U.S. CBP and Israeli Elbit to Persistently Surveil Native American Reservation - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2019/08/25/border-patrol-israel-elbit-surveillance/ <comment><USER3> The Tohono O'odham predate the border by about 10,000 years. But some powerful people with no knowledge of the land or its people drew a straight line on a map 150 years ago.

Supposedly yet more intrusion and division of their land is the only solution to some new problem someone else caused.

</comment><comment><USER4> Surveillance of the border from a reservation. What a clickbait title.

<comment><USER5> "...a 160-foot surveillance tower capable of continuously monitoring every person and vehicle within a radius of up to 7.5 miles."

Sounds like it's surveilling the reservation to me. The stated purpose is to monitor border crossings, but that's not the same as surveillance of the border.

<comment><USER4> This is already a thing done in the border in other locations, the title makes it out like it was built to surveillance the reserve. That is a clickbait title.

<comment><USER5> It _was_ built to monitor the reservation, for the purpose of monitoring border crossings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I worked in the area 15 years ago or so.

What the article fails to mention is that some Tohono O'odham members have been heavily involved in both human and drug trafficking due to the cross border nature of their nation.

[https://abcnews.go.com/US/tribal-land-us-mexico-border- drug-...](https://abcnews.go.com/US/tribal-land-us-mexico-border-drug-human- smuggling/story?id=63064992)

(Of course the morality of laws leading to smuggling are up for debate)

</comment><comment><USER7> I look forward to these being deployed in the 100 mile "border zone"

[https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/05/who-lives-in- border-p...](https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/05/who-lives-in-border- patrols-100-mile-zone-probably-you-mapped/558275/)

</comment><comment><USER8> The article, ahem hit piece, basically reports on surveillance commonplace along the border.

But, by picking a border reservation, the exact same surveillance is falsely setting CBP up as a bogeyman apparently racist towards natives - all of which is left unsubstantiated by the article.

The origin of surveillance tech is of no relevance, other than to malign Israel. What would change if the tech were from, say Canada? Nothing but the outage channeled at Israel.

Here's the entirety of the article without the undercurrent prodding outrage:

Surveillance towers capable of infrared tracking of humans for upto 1 mile are common along the border. Some borderland overlaps with Indian reservations.

<comment><USER5> There are several other important points that your summary misses:

* A history of harassment by CBP towards inhabitants of the reservation which is driving people away.

* CBP is abusing this surveillance technology to monitor protestors.

* CBP lends its surveillance technology to other law enforcement agencies in a way that seems to have insufficient oversight and large potential for abuse.

<comment><USER8> Glad to see Israel has _nothing_ to do with this.

Wherever CBP presence increases, questionings increase, regardless of race. To frame this tension as harassment targeting natives is disingenuous. CBP often gets accused of racism, especially towards Hispanics, though some 70% of CBP officers deployed along the border are Hispanic themselves.

If the protests are happening within CBP jurisdiction (100 miles from the border), how is deploying authorized surveillance per law "abuse"?

<comment><USER5> If you think CBP monitoring protestors isn't abuse if it's happening within 100 miles of the border, then I think we share too little common ground for this conversation to ever be productive.

<comment><USER8> Indeed - contrarian viewpoints are to be avoided at all costs for productively mass converging on falsehoods.

<comment><USER5> There has to be some basic set of shared values or else it's just shouting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I honestly don't understand why the American people tolerate such influence within their borders. I guess the tyranny of distance is at play here - <USER2> reservation, as well as the other places patrolled by CBP stormtroopers, are out of sight and therefore out of mind for a majority of Americans.

But its only a matter of time until someone gets up on the pulpit and starts complaining about 'external sovereign powers having undue influence over American politics' .. as has been the case with the ridiculous Russia narrative of late.

I guess its a matter of having the 'right people' on the 'right side' of history - but frankly, given the choice, I'd rather live on the plantation any day. The oppressed natives of America have, time and again, demonstrated the kind of resilient human spirit that I admire.

And now, here we are, with the perpetrators of one of the worst apartheid states in the modern era, bringing it within the US' borders. How do people rationalise this against the "mah Russia' narrative backdrop?

<comment><USER10> unfortunately, i don't know of any single border of any state or nation that was peacefully acquired or constituted. I don't think "modernity" has changed anything, no matter where you make it starts.

If you want an example, then look at Israel, which is one of the first state that wasn't created unilaterally through force or as a result of war, but (at least initially) through a UN resolution from an assembly of states that (almost) all agreed on the necessity of partitionning the populations living in the area. And look at the result...

<comment><USER11> Israel, while 'ratified' by the UN, created itself from force by defeating the surrounding opponents who tried to stop it from existing, continued to do so throughout its history with multiple wars against coalitions of enemies, and continues to develop its military deterrents today.

A handful of UN dopes sitting on the Golan Heights who have to run to Israel for safety when actual trouble from the region affects them do not deter anyone.

The UN recognition is nice, but israel would exist without it.

<comment><USER10> Completely off-topic, but :

In the post WW2 context, with the cold war looming, having the UN ratify the existence of Israel was a huge thing. Don't forget that both in 49 and in 67 nobody was giving Israel any chance to survive in a war against its arab neighbourghs. At that time, things were very _very_ different from now.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Scientism - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism <comment><USER2> And will you apply science to an angry mob burning US flags and killing because of a movie?

You have so called "social sciences", but they are pretty much useless otherwise there would be someone paying them a lots of money to figure out what will happen next for example in the Middle East.

Sciences are very limited once you get a human being with free will into the equation. And then you multiple that by culture than by genes then by experiences and then by 6 billion.

I love history. And the main reason for my love of history is love of science fiction. If Nazi Germany never happened, don't you think that the whole story would make amazing science-fiction? How you apply scientific method to history? You can analyze, but as soon as you do your results/opinions will be different than anybody else's at least at some level. It's not like we all know 2+2=4. Now try Why people voted for Hitler? Good luck with your fixed narrow-minded analytical mindset to figure this one out. You can have debates for years about it and still you won't know for sure anything. Science is for people who want the right answer right away. Life is more complex than that simplistic view.

<comment><USER3> > Science is for people who want the right answer right away. Life is more > complex than that simplistic view.

A simplistic view is assuming that scientists (and for that matter geeks/math guys/programmers) see things in 0-s and 1-s, strictly defined terms, etc. Math and science are much better equipped to handle fuzziness and lack of precision than any kind of "common sense" or soft whatever. It's just the other way around - handwaving at things because they are fuzzy and complex is a simplistic thing. Approaching them with combined might of all the advances in understanding and technology is what scientists do (or at least should do).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Obviously science is not the only way to find truths; there is also math.

<comment><USER5> Math can yield many truths. Science is how you determine whether or not a math truth corresponds to the universe we live in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Michael Shermer ... defines scientism as a worldview that encompasses natural explanations, eschews supernatural and paranormal speculations, and embraces empiricism and reason."

I'd consider widespread adoption of that worldview to be the sign of a culturally advanced civilisation, and it's opposite to be the sign of a backwards one.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, that's just naturalism, and there's nothing rational or advanced about it. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)>

<comment><USER6> But in the definition I quoted, Michael Schermer defined scientism in part as embracing reason. There's nothing rational about embracing reason!?

<comment><AUTHOR> Naturalism and the scientific method are not at all the same thing. Which is why it would be right to say that the definition quoted is an example of "scientism", a pejorative term, and not science.

Science is just the study of the natural world as we observe it. Naturalism precludes anything beyond the natural world, but does so on the basis of speculation, for we have no tools of reason with which to make such an assertion.

The tools of science and philosophy cannot be used to reach beyond the natural world. They were never intended for it. They are not suited for it. By definition, science would not presume to be interested in it, and philosophy would fail to grasp it.

From our side, we can't rationally say that the supernatural exists, and we can't rationally say that it doesn't.

Hence Carl Sagan:

"An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence."

So we can be agnostics, but we can't be atheists, not rationally at least.

But while from our side, we can't reach out, that's not to say the supernatural, should it exist, can't reach out and reveal itself in a way that would make sense to us and give us a rational basis for belief, for instance if the supernatural were to collide with our natural world in an extraordinary event.

The tool to tackle this then would be history. As a Christian, I believe that the right place to start digging is the historical accounts of those who saw the life, death and resurrection of Christ, in history. Did it happen? What does it mean?

<comment><USER6> Relax, I just thought it was an ironic that some people think "You are enlightened!" is an insult.

There are several definitions for scientism in the article, they are all different, some are conflicting. My comment was about the definition in the quote, I know that science and naturalism are not the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Let me start by describing how the nervous system is structured in strata, with lower, "thalamic" nerve centres which are closer to the outside world, giving us sense impressions; and higher, "cortical" nerve centres which are further away from the outside world, and process the nerve currents coming from the lower nerve centres. It's a well known fact that it is the cortical nerve centres that are engaged when operating with languages (including scientific languages – physics, mathematics, etc.; and probably coding, too); however, because of this structuring of the nervous system, cortical products of abstraction are abstractions from the abstractions of the lower nerve centres – in other words, it is natural to begin with sense impressions (observations, facts, etc.) and proceed by producing generalisations, models, formulations, ideas. If, contrary to that, we assign primary importance to words and ideas, then, structurally, we are behaving similarly to people suffering from hallucinations, illusions and delusions, word salad, fanaticism, etc.

