One Year After 'The Big Hack' - <AUTHOR> https://pxlnv.com/blog/one-year-after-big-hack/ <comment><USER2> I admit when this story dropped I got caught up in it. It was my first time purchasing/managing server hardware and I had just finished getting our 6 node configuration of MicroBlades up and running. The board picture Bloomberg had as the banner of their story exactly matched that of what I had spent over a year and a half getting my university to order on our (a club's) behalf.

Suffice it to say all logic went out the door that day. A friend and I inspected each of the blades visually, but didn't see anything. I then called SuperMicro support and asked about the report. The person on the other side had one of the most tired, frustrated, and depressed sounding voices I'd ever heard. All they could do was point me at the company's official statement on their website, which was down for a considerable portion of time that day.

As a Tier 2 vendor, SuperMicro makes decent stuff. A bit rough around the edges and doesn't come with all the goodies and support you get from Tier 1 vendors like Dell, but man can you bulk buy their gear. At the time, we were able to get 6 blades and a chassis for ~$20K USD (2x10 core Xeon w/64GB memory). Dell had us at about $15K for a weaker configuration of a single blade, and HP wasn't even on the map.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Bloomberg

> After being annihilated after the story's publication, Supermicro's stock > has bounced back.

You can quickly form a theory that would be interesting to investigate...

<comment><USER4> My first thought was that investors have pretty small short term memories as evidenced by any kind of major event that tanks a stock. Most seem to recover after the issue is forgotten in 2-3 weeks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this was a remarkable piece of journalism. Bloomberg standing by it, to me, speaks of a national security source that they cannot identify. Imagine the struggle of the journalists to pull together a story of national security interest with a source they cannot reveal.

I work in this industry. I know guys who did this kind of work. I found the Bloomberg piece credible then, and I find it credible now.

The rule of deny everything makes sense. Of course every downstream player has denied. Good for them for doing so. And good for Bloomberg as an institution for standing by journalists who got a good story and hopefully moved the cost needle for carrying out these kinds of insidious attacks.

</comment><comment><USER6> Bloomberg has done a lot since then to further call their credibility into question.

As far as I'm concerned, it's about as reliable as the Weekly World News.

I'm just waiting for their version of the Batboy article. Except maybe this was it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Bunnie Huang's talk on supply chain security helped me form an opinion on the probability of Bloomberg's claims. [https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5519](https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5519) YMMV.

<comment><USER8> I was trying to find the last time I commented on this story (wasn't sure if it was done here or elsewhere). I remember reading an article a few years prior to the Bloomberg story where Apple had talked about photographing their server components as part of their supply chain security. Someone replied that the article could have fit Bloomberg's timeline of events and could have been a reaction specifically to what Bloomberg had been reporting on. I see the talk you linked is from Feb 2019. I'd be curious to hear about interest or measures taken prior to Bloomberg's timeline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sounds like they got taken in by this Yossi Appleboum fellow and the story was too juicy to pass up, evidence be damned.

From their perspective, it probably worked because of the attention they received.

</comment><comment><USER10> Meanwhile, we have actual photographs of US intel agencies repackaging intercepted Cisco routers, new in box, freshly compromised, being shipped abroad, and there was much less media coverage.

<comment><USER11> Yeah but we are the good guys? right?

There is a select amount of cognitive dissonance required to support domestic implants in our hardware then call out the chinese when they do the exact same thing.

<comment><USER12> Maybe not the "good guys" in an absolute sense, but as a US citizen, I would expect the US to be more aligned with my interests than the Chinese government.

All countries are attempting to spy on each other. Of course they are. If you expect your country not to because of some misguided belief that this would make them a "good guy" you're just asking for your country to be weaker than others.

It's not cognitive dissonance. That's like saying, "Gee you don't like when the other team scores a goal, but you sure are happy when your team does it!"

<comment><USER13> If your own government sends you a manipulated device, is that really better than a foreign government sending you a manipulated device?

<comment><USER12> You pay taxes to your government, right? Is that really better than sending your money to a foreign government?

Of course a manipulated device isn't ideal, but if it's one where I at least have _some_ say in the government and that can in a lot of cases be trusted to respect human rights that's better.

I mean are you actually asking if it's better to be ruled by the US government than the Chinese government? It is possible to go see for yourself.

<comment><USER13> First of all, I don't live in the US.

I pay taxes to my government so that they build infrastructure, run public services, etc. Foreign governments normally don't do anything for me, so I don't pay them taxes (unless I'm travelling or doing business abroad, etc)

I can think of no scenario where it would be acceptable that my government intercepts and manipulates a device that I ordered. If they would do that, I would protest and complain loudly.

Also, I'm not "ruled" by my government. The government provides services and creates laws for the people. I don't live in a dictatorship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The problem is that if everyone involved in this aside from Bloomberg is doing their jobs correctly, we would never know the truth either way. This is not a thing anyone involved would actually want us to know.

</comment><comment><USER15> "What does that say about Bloomberg's integrity"

Nothing, news has become entertainment for the longest time now. Anything with anonymous source and no evidence should be counted as someone's daydream of becoming sci-fi writer.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think this story was fabricated or at least built around a misunderstanding.

With that said... given the opportunities the Chinese have it would be plain crazy if they haven't at least tried similar things.

</comment><comment><USER17> seems like physical evidence would prove this story. Has anyone other than supermicro's 3rd party auditor xrayed the chip in question?

<comment><USER18> You don't think that if the story were true and could be easily proven, Bloomberg would have done it?

<comment><USER19> One possible explanation for Bloomberg's actions is that they have corroboration of Appleboum's claims that they can't reveal publicly. One source without proof would never be able drive a story like this, but if they had multiple, independent corroborating sources, they might feel confident enough to publish; maybe they hoped public corroboration would follow.

<comment><USER13> Or a journalist saw a chance to get famous quickly and didn't bother to verify the sources.

The story was so good that everyone wanted it to be true and nobody said that it looks like an incoherent mess.

<comment><USER19> No journalist gets to publish stories on their own. Stories always have internal review with at least the relevant editor, and big stories get multiple levels. The authors worked on it for months. If this was a case of rushing it out without enough verification, then there's many more than just the two journalists at fault.

Which is totally possible, but normal journalistic practices already exist to prevent just what you suggest, and are the norm, not the exception.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Internet's Role in Gaming the Markets  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/business/08place.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=technology&adxnnlx=1241784605-gRv9ZZMcboGSzbJ65LQEWw

<comment><USER2> Where do the unlimited funds of the "spam-shoppers" come from? Shouldn't they go bankrupt eventually?</comment>


These Guys Built a Crowd Investing Platform Even Though It's Not Legal Yet - <AUTHOR> http://www.betabeat.com/2012/01/30/these-guys-built-a-crowd-investing-platform-even-though-its-not-legal-yet/ <comment><USER2> I think this is a brilliant idea. I love the idea that small investors can participate and provided desperately needed capital to good ideas and business people without all of the "accredited investor" paperwork. The government thinks the average citizen is smart enough to vote, serve on a jury and be shipped off to war, but not invest their own money?

Caveat emptor: Many of the rules and regulations that are in place in US markets are there because someone tried to screw someone else in that particular way at some point in time.</comment>


Support an open source animation feature film made with Blender - <AUTHOR> http://gooseberry.blender.org/ <comment><USER3> These open movies are great technical demos for Blender but I haven't been impressed with the writing. The stories have been flat, emotionless, poorly paced and lacking in any kind of mass appeal. I'd love to see Blender put out a movie with the depth and complexity of a Pixar film using open-source software. They need a message and a story, something brave and ambitious. So far, it seems like the stories have been written to demo features they're working on. It's really a waste of the amazing talent they have working on these films and the abilities of this software to be used for storytelling.

<comment><USER4> I don't think the OSS model works for creative works, if everybody can agree on the vision, one would expect it to be bland.

<comment><USER5> I don't think that has anything to do with the "OSS model". The management/leadership dynamic of FOSS projects can differ from one another just as much as closed projects do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think this is really awesome and just donated.

Some tips that might help to get even more supporters:

* There should really be some kind of 'Tweet this' or 'Facebook this' link at the end of the payment process.

* It's not very visible that you don't need to enter your home address at the registration page.

* The 'Bronze', 'Silver' and 'Gold' sponsor pledges are only visible at the donation page, not on the main site.

* The homepage could explain better why you're writing 'film history' by donating. The headline is 'Support an open source animation feature film'. That sounds a bit tame. Why not use a headline like 'Be part of the world's first feature-length open source animated movie?'

* Tell us more about the movie. How many minutes will it run? Who are the main characters? Who will voice the characters?

<comment><USER7> * Bitcoin donations

<comment><USER8> Bitcoin pledges would be great, but that option isn't available. They only have PayPal and wire transfer, with credit cards coming "in a few days".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This looks gorgeous!

I've started learning Blender recently. I had some previous experience with 3ds max and was afraid of the learning curve, but I must say I really like Blender so far. After I picked up the shortcuts and configured it to work properly with my MacBook Pro's trackpad, it's a really pleasant experience.

So if like me you're considering whether to give Blender a try... go for it, don't be afraid of what people say about the learning curve. It's worth it!

<comment><USER10> If rendering is taking a while be sure to check if people still release optimized Blender builds for OS X. I used Blender 5 years ago and I remember the optimized builds where worth it.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the tip! I'm using Blender to create artwork for a 3d game, so rendering isn't too much of an issue for me, but will definitely check this out. A quick Google search did turn out a bunch of alternative builds for OS X.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love blender, but I don't think Ton's rationale for not using kickstarter is compelling. Although blender.org gets some page-views, it's the same audience of people who already know about blender. Kickstarter would have introduced a new demographic, and provided more traffic to the blender.org page. Blender is an awesome project, with serious momentum, but I am worry sometimes about Ton's hubris.

