PG&E could shut off power across Bay Area on Wednesday and Thursday - <AUTHOR> https://www.berkeleyside.com/2019/10/07/pge-could-shut-off-power-across-bay-area-wednesday-and-thursday <comment><USER2> I think they don't want to be liable for fires anymore. And they're not "liable" for cutting power to prevent fires. Problem solved, at least from a legal standpoint.

<comment><USER3> > And they're not "liable" for cutting power to prevent fires.

State granted monopolies must serve the public good. If, as a broadcaster, I just can't manage to keep our transmitter on -- we're going to lose our license to someone who can.

Either PG&E needs to explain why they can't do appropriate line maintenance or needs to have their lines put up for bidding.

<comment><USER4> I'm actually a little sympathetic at this point. How can you be expected to spend money fixing problems when the fines and lawsuits in the aftermath of the last crisis have bankrupted you?

Obviously ideally they never should have let maintenance get so neglected in the first place, but here we are... how do we get out of this hole?

I'm of the opinion that the state should assume ownership of PG&E in exchange for bailout money, just as was done with some banks a decade ago. Use public funds to stop the bleeding and make headway on fixing the problems that caused all this in the first place. If that means drastic leadership changes, so be it. Once PG&E is back on its feet and has proven it can be responsible, the shares owned by the state can be sold back to the public, presumably for a tidy profit.

We should also examine the regulatory environment around all this to figure out what contributed to the current state of affairs, and try to set up PG&E's next incarnation for success.

Another interesting option could be to strip PG&E for parts, and let smaller municipalities (city, county, region) buy up the infrastructure, take care of repairs (likely with funding support from the state), and run in perpetuity in a more distributed manner. I imagine there are certain efficiencies in having ownership more centralized in theory, but clearly that hasn't worked in CA for decades.

<comment><USER5> _I 'm actually a little sympathetic at this point. How can you be expected to spend money fixing problems when the fines and lawsuits in the aftermath of the last crisis have bankrupted you? _

How? Pretty easily I suppose, especially if you're blowing your safety budget on executive bonuses.

[https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/PG-E-diverted- safety-...](https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/PG-E-diverted-safety-money- for-profit-bonuses-2500175.php)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Map of affected areas:

[https://www.pge.com/en_US/safety/emergency- preparedness/natu...](https://www.pge.com/en_US/safety/emergency- preparedness/natural-disaster/wildfires/psps-service-impact-map.page)

Most reasonably dense areas are not affected, for some values of reasonable. If you live anywhere near a eucalyptus-fueled tinderbox, probably your power will be cut.

</comment><comment><USER7> Welcome to the new dark ages, courtesy of our PG&E overlords.

I noticed that in the list of counties, SF isn't there. That's fascinating. Is that because they're SFPUC? But doesn't SFPUC get power by way of PG&E transmission lines? Do they have their own generation and/or transmission capacity to survive?

Also, what about Santa Clara (the city, not the county)? They have their own electric utility too. Do THEY have enough capacity to do their own thing?

It's gonna be stuff like this that'll kickstart the next recession. Just break the back of the valley's economy and the rest will take care of itself.

<comment><USER5> _I noticed that in the list of counties, SF isn 't there. That's fascinating. Is that because they're SFPUC? _

Most likely San Francisco doesn't have the sorts of transmission lines PG&E is worried about. A fair chunk of the power lines in SF are underground, and there aren't that many places in SF with tons of fuel where you're going to see hot, dry, windy weather like you would in rural Napa or Contra Costa.

<comment><USER8> The electricity still has to be generated somewhere. That somewhere is usually quite far away (nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, coal/oil/natural gas powered facility). The generated energy now needs to be transmitted (via transmission lines across the country side) and distributed (via substations)[0].

GP's main remark was how are these major metropolitan areas generating the electricity they are distributing? Is generation near the city, or is PG&E shying away from turning off power for thousands of business and millions of users for political reasons.

[0] A great video about electricity generation, transmission, and distribution (and subsequent in-depth videos of each step) can be found here: [https://youtu.be/v1BMWczn7JM](https://youtu.be/v1BMWczn7JM)

<comment><USER5> _GP 's main remark was how are these major metropolitan areas generating the electricity they are distributing? _

Fossil fuels. There's a plant in Antioch and there was, up until about a decade ago, a plant in BVHP.

 _Is generation near the city, or is PG &E shying away from turning off power for thousands of business and millions of users for political reasons. _

Oh give me a break. No, San Francisco is not being spared because it has political clout. San Francisco doesn't have the same combination of environment and poorly maintained above ground high energy transmission lines that PG&E is worried about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> They've been sending notices for months they may be shutting off power. The fear they seem to be trying to generate, it almost seems like they're gonna try to ransom power, raising rates or get bailed out.

<comment><USER10> Last year when they shut off power (north of the Bay) they were criticized for not giving enough warning.

I'm not saying that they shouldn't be in this situation, but given that we are, I'd prefer the warning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I really wonder what the increased risk is of people using gas generators instead. I suppose from PG&E's perspective this isn't their liability but it still concerns me.

<comment><USER12> Expect to see a spike in Powerwall sales (battery storage in general really). You even get the 30% federal tax credit if included with your rooftop solar system.

 _If_ you have enough roof, and _if_ your consumption profile is appropriate, you can run without utility power indefinitely.

Tesla already kicked off storm watch mode for folks with Powerwalls in the areas affected to precharge them to 100% prior to the scheduled outages.

<comment><USER13> 100% off-grid is economically not the most cost effective as you have to oversize capacity for peak too much. Current consensus is that 70% is the sweet-spot. Off grid _will_ be taxed when the uptake becomes less niche. The benefits in terms of (partial) autonomy will remain.

Since my previous comment where I said there will be clawbacks for lost revenue by the grid operators was downvoted, let me quote from relevant studies [1]:

"It should be noted that, in a scenario in which {such systems} undergo a significant uptake, this mechanism is unsustainable since it generates revenue shortfalls for government, municipalities and system operators. These losses of revenues need to be somehow compensated, either by increasing the network tariffs or by changing the tariff structure, e.g. switching from a volume (i.e. per kWh) remuneration to a fixed or to a capacity remuneration for the grid connection. Interestingly, this modification of the tariff structure is already ongoing in various EU countries"

[1] [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333420646_Techno- ec...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333420646_Techno- economic_Analysis_of_Residential_PV-battery_Self-consumption)

<comment><USER12> As utility rates increase to offset grid defections as storage costs come down, a death spiral occurs (already occurring in Germany as you mention) [1]. I think it'll be politically untenable to attempt to rake people over the coals financially, but TBD at this time.

It's not necessary to oversize your system for peak load either; you can opt to instead shed large loads (AC), thereby reducing your capital costs for average system loads (lighting, refrigerator, etc).

[1] [https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/this-is-what- th...](https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/this-is-what-the-utility- death-spiral-looks-like)

<comment><USER13> AC is pretty rare in Europe

<comment><USER12> I agree, but I included it for the sake of argument. Any self supporting power system without AC is much easier to accomplish.

<comment><USER13> Obviously if your energy needs are reduced and your potential energy production remains equal, then your personal energy autonomy becomes easier.

That does not mean there is no difference in where that budget reduction comes from. AC is typically active when it is hot, usually when there is lots of PV potential. You are using more energy when your own energy production is higher.

Suppose you do not have AC but instead electric heaters, then it is reversed. You are requiring more energy when your own production is lower.

So even if your total energy budget would be the same, the former scenario would involve less strain than the latter on energy autonomy because of how consumption would correlate in time with production or not.

From the grid's macro perspective, in an environment without much AC (or other appliances following the same consumption pattern), it has to potentially absorb (or refuse) much more energy delivered to it when demand is lower, while being able to still satisfy demand when it peaks and supply potential is reduced.

At that grid level scope, widespread AC usage, even though in aggregate using far more energy and thus net negative, might be easier to smooth out demand wise and thus easier to satisfy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is insane. Those power lines should've been put underground years ago.

