Lego 6-month profit surges to $177 million - <AUTHOR> http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Lego-6month-profit-surges-to-apf-2875988726.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=8&asset=&ccode=

<comment><USER2> Lego have some truly awesome things. If you haven't tried it already, check out the Lego Digital designer (Free download from lego.com). You can use it to build models on a PC, then with one click see how much it'd cost, and _order_ it. They auto generate instructions of how to build it! Brilliant.

Also the console games are really good - Lego Batman/Lego indiana jones/Lego starwars.

I think every single kid should have Lego. It teaches you so many things and is just great fun.

<comment><USER3> Years of trying to breed a new generations of super-engineers by providing them with plastic building blocks throughout their early life finally paid of.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is an interesting example of how a very old company is breathing new life into it's existing core product line and achieving growth that it hasn't experienced in a while. If you walk into a Toys R Us store these days, Lego has an entire aisle for it's products with large display cases showing off it's newest product lines (mentioned in the article).

In some ways, Lego's offer similar benefits as online API's used to build mashups; where all of it's various product lines adhere to the same standards and can be used together in unlimited ways. Thus, the latest Star Wars Lego sets can be used with sets purchased in the past.

<comment><USER4> When I was younger, my main motivation for acquiring a new set was almost _never_ to build whatever was in it (in fact, I probably only built a few of the hundreds I received); they contained pieces or modules I wanted for ongoing projects.

Legos are pretty much the most efficient toy out there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> From a business point of view, one of the impressive things about this is that all the IP rights protecting Lego's core product lines expired long ago. They can't stop anyone from making plastic bricks with bumps in exactly the right places to interlock with Lego bricks.

<comment><USER2> It's surprising that the competition - megablocks for one - is so ridiculously inferior. My son got some megablocks once, and none of them fit together properly. You stick them together, then they pop off. Or leave cracks. I guess they are filling the "cheap and don't care if they don't work" sector :/

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This was the most interesting nugget from the article:

"The total global toy market declined somewhat during the first half of the year," Lego said. "The total figure, however, represents significant regional differences -- English-speaking markets reported a decline, while most European toy markets grew during the period."

Any ideas from the HN community as to why this was the case? I thought the US was mostly in the same boat as Europe when it comes to recession/consumer spending. Or does this reflect a cultural difference?

</comment><comment><USER7> I was browsing some Lego sets recently. Man, are they expensive. And, on Amazon at least, it's a little difficult to even find the standard brick sets. There are just so many themed sets.

<comment><USER2> <http://shop.lego.com>

You can even purchase individual bricks (Although obviously that'll cost more than buying a set).

If you have a local Lego Shop though I'd go. They have a 'wall' where you can fill a bucket with whatever pieces you want.

<comment><USER8> _They have a 'wall' where you can fill a bucket with whatever pieces you want._

Whoa. I had no idea. Now I know what I want to do when I retire: Become 12 years old again and live near a lego shop.

<comment><USER2> I'm slightly ashamed to say I was standing there working out how to fit the most bricks into the plastic cup. (It's larger at the top than the bottom, so it's quite a puzzle to fill with mostly square bricks) :) I'm 31, but really still 10.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Any reason why'd they publicly report financials despite being a private company?

"The company is not publicly listed but has published earning reports since 1997."

<comment><USER10> It's a good way to convince stores to invest in a long-term relationship with Lego. If I'd had to guess, I would think they were marginally profitable, or even losing money. And if I sold toys, that would factor into the decision to order Legos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Home 3D printers like RepRap ([http://inventorspot.com/articles/engineers_build_selfreplica...](http://inventorspot.com/articles/engineers_build_selfreplicating_machine_14379)) seem certain to cut into Lego market share? You need a shape - just print it.