</comment><comment><USER12> Heads up, bitcoiners: next week you can also pay with bitcoins:

[https://twitter.com/tonroosendaal/status/443231580778004480](https://twitter.com/tonroosendaal/status/443231580778004480)

<comment><USER13> I came here to ask this exact question. Bitcoins will be on their way next week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm looking forward to improvements in video editing. Blender is already a very good solution for video post-production but it could be better.

<comment><USER15> Lightworks seems promising, and they announced they would be going open-source over 3 years ago. Sadly, it still hasn't happened.

Last I heard, they said it would happen after a Mac version is released, but it's hard to find more info.

[http://www.lwks.com](http://www.lwks.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Aw man, no bitcoin donor link. I would have thrown some money at this if I didn't have to go through wonky fiat transaction sites I don't use.

500k Euros is absurdly low for an animated film. I'm worried that by not using a popular crowdfunding service they won't have the visibility or at least retention to reach their goal.

I do think this is the future of film - no, information - creation in general. It is just missing investors insurance in case the project fails to get mass market appeal. But it lets us just toss that outdated corrupting copyright regime we have right now.

<comment><USER17> Blender is an established and well known and loved product with really decent PR mechanisms so they don't need the visibility one gets on Kickstarter generally, although Kickstarter's fees are relatively low so it probably won't have hurt much.

<comment><USER16> It isn't really about availability, I'd attribute it more to laziness - <USER2> you donate to one project on Kickstarter it is painfully easy to repeat on another half dozen. Having to go through payment forms here might turn a huge portion of potential donors off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Any idea about voice talent casting? Those of us with acting skills, but not 3d modelling skills, would like to get involved too.

</comment><comment><USER19> After all the hype, I was pretty disappointed in Sintel. It felt more like a tech demo.

I hope this changes.

<comment><USER20> Hey @cordite Do check out their latest work, like Caminandes, It might just change your opinion :) Caminandes Episode One : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOhiWY7XmoY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOhiWY7XmoY) Episode Two: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4C82eyhwgU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4C82eyhwgU)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The Secret Life of Walter Mitty but with a sheep! Looks cool though.</comment>


Ask HN: Motion activity analytics for mobile app developers - <AUTHOR>

How interested would you be in understanding what your users are doing (physically) while using your app? How compelling is the idea of an SDK that provides activity classification out of the box? <comment><USER2> Which activities would the SDK be able to classify?

<comment><AUTHOR> What would be most helpful to classify? We can do simple things like walking, running, and driving - can also tell a user's mode of transportation (bus, train, car, bike, etc.)</comment></comment>


Android Wear 2.0 is an evolutionary update to Google's smartwatch OS - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/08/android-wear-20-is-an-adequate-update/ <comment><USER2> Wear 2 is a step in the right direction. With a keyboard and support for standalone features like calling and texting (using build in LTE) and Google Play.

Still it would be nice to completely remove the requirement to pair with a phone at all. Also, I would like it to come with Google's Chrome browser.</comment>


8 pathetic ways David Bowie's death is being used to flog products - <AUTHOR> http://www.thememo.com/2016/01/11/david-bowie-dead-advertising-marketing-office-shoes/ <comment><USER2> Does that include this article?

<comment><USER3> Of course!

Google Analytics

GoSquared

SumoMe

Twitter-Button

;}

It is worth a read, however.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Does touch typing make you a better programmer? - <AUTHOR> Hi folks! I've been trying to learn how to properly touch type and move away from my 'own system'. However I have been wondering if typing slowly actually helps organize your thoughts better when coding? <comment><USER3> You are talking about a couple of different things.

Touch typing means your fingers are trained to know where the keys are. You can type without having to look at the keyboard.

Touch typing doesn't necessarily have to be fast typing. You can touch type slow or fast.

Bottom line, anything which removes barriers to doing your job is better. the less you have to think about it, the better. Hitting the wrong keys is a bit of a distraction and having to look at the keyboard could be a small break in concentration. This is especially the case when it gets to the point of being annoying.

Sometimes people prefer writing with pen and paper because the physicality of it, the slower pace of writing and not being able to delete your mistakes makes you think a bit more about what you are about to write and what you have already written.

It would be interesting to write out a program with pen and paper and have that immediately be translated into digital. Maybe an E-ink editor. ;)

<comment><USER4> _write out a program with pen and paper_

I competed in the BCS programming competition years ago, when the rules allowed one computer for a team of four. We found the optimal division of labour was one person developing at the keyboard, one person pair programming with them, and two "researchers" working on the next problems. If the person at the keyboard got "stuck", they were to print the program off and let someone else start typing. It was basically a superscalar pipeline of humans with a single "issue unit": the keyboard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> One of the best arguments I've seen on this matter is by Steve Yegge. It's a must read: [http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/09/programmings- dirties...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/09/programmings-dirtiest- little-secret.html)

I spent 10 years in industry before I decided to learn to touch type. I noticed how fast some of my colleagues could chat and code and I was embarrassed. Then I read Steve's article. It was tough at first but I can't tell you how much it's helped my productivity.

Also, remap CapsLock to Ctrl on your keyboard. It makes coding a dream. And if you use Vim or a Vim-mode in your IDE, remap the sequence 'jk' to Esc. I never leave the home row anymore. See [http://learnvimscriptthehardway.stevelosh.com/chapters/10.ht...](http://learnvimscriptthehardway.stevelosh.com/chapters/10.html)

<comment><USER6> > And if you use Vim or a Vim-mode in your IDE, remap the sequence 'jk' to > Esc. I never leave the home row anymore

Wow, thanks so much for this

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> In general, I've found typing slowly to be more a distraction than a moment to focus. The difficulties are always in the logic you're trying to express, and the typing is merely a way to communicate that to the computer. If you type slowly, it might give you more time to think about what you're doing, but you can make that time yourself.

On a more personal note, 90% of the lines I type are not ones I need time to think deeply about, so the faster I can pump those out, the better. It's why I've shifted from visual typing to touch typing, and why I optimize for ever faster keyboards once they start feeling too slow for me.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think of software development on a continuum from tactical to strategic. The tactical end of the scale involves faster creation and modification of artifacts. Strategic involves knowing what artifacts to create and why.

To be an outstanding developer, you should be skilled all along the continuum. Those who are slow tactically will only every be able to read books about strategic designs etc, which is good but will limit their skills. I'm reminded of a developer I once knew who thought he had all the answers architecturally, but was such a slow typer and didn't know how to use tools available to modify code that he'd never actually implemented any if the things he dreamed of, and who is going to trust someone with no experience? Also his ideas definitely had a "here's a big picture design, you guys figure out how to implement it" view to them, which meant they usually were not really a good idea.

As such, I think it is important to learn; fast typing (touch typing), fast editing (Vim, regex scripts, and all available refactoring tools), fast local coding (TDD, proper use of functions as an abstraction, and good naming), good module sizing (either namespaces or objects), then good module separation through services or message passing. I had to learn all of these in the last six years. I think every one was valuable. I had to learn to touch type after 22 years not being able to, but it has helped immensely in being able to fluidly get thoughts to editor.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think this is all relative to the person. My friend can touch type but he struggles to work out the logic needed in programming at the speed he can type so he works it all out first and then just types it out. etc... so I think it really does depend. I cant see it hurting your skillset to be able to touch type though :)

</comment><comment><USER10> According to Steve Yegge, yes, absolutely. See [http://steve- yegge.blogspot.com/2008/09/programmings-dirties...](http://steve- yegge.blogspot.com/2008/09/programmings-dirtiest-little-secret.html) . The major points:

\- "If you spend more time hammering out code, then in order to keep up, you need to spend less time doing something else."

\- non-touch typists have less impact on text-based forums (like this one)

\- "non-typist code is... minimalist. They don't go the extra mile to comment things"

<comment><USER5> Whoops, looks like our posts crossed on the wire. I definitely think Steve's post is worth the read - it hits home.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Most coding is very very different from the touch typing I'm using to write this comment. Coding is dominated by _editing_. Debugging, refactoring, adding features to an existing part of the code. I suspect that if you did a frequency histogram of keys hit then the arrow keys would dominate.

IDEs can help in ways that aren't available to people touchtyping natural language. For example, Eclipse can pile up matching brackets to the right of the cursor as you add opening brackets. Many IDEs can autocomplete identifiers and keywords.

My highest ever "productivity" was around 500 LOC in a day, whereas some of my most useful work was entirely away from the keyboard. I know someone who prides himself on having _removed_ thousands of lines of code from an open source project (something similar is going on in the OpenSSL audit).

If you're a fast typist, you'll probably fall into a pattern of alternating thought and action. It's worth quite a lot of time thinking rather than acting, to prevent committing a bad piece of code that will plague you forever.

</comment><comment><USER11> Organising your thoughts at the point when you're typing them seems sub- optimal!

Some people build time into their working day for "reflection" and "supervision". They think back over how stuff went this day, week, month; and they get advice from a colleague about how they're doing - especially around how they could have tackled the tricky bits.

So maybe slower typing would allow programmers some reflection time.

But from what I've read programmers dislike interruptions to their typing rhythm - mouse based editing instead of keyboard shortcuts or programming languages that involve having to hold shift to get a character (too many braces?).

I think touch typing gives you the advantage of having less to focus on - <USER2> people can type at 120 wpm and hold a conversation.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think it does and it's something I work on. I don't think speed is as important as touch typing with less errors. having to backspace every couple of lines because you hit ' instead of ; really messes up flow.

I started practicing typing because I tend to type with 2 or 3 fingers per hand and was experiencing RSI symptoms. My hands feel a lot better when I type properly.

