play a game better with. Value comes from how important these guarantees are to the buyer and seller.

Like FB, many stocks have meaningless voting rights, there's no buyback requirement, and you have no rights to company assets or earnings. You're guaranteed nothing when purchasing them, and so value comes entirely from opinion.

<comment><USER5> There's a faith that eventually there will be a dividend payout or buyback, like Cook at Apple finally did. But most companies ride the rollercoaster until they crash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Somewhat revisionist it seems from the WSJ, I can't recall any point in the lead up to IPO that they published anything that alluded to problems on the near horizon.

<comment><USER15> Um. The same columnist wrote on Thursday before the IPO _"Here Are 10 Reasons Not to Buy Facebook Before You Buy It Anyway"_

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230387960457740...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303879604577408724178786822.html)

<comment><USER16> Right and that was his opinion. Obviously in any decision (investment or otherwise) there are going to be people on both sides of the issue.

The problem is knowing whether to believe them or not.

(Like Wanamaker said about advertising, something like "I know 50% of my ads work but I don't know which 50%")

<comment><USER17> Of course it was his opinion.. what else could it be?

The point is that this columnist is not being revisionist.

<comment><USER16> I'm saying that the fact that the WSJ published something which was negative to the stock (by the same author) in advance is not conclusive in helping you make a decision. You can read pieces that are pro and con to a particular product, service, stock all the time (remember the publicity surrounding iphone as one example). You can always go back and say "see here is what I said I was right". The question is how many things has someone said (or a newspaper) and what percentage turned out correct. My point is it was great that there was that info saying "stay away" in advance. But there have also been those writings that have turned out wrong.

I don't think this is done anymore but stock brokers used to call prospects with hot stock tips saying "not asking you to buy this today". Not everyone got the same tip of course. They would then call back weeks later but only call the people who they had told about a stock that increased saying "see I was right, now buy this stock from me now". (A variation was in "Boiler Room" I believe).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Clinton Looks to Data to Help Her Drown Out Trump - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-05-19/clinton-bets-on-tech-strategy-to-defeat-trump <comment><USER2> I can't help but wonder if I inhabit the same planet with campaign strategists.

We have a candidate that already have a problem with being perceived as calculating, cold and technocratic. This is just giving more fuel to the adversaries. For probably not that great benefit - the electorate does not appreciate too much being treated like a A/B subject.

<comment><USER3> In some sense, if you read an article like this one the answer is yes, because you are paying attention to the election at a more mechanistic level.

For the most part people have little interest in this sort of stuff.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Of all the things you've done, what are you most proud of? - <AUTHOR>

HN is filled with lots of creative, ambitious people.  So, of all the things you've done, what are you most proud of?<p>A painting you made?  A company you founded?  An adventure you had?  Raising your kids? <comment><USER2> Going from bailing hay during the summers in a town called Hope to New York City and starting a startup, all the while having learned on my own not to hate people.

Hope has a volunteer fire department, a church, and a post office... only... and is more than 97 percent caucasian.

New York City is, well, a melting pot of epic proportions.

Perhaps I shouldn't be proud. At the very least I'm humbled and encouraged that just because you're surrounded by something doesn't mean you are necessarily that something.

<comment><AUTHOR> Word. I grew up in a village of 1,500 people. I left for Chicago as soon as I graduated high school and am not out in the SF Bay Area. Most of my classmates went to school nearby and returned home after they graduated college.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'll go first. I'm most proud of Adonomics, which I founded in 2007: <http://adonomics.com/>

I won't lie, it's mostly because it's the most successful thing I've built. I also learned a lot of hard lessons from it, so it was valuable if painful.

What about you?

<comment><USER3> You get a quarter of a million uniques per month. Holy crap.

Uh, right, my turn . . .

Let me get back to you on that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Recently... I'd have to say its passing my PhD qualifying exam :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Congrats! What's your field?

<comment><USER4> thanks...Materials Science. you can read my about for what i'm researching.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> becoming better at dealing with people.

1\. patience

2\. patience

3\. patience

ohh.. i guess i forgot to mention "Patience" :D

</comment><comment><USER6> Selflessly (this can be more difficult that it sounds) helping someone else, and then learning that what goes around comes around.