<comment><USER5> My impression is that Lego bricks are engineered to very precise tolerances (see comment above re MegaBlocks); I wonder how close RepRap could come to the standard of a real brick.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I used to build these ridiculous 10-storey buildings from Lego when I was younger, and we had a huge box of all kinds of Lego bits from proper sets. I think Lego leads to making people programmers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Rarely do corporate results give me such a warm and fuzzy feeling as Lego being reborn in the middle of a recession (or towards the end, actually it doesn't matter. Go Lego!).

</comment><comment><USER13> I just got my 18-month-old niece a big set of Duplo (made by Lego, with blocks too big to be swallowed by a 2-year-old). I'll make an engineer of her yet...</comment>


ARKit - <AUTHOR> https://developer.apple.com/arkit/ <comment><USER2> The Wingnut AR demo that Apple showed during WWDC featuring the Unreal Engine was just mindblowing! Thankfully, it's available on Unreal's Youtube channel so you can still watch if you don't have Safari or the app - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S14AVwaBF-Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S14AVwaBF-Y)

<comment><USER3> It's just a 3D videogame and pardon I guess I'm missing the point of an AR video game vs. just sitting down and playing a 360 degree video game?

<comment><USER4> It's great because it does away with convenient touch controls and adds the fun of filming a table with an iPad.

<comment> King-Aaron Although to be honest, this is close to how I always wanted warhammer 40k to be...

<comment><USER5> Yes! Combining miniatures with overlaid graphics and handling the dice roles etc would be awesome.

<comment><USER6> Finally, tabletop gaming gets the multi-billion dollar backing it deserves!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Most apps these days run on Android, too, which makes using a single-platform framework like this a lot harder to justify. It's the same reason you don't see many games using SpriteKit -- it just doesn't make sense when you know you'll need to support Android in the future.

I wonder if it would make sense for Apple itself to support frameworks like ARKit and SpriteKit on Android. I think it would make people a lot more comfortable relying on them.

<comment><USER8> Apple keeps doubling down on platform specific services and APIs but as their market share dwindles this becomes increasingly untenable. Porting Apple Music to Android was a step in the right direction but they have a long way to go in the new world where services are more important than devices.

<comment><USER9> How do you mean it dwindles? It seems to hold steady and increase in some countries.

This is a somewhat recent figure I found. [https://9to5mac.com/2017/01/11/ios- market-share-kantar/](https://9to5mac.com/2017/01/11/ios-market-share-kantar/)

<comment><USER8> Depends what stats you consider:

[http://fortune.com/2017/05/23/apple-iphone-gartner-market- sh...](http://fortune.com/2017/05/23/apple-iphone-gartner-market-share/)

But the essential point is that nobody can afford to ignore Android and building to iOS-specific APIs doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER10> Of course Apple and developers can choose to ignore Android.

The market within the iOS space is huge and if building an iOS only app using ARKit is more profitable then why not ? It's all about ROI. There isn't an equivalent for ARKit on Android and building one would be costly and time consuming.

<comment><USER11> There have been AR libraries for years. Apple is pretty late to the game.

For example ARToolKit is available for Unity, or even Anddroid.

[https://artoolkit.org/documentation/doku.php?id=6_Unity:unit...](https://artoolkit.org/documentation/doku.php?id=6_Unity:unity_about)

Unless you are targeting a specific audience (for example artists that use the iPad Pro) for most developers it really doesn't make sense to confine yourself to iOS.

<comment><USER12> ARToolKit isn't markerless like ARKit though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why has this comment thread devolved into comparing the number of Android OS installs versus the number of iPhones sold.

They are apples and oranges and the point is that the iPhone for a few years back is a guaranteed hardware specification that you can guarantee ARKit will work on. If you think about this for Android, you'd need to slice it by the devices that are compatible - it's not going to be a guarantee by OS.

<comment><USER14> I hope that ARKit can be a lesson in what works well and what doesn't, and spur the open source community to create something like it, but cross platform. As more phones get dual cameras, what we can do with software like this will only get better.

Look at OpenCV for example.

<comment><USER15> ARKit doesn't seem to require dual cameras because it runs on iPads too. I do wonder if it uses the depth sensing second camera in the iPhone 7 Plus, or if that data isn't fast/precise enough to be useful.