There is a great article about this on Coding Horror: [http://blog.codinghorror.com/we-are-typists-first- programmer...](http://blog.codinghorror.com/we-are-typists-first-programmers- second/)

I've enjoyed typing.io for learning as well as typing of the dead.

</comment><comment><USER13> It will make you more productive and by extension have all the time you devote to finding a key now free. The biggest advantage being maintaining flow as you think about code. An almost seamless transition from thought to the editor. [http://hkelkar.com/2014/03/02/learn-to-type-before-you- learn...](http://hkelkar.com/2014/03/02/learn-to-type-before-you-learn-to- code/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Yes it does. If you touch type, there is less effort involved in refactoring code. Because typing is not a chore you have to spend energy on. You just have to think out how you want the code to look and your fingers does the transformation automagically. If you can't touch type, you have to both spend energy thinking about the code and about what keys you should hit to get there.

</comment><comment><USER15> You should be able to type pretty quickly as a coder, but a big part depends on your language of choice and refactoring you do.

Can you type "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog?" with your eyes closed? If so, you're probably in good shape.*

*Does not apply on touch screens. Ain't nobody got time for that!

</comment><comment><USER16> This [1] article is relevant and it's worth checking.

[1] The Joy of Typing - [https://medium.com/message/the-joy-of-typing- fd8d091ab8ef](https://medium.com/message/the-joy-of-typing-fd8d091ab8ef)</comment>


VPNs are NOT for anonymity. They're for hotel and cafe WiFi - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/kennwhite/status/591074055018582016 <comment><USER2> They're also handy for spoofing your geolocation. So geolocation spoofing and routing traffic over hostile networks like Starbucks wifi is _all_ a VPN should be used for.</comment>


Old man yells at JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://blog.teknik.io/tso/121

<comment><USER2> Well, at least some of this is fixed by "use strict", which _will_ loudly error if you use a non-existent variable.

</comment><comment><USER3> This rant isn't very constructive. Yes, JavaScript has it's problems, but then again, so do many languages.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree I just had to rage for a second. At some point, I'll have to learn to into TDD or just start using sanity checks liberally (because I've lost mine)

Thank you for taking the time to read =)

<comment><USER3> I write a lot of JavaScript and one thing that helps me is using Firefox Developer Tools or the Chrome Developer Tools. Usually you will get a decent error message, although it's not perfect. Another thing to check out is a framework (like Backbone.js) - it'll make your life so much easier in the long run. Also, JavaScript kind of has it's own take on traditional design patterns, which I use frequently. Addy Osmani has a free book that has proven to be invaluable for me - [http://addyosmani.com/resources/essentialjsdesignpatterns/bo...](http://addyosmani.com/resources/essentialjsdesignpatterns/book/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll check those out, thanks.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Taking Twitter Seriously - <AUTHOR> http://www.markevanstech.com/2008/01/30/taking-twitter-seriously/ <comment><USER2> Twitter has come a long way!</comment>


"If You're Not Pissed Off, You're Not Paying Attention" - <AUTHOR> http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/issues-insights-blog/save-wireless-choice.htm

<comment><USER2> I am pissed off that the powers that be are still allocating separate spectrum for separate companies. That worked once for analog cell phone service. It doesn't work any more and is wildly inefficient. The present approach is pretty much the same as those stupid proposals to have each possible company run a separate fiber to each building.

<comment><AUTHOR> Only one company can use a given piece of spectrum in a given territory.

What they should be ensuring, however, is that each piece of spectrum from a given auction is equivalent to the other piece, so that we don't have another situation like the one with 700MHz where LTE Band 12 had to be abandoned due to high-power transmission TV channels, and AT&T got itself a new Band 17 as a subset of Band 12, whereas T-Mobile and the regional carriers ended up having to wait many years until they can finally start using Band 12 fully, and even today many new phones still don't support Band 12, all whilst having full support for the subset in the face of Band 17.

Of course, the problematic part comes in the face of the fact that T-Mobile and other smaller carriers need spectrum NOW or at the very least ASAP, whereas broadcasters are still using most of it, and must be compensated for having to surrender it, or pay extra to continue using it etc, thus the whole thing is a big mess, basically.

<comment><USER2> >Only one company can use a given piece of spectrum in a given territory.

That's the part I disagree with. In general, last mile infrastructure needs to be shared. The smaller carriers don't need spectrum, they need access to their customers. As it is now they need to either try to strike a deal with a company with a government granted monopoly or they have to get their own monopoly in exchange for a large kickback.</comment></comment></comment>


Climate change as seen from space – NASA supercomputer visualization - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/climate-change-as-seen-from-space-bob-mcdonald-1.3899865 <comment><AUTHOR> The blue in the video indicates lower levels of CO2, but aren't the ice shelves in Antarctica still collapsing [1]? I guess it's relative.

[1] [https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-study-shows- antarcti...](https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-study-shows-antarctica-s- larsen-b-ice-shelf-nearing-its-final-act)</comment>


How to build a GUI with NetBeans and Clojure  - <AUTHOR> http://inclojurewetrust.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-to-build-gui-with-netbeans-and.html

<comment><AUTHOR> This post shows how to use Clojure and NetBeans to create a GUI for a text generator similar to the one of the chapter 8 of the book Ansi Common Lisp by Paul Graham</comment>


Design of Lisp-Based Processors Or, LAMBDA: The Ultimate Opcode (1979) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/5731/AIM-514.pdf <comment><USER2> Here is Alan Kay from a talk that was just on HN today.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubaX1Smg6pY&t=8m9s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubaX1Smg6pY&t=8m9s)

        The amount of complication can be hundreds of times more than the
        complexity, maybe thousands of times more.  This is why appealing to
        personal computing is, I think, a good ploy in a talk like this because
        surely we don't think there's 120 million lines of code—of *content* in
        Microsoft's Windows — surely not — or in Microsoft Office.  It's just
        incomprehensible.

        And just speaking from the perspective of Xerox Parc where we had to do this
        the first time with a much smaller group — and, it's true there's more stuff
        today — but back then, we were able to do the operating system, the
        programming language, the application, and the user interface in about ten
        thousand lines of code.

        Now, it's true that we were able to build our own computers.  That makes a
        huge difference, because we didn't have to do the kind of optimization that
        people do today because we've got things back-asswards today.  We let Intel
        make processors that may or may not be good for anything, and then the
        programmer's job is to make Intel look good by making code that will
        actually somehow run on it.  And if you think about that, it couldn't be
        stupider.  It's completely backwards.  What you really want to do is to
        define your software system *first* — define it in the way that makes it the
        most runnable, most comprehensible — and then you want be able to build
        whatever hardware is needed, and build it in a timely fashion to run that
        software.

        And of course that's possible today with FPGA's; it was possible in the 70's
        at Xerox Parc with microcode.  The problem in between is, when we were doing
        this stuff at Parc, we went to Intel and Motorola and pleading with them to
        put forms of microcode into the chips to allow customization and function
        for the different kinds of languages that were going to have to run on the
        chips, and they said, What do you mean?  What are you talking about?
        Because it never occurred to them.  It still hasn't.

_EDIT_ added last para.

</comment><comment><USER3> I believe this is about the Lisp Microprocessor that Guy Steele created in Lynn Conway's groundbreaking 1978 MIT VLSI System Design Course:

[http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/MIT78.html](http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/MIT78.html)

My friend David Levitt is crouching down in this class photo so his big 1978 hair doesn't block Guy Steele's face:

The class photo is in two parts, left and right:

[http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/Class2s.jp...](http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/Class2s.jpg) [http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/Class3s.jp...](http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/Class3s.jpg)

Here are hires images of the two halves of the chip the class made:

[http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/InstGuide/MIT78c...](http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/InstGuide/MIT78chip%20photo-1%20L.jpg)

[http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/InstGuide/MIT78c...](http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/InstGuide/MIT78chip%20photo-2%20L.jpg)

The Great Quux's Lisp Microprocessor is the big one on the left of the second image, and you can see his name "(C) 1978 GUY L STEELE JR" if you zoom in. David's project is in the lower right corner of the first image, and you can see his name "LEVITT" if you zoom way in.

Here is a photo of a chalkboard with status of the various projects: [http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/Status%20E...](http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/Status%20Em.jpg)

The final sanity check before maskmaking: A wall-sized overall check plot made at Xerox PARC from Arpanet-transmitted design files, showing the student design projects merged into multiproject chip set.

[http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/Checkplot%...](http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/Checkplot%20s.jpg)

One of the wafers just off the HP fab line containing the MIT'78 VLSI design projects: Wafers were then diced into chips, and the chips packaged and wire bonded to specific projects, which were then tested back at M.I.T.

[http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/Wafer%20s....](http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/Wafer%20s.jpg)

Design of a LISP-based microprocessor [http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=359031](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=359031) ftp://publications.ai.mit.edu/ai-publications/pdf/AIM-514.pdf

Page 22 has a map of the processor layout: [http://i.imgur.com/zwaJMQC.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/zwaJMQC.jpg)

We present a design for a class of computers whose "instruction sets" are based on LISP. LISP, like traditional stored-program machine languages and unlike most high-level languages, conceptually stores programs and data in the same way and explicitly allows programs to be manipulated as data, and so is a suitable basis for a stored-program computer architecture. LISP differs from traditional machine languages in that the program/data storage is conceptually an unordered set of linked record structures of various sizes, rather than an ordered, indexable vector of integers or bit fields of fixed size. An instruction set can be designed for programs expressed as trees of record structures. A processor can interpret these program trees in a recursive fashion and provide automatic storage management for the record structures. We discuss a small-scale prototype VLSI microprocessor which has been designed and fabricated, containing a sufficiently complete instruction interpreter to execute small programs and a rudimentary storage allocator.