Corny, I know. Mod me down. But it's moments of genuine connection with another person that make me most proud, thrilled to be a human. I think we have to learn to empathize and to cooperate, if we are to survive as a species. And it makes me proud when I find a speck of that ability, in myself.

When it's a stranger I'll never see again, I have some confirmation that I don't expect something in return, at least not in the immediate sense.

When someone does the same for me, I feel I've seen the other side of the equation.</comment>


The web you know is dying - <AUTHOR> http://evbogue.com/ <comment><USER2> From the site which seems to be down:

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----

The web you know is dying

I'm drinking an espresso shot. It's half-cold. There's still gunk in my eyes from sleeping.

I've been thinking a lot about how I use the Internet. A year ago, I nearly vanished from the public web because I had an intuitive feeling the centralized web was a backdoor to the government. Now, as the dust settles from our collective experiences over the past week, I know this to be true.

So I'm revisiting some of my older habits. I'm using Tor to visit websites. I've installed Torbirdy on Thunderbird. I'm back on Hyperboria) using cjdns. If you want to send me Bitcoins, I'll take them.

I continue to try to find ways to communicate over the web. Forward security is a must. Distributed peer to peer social is a must. These are two seperate problems.

The kids on Hyperboria have the right idea: if you don't want to be spied on, evolve beyond reach. I'm doing just that.

Distributed everything is where we're going.

The way I see it, if you're still on centralized social networks, you're part of the problem. You can't stick your fingers in your ears anymore and scream 'lalallalal'. All of your information is being recorded, forever, in the nice little boxes you type into all day long.

I'm running more and more under the pseudonym of Ven Portman. I'm powering up a hyperboria-only website at venportman.com. Evbogue.com will continue to be my stable public web presence. The madness will happen on Hyperboria.

The centralized Internet you know is dying. We're scattering to darknets everywhere to look for what we'll build next.

–Ev Bogue July 4 2013 undisclosed location

<comment><USER3> If one's goal is to be anonymous, why publicly associate an old site with a new identity? Doesn't that defeat the point? Now, nothing done under the name "Ven Portman" will be anonymous because that name is forever linked to the author's previous identity of Ev Bogue.

<comment><USER4> He said it was to be a pseudonym. Pseudonyms are used for pseudonymity- "casual" anonymity that is not intended to hold up under examination and scrutiny.

<comment><USER3> The typical purpose of a pseudonym is to prevent some set of people from connecting certain activities to your legal identity, while still permitting reputation to be accumulated.

It's quite possible for pseudonyms to remain completely disconnected from one's legal identity, even under scrutiny. For example, merchants on Silk Road use pseudonyms to manage buyer/seller trust, but still take care to avoid being arrested for drug possession.

The important thing is which entity is considered to be the "adversary". If a teenager just wants to hide angsty reddit posts from her classmates, that doesn't require retreating to a crypto-nerd darknet.

The author feels that he must abandon the open internet because it's being monitored by the NSA. This implies that he considers the NSA to be his adversary, in which case his choice to link identities has in one step undone all of his sacrifices. There's no point in using a pseudonym on a darknet if your opponent knows about the darknet and knows your pseudonym.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While I agree with everything he's said, his assertion that people should learn HTML5/CSS, deploy with Node on a VPS, (etc) to "use the internet" really misses the point. Makers like us will always know these things. The problem is that 99% of people will never bother. How can they resist centralization when they are too busy being experts in other things to learn so much web tech? We need to find a way for those decentralized networks to be the cool ones. We need to get the mass on them, de facto.

Before that we probably need the surveillance state to get scarier. And I mean a handful of very, very high profile cases. Or maybe we can bring it to everyone via a browser plugin that lets you know when you're content is likely to be flagged by admins/etc.

How else can we popularize decentralized services?

Edit: oops. I read both this and his "distributed services" post and just realized I'm replying to both.

<comment><USER6> I find his articles really hard to read, here are 5 simple reasons:-

> Wordpress exists. You don't need to be a maker to use something like this, > anyone with the motivation can.

> It's faddish, the mention of nodeJS as a requirment has me rolling my eyes > into my fucking brain.

> Actually, most important content is decentralized. If facebook died > tomorrow, there would be some value lost, but it'd be hardly the end of the > internet.

> "We're going distributed". Why? Because you woke up one morning and decided? > Because you've gave it some thought?