I hope not to be opposed by anyone if I suggest defining science as the investigation of empirical structures, with the purpose of formulating structurally-similar semantic representations using words and other symbols (laws, theories, generalizations, formulae, etc). We readily see how science is nothing else than the mature, appropriate behaviour of a healthy human nervous system. Fundamentally, scientists are preoccupied with sanity, really: day in, and day out, they spend their time co-ordinating ideas with facts. Their job, their contribution to society is adjustment to facts.

Now, if, for example, we would repeatedly find ourselves stumbling, we would turn to professional athletes for inspiration; it follows similarly that, for the sake of sanity and adjustment, the methods, conduct and results of scientists are of interest to us all.

The Wikipedia article doesn't really provide any clear, explicit, concise argument against the so-called "scientism". In my opinion, the article reflects the struggle of a curious group of people: people with an inflated sense of self-worth, fuelled by a gratuitous use of words ("logolatry" is the name for it, and it's always nice, btw, to discover that an ancestor summarised personal observations of mine with a single word!).

In any case, I trust that one can only retard the natural functioning of his, and others' nervous systems – never abolish it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Does anyone have a response to this position with respect to modern economics? Specifically, when economists test their models, what are the control groups that they use?

<comment><USER9> None, because economists aren't big on testing, AFAIK, and empirical methods beyond meta-studies. It's still a very soft science, correct me if I'm wrong. Joke was that an economist that tests his hypothesis is a trader.

Econometrics and psycho-economics have just overturned the rational actor model that was the mainframe of classical economics. Maybe they'll add more empirical methods as well.</comment></comment>


I'm Bored. What's Next? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/30/im-bored-whats-next/ <comment><USER2> * _What's here that wasn't here in 2007?_

Robots are still rising. Drones too. Voice recognition for everyone with Siri and the equivalent on Android. Natural language queries in Wolfram Alpha.

Cheap, reliable 3d motion detection via kinect.

3d printing. Tissue printing and a $99 genetic scan <https://www.23andme.com/>

Cheap SSDs.

Self driving cars.

Raspberry Pi boards.

iPads (I had to check that one - the first iPad launch was just recently in April 2010!) and competing Android and windows tablets.

github.

* _Or these lists:_

[http://www.buzzfeed.com/donnad/27-science-fictions-that- beca...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/donnad/27-science-fictions-that-became- science-facts-in-2)

[http://io9.com/5971328/the-most-futuristic-predictions- that-...](http://io9.com/5971328/the-most-futuristic-predictions-that-came- true-in-2012)

* _Things that were new and not so well known in 2007, but are big now:_

The rise of online education via Khan academy, Coursera and Udacity.

Workable electric cars.

Twitter.

Arduino boards.

git

<comment><USER3> Out of all those things you listed, self-driving cars and maybe - just _maybe_ \- 3D printing are the only truly exciting things, at least in terms of their potential to be disruptive.

<comment><USER4> Geesh, only two major paradigm-shifts emerging in one year. How tedious!

<comment><USER5> Neither of those are from 2012.

<comment><USER4> I think the argument is that they've been getting into the mainstream this year...

I think the year that a new paradigm-shifting technology is first conceived and then developed, and then implemented on any scale within a single year will be a time to celebrate the end of humanity and the peak of the singularity!... (if it ever happens)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What a meta post. Arrington complaining about a problem his site perpetuated by popularizing consumer tech. [1]

Maybe TechCrunch should step away from the desk/SF and put more reporters in other cities on the ground, instead of relying on so much inbound pitching? Technology, used loosely, is becoming an everyday aspect to many businesses so maybe TC also needs to reconsider their editorial position, too. [1]

There are tons of other companies in cities around the US (and world) less interested in getting caught up in the SF noise. Spending PR budget to target TC just for some ego exposure amongst select group of peers at the cost of a less targeted audience isn't a wise decision for most.

Austin has quiet a few smaller but sustaining tech companies doing pretty interesting things on a regular basis; $AWAY, $BV, $SLAB, Chaotic Moon, Mass Relevance, and numerous other fresh startups like Outbox [2] and DailyDot.com. I'm sure same is true for other cities.

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/31/seven-apps-that-will- keep-y...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/31/seven-apps-that-will-keep-your- new-years-resolutions-alive/)

Don't I have the USA Today and Mashable for this? Did AOL make this decision?

[2] Saving the USPS. [http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/business/988285-464/austin- st...](http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/business/988285-464/austin-startup- takes-snail-mail-high-tech.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> I suppose you're right. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. For years, they wouldn't fund or write about anything that wasn't a me-too product, and now he complains that there's nothing but me-too products.

Thanks for finally waking up Michael.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Everyone in the tech world is going bananas over the same stuff. Technology helping technology: things that make Facebook easier/harder to use, things that make software development easier/harder to do, mobile this-that-and- advertising.

BOOOOOR-IIIINNNGGG.

The companies that are doing _actually_ interesting things are using technology to make non-tech stuff easier/better/faster/brighter: Uber, AirBnB, Zipcar, that female-led startup connecting farmers with buyers, etc.

Technology for technology's sake is done and boring and short-sighted. We've got news aggregators that aggregate other news aggregators. Mobile ad platforms that resell ads from other mobile ad platforms. Photo-sharing apps whose entire purpose is to create filters for other photo-sharing sites. And it's all ad-supported.

Arrington's right: it's all just the same thing over and over, and it's boring. And I never thought I'd agree with Arrington about anything.

<comment><USER8> That startup is Vegetality. And why would it matter if it was started by a woman in this context? (I can't wait until ~50% of startups are by women and it's not considered exceptional.)

<comment><USER9> Simple context would suggest that he was offering any details he remembered of the startup in the hope that someone would recognize it. Let's not overreact.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice reply by Ray Cromwell:

> I love how Arrington, Thiel, Graham, and others spent years talking about > how you don't need any college, promoted quick-buck social media startups > with no plan, and kids fresh out of high school, and now they are sad there > is no flying cars. [...]

[https://plus.google.com/110412141990454266397/posts/YLXqGgpc...](https://plus.google.com/110412141990454266397/posts/YLXqGgpcRnu)

<comment><USER11> Humans have been talking about flying cars since the 60s. If we would have had them by now, their creators would have been educated well before Thiel Graham and Arrington.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sure, we only got self-driving cars, almost flawless speech recognition, concordant natural language queries, "Minority Report"-like UIs, Google Glass, space flight at 1/10th of the previous cost, 1GB fiber to the home, dramatically cheaper solar power, garage gen tech, 22nm chips, we did a spectacular landing on Mars, working Exoskeletons, the technology to find planets that are only slightly bigger than earth,...

And Mr. Arrington is bored? Maybe he's just not paying attention.

<comment><USER13> Most of what you mentioned came from big companies with a $billion or more. Mike is an Investor. When he says that innovation is not happening, its probably because he is not seeing good ones starting up, i.e a new comer with an amazing idea. We'll see the effect a few years from now, when most great products come from Google/Amazon/Microsoft/Apple. It is probably that way already.

Every decade has had a game changer who came in from no where. Who is going to take away the 201x?

<comment><USER14> Who was the game changer of the 2000s?

<comment><USER15> Google and Apple were probably the two biggest game changers of the 2000s. Apple's being a resurgence and Google being a company founded at the very end of the 90s.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Mike Arrington is bored with blogging. Does that mean he'll stop?

Personally I think we're on the edge of a revolution, with the rapid shrinking (and increase in power) of computers, and Google boldly pushing into some pretty deep AI.

Intelligent personal assistants. Self driving cars. Wearable augmented reality.

There's going to be a lot of exciting stuff to write about in 2013.

<comment><USER17> 2013 is also going to be a big year for Healthcare IT, the HHS is moving to open up clinical patient data via HHS. I doubt Google will venture again into the healthcare space, given the recent failure of Google Health, but it's going to be a turning point, they should have waited until the end of 2013 to close it down!

<comment><USER18> > the HHS is moving to open up clinical patient data

Don't want to sound too cynical here, but give me a break. The health care industry has resisted technology for 2 decades persistently, and any radical revolution in medicine will have so many public hurdles beyond what has already been dealt I don't see anything changing for Average Joes for decades just because of inertia, the powers that be, and special interests.

I mean I still can't get medical care at all without cleaning out my bank account because I'm uninsured. It is personal bias, but I'd rather see that fixed first. $500 - $1000 a month in healthcare is obscene.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Kenyans now have $50 smart phones that exceed all but the latest phones in capability. We have $50 android tablets. We have reached a sort of technological plateau where stuff we consider awesome advanced technology is more available than clean drinking water. The great stagnation cometh, the center holds, things stick together more strongly than ever.

<comment><USER20> All highly commendable projects.

There's no exit strategy, though, so VC aren't interested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I seem to recall reading a few weeks ago that VC money was starting to move towards B2B companies. If that's true, you're not going to see a lot of exciting tech blog worthy start-ups. You will see a lot of progress in software, and real people will be receiving real value. In fact, i view that as a really positive thing. We don't need another social network enabled live drawing text-pad that opens a door. However my fiance definitely needs some software to reduce some of the redundant unsexy work she has no time to do

</comment><comment><USER22> Try creating instead of commenting on what other create. It's more fun.

<comment><USER23> Michael Arrington did try and fail to create once.

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

<comment><USER22> I had the impression that he did not really do creative work on that project, but high level management. I may be wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> As a software dev currently thinking through my 'next thing,' I find this opinion refreshing. There's a lot of redundant and me-too software and it's far too easy to fall into the trap of building another mobile/social/geo/photo app.

I think hardware makers are doing a great job of pushing the envelop, but software not so much.