<comment><USER4> Hah! That big one has SIMPLE written on it, but is ten times the size of the others!

Thanks for the history bomb.

<comment><USER3> Here's a map of the projects on that chip, and a list of the people who made them and what they did:

[http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/MPC78map.g...](http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/MPC78map.gif)

1\. Sandra Azoury, N. Lynn Bowen Jorge Rubenstein: Charge flow transistors (moisture sensors) integrated into digital subsystem for testing.

2\. Andy Boughton, J. Dean Brock, Randy Bryant, Clement Leung: Serial data manipulator subsystem for searching and sorting data base operations.

3\. Jim Cherry: Graphics memory subsystem for mirroring/rotating image data.

4\. Mike Coln: Switched capacitor, serial quantizing D/A converter.

5\. Steve Frank: Writeable PLA project, based on the 3-transistor ram cell.

6\. Jim Frankel: Data path portion of a bit-slice microprocessor.

7\. Nelson Goldikener, Scott Westbrook: Electrical test patterns for chip set.

8\. Tak Hiratsuka: Subsystem for data base operations.

9\. Siu Ho Lam: Autocorrelator subsystem.

10\. Dave Levitt: Synchronously timed FIFO.

11\. Craig Olson: Bus interface for 7-segment display data.

12\. Dave Otten: Bus interfaceable real time clock/calendar.

13\. Ernesto Perea: 4-Bit slice microprogram sequencer.

14\. Gerald Roylance: LRU virtual memory paging subsystem.

15\. Dave Shaver Multi-function smart memory.

16\. Alan Snyder Associative memory.

17\. Guy Steele: LISP microprocessor (LISP expression evaluator and associated memory manager; operates directly on LISP expressions stored in memory).

18\. Richard Stern: Finite impulse response digital filter.

19\. Runchan Yang: Armstrong type bubble sorting memory.

The following projects were completed but not quite in time for inclusion in the project set:

20\. Sandra Azoury, N. Lynn Bowen, Jorge Rubenstein: In addition to project 1 above, this team completed a CRT controller project.

21\. Martin Fraeman: Programmable interval clock.

22\. Bob Baldwin: LCS net nametable project.

23\. Moshe Bain: Programmable word generator.

24\. Rae McLellan: Chaos net address matcher.

25\. Robert Reynolds: Digital Subsystem to be used with project 4.

Also, Jim Clark (SGI, Netscape) was one of Lynn Conway's students, and she taught him how to make his first prototype "Geometry Engine"!

[http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MPCAdv/MPCAdv.ht...](http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MPCAdv/MPCAdv.html)

Just 29 days after the design deadline time at the end of the courses, packaged custom wire-bonded chips were shipped back to all the MPC79 designers. Many of these worked as planned, and the overall activity was a great success. I'll now project photos of several interesting MPC79 projects. First is one of the multiproject chips produced by students and faculty researchers at Stanford University (Fig. 5). Among these is the first prototype of the "Geometry Engine", a high performance computer graphics image-generation system, designed by Jim Clark. That project has since evolved into a very interesting architectural exploration and development project.[9]

Figure 5. Photo of MPC79 Die-Type BK (containing projects from Stanford University):

[http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MPCAdv/SU- BK1.jp...](http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MPCAdv/SU-BK1.jpg)

[...]

The text itself passed through drafts, became a manuscript, went on to become a published text. Design environments evolved from primitive CIF editors and CIF plotting software on to include all sorts of advanced symbolic layout generators and analysis aids. Some new architectural paradigms have begun to similarly evolve. An example is the series of designs produced by the OM project here at Caltech. At MIT there has been the work on evolving the LISP microprocessors [3,10]. At Stanford, Jim Clark's prototype geometry engine, done as a project for MPC79, has gone on to become the basis of a very powerful graphics processing system architecture [9], involving a later iteration of his prototype plus new work by Marc Hannah on an image memory processor [20].

[...]

For example, the early circuit extractor work done by Clark Baker [16] at MIT became very widely known because Clark made access to the program available to a number of people in the network community. From Clark's viewpoint, this further tested the program and validated the concepts involved. But Clark's use of the network made many, many people aware of what the concept was about. The extractor proved so useful that knowledge about it propagated very rapidly through the community. (Another factor may have been the clever and often bizarre error-messages that Clark's program generated when it found an error in a user's design!)

9\. J. Clark, "A VLSI Geometry Processor for Graphics", Computer, Vol. 13, No. 7, July, 1980.

[...]

The above is all from Lynn Conway's fascinating web site, which includes her great book "VLSI Reminiscence" available for free:

[http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/](http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/)

These photos look very beautiful to me, and it's interesting to scroll around the hires image of the Quux's Lisp Microprocessor while looking at the map from page 22 that I linked to above. There really isn't that much too it, so even though it's the biggest one, it really isn't all that complicated, so I'd say that "SIMPLE" graffiti is not totally inappropriate. (It's microcoded, and you can actually see the rough but semi-regular "texture" of the code!)

This paper has lots more beautiful Vintage VLSI Porn, if you're into that kind of stuff like I am:

[http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MPC79/Photos/PDF...](http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MPC79/Photos/PDFs/MPC79ChipPhotos.pdf)

A full color hires image of the chip including James Clark's Geometry Engine is on page 23, model "MPC79BK", upside down in the upper right corner, "Geometry Engine (C) 1979 James Clark", with a close-up "centerfold spread" on page 27.

Is the "document chip" on page 20, model "MPC79AH", a hardware implementation of Literate Programming?

If somebody catches you looking at page 27, you can quickly flip to page 20, and tell them that you only look at Vintage VLSI Porn Magazines for the articles!

There is quite literally a Playboy Bunny logo on page 21, model "MPC79B1", so who knows what else you might find in there by zooming in and scrolling around stuff like the "infamous buffalo chip"?

[http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/VLSIarchive.html](http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/VLSIarchive.html)

[http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/VLSI.archive.spr...](http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/VLSI.archive.spreadsheet.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Server seems a bit slow. Here's a Coral cache link:

[http://dspace.mit.edu.nyud.net/bitstream/handle/1721.1/5731/...](http://dspace.mit.edu.nyud.net/bitstream/handle/1721.1/5731/AIM-514.pdf)

(Pretend you're on slashdot 10 years ago.)

</comment><comment><USER6> Lisp All the Way Down! [https://twitter.com/thelittlelisper/status/55098754701526220...](https://twitter.com/thelittlelisper/status/550987547015262209)

<comment><USER7> [https://xkcd.com/224/](https://xkcd.com/224/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Thanks for this--now I know where [http://lambda-the- ultimate.org/](http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/) got its name

<comment><USER9> Indeed. This was one of the last in a series of papers by Steele or both: [http://library.readscheme.org/page1.html](http://library.readscheme.org/page1.html)

There's quite a bit of enlightenment to be found in them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Imagine where we'd be today if this had taken off instead of x86...

<comment><USER9> There are serious resource issues that made that unlikely:

About the time Sussman and company were getting back their first silicon, Intel was shipping the 8086 and 8088, which could, for example, address a whopping megabyte of memory.

Sussman and company did one or two generations of silicon, but from what I've heard the microcode one or the latter was flawed and never really worked. They simply didn't have the resources to sufficiently simulate it before committing to silicon (I'm told there was a bit of arrogance involved as well, which I believe).

Intel won and continues to win in part because of success reinforcing success, keeping their eyes on the ball, and _massive_ investments. Process (fab lines), design, simulation, support for hardware developers (said to be a critical factor in many 808x design wins over the 68000), etc. etc. etc.

I've thought of paths that might have allowed custom Lisp hardware to survive, but they're in part 20/20 hindsight (people _really_ should have believed Moore's Law, and made a minimum gates RISC chip ASAP), in part require a quality of management that none of these MIT based efforts ever had, and almost certainly in part wishful thinking (non-recurring engineering (NRE) costs were a killer, especially combined with the need to make profits vs. that keeping the ecosystem small by shipping small numbers of units).

Send me back in time with a zillion dollar budget and who knows? Short of that, as agumonkey says, what's done is done. Me, I want to see tagged architectures return (to enforce dynamic typing and make math fast by tagging each word in memory; also has potential for security, and of course helping GC).

<comment><USER11> I think part of the reason why generalized CPUs will win over specialized ones every time is that hardware that does one thing well is invariably worse at others and we're in a 'polyglot' environment these days. So if you specialize a CPU for language 'X' it will almost automatically be worse at all the others.

So the mass market will almost always favor general purpose CPUs and there may be niches where you'll find more exotic engines suited for a particular kind of computation, maybe even high level languages in hardware (greenarrays Forth offerings for instance).

<comment><USER12> Sadly can't remember where, but I once read an argument that today's CPUs are 'C Machines'. i.e. C code branches a lot, so we have branch predictors. C code uses contiguous memory, so we have caches. I have no idea if it's a legit argument, but I thought it was interesting.

<comment><USER13> Yes, of course the modern CPUs are designed with C in mind, and C-based benchmarks are always the first to be used to assess any new architectural change. So calling them 'C machines' is legitimate.

The worst bit of being a 'C machine' is the fact that the integers of unspecified nature and pointers are interchangeable, instead of forcing them to occupy the different register files. Another similar consequence is the lack of type tags, which could have been useful for many high level language features - GC, smarter caches pre-fetching the pointers from structures (most importantly for Lisp - pre-fetching the cons cells, depending on a way they've been accessed).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: feedback for my portfolio - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
On a late career change (I'm 37 yo) I am studying web development since last November and I believe I am ready to be hired for a junior role.
I would like some feedback on how my portfolio looks for a potential employer.
https://rodrigo-pontes.gomix.me/
Thanks! <comment><AUTHOR> clickable: [https://rodrigo-pontes.gomix.me/](https://rodrigo- pontes.gomix.me/)</comment>


Ask HN: I've been a java dev for a couple of years, should I move langauge? - <AUTHOR> Like the title says, my first job out of college was/is a java development role. I do database level (stored procedures) and front-end stuff (html, css, js, etc) as well so I am technically full stack.
I have seen a few job openings that advertise transitioning into python or ruby without needing the experience. Is it worth time and effort to program in a different language for awhile?
What is best for a career path as a software engineer? <comment><USER2> Why would you want to move languages?