California seems to always build infrastructure on the cheap.

</comment><comment><USER15> Hopefully all the tech talent in the bay area will start working on local energy generation to send pg and e into proper bankruptcy

<comment><USER16> pg&e owns the grid. A lot of bay area residents generate their own power, but we all rely on pg&e for interconnect.

And without grid, solar panels shut themselves off.

<comment><USER15> > And without grid, solar panels shut themselves off.

By legislation, not by technical necessity.

> A lot of bay area residents generate their own power, but we all rely on > pg&e for interconnect.

I am aware. This is a legal thing that the legislature refuses to correct. They've granted PG&E a monopoly and won't stand up to them properly. When I was a California resident, I contacted my congressman about it almost monthly, and got the same response: sorry can't do anything

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well played, PG&E. Well played.

</comment><comment><USER18> I don't agree with this. Instead of California law makers fixing the problems with the forests, they put the blame on PG&E. The state is just making the problems worse by advocating that it's okay to miss-manage forests. We're fighting one extreme problem with an extreme measure and solving nothing.

<comment><USER19> lol, ladies and gentlemen we have our dear Potus amongst us.

<comment><USER20> Please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> We don't even _have_ PGE service in Palo Alto but they're telling us we'll be cut off too. In 2000 we were subject to the rolling blackouts for reasons of "solidarity" even though Palo Alto had access to power.

<comment><USER22> PG&E still runs distribution even if you buy electricity from another provider.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> PG&E

Gone by the wind ...

</comment><comment><USER24> "Choosing San Francisco in 2020 is like choosing Java in 2010... Proven, but makes it harder to do simple things and doesn't give you an advantage over incumbents" -Balaji S. Srinivasan

<comment><USER25> Yet Java is still a defacto choice even today.

Arguably minimal fuss & stable. Java code written today will still run without change in 5 years. Can't say the same of other languages.

What other language would you recommend for a large eng organization of 1000+ ppl?

<comment><USER26> You literally could not pay me to program in Java. I've written non trivial code in over twenty languages, but Java, php, and perl are so bad for team projects that I would rather find a different job.

<comment><USER27> I was ready to be sarcastic here, but I'm curious which of your 17 other languages do you prefer? And why? And to do what?

I've always found that Java _particularly_ shines in team settings in a way that a lot of individual productivity languages like python and Ruby fall down atleast.

Obviously there is a broad spectrum of other languages between and beyond them, but which do you prefer?

<comment><USER26> My favorite for a decade was Python, but it falls down in bigger teams and projects. A little better these days with the static typing available and proper linters and formatters, but not my first choice anymore.

I like Go and Rust the most these days. Not because they're perfect by any means, but they avoid a lot of traps of the other languages and scale well for the whole lifecycle of actual software development in teams.

Java is bad for a few reasons. The JVM makes everything an object on the heap, which means you're always in a war with your garbage collector. You have to run in bigger machines with plenty of memory headroom. There's a lot of backward compatibility cruft, like the fake generics. The worst part is the people though. The language is too mainstream but not hard enough to weed out the bad coders, and they make a mess out of the code base.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Wow, really? A whole day without power? This is actually gonna happen?

<comment><USER29> Nearly the entire state of Connecticut was without power in 2012 for a few days. Where we lived, city of 100k, we didn't have power for a week.

<comment><USER30> Went without power for a week in the middle of Manhattan after Hurricane Sandy. I lived on the 10th floor too and our elevators didn't get restored for over two weeks due to the basement flooding.</comment></comment></comment>


Jupiter Moon Europa's Giant Geysers Are Missing - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/jupiter-moon-europa-s-giant-geysers-are-missing

<comment><USER2> How is the detection done? Is it some chemical signature? A graphical visual image? Something else? Could it be that the methodology used may be too presumptuous on the nature of the phenomena? Could it be that the phenomena is something else entirely and has been misclassified? What is the methodology of identification and classification of such phenomena and how is that confidence expressed?

<comment><USER3> Europa is tidally locked to Jupiter meaning one side of Europa is always facing Jupiter (like our Moon). It also orbits in a nearly circular orbit however this is not to be confused with perfectly circular orbit: Europa will have perizene and apozene points (locations in which Europa is closest and farthest to Jupiter respectively)

That being said we have made calculations based upon the tidal forces on Europa by Jupiter and the plumes seem to appear when Europa is at it's apozene location and disappear at its perizene location.

I don't think it said in the article where Europa is. It could simply be nearing its perizene and the geysers go away due to the tidal model.

<comment><USER4> I didn't not know we had specific names of apses outside the Sun's and Earth's ones. I found a list that some might found interesting:

[http://www.orbiter- forum.com/showthread.php?t=13943#post1477...](http://www.orbiter- forum.com/showthread.php?t=13943#post147749)

<comment><USER3> Yep! My friend's capstone team was named "Perigalacticon" I thought it was some SciFi thing but I later learned it meant "closest approach to the center of the Galaxy"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What this means is that we will need to plan for a lander on Europa. This will be very tricky to land due to a lack of atmosphere and the need to avoid contamination.

<comment><USER6> ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE.

<comment><USER7> These guys are just _no_ fun at all :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Aliens"

</comment><comment><USER9> Whew, thank goodness I didn't blast off in a rocket towards Europa. Though, maybe I could course correct to Enceladus. That's where the action is at.</comment>


The FBI is fighting to obtain three extremely dangerous new powers - <AUTHOR> https://privacysos.org/blog/fbi-wants-lot-power-spy-us-trust/ <comment><USER2> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzqVEQUBJ6A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzqVEQUBJ6A)</comment>


Scaling Venture Capital  - <AUTHOR> http://500.co/2012/04/06/scaling-venture-capital/

<comment><USER2> Age can't be an important factor, for every benefit of being your there is an counter one for being older.

Young don't have a family to support so can work long hour. Older person, has secure financial position so don't have to take a paying job on the side to get by.

Young have more energy Older people do less partying and drinking so have more energy

etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hmm I was thinking of trying to get a secondment with our companies VC arm - to try and leverage my experience and to get experience of due diligence so that when our employers make huge investments we don't find out about this new integration challenge in the FT</comment>


Adjusted Age-Specific Case Fatality Ratio During for COVID-19 in Hubei [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.04.20031104v1.full.pdf <comment><USER2> This model is nice in principle, but its results depend crucially on what is ultimately an educated guess of the reporting rate of symptomatic cases.

This parameter can be found experimentally by testing for antibodies against the virus in a random sample of the population. This has not been done so far. As long as that's true, CFR estimates will be quite uncertain.

Also really interesting in this context is how Germany is looking more and more like a huge outlier in terms of fatality. Almost 1000 cases and 0 deaths so far. Sure, that may still change, but the outbreak has been going on for a while there already.

<comment><USER3> Or look at S Korea, 7313 cases 50 deaths, .68% CFR. Would like to see the age group breakdown.

If I had to guess why CFR is so much lower in S Korea, it's because they tend to test more widely, ie. don't only test when patients show up at the hospital with severe symptoms. Or in other words they are closer to the real CFR.

<comment><USER4> > Or look at S Korea, 7313 cases 50 deaths, .68% CFR. Would like to see the > age group breakdown.

As of 2020-03-08 0:00 AM UTC+9 [1]:

                  Patients        Deaths
        Age       (% of total)    (% in group)

        80+        212  (3.0%)      14  (6.6%)
        70--79     409  (5.7%)      18  (4.4%)
        60--69     878 (12.3%)      11  (1.3%)
        50--59    1349 (18.9%)       5  (0.4%)
        40--49     975 (13.7%)       1  (0.1%)
        30--39     760 (10.7%)       1  (0.1%)
        20--29    2133 (29.9%)       0  (0.0%)
        10--19     360  (5.0%)       0  (0.0%)
        0--9        58  (0.8%)       0  (0.0%)

        Total     7134              50  (0.7%)

[1] [https://is.cdc.go.kr/upload_comm/syview/doc.html?fn=15836441...](https://is.cdc.go.kr/upload_comm/syview/doc.html?fn=158364414115900.pdf&rs=/upload_comm/docu/0015/) (p. 10)

<comment><USER5> Most of Korea's cases were discovered since late February and have not had a chance to either recover or die (i.e., the numerator is right-censored). Expect the CFR to rise there.