> He doesn't seem interested in what we'll lose when we're decentralized. Does > he understand the drawbacks?

There is some really good content on HN, loads of it, but this really isn't it and I'm not saying that because I disagree I think the internet should be a series of peer nodes like it was first designed to be.

However, I don't think we need a self appointed spokes persons to achieve this, it's already there, and if you want to discuss decentralizing major services like facebook, I'd like to see, on a tech site, someone with a technical solution that attempts to mitigate what we'd lose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> How ironic.

The same author has another post on the front page, which he posted on medium.com [1], which is still reachable and has generated some interesting discussion. However, a post on his own site has seemingly been brought down by the weight of HN traffic and now no-one can discuss it.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5991576](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5991576)

<comment><USER8> No. The author has merely proven his own point that it's harder to make an espresso yourself than it is to order one at Starbucks. It doesn't mean you shouldn't try.

And look at what happened: someone at HN posted the content of the post here. People will always find ways around things, especially people who can do more than just push a button.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't understand - many people who seem technology aware sound surprised to discover that anything published digitally can't be unpublished.

My friends and I were already aware of this when messing around on the school LAN in the 80s.

I'm quite happy using Facebook because I only publish what I'm happy to publish.

Generally, I dislike being monitored but I assume it's happening and expect my government to provide protection.

The web is changing but only in the sense that it's evolved rapidly since it was created (only some 25 years ago).

In the future, the web will look different while being exactly the same: people will be using it to communicate.

</comment><comment><USER10> I completely agree and came to the same conclusion lately. The future for the internet is micro "lightnets" which I prefer to call it, the true (dark)net is what the original internet has become apparently. It is way too infiltrated by those few who control the world and too big to try to change it. Try to make a billion internet users encrypt their email and exchange keys... and even that isn't secure. Those webs of "lightnets" can interact in the future in one big network independent of each other. Like many tiny internets in one big network. I find myself having a distaste more and more for everything resonating with corporations who are too big to stay connected with the individuals they serve on a human to human basis. When that threshold is reached for a corporation it always spirals out of control and there you have it, greed power control takes over the organization, and its only you the individual who can make a change. Feudalism at its finest and it saddens me deeply to see so many millions cave into it like zombies just to be going with the herd, afraid to think and go their own path. Ever considered why so many zombie movies lately? Perhaps reflection of reality on a mental level in our society. People willing to do anything for freedom and the truth gives me hope.

I will invest my time and future into these next gen lightnets and hopefully we can share some freedom away from greed power and control. Internet unless it is revoked exist no more. Transformed into a malicious beast savaging everything and everyone in its path controlled by the masters who seek to enslave the mind of mankind.

<comment><USER11> Lightnets. I like it. I'm adopting the term. Just today, I was jotting down some notes about setting up some Tor/I2P/etc. gateways in preparation for research (and hopefully helping out with the development of such tools), and when I wrote "darknet" I felt a little icky.

So, where do I sign up to join this conspiracy of light?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> While I agree with the sentiment, this is less manifesto and more guerilla marketing to bring eyeballs to their products.

</comment><comment><USER13> The health care system you know is dying. I'm drinking an espresso shot. It's half-cold. There's still gunk in my eyes from sleeping.

I've been thinking a lot about how I we all get health care. A year ago, I nearly vanished from my doctor's private practice because I had an intuitive feeling that expensive, highly specialized care without a single payer insurance system was a backdoor to endless health care debt nation wide. Now, as the dust settles from our collective experiences, I know this to be true.

So I'm revisiting some of my older habits. I'm using WebMD to diagnose my own problems. I've enrolled in an EMT course to learn basic triage and treatment. I've installed an app that automatically notifies me of any possible drug interactions between the various medications I buy off the black market for myself. Last week I thought I might have sepsis, but I dropped into an off- the-books IRC chatroom and found out I didn't; it was just a bruise that looked funny. If you want to send me Bitcoins, I'll take them.

I continue to try to find ways to diagnose myself over the web. I learn new tools every day. And every tool I have, that's another step towards freedom from the corporate controlled health care system. I'm convinced that if other people don't teach themselves how to be their own doctors, then they're just pawns with their own lives and careers who obviously have too little spare time on their hands. Distributed peer to peer medicine is a must. Evolve beyond the reach of the insurance companies that want to bankrupt you. I'm doing just that.