The question is, what's next for software? At the time Twitter came out, it was brand new...amazing...innovative. I can't recall feeling the same about anything since.

My own personal belief is that embedded software is going to be the next thing, but the problem there is the barrier to entry is a bit higher, both in terms of knowledge base and financial cost. That said, tech like Bluetooth LE is making it easier than ever to try.

<comment><USER23> > My own personal belief is that embedded software is going to be the next > thing

I've started hearing that embedded software control via cheap Android tablets ($50-$100)/hardware interfaces is beginning to take off and reducing the barrier to entry. Pretty much, you can use a $75 Android tablet to control an embedded device and drive the user interface. iPads are, frankly, a bit too expensive for most hardware applications.

If I had the energy, I would champion an open-source project for niche hobbyists who want to program a particular type of hardware (assuming their particular hardware has some kind of serial/network relatively-open, documented interface - something like ZigBee but less complicated maybe) but aren't necessarily programmers. Build the project such that the UI and hardware control layer run on Android - and can be abstracted out from the actual hardware later. The UI is not going to be snazzy looking (sliding menu) but reliable looking - like an industrial control but maybe a bit better.

<comment><USER24> Interesting. In the local hackerspace, for several years, I watched many students struggle with a (very fine) graphical drag-n-drop programming tool known as StarLogo TNG[0] (and Logo variants).

In the end, it seemed the brighter students destined for real programming were relieved to get into a text editor. The "success stories" focused on people who could not otherwise program, but the cost was imposing too much abstraction on the brighter users.

So I think it's a hard problem, and thus a very worthy one to pursue.

[0] <http://education.mit.edu/projects/starlogo-tng>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is weird. Techcrunch in my eyes contributed to the startup hype machine that it's now complaining about?

Celebrating funding like winning the Startup Lottery is only going to feed the monster of hype vs real innovation.

Is it just me?

</comment><comment><USER26> If you allow me a small anecdote... I used to live in Manhattan. Occasionally, I would go to the store to get paper towels or toiletpaper and buy the bulk- size. Invariably, the package would be too big to fit in the small plastic bags that were available and carrying it along with everything else was rather awkward. Last year I moved to Turkey, and one of the first things that I noticed is that all of the bulk-size packages of paper towels and toiletpaper have built in carrying straps.

Now, this may seem like a very, very minor thing (and it's not unique to Turkey). On it's own it says nothing, but the longer I've been away from the US, the more and more I've noticed just these sorts of little things. It's the sum total of these "little things" that indicate to me that the US has, on a very fundamental level, _stopped innovating_.

Oh, sure, the US will continue to produce new things. It'll probably even produce one or two _big_ new things in the next couple years, but it's not the big things that drive the innovative spirit. Gather enough smart people in one place, give them enough time and enough money, and you're pretty much guaranteed to get a major innovation (or, at least a driverless car).

You'll also waste an enormous amount of resources. A society that is innovative at its core has only to foster that innovation, in any small way, to get a far greater return on investment. In short: America has a tremendous head start, but America has become complacent. The "next big thing" just might come from somewhere where the people are still hungry.

<comment><USER27> I think you're drawing too much from that observation. It says more about the market in the Turkey than the innovation in Turkey.

Geographically-targeted versions of items are custom tailored for desires of local markets. Even if we assumed none of the TP brands in Turkey are multinational corporations, do you really think that the carrying strap idea wouldn't have been nicked by companies that do sell to other markets?

Living in NYC and buying a big pack of toilet paper is an outlier as far as the US is concerned. Anywhere else in the states you would put the pack it in your shopping cart and roll it directly to your car door.

For all we know, those straps could have been designed in the States, and the bean-counters decided adding the straps to the case manufacturing process is only cost-justified in plants serving an average population density of X and above.

I only bring this up because I have, in the past, been working in the States and built better versions of products for sale exclusively in Europe.

<comment><USER26> Perhaps the straps were a bad example. Another example (that I already noticed back in 2004) is that the mall parking lots all have lights hooked up to sensors so that you can see when a spot is available without having to drive up-and-down every aisle in the lot.

Again, it's not that any one particular example stands out. For almost every one of these examples I've noticed, I could come up with a way to explain away how it isn't a difference in innovation. I, too, have thought about the how shopping-carts-to-cars does not necessitate the straps. I have thought that the parking lot lights might not have a significant or measurable enough ROI to justify their installation to US mall owners... but isn't that the point?

It's not that any of these things are needed or demanded or even entirely justifiable from a purely economics-driven view point. But since when has an economics-driven view point led to great innovation? Isn't a prerequisite for innovation the willingness to look beyond simple, straight-forward economic arguments? To be creative for creativities sake?

It's in this way that I mean the US has stopped innovating.

<comment><USER28> We have the parking light indicator thing here too. San Jose, Santana Row...

<comment><USER26> Heh...oddly enough, I've been to Santana Row. It's the only mall in the entire US that I've been to that has anything even close, and while Santana Row does tell you what levels have free spots, the last time I was there they still didn't have indicator lights above each individual spot.

...but, again, it's not any one particular "invention" but rather the whole attitude that's different. The US has gotten complacent and seems to be spending more effort on justifying why it's the greatest than on actually, you know, _being_ the greatest.

<comment><USER28> They have the indicator lights now also ;-)

But, I understand your point!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Spoken like a brat spoiled by an embarrassment of riches. Even if one grants that not much innovative has happened since the iphone was released in 2007, and other comments have already falsified this claim, 2007 really isn't _that_ long ago. We're talking about an event that completely changed the way people interact with mobile devices and consume content. A seismic shift that resulted in the rise (Apple) and fall (Nokia/RIM/Sony) of empires. How often do we expect that to happen? When did it last happen before 2007?

As anyone here can attest, innovation is hard -- _really_ hard. I'm a nobody and I see this firsthand in my daily life. I've been working on a side-project for years that I hope will change the world and planned on building a proof of concept prototype last weekend. I expected to be done with the prototype in 2 days. It took over a week. A quarter of the way through construction, the code for the prototype just kept getting more and more complicated and kludegy, even though I thought I had designed it well enough to be straightforward. Although, I eventually had to redesign the whole thing, the final design ended up being much better and more reusable than the original POC I had planned. I was fortunate enough to be in a position where I could spend time to rethink the design. There were plenty of stories in 2012 to blog about where products were released half-baked because they were released too early.

I suspect we will see many interesting things in 2013, much of which has been incubated and polished during the time that Michael thought nothing was happening.

<comment><USER30> > _A seismic shift that resulted in the rise (Apple) and fall (Nokia/RIM/Sony) > of empires. How often do we expect that to happen? When did it last happen > before 2007?_

Looking back, I was more surprised by the rise of Google (and Android/Linux) in a world dominated by Microsoft. But at 28, I'm probably just a little older than you.

I'd also argue that the reason the last milestone was in 2007 isn't because of the iPhone, but because that's just before the global financial superbubble popped (foreshadowed by the bursting of the Nasdaq bubble in 02). IMO, that was the earthquake which stymied true attempts innovation. Many people stopped trying to innovate and starting worrying about finding a safe place for their retirement fund (still are), or worse, finding a job.

Shoot me an email u feel like sharing your POC project with a fellow dreamer.

<comment><USER18> > I was more surprised by the rise of Google (and Android/Linux) in a world > dominated by Microsoft.

Microsoft dominated the mobile phone space? Ubuntu is doing ok, but I don't think it is taking the productivity market by storm. I am more impressed Apple kept their propaganda campaign for OSX going so strong that it became its own self perpetuating must-have device trend for no other reason than shiny and street cred for 99% of buyers. I'm 21. When I was still in middle school RIM was in its prime.

> IMO, that was the earthquake which stymied true attempts innovation.

Tech investment has barely slowed down since then. A lot of us are still out of work because society hasn't adapted to the still continuing trend of "productivity is high enough not everyone needs to work 40 hours a week to prosper" but the tech sector is still there. The _real_ reason for the innovation slowdown is extreme patent trolling and abuse in the US. The IP laws here, especially software patents, are ruining potentially revolutionary tech with this systemic abuse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Peter Thiel actually talked about this in one of his CS 183 lectures at Stanford. He categorized progress as vertical vs. horizontal. Vertical progress can be defined as a problem of going from 0 to 1: you manage to do something totally new. Whereas horizontal progress is a problem of going from 1 to n, as in replicating an idea that has already been proven to be successful.

Thiel said that most of our vertical progress comes from Silicon Valley, which I agree with. But I think SV also has a lot of horizontal progress, which is what Arrington is complaining about. Everyone and their mother is working on a social app, and every software company is going apeshit about mobile. Granted, tech news coverage is probably skewed in favor of horizontal progress, since vertical ideas by definition are so brand new and "out there" that most people would dismiss them as crazy. Still though, it would be great if someone came up with the next technology as innovative and groundbreaking as the iPhone or, to a slightly lesser extent, the iPad.

</comment><comment><USER31> Find some customers whose hair is on fire.

You'll never be bored again.

</comment><comment><USER32> There is so much amazing creation happening right now. Unfortunately for TechCrunch, it doesn't have, nor aspire to, $5 million seed funding, so TC won't hear about it.

</comment><comment><USER33> Oh, tech bloggers. Never happy. I think we should all try spending more time away from our devices. There is so much more to life than those glowing rectangles.

</comment><comment> miami-dade As a founder, it's often better to start where your own pain points are, because sometimes you'll stumble upon an incredibly massive pain felt by the entire world. Now you're ready to do business.