<comment><USER6> Or not. What about all the infected people who haven't had symptoms serious enough to warrant seeing a doctor and getting tested positive for Coronavirus?

<comment><USER5> That is a constant factor on the denominator, which is lower in Korea than elsewhere due to the availability of 10-minute drive-through tests. The factor on the numerator will be much higher at the start of an epidemic and go down to 1 when it completes.

The estimated average time to die for those who die from COVID-19 is 28 days. 28 days ago, Korea had fewer than 50 cases total.

<comment><USER7> How is the number of mild, untested cases a constant factor? If less serious patients start to get tested more frequently, this number will change.

<comment><USER5> > If less serious patients start to get tested more frequently, this number > will change.

If everyone were tested, the denominator goes up by some constant factor. In Korea, people are already being tested at the first sign of cold symptoms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How much do we think healthcare and hospital stability was implicitly factored into this study given that the data was focused in Hubei? Meaning, if hospitals had to turn away patients, one would think the death rate would increase. If hospitals could receive all patients, one would presume the death rate would be lower? It's clear health care systems get overloaded even with a low symptomatic case saturation per capita.[0]

Related to this, what I haven't seen mentioned or discussed extensively is not only would the fatality rate increase for Covid-19 cases if hospitals are overloaded, but I would assume the fatality rate for _all other needs_ of a hospital would also increase. Does anyone know this has been assessed? (e.g., did Hubei see a notable increase in non-Covid-19 related deaths during this period?)

[0] [https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/coronavirus-wreaks- ha...](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/coronavirus-wreaks-havoc-italy- tests-limits-health-system-200307112350888.html)

<comment><USER9> I think we're seeing a small case study of this in the nursing home in Washington. Out of 120 residents, 13 are dead and have been identified with COVID-19. There were 11 more who died at the nursing home since Feb 19 and haven't been tested, but they said on average 3-6 residents die per month. I think the nursing home scenario is probably a worst case given both age and underlying health concerns (unlike elderly still living in their own home or with their families). Given the Seattle area medical infrastructure, this fatality rate can't be explained by overloading of our facilities.

I really disliked Fauci's comments that "the risk is low" to the American population, pointing to the rate of infection. He hedges this with some hand waving that it could change at any moment. I thought it was irresponsible to say the risk is low when they hadn't done any real testing and we've actually got outbreaks like in Kirkland. Regarding his comment that the WHO fatality rate is too high because of asymptomatic population and the denominator in reality is much higher. Fine. But he doesn't acknowledge that the numerator might be much higher as well. How many 80+ year olds, especially those with preexisting conditions, die and are assumed to have just passed from old age and the preexisting conditions. It is a characteristic of this virus that the people getting killed are the most likely ones not to raise huge red flags early. So in general, I would've preferred him to not say anything about risk until we actually get more numbers and real testing within our population. The average fatality rate hides the fact that this virus is very dangerous to the elderly.

<comment><USER10> Nursing homes and other long-term care units also have the lowest quality of care and staff ratings in the industry. Typically plagued by overstaffing, unhappy workers, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This study makes a comparison of the age distribution in reported Covid-19 cases vs. the distribution of ages in the Chinese population. I think this approach can definitely provide insight however, there's one assumption that this study uses which will definitely bias the fatality rates being estimated.

> We chose to fix to 100% the reporting rate of infected individuals that have > symptoms and are aged 80 and more, and estimate the reporting rates in other > age groups relatively to that of older individuals. If further data, coming > from a study in the general population, shows that this assumption is > violated, this would lead to an overestimation of the CFR in our study.

I find it hard to believe that 100% of cases in individuals over 80 will be reported. It seems like any estimation of fatality rate at this time is going to be guesswork without more systematic sampling of the population.

I'm not trying to minimize the danger of Covid-19. It seems like caution to prevent further spread is absolutely necessary.

</comment><comment><USER12> Presumably age as a factor is used because it's easy to measure, but it would be nice to know the effect of comorbidity. For example, comparing otherwise healthy 60 year olds to otherwise healthy 30 year olds.

<comment><USER13> And a breakdown into specific medical factors. Diabetes, Smoker, AIDS, cancer, flu.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> So all our presidential candidates (sitting or otherwise) have some relatively bad odds.

<comment><USER15> Iran's leadership is experiencing this right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > We estimated the age-specific case fatality ratio (CFR) by fitting a > transmission model to data from China, accounting for underreporting of > cases and the time delay to death. Overall CFR among all infections was 1.6% > (1.4-1.8%) and increased considerably for the elderly, highlighting the > expected burden for populations with further expansion of the COVID-19 > epidemic around the globe.

<comment><USER17> It's worth pointing out that this is the CFR for the virus, SARS-CoV-2 (i.e. including asymptomatic individuals). The CFR for the disease, COVID-19, is 3.3% (2.9-3.8%).

I'm not sure which it is more common to report, but the 2% estimate that was used earlier in the epidemic was for the disease rather than the virus, apparently.

<comment><USER18> The CFR rate for the disease rather than infectius agent is not really useful for anything besides inciting panic. Consider the case where a virus only shows symptoms in 0.1% of case, but is 100% fatal when it does. You could report this as NEW EPIDEMIC 100% FATAL, WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE!!! but that hardly gives a realistic picture.

<comment><USER17> "We are all gonna die" is a statement about the mortality rate, not the case fatality rate. This paper does not deal with the mortality rate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Until the dust settles on COVID-19 this is all speculation.

I have a question about the Spanish Flu.

Most reliable literature CDC, WHO lost the CFR for the Spanish Flu at 2.5. This makes no sense to me.

The Spanish flu killed between 50-100 Million people, 3-6% of the world's population, it infected about 500 Million people, so why isn't the CFR between 10-20%?

<comment><USER20> How does the proximate cause of death factor into the CFR? In 1918, most of the deaths were from secondary infections:

[https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/bacterial- pneu...](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/bacterial-pneumonia- caused-most-deaths-1918-influenza-pandemic)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> As someone who is atopic but not asthmatic, I am especially concerned. My guess is that atopic and asthmatic indivdiduals might be at higher risk.

As someone in their forties, I can't think of any other potential risk that I am aware of where I might have a 1 in 50 chance of dying if I catch this (assuming an elevated risk) given that I am relatively health otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER22> Do we have enough information to do this kind estimate for serious or critical symptoms, rather than just deaths? What are the chances of somebody in a given age bracket needing breathing support?

</comment><comment><USER23> Death rate: Age 0-9: 0.0094% Age 10-19: 0.022% Age 20-29: 0.091% Age 30-39: 0.18% Age 40-49: 0.4% Age 50-59: 1.3% Age 60-69: 4.6% Age 70-79: 9.8% Age 80+: 18%

TL;DR dont infect ur parents as 60-69 has 1 in 21 chance of death.

<comment><USER24> These numbers may look insignificant but your base chance of dying in a given year is on a similar order. Have a google for life tables, the UK ones are available online.

For younger people, it's like having a fair part of a year's worth of life risk, for older people several years.

Do you want that risk for no benefit? There's also whatever problems you get that don't kill you. I suspect you waste a good few weeks of your life regardless of whether you survive.

<comment><USER25> Do you have a link for that? The first result I got is this life table for US 2003 on Wikipedia ([https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Excerpt_...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Excerpt_from_CDC_2003_Table_1.pdf)), and the risk for an average 60 year old is around 1% per year. Do you mean to say 1% and 4.6% are on a similar order?