Distributed everything is where we're going.

The way I see it, if you're still on centralized health care networks, you're part of the problem. You can't stick your fingers in your ears anymore and scream 'lalallalal'. All of your information is being recorded, forever, and it's all going to end up on an itemized bill that you can't pay because your insurance is inadequate and our country doesn't value primary care.

I'm running more and more under the pseudonym of Ven Portman. I don't really know why, since I just published that fact on my own public website. I believe that everyone should learn to be a specialist in their spare time in order to temporarily evade the abuses of corporations and governments. I somehow believe that normal people have time to learn these things and blame them if they don't. I avoid grappling with a broad conversation about corporate and government corruption and abuse in the field in which I dabble because clinging to my dilettante skill set is the only way I can retain some illusion of agency in a world which is increasingly unjust and beyond my control. Anyone who doesn't do what I do and devote all of their spare time to learning basic medicine to help build our distributed health care system of the future is just part of the problem.

The centralized health care system you know is dying. We're scattering to back alley healthcare everywhere. If you're a normal person with a family and their own field of expertise who doesn't have time to take an EMT course and learn how to intubate an unconscious blunt force trauma victim, well then fuck you. You're all sheeple anyway.

–Ev Bogue July 4 2013 undisclosed location

<comment><USER14> > I've installed an app that automatically notifies me of any possible drug > interactions between the various medications I buy off the black market for > myself.

Hey, not only hilarious, but that's a good app idea!

<comment><USER13> It actually already exists (minus the black market part). My friend is an RN an she and most of her co-workers use it in their clinic every day. I forget what the app's name is though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Everytime I connect to darknet, I feel like Batman with a secret, underground, Gotham identity. In the rain, on the rooftop, or something like that.

Even when the darknet is nowadays used mostly for spam and child porn.

<comment><USER16> That's why it needs bat man.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> You guys are funny. Half of you are voting this stuff onto the frontpage, and the other half commenting on how awful it is.

Let's get it together, people! :-)

<comment><USER18> Eternal September comes to all communities, in time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This guy and James Altucher need to be friends.

</comment><comment><USER19> Here's a backup copy of the page: [http://archive.is/5hFxW](http://archive.is/5hFxW)

</comment><comment><USER20> Seems to be a dead link.

<comment><USER21> It's working fine now for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Ev Bogue is a mentally unstable guy who comes out of the woodwork every so often to say crazy 'edgy' things. He generally builds little cults and then destroys them in fits of mania. His last title for himself was "Cybernetic Yogi."

After he destroyed his minimalist and post-human blogs and communities he's recently got into coding Node. Presumably because he lost all credibility in the other fields. His thing is to "quit" services. He quit Twitter, quit writing, quit Facebook, rejoined Twitter, deleted his blog, undeleted his blog, quit his identity, created a new one, and so on. This would all be very amusing if he didn't take it so seriously himself. He is at best, very mentally ill.

I find his current work particularly annoying because he's a guy who has about six months of coding experience claiming that Node.js is the messiah of the web. Just not worth it. In six months or so Bogue will quit Node and discover the new 'it thing' and ramble about that somewhere. The problem is that he writes about topics that he is not adequately educated on. He does this because he has a deep need to be seen as an _expert_.

Some back story: [http://ariherzog.com/blogger-insists-on-twitter- users/](http://ariherzog.com/blogger-insists-on-twitter-users/) [http://adamtervort.com/blog/2011/01/26/minimalism-isnt- dead-...](http://adamtervort.com/blog/2011/01/26/minimalism-isnt-dead-youve- just-gone-insane-everett/)

"Gwen Bell Blocked Me; Ev Bogue Blocked Me" [https://plus.google.com/u/0/114850856787256556043/posts/GLYo...](https://plus.google.com/u/0/114850856787256556043/posts/GLYoBb1RHG9)

"Far Beyond My Ego" (parody) [http://farbeyondmyego.blogspot.com/](http://farbeyondmyego.blogspot.com/)

<comment><USER23> You sound like a pretty boring dude. He's just a guy in the Internet writing stuff, and you're just a guy on the Internet talking about him.