Do you dislike Java as a language (or feel it is technically inadequate in some way)?

Do you feel that it would be good for your career to know more languages?

If you've been out of college, and you're able to find work with what you know, I'd say your career priority is to get better at what you know. Become "master of one" before worrying about "jack of all trades". (I'm not saying "don't learn another language", but it's lower priority.)

But if you feel that Java is inadequate for the kinds of programs you want to write, or if you feel like you are on a career dead end without learning more, then make learning a new language your priority.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Do you feel that it would be good for your career to know more languages?

This is basically what I am trying to ask. I know Java is popular in a lot of fintech companies but less so in startups. I don't want to cut myself off from certain types of jobs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's always a good idea to be competent in more than one language. For two reasons:

1) it gives you more opportunities and options and prevents you from being pigeonholed 2) the more languages you learn the faster you'll pick up the next one - giving you even more flexibility

As some other people have commented, you should choose your next language based on both what sorts of project you'll be able to build from it and what you'll learn from it (be that working with pointers, a completely different syntax family, or a programming paradigm that's new to you).

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd suggest C, since you already know Java, and that'll get you closer to the metal. Do some little stuff on an Arduino or whatever.

Then, there's some different paths.

More metal means C++, Rust, D.

More webdev means Elixir/Phoenix, Ruby/Rails, PHP/Laravel.

More systems means Erlang, Elixir, Ruby, Go.

If you just want to round out your skillset, conisder Elixir, Haskell, Clojure, OCaml.

</comment><comment><USER5> Personally I think Java in 2016 is better than ever. And if you are in the JVM you have a choice of languages like JRuby, Clojure, Scala, Kotlin, etc.</comment>


Ask HN: Why can't I sit down and watch YouTube at night? Has Google failed? - <AUTHOR>

So Google bought Youtube years ago and it's wildly successful.<p>But even with all that content how come I can't sit down in front of Youtube on my TV and be entertained for the night? (I use the Xbox Youtube app). <comment><USER2> (I'm using a generic universal "you", not the poster in particular.)

It's probably a confluence of two things: first, you don't know what you want. Second, YT isn't very good at recommending things to you.

You don't know what you want because your environment has encouraged you to be fed by marketing departments. Trailers, commercials, entertainment-review magazines and websites all push specific programming at you, programming that has developed over the last century to be commercially successful. YT doesn't (primarily) store TV and movies and documentaries that are commercially viable; for that you want Netflix and Hulu and such. Youtube stores the amateur, the impromptu, the unrehearsed and the low-budget. You haven't been taught to like that any more than you have been taught to enjoy gamelan orchestras and Tuvan throat-singing.

And curating that giant mess is a hard problem, and it's a people-problem, so it shouldn't be any wonder that YT does a bad job of it. Netflix only does a mediocre job with recommendations, and they have a much smaller number of results to return. It's not hard to find a Youtube video that fewer than a hundred people have ever seen. What sort of statistical recommendation will you get from that?

<comment><USER3> I'm a professional Web video creator who has been doing that job for the last two decades: you've hit the nail right on the head.

There's a surprising amount of interesting short films or series on YouTube. They're not necessarily studio-quality in terms of lighting, effects or even acting, but they can be a good watch.

However, the discovery mechanisms for them are truly terrible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Start building up subscriptions. It really depends what you want - I like Roosterteeth and Tom Scott but many people will only like one of them.

</comment><comment><USER5> You probably could if it were curated better. But in the rush to have people create content, there's less focus on editing and actually figuring out what we have. Instead it's all about aggregation.

</comment><comment><USER6> Not sure what you mean? I use Youtube all the time from my Xbox.</comment>


Ask HN: What are new applications that can be built on blockchains? - <AUTHOR> i am not as interested in the price volatility of this asset class more inspired by the crypto anarchism that they enable and new trustless, non custodial and truly decentralized apps that can be built on top of modern blockchains <comment><USER2> I think it makes a lot of sense to build a DNS system using contacts. Names can be auctioned off and given automatically to the highest bidder. It is also possible to set up a contract where you could trustlessly sell names. "Send $200 to an address and you will get the name". There is an auction like this in progress already, and you can participate now if you like [http://ens.domains](http://ens.domains)

You could do even more interesting things trustlessly. For example say, you own a valuable domain. You could borrow money and use the domain as collateral. If you do pay back, or stop making monthly payments the domain is automatically and trustlessly transferred to the lender. Or it can be put up for a trustless public auction with the proceeds going to lender to repay the loan and the rest to you, the ex-owner of the domain who failed to pay back his loan.

<comment><USER3> How would ETH name service Domains be integrated with the browser or this is supposed to work only in onion Tor and Mist browsers

Update fixed formatting

<comment><USER2> There is a Chrome extension that does this for you for IP addresses (I think). All ethereum wallets are also implementing support. You can make your Ethereum domain name point to anything you want. So instead of sending your transaction to a long hex string, you can send it to "johndoe.eth".

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks but chrome and electron-based applications really heat the Mac, get the fan running all the time and bringing it to a halt.

Are there projects to build native cocoa apps on top of eth/btc much like aquamacs for emacs

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Democratic Autonomous Organizations -- which are corporations whose law is created not by human organizations; the law for ricardian contracts is instead defined by a relationship between trustless consensus and formally verifiable logic.

See the og tao here: [http://chriseth.github.io/browser- solidity/?gist=192371538cf...](http://chriseth.github.io/browser- solidity/?gist=192371538cf5e43e6dab#gist=192371538cf5e43e6dab)

and read about the $50 million tao debacle on wiki: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_DAO_(organization)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_DAO_\(organization\))

more about ricardian contracts on ethereum here: [http://iang.org/papers/intersection_ricardian_smart.html](http://iang.org/papers/intersection_ricardian_smart.html)

<comment><USER5> Why was the DAO abandoned? It seems like someone could just fix the bug, and run the sale again, expecting a lower valuation.

The idea is still good, right? A bug shouldn't end the whole project.

<comment><USER6> The idea was that code-as-contract was clear, unambiguous to all participants, and obviated the need for human intervention to enforce correctly.

<comment><USER7> You forget to tell what happened after that.

Someone someone found contract terms (relating to starting a new sub-entity to the DAO) that favored them, started transferring the eth to themselves using this method (they "probably" gained the ability to dictate how the eth would be spent after an initial period, which plenty of people are desperate to point out isn't the same as owning it). And then ...

Humans intervened to have the terms enforced "correctly" (this was regarded as a hack). They even rolled back quite a few normal transactions that had nothing to do with the attack (because just like all other central banks, the ethereum company cannot risk/be bothered to figure out what transactions are about and come up with a solution that affected just the hack and nothing else)

I imagine this will happen again, and again, and again. This is very clear to anyone who's done the least bit of law : humans cannot be trusted (not even by themselves) to write rules and then uphold them "under any circumstances". We must have governments and a legal system to prevent disaster. The easy tricks I see work is that humans can loan eth from others, then have multiple accounts, only one of which is subject to confiscation. Double collateralizing (pledging the same asset for multiple loans, then disappearing with the loans, recently popular in China).

[http://www.coindesk.com/understanding-dao-hack- journalists/](http://www.coindesk.com/understanding-dao-hack-journalists/)

<comment><USER2> Just for the record, no transactions were rolled back. A special one time transaction was generated that moved all the ether from the Dao contact to a withdrawal contract, from which all investors could get their ether back. Majority of the users upgraded their clients to be on the chain with this special transaction. The rest of the people (~15%) remained on the original chain without the special transaction, that chain is now called "Ethereum Classic".

<comment><USER7> The DAO was unwound, including everything it had done. If that's your idea of "no transactions rolled back", I submit that that's exactly the sort of distinction without a difference I was talking about.

This would be akin to solving a bank heist by simply rolling back all transactions involving that bank, including 2nd and 3rd degree transactions to before the heist.

So if some person sold a house to a buyer with a mortgage from the bank close enough to the bank heist, and then went out and bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate with the buyer, the bartender would wake up the next day to find the payment for the bottle missing, and the house would be unsold, just so the investors in the bank would be guaranteed the money they invested to be loaned out.

I mean I understand. This simple and automatically enforced contracts is every loaner and landlord's wet dream. They get that the rules are stacked against the tenants. They can rob tenants blind using this game. They don't realize that they cannot play this game against the banks, the millionaires and/or billionaires of our little planet, and they don't know any other game to make money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Distributed ledgers [0], if you're a Fortune 500 [1] [2]

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

[1] [http://news.sap.com/sapphire-now-sap-cloud-platform- blockcha...](http://news.sap.com/sapphire-now-sap-cloud-platform-blockchain- service/)

[2] [http://www-935.ibm.com/industries/retail/supply- chain/](http://www-935.ibm.com/industries/retail/supply-chain/)

The Linux Foundation's related project:

[https://www.hyperledger.org/](https://www.hyperledger.org/)

Turn your brain's marketing parser on before attempting to read any of this stuff.

</comment><comment><USER9> Get rid of ticket scalping.

If tickets get passed on from the buyer you pay a extra fee ( which increases with each hop ). On ticket return, a pool will be created where you can bid on -> sold tickets above the original price are going to be splitpaid to the venue and the artist / ...