<comment><USER24> Of magnitude, yes. This is not the one I found yesterday but figures are similar.

[https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/datasets/nationallifetablesunitedkingdomreferencetables)

<comment><USER25> That's not reasonable. 1% risk of death vs (1+4.6)% risk of death (a) is closer to 1 order of magnitude higher (log_10(5.6)=0.75), and (b) 1%/year and 5.6%/year are nowhere near the same the way most normal people think about the risk of dying.

A 1 order of magnitude _lower_ risk (0.1%) is basically negligible, like a regular flu. On the other hand, a 1 order of magnitude increase, i.e., around 10% risk of dying would already rate among the deadliest epidemics in history, and far above things like the Spanish flu, so comparing orders of magnitude is just not the right way to think about this number.

<comment><USER24> You might have a point there. But I think a lot depends on the error of the disease estimates, and it seems clear that they could well overlap with the range of natural death rates. Dependent on how you slice and dice it.

For sure old people are at at least a year's risk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> As with any statistical analysis based on a sample of the total population, there will be biases (as many have already noted). That being said, these results reflect what we've seen in the real world in places like Washington state, Italy, Iran, and even S. Korea. More to the point: these data underscore the importance of following the advice of public health officials.

It's fine to have an intellectual discussion about the merits of the study, but let's make sure that we keep our eye on the prize. Each of us has a responsibility to do our part in protecting our parents, friends, and coworkers.

TL;DR - This study suggests that many of us on HN will be fine no matter what. But it also demonstrates that, if left unchecked, it's possible (if not probable) that many of us will be grieving the loss of someone we love. There's no need to panic, and there's no room for those who seek to be dismissive, flippant, or ignorant. Everyone will be fine if each of us focuses on doing the right thing.

</comment><comment><USER27> why is the CDC not telling us where are the suspected cases and how many out there??? Do they even know that number??

</comment><comment><USER28> Death rates aside, it looks like younger people are less likely to even get the disease (not especially surprising). If you exclude the really young people, even the 30 year olds would likely be under represented (I think). One implication of this may be that societies with more socially engaged older people will be more vulnerable to this. E.g. countries where people who serve as frequent touch points to strangers like frontline retail jobs are likely to be older might do worse in this circumstance.

<comment><USER29> Are we sure they don't get it, or are just asymptomatic in the short term.

Chicken pox is a thing parents commonly seek out for their kids around here. But in the long term the vaccine is still better at reducing long term consequences.

(Got it intentionally as a child then again [unintentionally] as a teen. Had some nerve damage since. Not looking forward to shingles.)

<comment><USER28> That was my point of confusion on the charts for symptomatic people. I'm assuming that the relatively high rates of non symptomatic individuals implies they're testing people without symptoms in a somewhat random sample style</comment></comment></comment>


Tumblr refugees trying to save its NSFW content - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90277836/meet-the-tumblr-refugees-trying-to-safe-its-adult-content-from-oblivion <comment><USER2> It's interesting to see Tumblr described in many articles/forums as primarily for pornography. Tumblr has been the biggest user acquisition channel (and a free one, at that) for my startup, which has nothing to do with pornography.

We've gained tens of thousands of users in a few days from a single user post, and several user posts have accumulated 50,000+ notes. This is all thanks to the strong accessibility groups around ADHD and dyslexia that exist on Tumblr.

I've spent (wasted) time and money on FB ads, and I wish that I could have advertised on Tumblr. Unfortunately, every time I tried, they only wanted big brands with $25k minimum spend.

<comment><USER3> Yeah , but how do you think these users got into tumblr in the first place?

<comment><USER4> Tumblr being just for porn is mostly a meme. I have used Tumblr for many years, not for porn, but for art and lifestyle content, and memes. It actually took me a few years to find out that Tumbler had tons of extremly high quality free porn.

Thr hugh amouts of porn give creatives a certain security that their works won't be deleted for nudity and such.

<comment><USER5> Well, as of the last announcement, "gave". The NSFW thing seems to be throwing out the baby with the bathwater, particularly since the way they are flagging content seems to be error-prone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Awful site. Won't even load if cookies are blocked. Summary, after stripping all markup:

 _The internet is for porn, goes the song from musical Avenue Q. Since Tumblr announced this week that it will no longer be part of that internet, many users are mounting an exodus to existing networks like still-freewheeling Twitter, as well as efforts to build a new kind of Tumblr, the kind of Tumblr that Tumblr had been until now. There were people sharing their discovery of their sexuality. There were people sharing the journey of themselves going through hard times, says LolaBohemia, a professional dominatrix from Florida. ..._

 _The platform 's ban on visuals of adult content, including explicit sexual content and nudity (with some exceptions), which officially begins on December 17, has already flooded bloggers inboxes with automated alerts about suspect images, videos, and GIFs. ... In addition to flagging visuals, Tumblr seems to have filtered its searches. Hashtags like BDSM now return no results at all. No erotica or other text appears either, despite Tumblr's assurance that the new content rules don't apply to text posts._

 _There is an appeals process for flagged items, and its unclear how much content will ultimately be blocked although straight-up porn certainly will be. Many adult bloggers get the sense that they are no longer wanted. There are [sic] no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content, wrote Tumblr 's CEO._

Tribe and Experience Project also went sex-free. They're both gone now.

<comment><USER7> autoplaying video, check. Pop up ad slow loading to make sure it pops up after i start reading, check. Empty, contentless "article", check.

Yup, shit site, don't go folks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This decade feels like the Victorian era all over again. How long did the last one last?

<comment><USER8> Here is one plausible theory: [http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/the- censorious-age](http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/the-censorious-age)

<comment><USER3> it's mostly observations, not theory. And he doesn't even touch on the Spanish Inquisition that sprang out of silicon valley and anti-Trump media after his election.

<comment><USER9> Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a trans person, Tumblr was the best place to find other trans people, having shared experiences talked about, negativity processed, and where I was able to post pics of myself as I shifted seeing myself from ugly (as reinforced in me in movies) to worth loving. It was one of the only places where I didn't have to be bombarded with the hateful remarks of transphobes, as I got to pick who I followed.

I had some of my content censored following the acquisition by Yahoo. It happened to other folk too. I really wish there wouldn't be this shame around bodies, sexuality and gender identity that companies enforce with their censorship algorithms.

</comment><comment><USER11> The issue they are going to run into is that they are automatically going to be labeled a porn site. As such they will automatically lose the top tier of advertisers and payment processors. In addition, because they are new and probably won't have the filtering systems in place, very offensive content including cp will likely get posted. This will further make them a pariah to the main stream internet with app stores and internet infrastructure players not wanting to do business with them. For example see the example of Apple banning the Tumblr app. And that was with a well established service. With this new NSFW service it won't even be a close call.

<comment><USER6> That seems to be what's happening - a hard division between no-sex sites and porn sites, with nothing in between. Apple and Google seem to be driving this, with their no-sex policies.

Verizon, having acquired Tumblr, had a problem. Their own "Verizon Smart Family"[1] censoring system would now be blocking their own site.

[1] [https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/verizon-smart- family...](https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/verizon-smart-family/)

<comment><USER12> What if companies that want to expand globally actually want to be forbidden to show any 'objectionable' content. They don't really want to do it themselves, so they work to get it mandated?

Seems like it could increase the barrier of entry significantly while simultaneously giving access to new, less saturated markets?

Sounds like crazy talk, but why has porn suddenly become such a big deal?

Even before internet, porn has been readily accessible for decades, so why does it suddenly become a problem big enough that companies seems willing to loose their entire business to filter out a specific class of content?

The only reasonable explanation is that they are seizing the opportunity, one possibly created on purpose, to enact realignment to new markets without getting all the flak themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I saw a lot of tumblr 'refugees' on mastodon this week.

</comment><comment><USER14> They should name the new platform Relbmut (inverse of Tumbler).