<comment><USER24> Thanks to my tiny phone screen, I accidentally downvoted you. Sorry. I agree entirely. Have two upvotes for other posts.</comment></comment></comment>


Bacteria and sand engineered into living concrete - <AUTHOR> https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-01/cp-bas010920.php <comment><USER2> We already have slow-curing low-emissions concrete, which has existed for centuries. Fast setting is a core feature of modern (Portland) concrete, and any "replacement" which doesn't do that is not a replacement at all. Companies want to build their 40-story towers in 6 months, not 6 years.

<comment><USER3> Our modern concrete has not existed for "centuries"... Portland cement was invented about 150 years ago, and steel-reinforced concrete started being used just over 100 years ago.

<comment><USER2> I'm talking about lime-based cement, which predates Portland cement and steel- reinforced concrete. Portland cement is a huge source of CO2 emissions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This reminds me of the JG Ballard story Venus Smiles, which I found whimsical and scientifically ridiculous at the time of reading, where an artist creates a living sculpture which basically makes a hell of a racket and grows itself out of control. Panicking, the owner has it cut up and sold for scrap, only to start hearing the same noises start when he is in new buildings - the tainted metal has been used in construction projects from the melted down scrap and is proliferating - "The whole world will be singing."!

Reading this news story it seems that one could retrofit a bacteria based scientific explanation - perhaps not so outlandish after all. What an amazing futurist he was!

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

</comment><comment><USER5> Can it use desert sand rather than riverbed sand?

<comment><USER6> Not really, desert sand and riverbed sand have different characteristics with regards to smoothness and grain size, etc.. You really can just use desert sand.

<comment><USER5> I elsewhere read much concrete is made with rare, far away, environmentally damaging illegally dredged riverbed sand, because desert sand (or other more available less environmentally precious substitutes) were unsuitable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> that's great and all but it's the sand part that's making concrete expensive. The type of sand to use is becoming harder and harder to source

</comment><comment><USER8> > The brick needs to be completely dried out to attain the maximum structural > capacity (i.e., strength), but at the same time, drying stresses the > bacteria and compromises its viability. To maintain structural function and > ensure microbial survivability, the concept of optimum relative humidity and > storage conditions is critical. Utilizing the humidity and temperature as > physical switches, the researchers can control when the bacteria grow and > when the material stays dormant to serve structural functions.

So it can't get wet.

> they use light from the sun to grow and proliferate with very little > exogenous material needed for their growth

Do the bacteria just die after the initial nutrients run out?

<comment><USER6> To both comments, not really.

It can get wet, but just not too wet. And it doesn't necessarily die when the initial nutrients run out as long as more naturally enter. The solution is to deal with sub-maximal strength and provide a slow nutrient drip(or possible occasional soaking with a nutrient slush).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sorry, maybe it's just me, but what is the main motivation for this? What problems does it solve? What secondary problems does it create?

</comment><comment><USER10> > and concrete also releases CO2 when it cures.

As it cures, Portland cement ABSORBS "nearly a quarter" the CO2 used to produce it.

[https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/11/cement-soaks- greenho...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/11/cement-soaks-greenhouse- gases)

</comment><comment><USER11> Similar but distinct from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbiologically_induced_calc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbiologically_induced_calcite_precipitation)</comment>


Donate $500 for 1hr-long coffee in Palo Alto w David Lee, a partner in SV Angel - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1104085200/page-turner-asian-american-literary-festival/pledge/new?backing[amount]=500.0&backing[backer_reward_id]=81820&clicked_reward=true&logged_in=false

<comment> daniel-cussen Could be worth it to meet someone interesting, unless you're looking for funding, in which case I would donate to something else and meet him some other way.

</comment><comment><USER2> Uh, if you have a good reason to be asking for David Lee's time, there are easier ways of getting an hour of it than spending $500.

<comment><USER3> Right, but the point is you'd be donating to a literary festival: [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1104085200/page- turner-a...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1104085200/page-turner-asian- american-literary-festival)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why do so many online businesses talk about entrepreneurship? - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> It seems very common, and I see it with businesses whose customers would be unlikely to care about such musings.

Why do saas owners, startups etc. talk about their own "entrepreneurial journeys" and entrepreneurship in general rather than talk and blog about things their customers are interested in?</comment>


Open Source Book: Introduction to Big Data - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/haifengl/bigdata <comment><AUTHOR> pdf and epub are available at [http://github.com/haifengl/bigdata/releases](http://github.com/haifengl/bigdata/releases)</comment>


WireApp: Axolotl and Proteus - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@wireapp/axolotl-and-proteus-788519b186a7 <comment><AUTHOR> Does this mean Wire won the argument?