<comment><USER10> Requires a solution to the identity problem otherwise scalpers just sell off whatever nonce they purchase the tickets under

<comment><USER9> you are right. Just enter your full name after you hit the buy button.

<comment><USER10> You and I have very different definitions of the word "solution"

<comment><USER9> Its a simple fix. The venue has to control the name on your id with your ticket name. It has to be personalized in some way and it seems reasonable to keep your "real ID" away from the blockchain account. Even though the venue can identify your wallet on entrance... so there is a small design flaw :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> [https://medium.com/@AugurProject/augur-master- plan-42dda65a3...](https://medium.com/@AugurProject/augur-master- plan-42dda65a3e3d)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> We are working on electricity trade using blockchain, enabling renewable energy generator to trade with neighbours in local grid.

<comment><AUTHOR> That sounds interesting is there a link to try the prototype who is we

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Some obvious ones:

\- Cloud commodity (storage, computing - think of decentralized AWS)

\- Identity & reputation systems (think of global credit rating & KYC)

\- One to one services cutting the middleman (consultation, tutoring, renting)

\- Autonomous agents self negotiating contracts (common example is your car paying for its parking)

<comment><USER14> Sorry for being a noob, but how is something like "decentralized AWS" enabled by blockchain technology?

<comment><USER15> Check out [https://golem.network](https://golem.network) or [http://sia.tech](http://sia.tech) You rent out your unused CPU (Golem) or unused disk space (Sia) and get automatically rewarded

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> One of the things about blockchain is that it has a history, that history makes it to some extent atomic.

This means it can be used to turn digital assets which are normally considered infinite in that it can be copied and pasted, into scarce resources.

One example could be a 2nd hand ebook market where books could actually increase in value because it's been owned by this and this person.

</comment><comment><USER17> Check out the top coins here: [https://coinmarketcap.com](https://coinmarketcap.com)

From there you can click on any coin and get a link back to each project's website. Exploring those should cover a good chunk of the use-cases that are popular right now.

That's a good start.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not looking for the use cases of the coins I'm looking for applications that can be built on top of the Blockchain enabled by the new cryptographic go i'm not looking for the use cases of the Coins I'm looking for applications that can be built on top of the Blockchain enabled by the new cryptographic coins - what are the non-obvious applications

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> How about a simple clock in clock out system for payroll. here is a directory of dapps [https://dapps.ethercasts.com/](https://dapps.ethercasts.com/)

<comment><USER14> Honest question: what are the deficiencies of current clock-in / clock-out systems that blockchain technology might help solve?

<comment><USER19> Not GP, but current systems usually are not manipulation proof. Using a blockchain makes post-clock-out modifications visible immediately.

<comment><USER14> Sure, but what I'm curious about is: is that a real problem in practice that organizations have been fighting, or is it just a problem in theory? If I told an organization, "I've built a blockchain based time tracking system that is 100% impossible to be tampered with", would they say, "oh thank goodness this is a huge problem for us!", or would they say, "oh that's sort of neat but our tampering related loss is already within acceptable bounds"? My sense is that it would be the latter.

<comment><USER18> It is not only about being impossible being tampered with. It is about trusting the system. Since we trust the blockchain with 100 + billion dollars. trusting it for a time sheet system should not be that hard

<comment><USER14> Sure, but I think you're missing my point. Is this a problem that really needs a solution or is it a solution in search of a problem? Are time tracking systems not trustworthy enough already? Perhaps I'm just ignorant, but I've never heard of this issue, and it just sounds like the sort of thing that sounds like a problem to techies, but isn't really a problem in practice.

<comment><USER19> Timesheet cheatery is an extreme problem - often enough timesheets are... adjusted afterwards to hide violations of labor law or simply to dock pay.

<comment><USER14> Interesting! Thanks for the info.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> You can multisignature contracts with advanced options for payment or you can gamble on predictions on future for example, both in trustless and decentralized way

</comment><comment><USER3> Trust less Decentralized exchange

Open alternative to Uber, lyft and Airbnb

<comment><USER14> Isn't the trust in those services more at the physical world level than the technical level?

<comment><USER2> I think a big problem with these services is that your rating belongs to Uber instead of the user. It would be nice to put your reputation from all the services you use (Uber, Airbnb, reddit karma, eBay, credit rating, etc) in one central place that is not controlled by a single corporation.

<comment><USER2> The dream it's to then be able to share a portion of your information with another party without revealing everything. For example, you can share "my credit rating is above 750 and I'm 32 years old" and nothing else. This can be accomplished with zero knowledge proofs which are going to be possible on Ethereum later this year.

<comment><USER14> Thanks, that makes a lot of sense.

Edit: There does seem to be a bootstrapping issue though. Right now the centralized entity is basically vouching for new people until their individual reputation builds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Google golem dapps, very interesting use case.

</comment><comment><USER22> Spelling and grammar checkers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Would it work in a distributed context

<comment><USER23> And punctuation checkers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> far more accurate click trackers

</comment><comment><USER25> Voting

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you mean the elections or prediction markets

<comment><USER25> Elections</comment></comment></comment>


The Importance of Memorizing History - <AUTHOR> http://www.secular-homeschooling.com/008/powell.html

<comment><USER2> Stuff which is sufficiently interesting and important I remember automatically; the rest I forget. Presumably that's the case with most people.

So, rather than enjoining them to memorise stuff which _I_ find interesting, I'm better off enthusing about it and _showing_ how interesting it is.</comment>


P2P Bitcoin lending startup LoanBase hacked, hires the criminal as consultant - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/a/D3Iv6 <comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry, but isn't prosecuting the criminal the right thing to do in this case?</comment>


Ask HN: How do you improve your creativity? - <AUTHOR> It feels like for the last year or two I've been on 'autopilot' in my professional life, which is not to say I am coasting at work but rather I feel the creative spark in me has died down. Recently I've been making a conscious effort to change this through shifting from a consumption to production mindset (i.e. stop mindlessly browsing for hours) in my downtime but this has been difficult without some kind of short term goal or project to work on, frustrated by the problem that I feel my creativeness is at an all time low.<p>I'm looking for advice on steps I can take to improve my situation. I've just read Paul Graham's essay on "How to get startup ideas" [0] which had some pretty interesting takeaway points. I would be interested in hearing of other essays, books, tips, opinions or techniques from the community.<p>[0] http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html <comment><USER2> Make lists!

Time Clare has a good podcast designed for getting into creative writing that helps with this [http://www.timclarepoet.co.uk/couchto80kwritingbootcamp/](http://www.timclarepoet.co.uk/couchto80kwritingbootcamp/)

It would probably be a helpful excursion for anyone looking to boost their creativity because the real way to improve creativity is to just do things that are creative, even if it's something as small as writing down all the names you can think of.

Other than that, just make sure to write down any and all ideas that come to you - DO NOT SELF CENSURE, this is the bane of creativity. You're initial ideas will be crap and that's fine. Have them, be proud of them. Eventually you will have better ones that you can build on.</comment>


Ask HN? GNU OS file management system related question - <AUTHOR> Hello,
I have a question related to the maintenance of file systems on the GNU operating system. I was told that it is no longer a hierarchical style organization, but has been replaced with a more hash-table type organization that it amenable to search algorithms, since the inherent ordering imposed by a hierarchical system impedes such algorithms.
Any insights into this new architecture would be appreciated <comment><AUTHOR> Hello, I am still searching for links to the new file system architecture that differentiates GNU OS from the earlier Linux OS. I don't really want to study the code, and only use that as a last resort.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> To be more precise,

is it now a more object oriented system

than the more procedural one that preceded it?

As we all know, the original design of the OS was more

functional than attuned to the needs of the server side

processes such as search that are now used to study client

side behavior.

Since this is being used on both sides now, by design

that would make a lot more sense.</comment>


A reality check for virtual headsets - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/news/business/21724863-vr-has-been-more-about-hype-substance-will-change-reality-check-virtual?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/2017076n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/na/44954/n <comment><USER2> The hardware companies investing in VR understand that this is the beginning of a new market, and success will take a long time (e.g., see Zuckerberg's statements during investor calls). They also recognize that initial efforts like today's headsets are required V1's to begin the technical evolution that will result in a mass-market product.

To look at today's initial products and call the industry dead, or disappointing, is like looking at an MVP app release and deciding that an entire market does not exist because the initial solution is not perfect.

This type of contrarianism is seductive, and often results in many clicks for the media and the reinforcement of curmudgeonly opinions by those with unrealistic expectations for short-term change (and often who underestimate long-term impacts).

But it's important to evaluate today's VR with the same eyes as when looking at an MVP: does it meet its goals? Does it provide value? Does it show potential if developed further? Is there a product-market fit?

The answer to all of the above is a resounding "yes." Try it if you haven't. VR and AR have the potential to be truly revolutionary technologies. Yes, there is some distance to the goal, but it's eminently achievable - if the tech is not killed off by mis-set expectations, tribalism, paranoia, pessimism, and negativity.

<comment><USER3> The problem with this rebuttal is there's no argument you can't apply it to. Try making it falsifiable. The first Rift Dev Kits landed in 2013. At what point can we look at uptake of these products and conclude that they're not catching on? I have no trouble with the argument that 2017 is too early. But what year won't be too early? 2020?

As for investors, it's important to remember that when you're swinging at a pitch, it's no more productive to swing too early than to swing too late. They're both strikes.

<comment><USER2> We have a gen 1 technology that you strap on your face and you literally feel like you're somewhere else. You look down and see your hands; glance across the table and see, and talk to, and interact with, another person that's really across the globe; you can build a world and inhabit it.