Be advised, however, because even if you manage to identify one such sharp pain point, and even if you have a solution, only rarely will you successfully be able to repackage it and market it to the masses. But to put in perspective, if you're working towards an affordable solution 99% of the world is _compelled_ by extreme pain to use, you might very well be working on a billion dollar business.

The question is, when are more startups going to realize that the biggest pain in the room is as clear as day? It's right in front of every single one of us. It's only a matter of time before people in massive numbers realize that 24/7 surveillance of all telecommuncations isn't fucking cool. People are already flocking to VPNs to get around downloading restrictions, so what happens when people realize they need a VPN to send a private email? Here the truth is contagious, and government elements can only repeat lies successfully for so long. The problem of the surveillance state is the very definition of sharp pain:

Compared to the markets for cosmetic surgery, real estate, knee pain, back pain, ANY market you can think of - the prospect of having all of your telecommunications stored indefinitely if not monitored in real time by regimes teetering on the edge is an order of magnitude more concerning. When you consider that a 24/7 surveillance state by definition constitutes neverending pain, it's really no contest.

Unwanted, unconstitutional surveillance measures are creating a seering hot, absolutely intolerable pain for the entire human population. This is a pain that demands a solution, ASAP.

As a startup and as a developer, there are very few pursuits more worthy of your time than furthering human rights and averting absolute tyranny.

Curiously, thanks in large part to Bitcoin, the startup community now has the power to fund itself anonymously and innovate solutions that actually matter, without outside interference.

The clock is ticking.

<comment><USER34> What are these pain points related to the rise in surveillance you mention. This seems to be an article of faith on HN: that lack of privacy protections, increasing amounts of personal data being aggregated, and intensifying surveillance is creating a perfect storm of bad consequence for civilians at large.

But I never hear about what the harm is except for the exceptional cases. Anecdotally, none of my aquaintances has had a single adverse life event that can be attributed to these trends.

On the other hand, adverse events related to money/jobs, health issues, issues with intimacy and social isolation, being too busy: these are daily occurrences.

I'm bringing this up here just because your post reminded me I wanted to run this question by the HN community.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> > _I don't want to read any more stories about how Facebook cloned something > they couldn't buy. Or that Twitter banned something that they tried to buy > but Facebook got there first. Or the press regurgitating how Google+ is > somehow not flailing. Or about the number of Android v. iPhone devices. Or > Samsung's patent mishaps. Or how Yahoo is winding down things in Asia._

The funny thing is that techcrunch is one of the most guilty sites when it comes to writing about these things.

</comment><comment><USER36> What gets made is what people want.

We didn't get flying cars at $250,000/car. We got 140 characters for free because that's what people wanted. We didn't get hoverboards, not for lack of technology, but it just turned out that we wanted to search the world's knowledge with Google.

We're frogs in boiling water, not knowing just how innovative we're becoming as a people. And sci-fi writers are just bad (or as bad as typical entrepreneurs) at guessing what people want.

<comment><USER14> Well, good sci-fi writers don't try. As Ursula Le Guin puts it,

      Predictions are uttered by prophets (free of charge), by clairvoyants (who usually
      charge a fee, and are therefore more honored in their day than prophets), and by
      futurologists (salaried). Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and
      futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying.

<https://raw.github.com/gist/4424894>

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Overlooks tablets, siri, google now, google glass ...

Seems like a case of self-imposed blindness. Narrow down your field of vision until you don't see anything exception startups oriented around mobile, iOS, social media and then complain that you're not seeing anything revolutionary. Tablets are arguably the biggest change in personal computing since the internet reached consumers. To complain things are boring is bizarre.

</comment><comment><USER38> I don't think most people realize how big Google Glass is going to be, but that's in 2014. I predict it will be a bigger leap than the iPhone in 2007.

</comment><comment><USER39> The bursting of a bubble is the BEST time for a blogger and entrepreneur. The red ocean calms, old truisms die, resources reform and a new paradigm is born. We've all perfected execution, optimized our UX, achieved our viral coefficient, developed on every platform, increased DAU and sold to Facebook. 100 Million users is the new 10 Million but in the next shift does that even matter? To be on this cusp is to define it as much as Microsoft/Netscape did in the 90s, Google/Apple did in the early 00s, Facebook/Twitter now.

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." - Mark Twain

So what's next? Disregard the mean and look for the outliers on both sides. Those are the true survivors, the extremophiles. When the mean shifts, they will have already adapted to the new environment, have succeeded, failed, persevered and flourished. So go there, fight and thrive because the future favors its creators, the extremophiles.

</comment><comment><USER40> You aren't _bored_ , you're _boring_.

</comment><comment><USER41> This article is 100% trolling. Don't feed.

</comment><comment><USER42> How about the author be grateful for advances and if still bored, be proactive and join the rest of us, staying up late nights trying to add to the knowledge base of our species.

Easy to point the finger outside, hard to point it inside.

</comment><comment><USER43> Why do people undervalue the value brought by by these big companies, it would nice to have flying cars that most of the population would not be able to afford, or more trips to space that the wealthy can enjoy habitually, but the reality is these tech companies have reach their audience globally, call me crazy but I think that itself is amazing, we can always do better though

</comment><comment><USER44> 3D Printing, which I'm guessing will lead to printing up your own clothes.

Overall sounds amazing, yet for me the thought of no longer needing to buy objects or clothes is a bit disconcerting. Our economies are struggling already. As tech continues to evolve alongside population increases, I have a minor worry about how the majority will sustain themselves?

<comment><USER45> > Overall sounds amazing, yet for me the thought of no longer needing to buy > objects or clothes is a bit disconcerting.

Some observations:

1\. You would start buying designs instead of products. You can go shopping for them, just on a meta-level kind of way.

2\. You are able to change designs, get designs changed by others (you can get at a shop, maybe), you can share designs with others (social network of things?), you can communicate about these designs, and so on. Stuff can be personalized on a micro and macro scale, whereas now it can only be personalized on a macro scale through combining existing items. With 3D-printing you can personalize the items, too.

3\. There will be a growing market for hand made stuff, albeit more exclusive. I think the first couple of decades the distinction between printed clothing and clothing made from fabrics will be clear. That means that traditional clothing will keep its value while printed clothing will be valued less.

If anything, shopping will become a more immersive activity, I think. It'll change from a materialistic activity to a more service-oriented activity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Just a year ago, TechCrunch was also being short-sightedly wrong about established major companies being "boring": [http://www.peopleprocesstech.com/why-techcrunch-is-boring- sa...](http://www.peopleprocesstech.com/why-techcrunch-is-boring-sap-is-not- and-the-world-has-gone-mad/)

</comment><comment><USER47> It seems he is about to realize that things move in waves. Currently people are learning how to take advantage of all this new mobile technology and once they have done that we will get our new wave of awesome shit.

</comment><comment><USER48> Look around you

</comment><comment><USER49> Ok i smell spam upvoting. There is no way 50 people thought this navel gazing article deserved an upvote. He does not even say anything.

Pg, time to tweak the algorithms again.

</comment><comment><USER50> Of course you'll get bored if your primary source of tech news delivers you only pinterests and instagrams.

</comment><comment><USER51> Actually, the last great human invention will probably be self-reflective Artificial Intelligence.

</comment><comment><USER52> Ctrl+F Tesla, SpaceX, zero results. Really? I'm excited about these companies.

</comment><comment><USER53> Ha! Easier said than done! Of course, everybody wants something new.

</comment><comment><USER54> Mike,

Build something yourself.

Sincerely,

The people who are not bored.

</comment><comment><USER55> TC;DR.

</comment><comment><USER56> The people in charge have no vision. Everyone makes this complaint, because it's almost always true. The difference is that it's starting to matter. You can't "do technology" without vision. Not anymore.

If you're running a toothpaste factory, you don't need vision. You just need competent execution. You need people to show up and follow the plan without complaint. This kind of work can actually be managed. If you can cut costs without compromising on quality, you do it. It's not about vision. That's already solved. Vision was relevant long ago when someone figured out how to make toothpaste. Your job is just to keep abreast of competitors and seek rent.

VC-istan is a postmodern startup factory. It's technically not a company, but as a tight social network, it functions as one. VCs, rather than properly competing, talk to each other and agree on who they like and who they don't. VC-istan's "serial entrepreneurs" are just glorified PMs whose egos make them unemployable. The real bosses are the VCs. They want quick exits, as they should, because that's how the incentive systems that govern them are set up. The "tech press" are a sort of HR organization. Entrepreneurs are PMs, often mediocre ones, and engineers are chumps paid in lottery tickets. This is just a big company that has managed to dress itself up as a thousand small ones that happen to be all controlled by the same people.

Now you have an ecosystem of commodity entrepreneurs hiring commodity engineers to implement commodity ideas. Ok, nothing to see here. Mobiles skwrking, mobiles chirping, take the money and run, take the money and run, take the money...

Is it any wonder that this isn't producing innovation? It shouldn't be. Yet VC-istan is doing a lot better than most large companies do. It seems inevitable in large organizations (including economies) that the resources gravitate toward players who don't have much in the way of vision. Innovation is the _exception_. It adds variance. Given that we're social animals who judge one another based on reliability (low variance/minimal performance) rather than capability (expected return) it is socially _dangerous_.

How many people have the talent and the resources? I'm sitting on +4 sigma talent but have no money. The people with boatloads of money seem (with a few exceptions) to be lacking in vision (which means I can't tell if they have talent, but I have doubts). I can't say that I blame them. Why take risks if you have no need to do so?