<comment><USER16> I believe they mentioned using the dual camera specifically during the keynote.

<comment><USER17> ARKit does not require dual cameras. I'm running it now on a single camera iPhone.

<comment><USER16> So I hear, but parent wondered if they used the depth data so I figured I'd mention it. Not saying it doesn't work with a single camera :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm currently working on a client project that uses the Vuforia library paired with an array of iPad Pros to pull off this sort of AR-light effect. But Vuforia relies on a tracking marker, and it's a huge pain in the ass for us. The idea of using lower-level camera and inertia sensor data to perform tracking without a marker is something I didn't expect to see without a Tango- like cluster of depth sensors.

Can't wait to try this out.

</comment><comment><USER19> AR goes beyond gaming - I thought the idea of using it for things like interior design was great. I remember Apple mentioning that IKEA used ARKit to project models of their furniture into rooms.

<comment><USER20> It's probably worth noting that Google had a partnership with Lowes to do this with Project Tango about two years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Saw this small test earlier today, pretty impressive stuff: [https://twitter.com/kylebrussell/status/872123141346140160](https://twitter.com/kylebrussell/status/872123141346140160)

Also, ARKit was discussed here yesterday [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14490239](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14490239)

<comment><USER22> The demo shown off in that video is available as a template in Xcode 9.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> demo of it already in action: [https://twitter.com/heyadam/status/872278723700994048](https://twitter.com/heyadam/status/872278723700994048)

</comment><comment><USER24> Ooph, this is game changing.

There is a LOT of hardware out there that supports this.

The iPhone is the most popular game platform on the planet and, just like that, it will be the most popular platform for developing AR applications.

<comment><USER25> Are you sure the iPhone is the most popular game platform? It is not even the most popular phone.

<comment><USER26> It's by far the most popular phone.

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/276306/global-apple- ipho...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/276306/global-apple-iphone-sales- since-fiscal-year-2007/)

<comment><USER27> Who care about actual phones, what matters if the OS it runs, and Android is far larger in that sense.

<comment><USER28> A large portion of Android devices are very slow.

<comment><USER27> A large portion of Android games are not that demanding. If you saw what people spend their time on in the metro/train...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Because Safari is supporting WebRTC, ar.js is working on iOS now

[https://twitter.com/fr3ino/status/872228441390813185](https://twitter.com/fr3ino/status/872228441390813185)

</comment><comment><USER30> The guy from "Pair" in the first episode of "Planet of the Apps" [[https://www.planetoftheapps.com/en-us](https://www.planetoftheapps.com/en- us)] tried to make a similar SDK his main business model but eventually failed to get the fundings from the VC.

I hope in the end he decided to stick his focus on the app (which is quite amazing), otherwise he's in big trouble now!

I really think that a lot of new apps will come out in this space, now that the technology is much more approachable.

</comment><comment><USER31> What does this have over Qualcomm's AR SDK (now Vuforia) that has been available on iOS since 2011 and on Android a few years longer?

<comment><USER32> ARKit is free and directly by the OS and device manufacturer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I said it for years... acceptance by mainstream will be AR then VR.

</comment><comment><USER34> Demos of ARKit from twitter blows away Tango demos, even though Tango requires additional hardware. Will Google discontinue Tango?

<comment><USER35> Can you link some of those demos? I haven't seen anything very impressive so far. Also it doesn't do area learning as far as I can see.

<comment><USER36> [https://twitter.com/fr3ino/status/872228441390813185](https://twitter.com/fr3ino/status/872228441390813185)

[https://twitter.com/heyadam/status/872278723700994048](https://twitter.com/heyadam/status/872278723700994048)

[https://twitter.com/kylebrussell/status/872123141346140160](https://twitter.com/kylebrussell/status/872123141346140160)

<comment><USER35> These are also the ones I've seen, I fail to see how any of those "blow away Tango demos" as the parent comment states.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Not many people mention it, but ARKit also theoretically makes it possible to have 6DoF Google cardboard style VR as well.