        To resolve the dispute amicably, we agreed to dismiss our
        claims in exchange for a release of the claims Moxie had
        made against us.

I cannot make absolute sense of this. Was the result that Wire now published Moxie's claims in their blog post and fulfilled their agreement?

<comment><USER2> tl;dr Moxie threatened to sue. They actually sued. Result: Wire's impl is fine.

> Proteus is published as open-source under GPLv3 and we will continue to work > with the community to make it available under less restrictive licensing > conditions.

This is the curious part of the post to me. libsodium is ISC. What work do they need to do?

<comment><AUTHOR> Without details (breaking/following license rules) this looks scary and unrealistic if you consider that they want many Axolotl implementations out there. Proteus being written in Rust could make it the prime implementation if it were liberally licenses. Finally an OTR-next competitor that's built statically and doesn't require a VM while being implemented in a reasonably safe language (which is important for security software).</comment></comment></comment>


You Know It's an Old Website If… - <AUTHOR> http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/820

<comment><USER2> it has a "webmaster"</comment>


The Most Likely Way You'll Get Infected with Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://elemental.medium.com/the-most-likely-way-youll-get-infected-with-covid-19-30430384e5a5 <comment><USER2> Wouldn't it be great if the CDC was able to share this type of information in this type of format that might actually be comprehensible to the general public.

<comment><USER3> Like this? [https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting- si...](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/how- covid-spreads.html)

<comment><USER4> The problem with that sort of advice is it is grossly oversimplified. If I'm hiking on a narrow path and someone walking along in the other direction; do I need to leave the path and put a mask on or can I just smile politely and walk on past? Do I need to wash my hands immediately after walking past them?

The CDC page provides very little guidance on why or when. There are directives and no way to assess the risk. Compare that to this high quality article - it talks about no. people sneezing on a small surface to get high viral loads, or the Korean story where there is a lot of situational data about how people catch the virus. Very situated, talking about actual values and mechanisms.

I don't need to know what to do, that is such generic nonsense I could have guessed it as soon as I knew covid was airborne - block your air intake, stay away from people. Truly not the stuff of enlightenment. I need to know risk so I can decide what situations to avoid and when to impolitely leave the room. I can use this scientist's article to assess whether I am personally at risk of catching COVID in a given instance. That is much more powerful than the CDCs article.

<comment><USER3> The last line of the CDC page is a link for people who want to learn more about protecting themselves, which at least provides some of the more precise information you want. Having a concise post of the key parts is more useful to many people.

The only useful information in the Medium article lacking from the CDC is the bit about filtering air meaning it's usually safer to be outside. Beyond that, it's more interesting but suggests the same as the CDC page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is great, but I'm still going to wipe down my groceries.

<comment><USER6> I'm still going to wipe down my plastic and cardboard groceries when it's not a complete pain, but I'm probably not going to worry about spraying my produce with hydrogen peroxide.

<comment><USER7> I just rinse produce before using it, like I should anyway. I do wipe down groceries that go in the refrigerator or freezer that aren't produce though, although I'm slowly running out of disinfectant wipes (we did manage to grab some hand wipes the other day, hopefully those are safe to use). I no longer wipe down anything non-perishable, just let it sit in quarantine for a few days before using it.

<comment><USER8> I'm washing most products (lemons, bottles, plastic containers...) with water& soap. Isn't it good enough?

<comment><USER7> Yeah, that probably could be enough, especially if you scrub enough. Like with our hands, the soap and the friction makes the virus break apart (somehow, I'm too tired to look it up).

You might even be doing better than I am, since I just do a quick wipe and I am stretching each wipe really thin (trying to only use one or two per grocery delivery).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Zynga to Put Headquarters Building in San Francisco on the Market - <AUTHOR> http://news.theregistrysf.com/zynga-to-put-headquarters-building-in-san-francisco-on-the-market/ <comment><USER2> A lot of people seem to be missing the fact that they plan to sell the building and then rent it back, turning an already paid CapEx into an OpEx.