And we're discussing when to call it a failure. On a site called Hacker News. OK. But that's kind of my point - people can be so focused on "calling failure" that they miss the incredibly transformative development that's right in front of them.

Regarding a "timeline for calling failure" \- who knows? Sometimes success comes to the sole believer who labors on long after everyone else abandoned hope. But how often in tech is something truly a failure? Was AI a failure in the 60's? It brought us LISP and defined the space. The 80's? It brought important foundational work to CNNs. The 90's? Would we be here without Deep Blue? Was mobile a failure with WAP? Palm? Newton? Was Internet 1.0 a failure when the bubble burst in 2000?

All were important steps that got us to our ubiquitously interconnected, AI- enabled, device-driven present.

So why the focus on identifying something as a failure, or tagging the moment that "they're not catching on"? How are you defining success? Adoption? If so, based on what metric - and at what ramp - and based on whose expectations? Investment success? For whom?

Even if this generation of VR fails to gain traction, I truly believe it will be viewed as just one more step towards the inevitable. It's that good.

But my point is that such failure will be due more to social issues than technical ones.

<comment><USER4> But this is not gen 1. Even HMDs we had in 90s were not gen 1. This tech is old. Gen 1 was in early 80s. We are on gen 5 now, probably. It has not taken off before, there is no reason to think it will take off now. We've got better graphics each gen but otherwise it's the same. Televisions had crappy graphics initially but people bought them nevertheless. Game consoles had crappy graphics but people bought them nevertheless. Digital cameras had crappy graphics but people bought them nevertheless. Do you think people did not buy VR before because of crappy graphics but are going to buy them now all of sudden or sometime in the future when graphics will be even better?

<comment><USER5> it is not about the graphics, it is about the content

<comment><USER4> Exactly. TVs, game consoles and digital cameras I mentioned were sold as devices to consume and produce content people wanted. The current VR push is "Look how awesome the technology is now! _Surely_ somebody will make a lot of tasty content for it. Any time now. Why would not you buy a set so you are ready when the content hits? It's coming. Get your set now so you won't have to wait in lines when the content will finally appear and everyone will rush the stores. This will happen. Just be prepared. Any minute now."

<comment><USER6> If you get a chance to play SUPERHOT VR, do. It's the best VR game I've ever played. The only drawback is the cost of the rig needed to play it.

<comment><USER4> And here is another issue. The content to sell VR cannot be hyped by "try it!". You want to sell VR to someone who has not bought it yet so there is no time/content restricted "demo version" route. You cannot demo it in Bestbuy either (I don't know many people willing to put a public use mask on their faces). If a 2D video does not sell it then the only channel left is through friends and family. Do you have friends coming over just to play SUPERHOT VR?

<comment><USER2> Many companies use disposable covers[1] when doing demos at conferences. I'm not sure if Best Buy uses them for their demos as well (which are available at many stores), but generally companies do address the hygiene problem.

[1] [https://vrcover.com/product/htc-vive-disposable-hygiene- cove...](https://vrcover.com/product/htc-vive-disposable-hygiene-cover/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was at Facebook's F8 conference this year and to say they are pushing hard on VR is an understatement. Personally, I find VR and its potential applications very intriguing and I welcome this, but it all still feels.. I don't know.. very much top down and too early. I'm not sure if it's consumers driving demand for this, or the industry desperately looking for the 'next' platform 10 years on from the iPhone.

In contrast, it feels like the whole mobile app paradigm was a more emergent trend that rose from the hardware getting better and it being an 'obvious' thing to do with software on that hardware. Like, smartphones weren't designed specifically with apps in mind, but they emerged as a phenomenon naturally, in response to demand. But maybe that's just hindsight talking, maybe it too was ultimately pushed from the top down by companies building apps and promoting them. Hard to say I guess.

If any company can push VR into the mainstream, or at least accelerate the process, Facebook has to be one of the best positioned, and I hope it works. I just wonder if the hardware doesn't need to get dramatically (5 years) better before it becomes obvious that ordinary people will want to incorporate it into their daiy routine (and then, possibly more in AR form than VR form) - indeed, to be fair, at F8 a very similar message was delivered in some talks.

<comment><USER8> The issue is at the content side. 360 videos may give it a good push. That's user created content so it doesn't rely on studios like the 3D TV.

<comment><USER9> 360 videos are a rather poor experience (currently). You cannot tell narrative content on them because you cannot control the view like you can with movies or shows. So what you are limited to is static scenery type of experiences.

<comment><USER10> Do you play modern computer games? There are "live" narrative sections in many games now. Cut scenes don't freeze the player anymore. You can turn around and stare at the scenery if you want to. In some cases the story keeps happening when you aren't watching, in some the action pauses at strategic moments and waits for you.

<comment><USER11> > There are "live" narrative sections in many games now.

Do they react to what the player is looking at or where they're standing? I think what the GP meant was that "you can't have David Attenborough going on about the lovely penguins whilst the user is staring at some polar bears."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've been saying for some time that VR is the next 3D TV. I've tried VR systems from Jaron Lanier's original rig with two SGI workstations in the 1980s to the HTC Vibe. Technically, there's been plenty of progress. The lag problem has been fixed. The resolution is better. The headgear is still clunky.

There's still no killer app. You can play FPS games. Works fine, for people who like shooters. You can run roller coaster sims. Works fine, gets boring fast. You can visit Second Life. Kind of cool, if you like SL. You can visit High Fidelity, which is a higher-res Second Life where nothing is going on. Boring. (Worse, the High Fidelity CEO is now talking about "sovereign identity on the blockchain". If one branch of hype isn't working, pivot to another.)

VR conferencing? Working in High Fidelity and Second Life now. HF even has gaze tracking and facial gesture capture.

In the early days of VR, there was hope that VR would provide a more natural interface to CAD programs. Autodesk put effort into VR to try to make that work. Turned out that trying to do precision work in VR is not only difficult, but really tiring.

It's all been built, and nobody came. Best Buy is removing the Oculus Rift demo stations from stores due to lack of interest.

<comment><USER13> Are you considering AR as a separate concern, or do you consider that one doomed to mediocrity as well?

Personally I think that features like virtual workspaces (e.g. multi-monitor displays / overlays) and HUDs (e.g. vehicle navigation) are going to be game- changing outside of the entertainment industry, when the headset tech gets to where it needs to be; this will probably be better implemented as an AR overlay (a la Hololens) than full VR.

<comment><USER12> AR is a separate line of development. Being able to label the real world has many use cases. There are many industrial applications. The big technical problem is getting location information good enough to register the annotations on the real world. That's not solved yet for big spaces.

In AR, the graphics don't have to be as good. Text and line drawing alone would be useful. This translates to less-clunky headgear. The Microsoft HoloLens is far less clunky than the HTC Vibe or Oculus Rift. Being able to walk an oil refinery or a server farm or a WalMart and have displays of what everything was and how it was doing would be valuable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I still remember when the original Nintendo came out in 1988. It was $149 for the system, the light gun + Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt. ($320 in today's dollars).

I don't think the NES would have succeeded as much as it did were it not for the Mario Brothers + Duck Hunt bundle. The light gun turned out to be a gimmick, but at the time it felt like such a huge technological leap over Atari, and Duck Hunt was the way to show it off.

VR needs a Duck Hunt + Mario Brothers.

I think Nintendo gets this. Wii had Wii Sports, the Nintendo Switch has Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

They're more than just games, they're brands that through their ubiquity generate cultural capital for the platform.

<comment><USER15> Maybe vr will turn out to be more like analog flight sticks than the NES.

Today, a vr rig, hotas controller setup and elite:dangerous already _is_ a killer combination for vr. Put the price is steep and the appeal is much more narrow than Mario Bros.

[ed: personally I think vr will be more of a paradigm shift, than a game gimmick though. I think creative tools like tilt brush will combine with multi-user world's a la second life or croquet/open cobalt. And I think it'll grow a bit "top down" first: with early adopters and creators / developers.

But one thing that has to go are the wires - probably first by higher performance/watt and a move to "backpack pcs" to run the software.

Before that, Sony has the right idea: lower ambitions and let players sit in a sofa. Works fine for driving/simulators etc. ]

<comment><USER15> I suppose an alternative to backpacks would be a hybrid solution with "smart" headsets (much like cardboard/daydream) and a tradeoff in cpu/bandwidth doing some work on the pc, and some on the headset - and streaming over wlan. But I don't know if that's really feasible wrt getting the latency low enough with a high quality display.

<comment><USER16> DisplayLink already has a working wireless adapter for the Vive. I've tried it, and it's really good. No need for gimmicky backback computers or non- replacable headset computers.

<comment><USER15> I thought the issue with current wireless technology was getting the latency down, in order to work with true ~90hz refresh (so when you tilt your head looking at the horizon, or move your head quickly the display updates in seemingly real-time, not showing you one or two frames of old data).

Is this still not an issue?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's always fun to watch media before a thing explodes in popularity and becomes part of everyday life; during that period when the thing still sucks, but a lot of smart people are working on it because they see some incredible potential. I'm not _sure_ that VR will be one of those things, but I'm pretty confident of it. I recently got a VR headset, one of the cheapo kind that you stick your phone in, just to try it out. It's pretty much amazing.

I mean, it's stupid, all the games and apps are stupid, all the videos are stupid, interaction is clumsy, almost everything I try to use shifts steadily to the left until I can't see anything anymore without turning my head, and eventually turning my whole body around to keep up with the shift, and all around it just barely works at all. But, it's still amazing.

That tells me something really big is going to happen; the Internet started out the same way. It was stupid. You could watch a video, if it was 1/10th the screen size, buffered for several minutes, and you didn't need it to look very good. Regular old television was a million times better. I feel like we're at that same point right now with VR. It all sucks right now (probably because I have a cheapo VR headset that uses my phone and my phone isn't well-supported by the VR players, but it was cheap), but we're only a year or so into the "anyone can afford it" phase.