What we have now is a generation that's used to technical progress and wants to take part. We have people who have been working their asses off since age 4, are now in their 20s and 30s, and want to take part in technical innovation. Most of them can't, because there's so little of it actually going on, and because most work activity is bullshit oriented toward keeping one warlord boss's status high at the expense of another's, rather than being invested in true progress. That's depressing. It creates a malaise. A deep sense of ennui. Yawn, another fart app. We now have an unprecedented number of ridiculously talented, over-educated people saying, "Dude, where's my machine learning job?"

I think that 2013 will see the beginning of a Flight to Substance, and if I'm right, that will put that talent to better use than fart apps and toilet check-in services. I don't know how it will play out. I have no clue who will fund it. One sign of this is the increasing clamor for Valve-style open allocation. By the mid-2010s, you won't be considered a real tech company if you're running closed allocation (take heed, Google). If I'm right, that will help. That will help our generation work its way toward excellence. At least, some of us will go in that direction. Others will go off into the weeds of fart apps. May the market reward both crowds justly.

Here's how we fix tech.

* Open allocation. As long as the work is relevant to the company's needs, let people work on whatever they want. This enables _native_ growth of technical talent. You don't have to poach qualified people with ridiculous signing bonuses. They quickly find a project that fits their skills and interests, and they actually improve while they work for you. Imagine that.

* Stop fetishizing either extreme of company size. Not all large companies are bad, not all startups are good. Nor vice versa. If your 50-person startup is running closed allocation with typical HR policies, then it's just a big company that failed to get big and it should be considered a massive joke. I've heard of people getting turned down for transfers in 20-person companies because of "headcount" limitations. If you want to work at a startup, then drop that shit and work for a real fucking startup.

* Demand work on hard problems. Don't build someone's fart app for 5% equity. If you're in the press, don't reward stupidity either. Instead of cheering on idiots who get acquired for outrageous sums, ridicule them.

<comment><USER57> How we judge talent is actually one of the biggest problems, and a bias that I've been trying very hard to solve.

Intellectually, I know there's a huge difference between a programmer who has 99th percentile programming skills and one who has 90th percentile programming skills. Being a non-programmer, I don't have the tools to easily tell the difference.

This means my base instincts will tell me to work with the person who is a good programmer and speaks confidently and clearly, vs. the exceptional programmer who's shy and mumbles. That's because as far as my brain can tell, they both have the same degree of programming ability.

I work very hard to solve this bias. I make sure to focus on people's strengths and ignore weaknesses that aren't obvious dealbreakers. I try to maintain wide social circles and ask my most successful friends what standards I can use to judge skill in different areas. I pay a lot of attention to how other people in their industry judge them, vs. people in general.

What I've found is that there are two kinds of people who are really diamonds in the rough. One is people who are generally smart and have shown the ability to excel in a lot of fields, but haven't had a lot of experience in the field you're talking about. Think about a recent graduate who has an exceptional understanding of History and Psychology and is an excellent tennis player. This kind of person will usually learn very quickly and excel at jobs that demand a high ratio of problem-solving ability to knowledge.

Another kind of diamond-in-the-rough is someone who is admired by people in their field but somewhat disparaged by others. A good example would be a Salesman who always exceeds his quota but struggles with basic math. People who find math easy will typically think of this fellow as stupid, even if he's a genius at what he does.

Pay attention to people like these. It's all too easy to make a mistake like "If someone can't do math/can't speak coherently/failed high school/doesn't understand technology/uses Internet Explorer, then they must be stupid." In my experience this is almost _never_ true-having a weakness doesn't mean that someone doesn't have a certain strength. Focus on the strengths and you'll end up working with (and hanging around) much more interesting, much more diversified people.

<comment><USER5> > How we judge talent is actually one of the biggest problems, and a bias that > I've been trying very hard to solve.

Is this a major business problem for you? Are you trying to solve it using actual money and process or just winging it really hard every time? There are known programmers who are _really_ good (USA Computing Olympiad) and some of them will be articulate and you could find someone who's a good fit and hire them as a consultant to help tell the difference... though that's only off the top of my head.

Every time I hear somebody describe a "big problem" they've been "trying very hard to solve" I wonder whether they've focused on it enough to (a) step back and think about possible tools to make the job easier (b) resort to professional specialization (c) make it the job responsibility of a particular person or (d) spend actual money.

<comment><USER58> _"There are known programmers who are really good (USA Computing Olympiad)"_

So, maybe this will come as a shock, but "computing olympiad" success doesn't correlate with success as a professional programmer. There's _so much more_ than raw intellectual horsepower to being a good team engineer that it can't be captured with any one test.

Which is to say, the parent is right. Identifying good programmers is a hard problem. Harder than identifying people who do well at coding contests.

<comment><USER5> Yes, but I'd expect them to at least be able to tell _good programmers from bad programmers_ better than someone who couldn't code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> This guy is only making noise asking us to let go anything cool we've been working for years to improve his 2013's headlines. Don't fall for it.

One thing hthe OP surely got is the title of the worst article of 2012. The year is almost over, and he aside the bar so high that now is almost impossible to take this for him.

Now back to the point. Innovation is not some new shiny thing that no one has seen before. Instead, real innovation is something you work on until itself is the definition of perfection according to someone's vision. Thus iteration is the mother of innovation.

</comment><comment><USER60> Lots of people are bored. This is the kind of garbage that should stay off HN. A contentless POST. I believe that's a HEAD.</comment>


How does a Software Engineer want to spend their time? - <AUTHOR> https://www.workshape.io/how-they-want-to-spend-their-time/software-engineer

<comment><USER2> Nice!</comment>


Google: Microsoft uses patents when products "stop succeeding" - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/google-microsoft-uses-patents-when-products-stop-succeeding.ars <comment><USER2> Some of their links are broken. The original memo by Bill Gates is a more interesting read than the article: [http://web.archive.org/web/20070105162133/http://www.bralyn....](http://web.archive.org/web/20070105162133/http://www.bralyn.net/etext/literature/bill.gates/challenges- strategy.txt)

</comment><comment><USER3> There is no doubt the landscape has changed, sure when Microsoft was in it's infancy software patents weren't an issue. However the market at the time was also incredibly small, and it didn't stop Apple from suing Microsoft in the ill-fated look and feel lawsuits.

While the system definitely requires reform, it is the one in place and ignoring software patents is not a worthwhile strategy. Google have been on the sour end of numerous patent lawsuits from companies that seemingly have no other agenda than software patent litigation. Meanwhile Google may be critical of microsoft/apple/oracle, but their own intellectual property is also protected from these companies. Which is probably why google has always presented an ambiguous viewpoint towards software patents, and is indeed stock piling them as well.

Google are guilty of much lip-service against software patents, seemingly using the issue to dissent against their competitors and to feign an underdog status.

<http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Google> provides further details on Google's ambiguity towards software patents.

</comment><comment><USER4> How is Ms attacking Linux evidence that they stopped succeeding? I'd say they succeeded quite well in the desktop OS world.

<comment><USER5> How about the server arena?

<comment><USER6> I wouldn't say they're not succeeding there. They're not #1, but servers have never been one of their main focuses. I'm sure they would love to be #1, but Windows on the desktop and Microsoft Office makes them oodles of money already.

<comment><USER7> Really? Have you ever looked at their quarterly earnings reports? They have a itty-bitty segment called "Server and Tools" that posted $4.25 billion in first quarter revenue.

<comment><USER8> Microsoft's total revenue in the quarter that just ended was $17.4B.

I don't have the server and tools breakout, but $4.5B is less than 26%.

$4.5B is a large number, it's even large enough to be significant to microsoft (however, it wouldn't be significant for walmart), but it's not essential.

<comment><USER9> 4.5B out of 17.4B is 25.8% of total revenue. What business are you in that 25% of revenue is not essential?

For others who haven't seen the numbers, here is their latest 8K [http://idc.api.edgar- online.com/efx_dll/edgarpro.dll?FetchFi...](http://idc.api.edgar- online.com/efx_dll/edgarpro.dll?FetchFilingConvPDF1?SessionID=-uT_FEpR9TUXKfS&ID=8197031)

      Three Months Ended September 30, Revenue

      Windows & Windows Live Division             $  4,868
      Server and Tools                               4,250
      Online Services Division                         625
      Microsoft Business Division                    5,622
      Entertainment and Devices Division             1,963
      Unallocated and other                             44

      Consolidated                               $  17,372

<comment><USER8> > 4.5B out of 17.4B is 25.8% of total revenue

And 25.8% is "less than 26%", as I said.

> What business are you in that 25% of revenue is not essential?

Lots of biz have 30% variations in revenue. In fact, it wasn't so long ago that MS' revenue was 30% less that it is today. It was even less long ago that Google's revenue was 50% less than it is today.

If that revenue was essential, neither company would be alive today.

Yes, both are happier with that revenue, but it wouldn't kill them to lose it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Indeed, the idea of patents on software alarmed Bill Gates, who wrote in 1991 (when Microsoft was already older than Google is now) that "the industry would be at a complete standstill" if software had been eligible for patent protection in the early days of the industry."

So now we have software patents. Is the industry now at a complete standstill? Or from the other direction, what would the industry look like now, if there software patents hadn't been allowed.

Or to ask in yet another slightly different way: what are we missing now, what's been taken away from us, because of software patents?

<comment><USER11> _Is the industry now at a complete standstill?_

No, but only because software patents have largely been unenforced. That's changing.