<comment><USER15> Actually, I'm kind of surprised Tumbler is trying to get rid of the all content instead of moving it to some separate "Porn Tumbler" instance. Sounds like there could be additional revenue stream coming out of that kind of stuff...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> No mention of reddit?

<comment><USER17> Reddit actively discourages people from posting their own original content, other than a small number of subs intended for it.

<comment><USER18> Are you sure? Among the reddit snobs not posting "original content" is frowned upon

<comment><USER19> I think he's talking specifically about NSFW subreddits, where many do say "no self generated content" specifically to avoid tumblr-style underage problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> That's cute. The Tumblr Refugees don't think that Twitter is censored.

<comment> r-w It's not. The only caveats are that you have to mark porn as porn, and you're not allowed to get paid for it.

Source: [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xwavkq/j](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xwavkq/j)

<comment><USER21> > It's not. The only caveats are that you have to mark porn as porn, and > you're not allowed to get paid for it.

For now. Twitter is subject to SESTA and FOSTA just like Tumblr and Facebook are, so it's only a matter of time before they follow suit.</comment></comment></comment>


Rapid Backbone Prototyping With Real Backend - <AUTHOR> http://brainy.io/

<comment><AUTHOR> hi there. plug here. i finished the published parts of this library many months ago but never really showed anyone. figured now or never.

though i hope the readme is sufficient, this essentially lets you create a Backbone client application and it will create a full REST API for you. next feature in the pipeline does the same for views, allowing you to render your application on the client or server. following feature will be pub/sub on collections and models.

questions comments concerns welcome

<comment><USER2> This sounds real useful. I'm going to try and through something together and see how rapidly I can prototype with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Have you looked at ArangoDB and Foxx - [https://www.arangodb.org/foxx](https://www.arangodb.org/foxx) \- it's quite similar to this idea if I understand correctly.

<comment><AUTHOR> i haven't. looks like similar principal though i chose to piggyback on Backbone and MongoDB standards so there is nothing new to learn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The model I'm currently toying with involves running "model operations" locally on my Backbone models, then sending those requests to the server, which authenticates and validates them, returning canonical model data as a result. This is important to me because I need to verify that the model actions are valid rather than simply allowing arbitrary writes from models.

I'm also looking at well known collections as queries, such that the client can define some, upload the fetch request to the server, and the server will use the underlying database to populate the collection results, subject to privacy and access.

Have you thought about what adding those features to this framework might look like?

<comment><AUTHOR> >> _The model I 'm currently toying with involves running "model operations" locally on my Backbone models, then sending those requests to the server, which authenticates and validates them, returning canonical model data as a result. This is important to me because I need to verify that the model actions are valid rather than simply allowing arbitrary writes from models._

if i understand correctly, this is exactly what i attempted with Brainy. all validation is run on the client (if they fail they don't send) and again on the server (if they fail they return an error response code). check out the `validate` documentation. [1]

>> _I 'm also looking at well known collections as queries, such that the client can define some, upload the fetch request to the server, and the server will use the underlying database to populate the collection results, subject to privacy and access._

again, correct me if i'm wrong, but i think this is baked into Brainy on top of Backbone's fetch. [2]

[1] [http://brainy.io/#resources-validate](http://brainy.io/#resources- validate) [2] [http://brainy.io/#resources-fetch](http://brainy.io/#resources- fetch)

<comment><USER4> Consider an "add user to thread" function. Only participating users can add other members. First, how would I do authentication/authorization with Brainy? Second, the easiest way to enforce the existing member relationship is to have a method that validates an "add user" function call and then performs the action. With a single "validate" method, you need to know the old values and the new values and compute the delta. Does Brainy support that?

As far as collections, pretend a user can only see threads for which he is a member. Can that be enforced with Brainy? It could be if the queries were well-defined methods that produced query strings and were executed on the server.

I ask about all this because I'm basically implementing it manually in my current project, and it would be neat to have something reusable at the end of these efforts.

<comment><AUTHOR> i'm currently doing this with a session model. and i override my model save/fetch to validate the session before performing some operation.

it's not packaged because i'm hesitant to include any client-specific code (yet) and i'm not sure it's any sort of secure. if you open an issue on the project i'll remember to respond with more detail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> because capitalized section headers are so dated

<comment><USER6> Because gratuitous sarcastic negativity doesn't age a bit.</comment></comment>


Serious OS X and iOS flaws let hackers steal keychain, 1Password contents - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/06/serious-os-x-and-ios-flaws-let-hackers-steal-keychain-1password-contents/

<comment><USER2> Bad week for password managers...

Here is Agile Bits' response by Jeff Goldberg: [https://blog.agilebits.com/2015/06/17/1password-inter- proces...](https://blog.agilebits.com/2015/06/17/1password-inter-process- communication-discussion/)</comment>


How Bitcoin Can Bring Down The United States Of America - <AUTHOR> http://falkvinge.net/2013/06/04/how-bitcoin-can-bring-down-the-united-states-of-america/

<comment><USER2> I usually respect Falkvinge but this is pure uncut bullshit.

First the status of US as a superpower is much better guaranteed from the couple of thousand nukes and a couple dozen of carriers etc ... even in the case of total economic collapse the military might alone will be enough to allow the US to have strong word in the world affairs.

The fact the US have no trouble selling its debt at negative real interest rates means not that US is borrowing too much but that it is not borrowing nearly enough concerning the people that want to be US creditors.

Us is also one of the main centers of IT research, development and production. Just forbidding Intel and AMD to sell chips to some country can harm it a lot.

Krugman calculated that the benefit of USD being a world reserve currency is roughly 300 billion USD per year - not a pocket change but hardly a game breaking amount.

<comment><USER3> Err, not uncut bullshit. 4 billion dollars increased debt per day was the figure I read last week.

(Edit: <http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/> claims 2.7 billion dollars increase per day. Anyway, it's huge. It's not bullshit. Treasury source @ [http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/pd_debtposactr...](http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/pd_debtposactrpt_0413.pdf))

<comment><USER2> And the universe is losing stars on the rate of 30 supernovas per second. Should we create a action group for star preservation?

A big number means nothing until putted in context.

4 billion per day gives a trillion and a half per year. Also known as half the us health spending for the same year. Or 10% US GDP.

While this may be troubling in other situations - in the current situation due to inflation the us will surely pay less than the amount borrowed in real terms. So this works to reduce the debt if measured in "goods and services" metric. And if US gets in deflation spiral the debt will be the least of the worries. While the interest on the debt is lower than the Fed target inflation rate there is nothing to worry about.

<comment><USER3> Reuters: [http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/08/us-usa-debt- bondho...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/08/us-usa-debt-bondholders- idUSTRE75718320110608) _"It has dire implications for the economy at a time when the macro data is softening," said Ben Westmore, a commodities economist at National Australia Bank_

CNBC: <http://www.cnbc.com/id/100388142> _"The minute we default, there would be a complete collapse in the bond market," said Peter Schiff, chief executive officer of Euro Pacific Capital and a critic of U.S. government spending habits. That would leave the U.S. struggling to refinance more than $4.6 trillion that come due within two years, including $3 trillion of Treasurys due to mature in 2013._

The Atlantic: [http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/h/267205...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/h/267205/) _This story has three possible endings. Either Congress lifts the debt ceiling, and we all live happily ever after, at least until the upcoming battle over the continuing resolutions; or Congress doesn't, and we only get a massive dose of austerity; or Congress doesn't, we get a massive dose of austerity, and then we default, with interest rates shooting up and the financial system melting down. This shouldn't be a difficult choose-your-own- fiscal-adventure._

Forbes: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/igorgreenwald/2013/01/09/why- the...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/igorgreenwald/2013/01/09/why-the-debt- default-is-coming/) _Welcome to the permanent crisis. It's the only way our increasingly dysfunctional government can get things done._

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> >"The United States is kept alive as a nation by the fact that if anybody wants to purchase goods from another nation, like China, they first have to buy US Dollars from the USA, then exchange those USD for the goods they want in China. That, and the fact that this results in all countries buying tons of USD to put in their currency reserves."