Think how many years it took for the tech to use the full potential of the Internet took to make it into the majority of homes. I think we're still way too early to tell how VR is gonna play out, but when I use it, I feel a bit of that old "OMG, this is gonna be huge in ways I can't predict" feeling the Internet gave me the first time I logged on.

<comment><USER18> _I mean, it 's stupid, all the games and apps are stupid, all the videos are stupid, interaction is clumsy, almost everything I try to use shifts steadily to the left until I can't see anything anymore without turning my head, and eventually turning my whole body around to keep up with the shift, and all around it just barely works at all. But, it's still amazing._

This sums it up perfectly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> VR was just overhyped early. It will catch on.

Keep in mind that these are all 1st generation products. When an immersive VR system comes with a wireless headset, costs less than $500 and doesn't require 30 square feet of space, then it will begin to take off.

Remember the first iPod? We are going to be in this early adopter phase until the technology matures.

VR is __not __3D TV. People who use immersive VR actually like it. 3D TV was annoying to most people after the novelty wore off.

<comment><USER20> These aren't 1st generation products. There has already been a VR craze, back in the 1990s.

<comment><USER21> The VR devices that are out today are incomparable with the devices of the "VR craze" of the 1990s.

<comment><USER22> And the VR devices of 2050 would be incomparable with the devices of the 2nd "VR craze" of the late 201x's.

The question is whether they are enough, not whether they are merely better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I tried a VR demo a few months ago. It was fantastic!

This stuff has come a long way. It tracks every slightest movement of your head and controllers. The graphics and sound will immerse you in a world you will believe is real.

Very nice gaming is possible, as well as recreation. People could visit fantastic virtual worlds just to be somewhere else and feel good; a kind of therapy, if you will.

I don't understand what these insipid nay-saying wankers are blabbing about.

<comment><USER24> I don't know. I tried the PSVR, found it very cool (significantly better and more immersible than I thought), yet I wouldn't buy one. A good demo doesn't make for a good product.

<comment><USER25> The HTC Vive feels much better than the PSVR. The room-scale tracking and "grappling" hand controls really add to the experience.

IMHO walking around is the real thing in VR; games not directly designed with this in mind are not exploiting the unique possibilities of the medium.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Mr Williams, a 32-year-old former marine, was playing "Sprint Vector", a VR running game: players swing hand-held controllers to simulate motion. Though he has been standing in one place, his brain believes he has just run for several miles.

I wonder if anyone has tried using this tech to somehow trick the body into activating what happens when one actually goes running? Can I get a workout by just watching myself run in this VR world???

<comment><USER27> There are some weird results in exercise science related to this. For example, if you perform exercises only on one side, unilateral strength on the other side improves (something that seems like a pointless novelty until you consider training while injured). There's a huge amount of strength that relates to 'neural' factors.

Conversely, apparently elevated heart rate due to gaming does not improve aerobic fitness.

So I'm thinking that, broadly, there will be no such thing as a free lunch here (as per usual).

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm on the "will flop like 3D TV" bandwagon, but for another reason than just the lack of killer app and high price. I think a lot of faithful are just trying to wish away a significant barrier to entry: motion sickness.

I know lowering the lag reduces this issue, but it does not completely solve it.

I have a friend who has an interest in VR so he tried the various models being demoed in shopping malls when he could find them in the US and the EU. Always the same problem: motion sickness. So he would ask the people managing the demo kits and would usually get the same answer, a bit more than 50% of the people who try have that same problem. Then a few months ago I came across an article that was essentially raising the same point (can't source it, sorry. The number they gave was closer to 40%).

So basically it seems about half of the target audience asked to shell out a small fortune will have "puking on the carpet" as their most memorable VR moment... Not really a recipe for success.

<comment><USER29> I'm guessing your friend tried the PSVR or Oculus Rift with heavy use of a controller while seated.

Having tracked hands, moving around (instead of turning with a controller) and using teleport (or just room scale 1:1 movement) reduces the percent of dizzy people to zero. If you use slow artificial locomotion with comfort features (e.g. FoV reduction), that number is about 5%.

<comment><USER28> I am aware that these prevent nausea or dizziness from happening, but what does it say about the viability of the medium if all of its content must have that kind of constraints? VR allows experiencing so-called 'presence', except in practice said presence must not match anything else than that of your actual body at that moment. We end up quite far removed from the "freely explore virtual worlds" that VR is marketing.

<comment><USER29> I'm not sure how are you interpreting the "constraints". Yes, it's difficult to adapt existing games to VR, but it's possible. Having proper artificial locomotion for 95% of the public and comfortable teleport based motion for the remaining 5% sounds like a good compromise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> VR might take a while to become a viable mainstream entertainment medium but there are sizeable niches that can sustain businesses as development catches up with the hype. Location-based entertainment, hardcore home VR games and enterprise products all seem to be reasonably solid markets, even if they don't scale up to the dizzying heights some expect them to reach.

We have a design meeting and visualisation tool for engineers and desginers to discuss projects with their management, clients and other domain experts. This has significant benefit for our customers and it will not go away anytime soon.

Perhaps the hype cycle will cause the current HMD manufacturers to exit the market and VR will retreat to these niches but it's definitely not going away.

</comment><comment><USER31> VR needs good software and the reality is that it is just not there yet. If it does not come by the end of this year there will be a problem.

I think it will happen though for the one reason that Bethesda is delivering Doom, Fallout 4 and Skyrim for Sony PS4 VR for this Christmas. That will give Sony a big reason to keep yelling about PS4 VR and will restore the faith of people like me who bought a VR headset early that is now just sitting there waiting for good software to use it with.

The next challenge facing vR beyond that point is whether the three titles mentioned above deliver on the promise of VR - if they do not then VR is finished, at least for this round of enthusiasm about the idea.

<comment><USER25> Doom, Fallout and Skyrim seem like precisely the wrong games to target for VR, unless they remake them completely to use instant teleportation instead of walking.

FPS in VR only works from a static standing point, otherwise the VR sickness kicks in really fast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Killer app + low price + user friendliness = mass-market success.

VR still doesn't have the three variables. But it's getting really close!

</comment><comment><USER33> I don't see this mentioned too often in the critique of vr, but I wonder if the isolation of putting on a headset is another barrier for adoption. While the isolation could be an advantage on something like an airplane or even an open office, I just don't feel like disconnecting that much from reality when in the comfort of my own home.

</comment><comment><USER34> 15 years ago, the foreseen path was adoption of 3D TV then replacement of TV by headsets. 3D TV does not exist anymore and people are watching movies on their phone.

IMHO, the future is the replacement of the screen of smartphones by glasses with AR. The phone will be in my pocket with my hand and the glasses will be near my eye, ear and mouth.

</comment><comment><USER35> What I imagined VR will give, once the headsets and input devices have been iterated on, is a way to have a true workspace environment on the move.

<comment> yoz-y I wonder how far would screen/projection technology had to go. I'd love to have an AR headset that would allow me to summon a huge screen in front of me, however I want that screen to have the same DPI as my computer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I read, when they were pushing 3D TV, that some 10-15% of the population don't have 3D perception for one reason or another, and therefore don't get the immersive experience. Personally, being in that category, I don't get much from these headsets beyond feeling that there is an image in front of my eye that moves with my head, which is more annoying than anything. The AR thing sounds potentially useful though.

</comment><comment><USER37> Does anyone have links to Mckinsey/KPMG* type studies (in pdf format) which forecast VR adoption and segment usage by type?

*Or anyone "authoritative".</comment>


Emerging technologies to watch in 2010 - <AUTHOR> http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=VUFDEYRMZN2J5QE1GHRSKH4ATMY32JVN?articleID=221900117

<comment><USER2> Regarding the first item (biofeedback), I've seen Emotiv's demo live at Tokyo Game Show, and it's not at the point where everyday people would want to use it. Basically, it's a lightweight cap that can detect when you're getting relaxed. As you can imagine, this does not lend itself well to the kind of subtlety required to control anything.

That being said, it has interesting applications in quasi-meditation practices, and of course for the disabled.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd add: wireless energy transfer.

<comment><USER4> More than 100 years after Tesla worked out his prototype, I'd say it's about time!</comment></comment>


Sequoia is ranked the world's fastest supercomputer - <AUTHOR> https://www.llnl.gov/news/aroundthelab/2012/Jun/ATL-061812_sequoia.html

<comment><USER2> In case anyone missed it, here are a few more reports of the same story:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4125450> (bbc.co.uk)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4125840> (bbc.com)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4126713> (washingtonpost.com)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4127060> (eweek.com)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4127424> (guardian.co.uk)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4127543> (patexia.com)

There are probably more ...

<comment><USER3> This is like wikipedia's list of lists pages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's probably not the whole truth, but i suspect Sequoia is doomed to spend its operational lifespan simulating the effects of radiation on 70's era electronics. It's not bad... just kinda sad.

</comment><comment><USER3> On it's test phase it was generating hash collisions.

[this is not at all true - on purpose anyway]

</comment><comment><USER5> The fastest non "black" system you mean :-)</comment>


Steve Jobs Was Right: Smartphones and Tablets Killed the P.C - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/13/opinion/apple-macbook-pro-ipad.html <comment><USER2> I thought it was desktop operating systems trying so hard to be like smartphone operating systems that they end up sucking is what "killed" the PC.

I haven't updated my OSX for such a long time because of what breaks and how much functionality I lose every time I do upgrade it. And I haven't touched Windows since the 90's and don't plan on starting.

As long as Linux folk don't give up too much to Microsoft's sudden love fest, I've still got mileage in my ways.</comment>