 _Or to ask in yet another slightly different way: what are we missing now, what's been taken away from us, because of software patents?_

If Apple has their way, the only significant mobile OS that doesn't mandate a walled garden. (Microsoft is actually better off keeping Android alive; parasites don't benefit by killing their host).

<comment><USER12> _"software patents have largely been unenforced."_

I don't think that's the case. However, it doesn't often come to ugly lawsuits because most of those software patents can be licensed. For instance, Apple licensed Amazon's 1-Click Purchasing patent. If it hadn't, Amazon would've likely sued over it. [1]

This method is working out great for Microsoft, which makes more money off Android than on its own mobile endeavors.

The big problem Android makers encounter with Apple is that it has no interest in licensing its software patents to them. Apple simply does not want them using any of its ideas.

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

<comment><USER13> "This method is working out great for Microsoft, which makes more money off Android than on its own mobile endeavors."

You're making it sound as if it's a _good_ thing Microsoft makes money on stop they didn't actually build themselves.

<comment><USER14> A quote I've heard a few times, but which I can't seem to find the origin of: "Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. Patents are a tool for doing the 1 percent, waiting for someone else to do the 99 percent, and then suing them."</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Weapons 8% of US exports of durable goods, up from 3% in 2000 - <AUTHOR> http://www.boingboing.net/2009/08/01/america-makes-nothin.html

<comment><USER2> I don't know that the chart is misleading, as it states that the graph is indicating percent growth. It could probably be made clearer though.

I think it's the article that's misleading, especially with a title that declares something like that. Also, it's a durable goods chart. It says nothing about the non-durable exports, such as foodstuff. So the article is misleading because the US doesn't only export durable goods.

How come no one is deriding boingboing for their poor journalism, like the techcrunch article about google maps, sweden, and greenhouse gases?

<comment><USER3> Isn't BoingBoing basically an entertainment site? I think the standards are different for a site like TechCrunch that represents itself as a legitimate competitor to mainstream journalism. Isn't BoingBoing more of an entertainment site? As soon as I see stories about Spiderman, World of Warcraft, jetpacks, and Cheezy Poofs mixed in with something that kind of looks like journalism I immediately know how to judge it.

<comment><USER2> yes, but I still expect my entertainment site to be able to read charts and graphs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> That graph shows a %age change, not absolute numbers. Linkbait...

<comment><USER5> Indeed. The antiderivative, the actual production, has that pesky "+ c" term, which is different for the "military" and "non-military" graphs.

So this article is basically meaningless, and I've flagged it.

<comment><USER6> You mean a "x c" term (the graph is of a percentage rate).

<comment><USER5> Ah, I didn't catch that. That makes the graphs even less informative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not American, but I don't see the problem here. Why would you want to be producing polluting hunks of metal if you can avoid it?

As far as the Toynbee "plunder economy" quote goes, I don't find it applicable simply because the American Empire doesn't seem to be very good at extracting tribute from conquered territories. The success of the United States is built on something completely else. For recent examples, compare the economic benefits of the Iraq conquest to those of having Google in your country -- private innovation triumphs over imperialism as an economic engine.

</comment><comment><USER8> _He goes on to quote Toynbee on Rome: "The economy of the Empire was basically a Raubwirtschaft or plunder economy based on looting existing resources rather than producing anything new. The Empire relied on booty from conquered territories... With the cessation of tribute from conquered territories, the full cost of their military machine had to be borne by the citizenry._

<comment><USER9> Comparisons to the modern US aside, that's a pretty misguided analysis of Rome. The territories whose loss cost Rome the most economically were Africa and Gaul, and calling them 'conquered territories' is like calling Texas and California the US's 'conquered territories.' At some point in the distant past they were conquered, but their inhabitants considered themselves Romans, and the Roman government reciprocated. Rome didn't 'plunder' 'booty' from Africa any more than we 'plunder' produce from California.

<comment><USER10> You have to remember this is BoingBoing. They were never ones to let facts and logic get in the way of a good rant or questionable puff piece. They are basically the Fox news of the digerati...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "The United States remains primarily a civilian economy. The military now takes about 8 percent of all durable goods, up from 3 percent in 2000."

[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/01/business/economy/01charts....](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/01/business/economy/01charts.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> Weapons are classified as "durable goods"? :-)

<comment><USER13> Until you use them.</comment></comment>


Surviving Your First Year - <AUTHOR> https://www.backblaze.com/blog/startup-stages-surviving-your-first-year/ <comment><USER2> The relationship between a company, its early adopters and its wider customer base reminds me of Geeks, Mops and Sociopaths [1]

[1] [https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops- sociopaths](https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths)

</comment><comment><USER3> Their suggestion about assigning IP to the company seems fairly standard (and employee-hostile), but their anecdotal story doesn't really justify it in my mind:

> Assign Intellectual Property. Ask everyone to sign a Proprietary Information > and Inventions Assignment ("PIIA"). This document says that what they do at > the company is owned by the company. Early on we had a friend who came by > and brainstormed ideas. We thought of it as interesting banter. He later > said he owned part of our storage design. While we worked it out together, a > PIIA makes ownership clear.

If a friend came by to brainstorm ideas, it does't seem likely that someone would have the nerve to open with "Ok but first we need you to sign this PIAA agreement."

<comment><USER4> > If a friend came by to brainstorm ideas, it does't seem likely that someone > would have the nerve to open with "Ok but first we need you to sign this > PIAA agreement."

Better the awkwardness of that discussion than the situation they almost had of someone suing for a payoff after they had success because of (uncompensated?) discussions with friends. If any party is under the impression that what they're doing requires compensation or ownership that NEEDS to be known up front by everyone.

<comment><USER5> If someone informally visits a company and brainstorms business ideas, it is THEIR responsiblity to ascertain whether they will be compensated somehow. I doubt at any point that someone led him to believe he would be, and it's his own damn fault for not voicing his thoughts and concerns before offering his expertise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can't read on iPhone SE without subscribing to email list :(

<comment><USER7> Try Reader mode. I didn't get a signup modal on a 6S though.</comment></comment>


Vintage Iran - <AUTHOR> http://iranvintage.tumblr.com <comment><USER2> Those are images of people living a western style of life in a secular country. It's not a free country though. The Iran of 1978 was a fascist police state that aribitrarily arrested and tortured people (like Assads Syria) [1]. It's convenient and has become somehow a tumblr fashion to do this simplistic comparison ("proof by gif"), but the reality was much different and the revolution against it, although it brought another form of oppression and religious dictatorship, was supported by many Iranians.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran#Late_modern_period](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran#Late_modern_period)

<comment><USER3> However, comparing pre-revolution oppression with post-revolution oppression is like comparing an empty soda can with a metal baseball bat.

There were months post-revolution in which more people were executed than the total killed for political reasons during shah's entire reign.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's sad what religious zealotry can do to an entire country when people don't stand up for themselves.

Being religious/anti/non-religious is fine - just stop pushing it on other people.

<comment><USER5> The state when you are not forced to follow other people's agenda is usually called "freedom".

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Please don't add editorial flourishes to titles. The HN guidelines ask you to "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait".

(Submitted title was "How freedom can change, Iran before 1978".)

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


Twilio Super SIM - <AUTHOR> https://www.twilio.com/wireless/super-sim <comment><USER2> I've been wondering for a while what the purpose of all the NB band LTE stuff is even for. The going rate is often around 40c/MB in most countries (lower on Twilio by the looks of it, but the same order of magnitude), which seems like there's some very specific high value-per-byte application intended. Some of the technologies people are touting for very long battery life have transmission latencies of 10+ seconds as a trade off, which makes the applications for it even more restricted.

It feels like the result is going to be that literally every device you can purchase will have a always connected LTE lojack attached. Imagine trying to firewall or restrict the network in your business when literally everything has its own backbone, it'll be a complete nightmare.

<comment><USER3> There are also LEO satellite networks on the way.

Is it feasible to use physical RF shielding for devices?

<comment><USER4> Shielding by enough to throw any common network off is certainly feasible. Metallized non-opening windows (reflect IR from the sun to save on HVAC), metal plates or thin meshes on the outer walls and either rotating doors or a combination of rf-absorbing walls and a convoluted path to the inside that prevent radio waves from getting in through the door. I'd assume you can feasibly add 60 dB shielding to a building with that. More is obviously possible, there are conference rooms with advanced shielding of >100dB against industrial espionage. They use fiber optic communication lines to the outside because you want all electrical connections to be very heavily filtered to prevent conducting radio waves through them.

<comment><USER3> Thank you! Are materials like these suitable: [http://lessemf.com/fabric.html](http://lessemf.com/fabric.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Twilit has been on an absolute tear over the last 2 years. I wasn't sure what they would do next to innovate, but their evolution to customer support products, authentication solutions and now this are inspired.

What sets them apart is that, although they are a US company, they think globally. This product is for a global market, just like their app-based push authentication is (the huge market being Europe which has mandated 2FA requirements for finance companies coming into effect). Too many companies build and think about the US as the only market, then try to bring it to other markets which doesn't always work well.

<comment><USER6> Counterpoint. While Twilio is interesting, I wonder what percentage of their business is simply multifactor authentication. Having previously used a wide range of companies for SMS connectivity (including multilingual, flash SMS, contact forwarding, and raw PDU features), and implemented VOIP systems with privately owned physical PSTN interface infrastructure, recently I looked at Twilio for inbound VOIP and SMS services across three Asian jurisdictions. It fell far short of our requirements, which were basic (phone and SMS on the same number, one number per country).