First of all, this isn't true. You can use the Forex market to exchange your currency however you wish. It's true that a lot of people save USD because there's a lot of trust in the USA (held by the fact we have the highest gdp in the world), which boost its value, even if that currency was replaced with people saving bitcoins instead, the usd would still have a lot of value. The value of the United States currency is in the trust that the country will survive.

While I wish we didn't have the national debt, it's just a fact of life for most countries. We owe most of our debt to ourselves actually, and as a percentage of gdp, the US debt is about #35 out of all the countries in the world [https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/...](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/rankorder/2186rank.html) .

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm not sure I could come up with a better parody title summing up how a certain segment of the tech community prefers fairly delusional writing about politics and economics to doing real research than:

"How Bitcoin Can Bring Down The United States Of America"

</comment><comment><USER6> Look - some people don't want to bring down anything. They just want a more efficient, cheaper means of exchange and a more reliable store of wealth.

Besides that - when it comes to effects of such a currency on geo-politics... <cue spooky music>... NOBODY KNOWS... Really. No one has the absolute foggiest idea about what would happen if bitcoin main streamed. I wish people would stop thinking that they do.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm fed up with the arrogant techie-revolutionist interpretations of bitcoin...

<comment><USER2> Well it is pretty simple for bitcoin to bring down the US.

1\. Create a country somewhere or invade/buy one.

2\. Achieve international recognition.

3\. Create economy order or two of magnitude bigger than the US

4\. Adopt BTC as national currency.

5\. Now everyone that wants to trade with you must buy BTC.

6\. Trade sanctions against the US.

And in 20-30 years after the sanctions it may even have result.

<comment><USER8> I think you may want to break down step 3 into some substeps.

<comment><USER2> These are implementation details. Real architecture astronauts think only of the big picture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I read the article and it's nothing less than sensationalist, right from the title. It did have bits and pieces of useful information, but overall a dud.

</comment><comment><USER10> Its bullshit like this that gives bitcoin a bad name, now the spinsters will use this article to spin bitcoin in a negative light, well done :(

<comment><USER11> Definition of spinster: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinster>

</comment></comment><comment> jam-python It's hard to see that Bitcoin itself could be the undoing, but there is potential now for disruption that hasn't existed prior. While I also feel the article is a ... umm a bit overboard. The root point is that it feels like it could be possible to shake the banking system a bit. That assumes that the banking system isn't manipulating Bitcoin for it's gain as well.

</comment><comment><USER12> Wow.. Is not one person even willing to entertain the idea?

"Shut him up! I've got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real." - Bill Hicks.

</comment><comment><USER3> I work within the Bitcoin area but not on Bitcoin exclusively, and I have lived in many countries. I own zero Bitcoins. My take is that decentralized currencies and settlement systems (an important distinction, mind you; Bitcoin tries to be both) _do_ have a strong potential to alter the status quo, particularly with vast numbers of European and US citizens in unemployment or various levels of relative poverty, and with the Chinese government's exceptional stance against capital flight. The combination of these elements is extremely potent and is not going away any time soon.

Monopolists (credit cards, USD, SWIFT, etc.) have had it too good for too long; all empires fall, nothing lasts forever.

We have alternatives now: they're affordable, they're increasingly approachable, and they're potentially more transparent (and therefore legally compatible and corruption resistant) than the legacy systems. We even have a foothold in politics.

Anyone who thinks change isn't coming is probably not versed in economics, a staunch conservative, or (sub)consciously expecting greater plays toward totalitarianism and technocracy from our surveillance states.

The coming change will be a massive one for humanity and its ultimate result will be a different relationship not only between individuals and their governments, but amongst the people of the world without regard for government.

We have seen the separation of church and state. Witness: _the separation of finance and state_.

Nationalism, Einstein's _infantile disease; the measles of mankind_ may finally be put to rest, without the need to accept the hidously risky alternative of global governance.

Let us celebrate the creativity and differences in the world, not criticize those who seek to create opportunities for change in the best way possible: non-violently and from the ground up, through individual citizen participation.

</comment><comment><USER13> Bitcoin will not bring down anyone. People will jump on Bitcoin when governments completely destroy value of their paper and confidence in themselves. If tomorrow you start seeing prices going up 10% _daily_ and people getting rid of worthless paper notes, where would you go? First, you'll try to buy some physical goods: food, gold, car, houses etc. But then which money would you use in the remains of the economy? As everyone already has smartphones and if telecom industry does not collapse completely, it would be super easy to install Bitcoin wallets and go on buying and selling stuff in BTC.

Hopefully, if people jump on BTC earlier than later (and we have more useful services, apps and hardware keeping and transacting in BTC) the total collapse will never actually happen. We will just more or less smoothly transition the whole economy on BTC at the expense of all USD-holders (unfortunately). It will be painful, but at least industries will not stop working for months, but will continue going on. Only remaining cash will become worthless during the race to get rid of it.

However, if governments magically stop printing money, default and regain some confidence, then they may probably avoid total run from USD/EUR/etc. Maybe. But right now the speed of money printing and amount of debt is so huge, I don't see any way out of it other than complete USD replacement (more or less peacefully) or brutal tyrannical controls to keep people using gov paper until some bloody revolution happens when economy get completely paralyzed and people starve.

</comment><comment><USER14> I used to follow Falkvinge on Twitter but nonsense like this is why I stopped.

It's one thing to be in favor of personal liberty (which I am) and in sensible economic practices.

It's another to say that this toy that has yet to move beyond a small percentage of even techie libertarians is going to bring down the biggest country in the history of the world.

It's just idiotic.</comment>


Improving the fast inverse square root (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://rrrola.wz.cz/inv_sqrt.html <comment><USER2> Pretty much off topic, but Řrřola, the author of this blog post, also makes mind blowing 256 byte demos.

E.g. Puls from 2009: [https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=53816](https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=53816) (check the youtube link if you don't have an MS-DOS ready)

I understand little about extreme sizecoding, but I suspect it's a similarly obsessed mathy story as this blog post, to double use the same bytes as code and content in a way that things actually work and look great.

<comment><USER3> I heard some Nintendo games does that with sprites or sounds that can take on a random-ish look. Very very cool.

<comment><USER4> Yars' Revenge on the Atari 2600 used the game code as random input to generate the graphics for the 'safe zone'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It is worth noting that with AVX-512, Intel has introduced a native inverse sqrt approximation (VRSQRT14).

<comment><USER6> Inverse sqrt approximation is available since SSE1 with rsqrtss & rsqrtps instructions.

<comment><USER7> Which is nice because SSE1 and SSE2 are mandatory parts of x86_64. If you're a 64bit application for desktop, you can use rsqrtss without any checks or fallbacks.

Unfortunately, it doesn't tend to get used automatically in languages like C. The result of rsqrtss is slightly different from 1/sqrtf(x) as two seperate operations, so it cannot be applied as an optimization.

If the rules for floating point optimization are loosened by passing -ffast- math to GCC, the compiler will use it. That being said, -ffast-math is a shotgun that affects a lot of things. If you need signed zeros, Infs, NaNs or denormals that flag may break your program.

<comment><USER8> I find it quite fortunate, that they don't use it automatically. Introducing a 1e-3 relative error is quite a deal breaker for some. Not for games sure, but for science that is mostly unacceptable.

<comment><USER9> From memory, GCC does one NewtonRaphson iteration on the approximate result so the error is much lower (closer to e-9 from memory again). They don't use the approximation directly in fast-math mode.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How is it that inverse seems to be used as "multiplicative inverse" in this context? It seems like a really ambiguous term, because it could also be interpreted as either:

inverse of the square root (which is just the squaring operation), or

the inverse of some other binary operator, like addition or anything else...