Zynga seems to be really good at the CapEx/OpEx game. Back before they went public, they did everything on Amazon, so it was all OpEx. Then they built the ZCloud, which converted OpEx to CapEx, which investors liked.

What a lot of people don't realize is that they have been slowing dismantling ZCloud and going back to AWS (converting previous CapEx to current OpEx).

<comment><USER3> What is the advantage of turning an already paid capex into an opex?

<comment><USER4> Companies are rated on equity to liability ratios for creditworthiness.

Assets = Liability + Equity

Let's say my company has: 50 million in non-real estate assets (cash, IP, etc) 25 million in liabilities (loans, accounts payable, etc) 25 million in equity 50 million in a building paid by a loan (both an asset and a liability)

If I own the building: Assets (100) = Liabilities (75) + Equity (25) Equity/Liabilities = 1/3

If I sell it, pay the loan, and lease it back to myself: Assets (50) = Liabilities (25) + Equity (25) Equity/Liabilities = 1 I appear much more credit-worthy.

There may also be tax reasons for this.

<comment><USER5> This sounds like a bug - a business is not clearly safer or less safe a credit risk doing the movement described. Perhaps a business opportunity there.

<comment><USER4> There are lots of accounting bugs like this. The challenge is Accounting isn't as cut and dry as people think.

For example - how long do you depreciate (write down the value of) an asset that you buy? If you depreciate it too slowly, it might make it seem like you're more profitable than you really are.

Another example - If you buy a financial product to hedge a risk vs to speculate, the accounting treatment is different. (In the latter you need to mark it to market more frequently)

One more... If you're a bank, and you make a loan which you intend to hold until maturity, the accounting treatment (mark to market) is different than if you intend to sell the loan.

Accounting is more than just consistent rules followed by the green eyeshades. :-)

There are two immediate existing business opportunities:

1) Accounting companies (E&Y, Deloitte, etc) help execs understand all these rules. Their advisory (what can you do?) work is more profitable per partner than their audit (what did you do?) work.

2) Investment funds do detailed analysis of accounting statements to make "Apples to Apples" comparisons of companies, then analyze their equity and debt valuations to see if they are properly priced. Sometimes this goes by the name of "Relative value" or "Long/short".

<comment><USER6> > _For example - how long do you depreciate (write down the value of) an asset > that you buy? If you depreciate it too slowly, it might make it seem like > you 're more profitable than you really are._

It isn't supposed to be ambiguous, though it sometimes is (and that's a problem). At least in Canada, we have relatively straight-forward rules to follow for allowable capital depreciation rates, as seen here:

[http://www.cra- arc.gc.ca/tx/bsnss/tpcs/slprtnr/rprtng/cptl/c...](http://www.cra- arc.gc.ca/tx/bsnss/tpcs/slprtnr/rprtng/cptl/clsss-eng.html)

<comment><USER4> It becomes an issue if the assets themselves depreciate faster or slower than the rules suggest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's a neat building. It sits in the design center of San Francicso, and was originally built as a mall. Here is some of the history.

[http://www.syserco.com/projects/zynga](http://www.syserco.com/projects/zynga)

<comment><USER8> The same building used to be the headquarters of Sega of America back during their heyday. (the level design of Sonic Adventure 2 was heavily influenced by San Francisco / Bay Area)

<comment><USER9> Sega, CNet, Macromedia...

<comment><USER10> I'm starting to see a pattern

<comment><USER11> some buildings are bad luck

<comment><USER12> I'll take Macromedia's luck any day of the week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Anyone have an idea if this means anything other than trying to cash out an investment before real estate prices potentially decline? Does this make them a better/worse target as an acquisition? Or could this be generating cash so Z could acquire someone else?

<comment><USER4> It can help if it turns an illiquid real estate investment with a liquid software company attached to it into a software company with a lot of cash. There's not much they can do to unlock the real estate value other than borrow against it which is risky.

I suspect that once they have the cash in the banks, activists will push them to "enhance shareholder value" with it, which is more likely share buybacks than anything else. It could still lead to an acquisition.

Unlocking the cash is nominally better than holding onto the building from a buyout perspective in that it saves the buyer the dirty work. If the buyer wants to do an LBO, they can use the cash to finance it. (Strange how that works!)

<comment><USER14> Thanks for the thorough but concise summary.