<comment><USER7> >phone and SMS on the same number, one number per country

Was this actually possible if you'd used the local carriers directly? There could be some regulatory reason, like differences between cell and landline numbering plans for billing.

<comment><USER8> mobile phone numbers can receive both sms and calls, so a mobile number would work, but you are right. it seems (in Ireland anyway) that getting a mobile number for VoIP stuff is fairly hard... you would need physical SIM cards and hardware...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is very cool tech, but it seems like a niche use-case. It's not made for consumers, and the vast majority of IoT devices barely move, let alone between countries.

 _But_ , if I were working for a haulage company and was interested in tracking, say, truck location, speed etc across the whole of Europe I could see this being a great way to do it.

<comment><USER10> > But, if I were working for a haulage company and was interested in tracking, > say, truck location, speed etc across the whole of Europe I could see this > being a great way to do it.

If you wanted to do that in the EU you just need a sim card with data from any EU country. EU rules on roaming mean that your sim will work across the EU just as it does from its home country. I agree this would be a great use case if you're not only tracking in the EU though.

<comment><USER11> The EU roaming rules are only valid for a certain time period.

I can't get a polish SIM card and use it for an entire year in Germany, for example.

<comment><USER12> ? Yes you can. I use a Polish SIM card(with Play) and use it all year round in UK, except for the 2-3 weeks or so when I'm back in Poland for holidays.

<comment><USER13> While you probably can. The law is written to prevent use cases like this, to avoid a race to the bottom between operators in different countries. Which makes sense since infrastructure costs can vary largely between countries, so it'd be unfair competition.

<comment><USER14> Interesting that they do this because they know infrastructure costs vary between countries but they don't give a shit about the price of electronic goods, services, etc in the single market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This product is intended for use in IoT devices and not really for 'iPhone use'. A few things to consider:

First of, in the telecom market, there are two ways to get a discount: Buy more SIM cards, or buy more data. Let's say you offer a track-and-trace product, have deployed 1000 GPS trackers, you can easily get the monthly fees and the usage fees down to cents. Same goes for your 'GB-per-month' personal phone subscription, you buy more data, you get it cheaper.

But since roaming will always be costly, even for wholesale carries, SIM card subscriptions that can be used globally are almost always A. expensive, or B intended for IoT (low usage). (GPS, trackers, sensors, feedback buttons, etc). Twilio is focussing on the latter with this SIM.

That brings us to NB-IoT and LTE cat M.

LTE cat M(machine) is basically a stripped down LTE modem, while an NB-IoT modem (or LTE cat Narrowband) is a stripped down LTE cat M modem. Network parameters for these types of connectivity have been tweaked in favour of power consumption at the costs of low bandwidth and high latency. You could say that LTE-M is used for 'MB's per month'-devices (smartwatch for example) and NB-IoT is used for 'bytes per month' devices (is my container full already).

NB-IoT is cheap, extremely power efficient, but is not intended for moving devices.

LTE-M can be used for more demanding applications, like smartwatches, panic buttons (including voice) etc. It can also be used in roaming applications, but that's it. No streaming video etc.

So if you are looking to deploy a large scale IoT application, you want cheap, simple and energy-efficient hardware, which is why you need NB-IoT or LTE-M.

You could go for other technologies like Sigfox or LoRaWan, but they are inferior to NB and LTE-M if you ask me (roaming, availability of network/hardware).

In my view, Twilio does a great job of offering all kinds of telecom services (one stop shop), a common strategy in telecom called 'bundling'. But if you know what you want and where to look, you can get much better rates... Margins are great on this, I can assure you that :)

</comment><comment><USER16> How is this different to Hologram[1] or EsEye[2]?

Hologram seems to offer an api with as much access as twilio's (data usage report, switching between "networks" (what package you buy, which includes certain countries and pricing...) and monthly payment of a fleet of chips. I'm failing to see the added value of twilio, but the more competency the better!

[1]: [https://hologram.io/](https://hologram.io/) [2]: [https://www.eseye.com/](https://www.eseye.com/)

<comment><USER17> I wish folks would abstain from making "how is this different to X?" comments. They add very little to the conversation.

<comment><USER18> I actually like alternative solutions listed when something is posted on HN that I know nothing about. It's obviously best when the poster does some homework and lists the largest differentiators. I've seen the question "how is this different to X?" used, more often than not, in more of a combative context however where the user defends an alternative and then points negatively at the original.

Just my $0.02 and I"m sure there's a better format that could be used, just not sure what that is exactly :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> At a first glance the pricing of $0.10 - $0.025 per megabyte in Europe seems somewhat expensive. The wholesale rate is €4.50 per gigabyte or $0.005c per megabyte. I assume the markup covers the cost of maintaining the account and the access to many networks worldwide. Can anyone who is already using GSM data in "IoT" devices comment on how much this compares to what you pay now?

<comment><USER20> €4.50/GB is absolutely insane for Europe. In Italy you can get 50GB for €7 From Kena or ho.mobile (€0.14/GB) or 50GB for €8 from Illiad (€0.16/GB). All at 4G speeds.

[https://www.kenamobile.it/prodotto/kena-6-99-limited- edition...](https://www.kenamobile.it/prodotto/kena-6-99-limited-edition/)

[https://www.ho-mobile.it/](https://www.ho-mobile.it/)

[https://www.iliad.it/offerta-iliad.html](https://www.iliad.it/offerta- iliad.html)

<comment><USER21> Wholesale rate is for businesses where they pay for the actual usage, and consumer-oriented providers, which you mentioned, oversell network capacity.

<comment><USER22> There's overselling and then there's assuming that the average user is only going to use 3% of their allowance! That seems pretty optimistic. Having said that presumably the wholesale rate varies quite a bit between countries, and I assume some contracts are offered as loss leaders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Twilio: If anyone there is listening, please, _please_ give us an <email> verb in twiml ... it's the simplest thing and would be tremendously useful.

I don't want to host offsite code or write complicated functions just to CC: an SMS to my email inbox ...

A <email> twiml verb would be simple and useful.

<comment><USER24> Didn't Twilio buy an email provider that would make this straightforward to implement?

Edit: SendGrid!

<comment><USER23> As of the completion of the sendgrid acquisition, there is no email verb for twiml. Your only options are to host code on a third-party and call it from Twilio (sendgrid could be that Third party) or write a Twilio function.

But the easiest way to do this, by far, would be a simple email verb in Twiml. No dice so far…

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Until they actually ship and make it GA, I reserve the right to call this vapor ware like the rest of the Twilio announcements in the past year. When is VPN for programmable wireless going to ship? Never?

<comment><USER26> PM for Super SIM here. We're running this as a closed beta now, hard at work getting it to GA.

<comment><USER25> Don't announce a beta unless it's available for public sign up. Or just wait until the product is GA...like a regular company. Otherwise it leads to customer disappointment and disillusionment.

Just pull VPN for programmable wireless from your site. It's clear that it won't launch within a year or two from being "announced".

<comment><USER27> > Don't announce a beta unless it's available for public sign up.

Many betas are closed. That's not unusual.

<comment><USER25> It's not unusual but it's not a good idea. Just keep it confidential until ready, or ship a MVP and launch it as a real thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Can this do voice calls? I'm in Canada where every cell plan is more expensive than any other in the world. I have friends who purchase plans from Europe and then use the SIM locally with roaming - turns out it be 10x cheaper, the only drawback being that they have a foreign number

<comment><USER2> This isn't for personal use, so no calls. The data rate is probably around 2-5c/MB for Canada (though its not on the pricing list, that seems to be average), which puts it above even Rogers consumer plans. Google Fi is intended for consumer use and is 1c/MB in Canada (up to a cap, and then unlimited).

<comment><USER23> "This isn't for personal use, so no calls."

Very little of Twilio is for "personal use" but you can still deploy it as such and there is another class of Twilio SIM product (programmable SIM) that you can do anything (voice, sms, etc.) you want with.

I have built my own little personal telco out of twilio and couldn't be happier ...

Well, except for an <email> verb in twiml - _that_ would make me much happier ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I got really confused when I first saw this and though it was something for consumers not IoT devices (Sorry twilio team for the application for access _shrug_ ).

I really wish someone would nail this for consumer phones. I'm coming up on a year away from home in various countries and the constant sim swapping is beginning to get annoying.

I actually bought a dual sim phone so that I can keep my Australian sim card in for 2FA security sms messages (etc).

Before someone suggests it, Google Fi is US only, unless you want to arrange for a reshipper (and even then, I'm not sure if it works).

<comment><USER30> I'm totally with you.

The dream would be to have a single SIM which roams globally and to which you could attach multiple numbers from various countries.

Closest I've found is [https://www.truphone.com/](https://www.truphone.com/) but they seem not to offer individual plans.

<comment><USER31> Why do you want multiple numbers? Doesn't something like Whatsapp or FaceTime help prevent you from needing them?

<comment><USER30> Mostly for business. Maybe some people are comfortable to Whatsapp you, but it's inappropriate for a lot of situations.

Also, in a lot of places you need a local number to get things done. Like when making reservations at restaurants or you leave your number in the POS to have them text when a table is ready, etc.

As it is, I have a dual SIM Android phone as well as an iPhone and have 3 postpaid plans in different places. Massive pain.

<comment><USER31> Got it, so it's the recipient who matters. If whatsapp let you send it out as a plain old SMS from a number you can select, and receive their SMS as a whatsapp message, would it solve your problem?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Slightly off topic. I'm trying to find a SIM for my LTE modem (AT&T/T-mobile bands) that I got as a backup for my Comcast service. I'm looking for pay as you go with no or minimal monthly fees, a reasonable 4g price, and a fallback to unlimited 3g.