<comment><USER11> I think you've hit the nail on the head:

> it could also be interpreted as ... [the] inverse of the square root _(which > is just the squaring operation)_

Since the other obvious interpretation is not very useful and has a clearer name—i.e. "the square"—the term "inverse square root" has only one useful meaning, which is therefore how it's interpreted. (I don't follow the second option about binary operators.) Mathematical terminology and notation in general are full of ambiguities which are resolved by extensive contextual knowledge. As noted by a sibling comment, calling it the reciprocal square root would be clearer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It seems like this does not work for denormal floats.

</comment><comment><USER13> That's great and all, but nobody needs a 32-bit anything in 2018. This undergraduate paper provides a magic number and associated error bound for 64-bit doubles:

[https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~m32rober/rsqrt.pdf](https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~m32rober/rsqrt.pdf)

<comment><USER14> Even scientific calculation would be fine with 32 bit floats, but average floating point error due to representation creeps with ON (iirc) over N multiplications, so you have to use 64 bit for many scientific applications to get satisfactory results after a million or a trillion multiplications.

<comment><USER15> Not really - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_stability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_stability)

If your algorithm is not stable then even 64-bit won't help you.

Compare Euler vs Verlet - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verlet_integration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verlet_integration)

<comment><USER14> You're making a different argument.

<comment><USER15> Which problem that has stable algorithm would require 64-bit then?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to get your startup funded by Google - <AUTHOR> http://blog.localsort.com/2011/12/11/how-to-get-funded-by-google/ <comment><USER2> Hi Richard, thanks for posting our story ;)</comment>


Show HN: YouTube jukebox powered by AngularJS - <AUTHOR> http://jt.ms/juketube/

<comment><USER2> Reminds me of [http://toogl.es/](http://toogl.es/) Is there something on the left column? It's empty on Chrome.</comment>


Show HN: I built an app to find words in Letterpress - <AUTHOR> http://letterwords.co/ <comment><USER2> Haha, great little app. For the benefit of the 'cheaters' out there that use this I would recommend adding it so that it shows maybe 10 of the longest words and options to view more, then 10 of maybe 5-7 letters long, then 25 of the sub 5 letter words. That way people can easier pick believable words instead of unbelievable words like "whirlybirds" or 'discursively'. Maybe that's just me though.

With that said...don't cheat.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I am currently working on breaking the words down into groups just like that. Hope to push it out soon.

<comment><USER3> filtering on a particular letter would be good as well, using a 'q' without a 'u' is a pain, but none of the words suggested have the q used because the words are too short.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks like many of us had the same idea here. I've been trying to hack together iOS OCR libraries but realised it's actually quite doable without, so derailed a little and therefore got beaten to the post by you all :-) My thought being that the lowest level of friction always wins.

The other option would be to use some magic similar to Dropbox's Camera Upload to automatically save screenshots in the cloud, check whether they're Letterpress, and run server side analysis with a push notification. Feels like a gaping privacy hole there, so I didn't investigate.

My motivation is that a lot of the opponents I've been playing are coming up with the craziest words (and I'm a fairly literate person and regular Scrabble player). At that point, it just boils down to who has the best cheat program :-)

<comment><USER5> Why not just have the user submit a screenshot? Safari supports file uploads now so you could go 100% web based if desired. Or if you are iOS fluent, you could make an app that takes the screenshot for you by grabbing the last picture in your camera roll.

From there, with how simple the board UI is, it should be pretty easy to OCR it. Drop the color and you are 90% there.

There was a Where's Waldo post on HN about 2 days ago. Finding Waldo in that mess involved a bit more work and thought to chose what to look for. In this case it was the bands in the striped shirt that were most if the give-away.

I think you could do a nice app in iOS, though I personally hate the cheating apps. I wish games like Words With Friends, Scrabble, etc., would tell you if the player was in game or not, and possibly what app they switched to. Or provide a lockout mode where switching costs you the game.

Multi-tasking is a needed ability at times, and done games are long play, but certain cheater friends could be locked into a game they can't cheat in, which would be a nice feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am not sure if the app is using the right dictionary or if it is broken in Chrome. I used the string "AARGHQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ" to run a search and it returned no results. "aargh" is in the Letterpress dictionary.

I wrote a quick Python script last week that took the board position and returned the unplayed word with the highest point values (with a winning move being worth the max value). I thought about expanding it to look ahead, but it wasn't needed to beat human opponents.

The coup de grace would be to bundle it all up as an app that pulled from the camera roll and spat out a move.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll look into that. I am using the Letterpress dictionary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've already released an app with OCR, all HTML5 and runs in the browser : <https://github.com/mauricesvay/CheaterPress>

<comment><USER8> That is really impressive. My OCR solution (see comment above) uses a neural net on the server. Your code is both simpler and faster. Nice job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting. I'm working on a similar app, mostly to show off an OCR library I'm working on for fun: <http://wordhelper.net/contact>.

</comment><comment><USER9> Consider limiting your use of tools like this (in Letterpress or any other word game) to games you play with friends where both parties agree to a no- holds-barred cheatfest. It makes the game entirely different, as well as giving you a fun way to deploy cheat-tools without _actually_ cheating.

An example from Andy Baio: <https://twitter.com/waxpancake/status/261990545570799616>

</comment><comment><USER10> Nice! What dictionary did you use? Do you know if it's the same one that LetterPress uses?

I've been thinking about coding a player for LetterPress. Longest word mixed in with some endgame logic would actually probably do fairly well against most players, but it'd be interesting to see what other strategies would come into play.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was cheeky and pulled the dictionary out of Letterpress. Once I've cleaned up the code I will push it to Github.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was thinking about doing this yesterday too. : - ). But I am too lazy.

My idea was to create an iOS app that analyzed a screenshot taken of a letterpress screen. That way you could also optimize for not using dark-red letter colours. Maybe you should try that!

</comment><comment><USER12> Great stuff. I have a Python version here: <https://github.com/thedavesims/LetterHack>

It was very basic but it's had some great contributions since.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've got a python version as well that uses the multiprocessing library to try to speed things up a bit - <https://github.com/dhm116/pyletterpress>

</comment><comment><USER14> I also made a small command line ruby script to search words. Quite slow but get the work done. <https://github.com/iesta/lettercheat>

</comment><comment><USER15> I have created an iOS app already whereby the user can import a screenshot of the game (in any orientation or theme), and it will give you the best results. It should be in review soon.

</comment><comment><USER16> Neat. I look forward to the inevitable OCR-based iOS app.

</comment><comment><USER17> Sorry if this is a dumb question, but what is Letterpress? Pretty much everything I managed to find online was describing a method for printing...

<comment><USER18> It's a new iOS game. [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/letterpress-word- game/id5266...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/letterpress-word- game/id526619424?mt=8)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just pushed out a few changes. You can now see all words plus filter based on word length.</comment>


UX: Infinite Scrolling Best Practices - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@101/infinite-scrolling-best-practices-c7f24c9af1d#.o9xtfmbv4 <comment><USER2> I think there should be a point to address running out of memory. If you just keep adding images/animation/videos, eventually the site experience will be bad.</comment>


Using jQuery Data for Easy Data Associations - <AUTHOR> http://eng.pulse.me/using-jquery-data-for-easy-data-associations/

<comment><USER2> A couple of notes: if you care about performance, use $.data(), i.e. instead of $('body').data(key, value) use $.data(document.body, key, value).

Also .data() lets you access HTML5 data-* attributes. Note, that doing so values are converted to proper objects if possible. See <http://jsfiddle.net/wLfJV/1/>

Unrelated, but worth reminding: don't use $(this).attr('id')— this.id is simpler and much much faster: <http://jsperf.com/el-attr-id-vs-el-id/2>

<comment><USER3> performance: thanks, you are right. i read something right after posting. i think it was written by Paul Irish. thanks again for the performance tips.

html5 data: those are the attributes that i was referring to in the beginning of the post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can anybody clarify the last line of the blog article [1]? The author makes it sound like storing data using $.data() is an async operation. The API docs make no mention of this. In some quick tests using Chrome, I was always able to immediately retrieve the value that was stored.