> If the buyer wants to do an LBO, they can use the cash to finance it. > (Strange how that works!)

Agreed. If you can't figure out what to do with your cash, someone else with less insider knowledge and experience will. AKA they'll rebalance your books, make the tough cuts that you can't, point you in a new direction, and exit at 5-10x their initial investment in a couple of years.

<comment><USER15> It's not turning out that way for Manchester United though. The Glazer takeover simply burdened the club with massive debt, did not change anything in terms of actually running the club, and nobody will ever pay 5-10x what the Glazers did. It just enabled them to siphon money out of the club (as well as using it as a financial dump for sketchy funds, but that's pretty common in the football world).

Leveraged takeovers are often simple cash grabs by plundering buccaneers.

<comment><USER4> For an LBO they don't need to be paid 10x.

If I borrow 900K to buy a million dollar business, I have only 100K invested in it. Let's say 2 years later I sell the business for 2 million... After paying back the 900K and perhaps 100k in interest I am left with 10x (1 million) of my 100k equity.

Of course if the debt kills the company, we all lose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > San Francisco-based Zynga is putting its San Francisco headquarters office > property on the market for sale, according to sources that track the sale of > office buildings in San Francisco.

They're going to lose out on the fact that everyone stuck on 101 headed onto the Bay Bridge has to look at their billboard, sometimes for long periods of time. It's definitely prime property that they're giving up.

<comment><USER17> Any time I'm stuck in gridlock, I just feel really frustrated and mad, and associate negative affects with any ads I see. I can't help but think others are the same, though I guess they still like billboards people will see during such periods so maybe I'm different...

<comment><USER18> Like all the Apple bill boards in that area.. never buying an iPad ever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Honest question: why does a technology company own a building anyways? Especially one that is equal to half of its market cap? Surely Zynga investors are not interested in half of their investment being in Zynga and the other half in SF Commercial RE?

<comment><USER4> Part of it is timing, part cost. If you can fill a building and plan to be there for a while, generally it pays to buy it rather than rent it. (The renter generally charges a premium to short term borrowers) For financial accounting/engineering purposes (not wanting to show liabilities) firms may do long term leases.

This is why it pays for companies like Apple to own their headquarters.

Overbuilding the HQ is a classic sign of hubris, similar to putting your name on a stadium. (Look to Lehman and Bear Stearns for the former, Enron and 3com for the latter)

<comment><USER15> Isn't that the same as "cloud vs physical"? If you plan to use a lot of resources consistently for several years, physical is cheaper; if your workload is more transient, you choose virtual.

(The main difference being that real estate can even increase in value, so it is an investment as much as a cost; whereas computers invariably depreciate to 0 in the end.)

<comment><USER4> Somewhat, though companies (say Netlfix) may use the cloud even when they can fully utilize machines.

A similar analogy is also around core competence - focus on what you are good at (software vs real estate). Bathe world is littered with monuments to companies that overbuilt or overpaid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Likely the most valuable part of Zynga at this point.

</comment><comment><USER21> When I first read this I thought Zynga was going to move their HQ to Market Street.

</comment><comment><USER22> Adobe passed on that space and surely regretted it when they started growing again. Adobe would surely be interested in it - if Zynga were to vacate.

</comment><comment><USER23> The title of this is incredibly confusing - at first I thought it was about Zynga moving to Market Street.

<comment><USER24> Surely the could've said "up for sale". But the capitalised "M" on market was just trolling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> So from the article, Zynga was going to post a loss (if I read that correctly), but because of the sale, they'll post a hefty profit. Given the artificiality of this profit, are execs still expecting to be paid performance bonuses?

If so, wow, very shady.

<comment><USER26> This is the kind of trick that only works once, though. The smart folks should see the writing on the wall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I work at Zynga... The office building is awesome. The amenities at Zynga are still some of the best in the Bay Area. Awesome gym, large basement arcade, and snacks everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER28> It doesn't appear to be actively listed yet [http://www.loopnet.com/locations/zynga- inc_/properties](http://www.loopnet.com/locations/zynga-inc_/properties)

</comment><comment><USER29> Fun fact: The CEO of Zynga founded EA Burnaby, in my hometown.

</comment><comment><USER30> To be promptly purchased by Palantir.

</comment><comment><USER26> This just postpones the inevitable.</comment>