Does anyone know of a data plan like that? I tried to use Twilio Wireless but they don't have the fallback option.

<comment><USER33> A Project Fi data only sim is probably your best bet.

<comment><USER34> Unfortunately that also requires a regular Fi account to be active ($20/mo)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Can I use this in my mobile phone?

</comment><comment><USER36> What's with the poor data pricing? These plans seem like a non-starter for _any_ application that's remotely data intensive. At $50 / month you're going to get a total of 4GB in the USA. That's just unworkable for streaming video for e.g. remote CCTV applications.

It seems like if you're doing anything interesting that uses more than insignificant amounts of data (beyond e.g. reporting GPS coordinates) you're better off taking out a business contract with a mobile network and using the roaming allowances built in there. E.g. you can get 3x the 4GB data that was billed at $50 by taking out a £15 business SIM contract from Three which incidentally will give you up to 1TB in the UK.

<comment><USER37> > These plans seem like a non-starter for _any_ application that's remotely > data intensive.

Yes, and this is by design. LTE NB-IoT is very different from the regular broadband LTE people are used to. It's made for devices that send a (short) message once in a while. Really, it's best to think about it as for small message oriented applications --- no data stream.

To be low cost, a NB-IoT has only one receive antenna not two (or more) for regular LTE. Also, to reach into basements and harsh conditions, NB-IoT supports many repetitions. In theory up to x2048 times regular LTE, although most networks won't go that high. This means that the spectral efficiency of NB-IoT is much, much lower than for regular LTE. One byte over the air can cost a lot of resources, but it's ok because it's made for application with very little data to transmit: a meter level, a position... The data plans telcos sell for NB-IoT will forbid using a lot of data, it's just too inefficient. What NB-IoT needs to be is 1) low cost and 2) low power. For a meter sending one report per day, one can target a lifetime of 10+ years for example.

So although NB-IoT can use the regular LTE channels, it really is a completely different kind of animal. LTE-M is similar, but a bit bigger / higher throughput. Still for small IoT applications, but with more data than NB-IoT can accomodate.

If NB-IoT is a scooter, regular LTE is a truck. If you can fill the truck, it's more efficient. If you can't, because all you have to deliver is a pizza, then a scooter is best. Use the right tool for the job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I could be wrong, please correct me if I am, but doesn't hologram offer all these same things?

</comment><comment><USER3> _> Add new IMSIs through over-the-air updates on a platform with global resilience and redundancy._

How big is the IMSI namespace? How quickly will Twilio put IMSIs back into a shared pool? Will they retain logs of IMSI-eSIM mapping?

</comment><comment><USER39> This sounds very similar to the Truphone SIM: [https://www.truphone.com/us/consumer/sim/](https://www.truphone.com/us/consumer/sim/)

<comment><USER40> I wonder how a card-based solution will compete with e-sim. Seems like twilio's advantage will be reduced to demand aggregation once e-sims are popular. Anyone have thoughts on differentiation in this space?

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Yay! We are approaching the SIMless world where you connect to mobile networks without a SIM or a universal SIM.

<comment><USER42> You make it sound like this is a trend, but this article is the first instance I've ever heart of the concept of a universal SIM?

<comment><USER43> The technology has been around for several years now. There was reluctance (naturally) by the telcos in letting this happen, but applications are demanding it now bringing it more into the mainstream from the niche it used to occupy earlier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> At scale, will the price get to a point at which this can be a second interface?

Maybe used as an OOB management plane interface for OTA updates, remote diagnostics etc? Perhaps used for some_other_use_cases in which second global interface would be useful?

Would there be isolation and security benefits to that type of second interface?

</comment><comment><USER45> Their programmable SIM is super cool to me. I have been considering making my own DIY version of a light phone. Super SIM is interesting for IoT applications where you have something that crosses a wide geographic area (like freight). I'm very curious to see where this goes.

</comment><comment><USER46> Don't know if anyone else has, but I've seen so called "global SIM" with multi IMSI type functionality from so called "secure phone" providers in the past.

Interesting

</comment><comment><USER47> So could one use this as an international works anywhere sim?

<comment><USER23> I don't think this class of SIMs that Twilio offers are voice capable ... they _do_ provide tmobile SIMs that _are_ voice capable, but they call them something different ...

<comment><USER14> You can always use OTT voice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> The business use that immediately comes to mind is tracking, such as for vehicles. Often cars are stolen in Europe and moved between countries.

</comment><comment><USER49> Forget IOT, I want this for my phone!

It sounds almost too good to be true.

<comment><USER3> Google Fi has $10/GB global LTE for US residents. Multiple SIM cards sharing the same plan, works on non-Google devices too, including mobile hotspots. In the US, they use T-Mobile.

<comment><USER50> It's amusing that they went through all the pain of making a global SIM to make it available only for the US residents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> This is great (one plan worldwide, but in places with weak currency like India, paying in dollars might turn out to be expensive), but overall isn't the industry moving in the direction of eSIMs (no physical SIM required)?

Moreover, once OneWeb, Starlink and the like launch worldwide internet service, it might pretty much render the telecom industry as it is today irrelevant?

<comment><USER52> I think we can expect Starlink to have similar coverage to GPS: great in the country, useless in my bedroom in a multi-story building. Also the expected receiver size for Starlink is an order of magnitude bigger than the one for a cellular network.

For phones, tracking, etc the cellular network would still be superior. Something like a car might go with both starlink and cellular because anywhere where one is weak the other is likely to be strong.

<comment><USER53> > great in the country, useless in my bedroom in a multi-story building...

I'd think it'd work a bit like cable/DSL often does in an apartment company - one receiver for the building.

<comment><USER52> Or put in on the side of the building like regular satellite dishes. But realistically any apartment building that's not in the middle of nowhere will be better served by fiber anyways. Once you have multiple customers in the same building they will quickly feel the limit of how much bandwidth you can push to a small area throught the air from 500km away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Google Fi should roll out something like this. They already have good global coverage and prices

</comment><comment><USER55> I'd be curious to hear from the folks at Particle.io on the offering/competition.

</comment><comment><USER56> Any idea what the approximate pricing per GB is and how it scales with more devices?

</comment><comment><USER57> I will wait for WiFi via Starlink, connectivity will be everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER58> Isn't that exactly what Hologram does?

</comment><comment><USER59> This can be a game changer.

</comment><comment> I-Iuw From a product perspective, this is really confusing.

Twilio make business-facing APIs, is this supposed to be a consumer product? Why would I want API access to my own usage data? This feels like a far cry from their strategic strengths, except for that it's phone-related.

<comment><USER2> This is for Internet of Thing usage, the customer is a company who is making Internet Widgets with some need to be able to communicate no matter where their Internet Widget is operating, without necessarily having to configure or prepare for the destination.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Nope. Not going to happen. I don't care about a multi-purpose SIM. I want cheap data.

I keep my T-Mobile SIM for when I fly into the US, I reload it for $30-60 and use it for a month. I'm rarely in the US.

I get back to Indonesia, I go to the local SIM store and buy 50GB of data for ~$13. With Twilio rates I'd be paying $1,250-5,000. Pass.

<comment><USER61> You do realize that this is not a product for end-users at all?</comment></comment>


Go Hadoop: Err, Hadoop and Go - <AUTHOR> http://hortonworks.com/blog/go-hadoop-err-hadoop-and-go/ <comment><USER2> Personal plug, because the article mentions snakebite; hadoofus[1] is a C library that natively speaks to HDFS (v1), with a Python wrapper. No Java involved.

Pros (vs Snakebite):

* C, not Python. More portable to non-Python languages; probably faster

* Speaks v1 of the protocol (AFAIK, nothing else does this except via JNI to hadoop's Java client)

* Kerberos authentication supported (but not datanode tokens or the digest auth they employ)

Cons:

* Sort of abandonware. I don't personally use HDFS anymore, so it has stagnated.

* As an extension of the above, doesn't support the v2 (Protobuf-based) protocol

* C, not Python. All the usual potential issues with C that Python shields you from.

[1]: [https://github.com/cemeyer/hadoofus](https://github.com/cemeyer/hadoofus)

<comment><USER3> might as well use webhdfs these days

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yeah, this is a place where punctuation in the title makes a big difference. Can we put the exclamation point (or substitute a period) back into the title?

<comment><USER5> Agreed, this looks like a third technology named Err (perhaps a Bayesian- focused offshoot of 'R'?) is involved somehow.

<comment><USER6> Took me a while to figure it out too. I think the title would have been best written as "Hadoop and Go".

Its maybe because I'm new to the language, but I have to add 'lang' to all my Google searches for Go documentation/tips, otherwise the keywords are almost always misinterpreted.</comment></comment></comment>


Why Bloom filters work the way they do - <AUTHOR> http://www.michaelnielsen.org/ddi/why-bloom-filters-work-the-way-they-do/ <comment><USER2> Not wanting to take anything away from a good read. It looks like Cuckoo Filter's might be a better alternative, particularly if interested in the flexibility of adding and removing items dynamically.

[https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dga/papers/cuckoo- conext2014.pdf](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dga/papers/cuckoo-conext2014.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> The article should have the same disclaimer on top as the linked Wikipedia page:

>Not to be confused with Bloom shader effect.

My mind even read the title as:

>Why bloom filters look the way they do

<comment><USER4> Its interesting how our expectations shape our perception.

I've never heard about Bloom shader before and the title was as clear as it goes.</comment></comment>