I'm actually planning on using this method, so I'd really like to know.

[1] "Furthermore, storing data takes a certain amount of time, so you might get a null exception if you are planning on retrieving it right after storage. There are currently no plans to add a callback to the jQuery data that I'm aware of."

Edit: $.data() seems to be async, but $(el).data() is not. At least that's what I found. Maybe that explains the difference in speeds.

</comment><comment><USER5> I like to maintain a clean namespace, which means that generally, instead of recording data on DOM objects, I wrap it in closures. For those circumstances where I absolutely cannot do that (and it is rare), I try to be as local as I can and use a wrapper name...

        DOMObject.my_special_site_id.specific_data1
        DOMObject.my_special_site_id.specific_data2

Nasty global variableses...

<comment><USER3> thanks. will keep that in mind.

<comment><USER6> Another good option is Linq -- it's great for storing lots of data. We use it here with backbone. We're using this one: <http://linqjs.codeplex.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What template system are they using?

<comment><USER8> Looks like <http://www.liquidmarkup.org/>

<comment><USER9> Could also just be mustache.

<comment><USER3> the syntax is similar to mustache. it was purely meant to help with the rest of the code explanation. think of it as pseudo-coding.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Overview of New JavaScript APIs Now Supported by Most Mainstream Browsers - <AUTHOR> https://www.sitepoint.com/native-javascript-development-after-internet-explorer/ <comment><USER2> There's also a few less well supported but perhaps more exciting APIs just around the horizon, or already here hidden behind launch flags. I've been having fun with:

# Web Audio

Spectrograms and synths, this one is fairly mature, no IE support of course, but everything else supports it.

# MIDI

Mostly fun with knob and slider controls for various sideprojects. No support anywhere save Chrome.

# WebVR

Works surprisingly well, I find es6 to be much more friendly when validating random VR ideas than Unity or Unreal, which are basically the only other options. Requires a custom build of Chrome or dev Firefox, also works in Cardboard via polyfill.

# Gamepad API

Self explanatory, some games are just more fun with gamepads, now those games can be webgames. Works pretty much everywhere

# WebGL2

Transform feedback, more than one Render Target (deferred rendering with just one requires some extremely clever swizzling that's really not that fun to work with/implement), Instancing, Uniform Buffers and more. Tons of fun stuff that will bring the state of 3D graphics in the browser a lot closer to today. Behind a flag in Chrome, supported in Firefox.

<comment><USER3> # WebRTC

P2P communication (data, video and audio). Almost ready except for safari.

# WebBluetooth

Very experimental but some of the demo projects are really cool (control an AR drone quadcopter from a webpage).

<comment><USER2> Oh yeah, WebRTC! I forgot that one. I wrote a little multiplayer hovercraft racing game using WebRTC via peer.js last year. Super fun to explore programming networked systems in js.

<comment><USER4> Is there any way to do this without a central server coordinating the peer connections? I'd love to host something off a static site but I've not figured anything out yet.

<comment><USER5> You need something for the signaling part (sending the WebRTC offer, answer and ICE candidates to establish the connection).

It's not necessarily a «central server», if you can convince you users to send each other the info text-encoded via Facebook or any messaging system, it will technically work (but it won't be really ergonomic for you users ;).

I wonder if some people provide a SaaS solution for webRTC signaling. Quick survey: would you be willing to pay for it ?

<comment><USER4> My specific thing was somebody asked for a demo of a heatmap, I knocked up a page that heat mapped the pointer and wanted every user to aggregate to the map.

So no for such a demo I probably wouldn't be coughing up.

<comment><USER5> For a demo you can just code a 20-lines signaling server using websocket with nodejs or anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> No Safari support yet, but I'm really excited about the new Fetch API to replace XMLHttpRequest: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/Fetch_API](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/Fetch_API)

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd be a bit cautious about actually using these right now.

It seems like there are still a lot of people (particular in larger organisations) on Internet Explorer 8 or 9, and also a chunk of phones running Opera Mini.

So, sadly, no Flexbox for me just yet.

<comment><USER8> Not if you work for enterprise dinosaurs. For the rest of the world, using features like these is a good way to make upgrading seem worth the effort.</comment></comment>


Great defriending of Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailydot.com/business/facebook-newsfeed-content-spam/

<comment><USER2> Linkbait.

> Facebook's newsfeed did to your social life what RSS did to blogs.

Blogs used to contain unique and valuable information. Correct me if I am wrong but social media blurbs were rarely unique and never really valuable.

I understand Facebook-hate is cool these days, but this article doesn't seem to say anything interesting.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was also surprised by how misleading FB's ad metrics can be. They'll happily quote advertisers a "cost per click," except that most of those clicks keep users in Facebook.</comment>


Waffle: Why Most Books Are Too Long - <AUTHOR> http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.com/2012/03/waffle-why-most-books-are-too-long.html

<comment><USER2> I have a new book being published this year about bipolar. It is the standard length. I agree there should be books published of all lengths. Why not have a 20,000 word book which sells for $5.00 instead of $15.00 for a full book. I think the public would be open to all lengths of books. It also would have less limits on the works of authors. If you only have 18,000 important words then this should be enough. Great article!</comment>


Using DAIN to increase the FPS of old game animations (Stronghold) - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/f168f7/using_dain_to_increase_the_fps_of_old_game/ <comment><AUTHOR> More examples: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2i6FXVjNT0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2i6FXVjNT0)</comment>


Number Theory in One Page - <AUTHOR> https://spacesword.in/2018/02/11/Number-Theory/ <comment><USER2> Great post!!!

</comment><comment><USER3> i loved it !!!</comment>


SaferWeb: Injects in Various Ruby Websites Through Regexp - <AUTHOR> http://homakov.blogspot.com/2012/05/saferweb-injects-in-various-ruby.html I want it to be fixed. Documenting doesn't fix the vulnerability. <comment><USER2> tl;dr: Use \A and \z rather than ^ and $ in regexps, because the latter two match newlines in the middle of strings, whereas the former strictly only match the beginning and end of strings.

I thought this was common knowledge, but it's a good reminder for anyone who doesn't know.

<comment><USER3> This is absolutely not common knowledge. I have never seen an applicant use \A or \Z instead of ^/$.

They typically also use and/or instead of &&/|| and potentially introduce subtle bugs into their code when the former would suffice.

<comment><USER3> Er, the latter! You almost never need to use and/or compared to how frequently you use &&/||. Sorry for the mistake.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> While I would agree that ^$ are the standard and probably vastly used around the Ruby world (so good job calling us on it Egor), it is nice to see <http://rubular.com/> mention \A and \Z in its Regex Quick Reference.

<comment><AUTHOR> rubular is a nice thing +1. But obviously mention in Quick Reference worth nothing if we compare it with 999 books that use ^$ :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> :( He called me a brogrammer...

<comment><AUTHOR> whops

<comment> why-el Seriously dude, your misplaced sense of humour is gonna ruin an otherwise informing piece.

<comment><AUTHOR> honestly, I have no idea what really brogrammer means :D Just sounds funny to me. Removed that! Sorry if it was not called for, I did it not by purpose.

<comment><USER6> I personally find the word "brogrammer" applicable to about 95% of Ruby programmers.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


OneSafe protects cloud privacy for everyone by just one click - <AUTHOR> http://www.onesafe.io <comment><AUTHOR> OneSafe is an extremely easy-to-use web tool which adds a layer of protection onto your existing cloud storage accounts, such as Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive. With just a click, your files are safe from prying eyes.

<comment><USER2> You need SSL on your website. You really need it.

Edit: I know it will switch to s.onesafebox.com when I click on "Sign up", but I think a security related company can't have an HTTP only website...

<comment><AUTHOR> You are definitely right. Since it is private beta now, we will add SSL to the entire website before the official release.

Thank you!</comment></comment></comment>