</comment><comment><USER38> They should have called it TableView

<comment><USER39> I've seen this pun multiple times. Could you explain it ?

<comment><USER40> I'd guess it makes reference to UITableView, a piece of the UI framework most people use to code iOS apps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Anyone know what VIO method they use?

</comment><comment><USER42> Anyone know whether a JavaScript API is in the works?

<comment><USER15> Apple does not provide JavaScript access to their APIs, so I doubt it. You'll only be able to use this in native apps. Something like PhoneGap or Cordova could try, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were serious performance issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Purpose? Other then keeping consumer heads planted in the device? (The demo was neat, though)

<comment><USER44> That's for the developers to figure out! Which is why it's an SDK and not some app with an API for extensions.</comment></comment>


Apple's rejection of 'Readability' iOS app stirs subscription controversy - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/02/21/apples_rejection_of_readability_ios_app_stirs_subscription_controversy.html <comment><USER2> Seems that Apple just wants to prevent any market creation, not just subscriptions, that play anywhere near their sandbox.</comment>


Beagleboard-X15 soon - <AUTHOR> http://elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoard-X15 <comment><AUTHOR> OP here

According to an email from their forum I just got

 _The board is currently going through FCC /CE certification._</comment>


The clever cryptography behind Apple's "Find My" feature - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/apple-find-my-cryptography-bluetooth/ <comment><USER2> Short summary:

1\. At setup, Find My generates private key shared to all your Apple devices.

2\. The private key generates a perpetual sequence of public keys. These change (iterates to the next) "frequently".

3\. The rotating public key is shared accross all (including other people's) Apple devices via Bluetooth and can even do this when it's off.

4\. The shared scheme pings to Apple's central system and uploads A. hashes of the public keys in the area and B. the location.

5\. When you try to find a device you send your hashed public key to Apples server and they return the last picked up location (encrypted). (You thus need at least 2 Apple devices, one to find the other. Also, they don't say how the previously iterated public keys are remembered.)

<comment><USER3> This seems very very impressive. But I have so many questions still. The most important one being, there has to be a way to reset these tracking keys for cases like

\- Resell

\- Loss of a companion device that was never found and it took the private keys with it

\- Got a new companion device

How do I reset the keys and how do I make sure a theif can't reset these?

<comment><USER4> If it is the same as with the Existing Find My Phone

1\. Resell - you turn off 'Find My' on your phone and sign out of iCloud then wipe the device

2\. Loss - Go into iCloud and mark the device as lost. Not sure what this means for finding other devices

3\. New companion device - sign it into iCloud.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It feels like that can be exploited in some ways. As a first thought it reduces the privacy of the reporting 3rd party phone. I.e. I can leave a fully charged phone in my wife's car and track her for weeks while she will have the burden to recharge her phone for network/gps power.

A regular gps tracker would need much more energy.

Edit: another scenario, leave it in an isolated hut. If I get a signal, someone is close to the hut.

Edit 2: if I piggy back the protocol and can manipulate the key schedule (chose key A or B) then I can leak one bit of information through the third party phone. The third party phone may be allowed to communicate while my sender isn't.

<comment><USER6> This mechanism is very low power, and it allows making tiny devices that can be used for tracking suspects. Maybe this is actually why they made it (someone asked if they could make it).

Edit: Maybe Apple will introduce tiny key fobs that can be tracked so you can find your keys or other things.

<comment><USER7> There is already a reference to an Apple Tag in iOS 13.

[https://www.techradar.com/news/apple-tag-spotted-in- ios-13-a...](https://www.techradar.com/news/apple-tag-spotted-in-ios-13-and- it-may-be-a-personal-item-tracker-like-tile)

<comment><USER8> I was wondering why they changed the name, I mean "Find My iPhone" could already find macbooks and ipads but now it sounds like they're going much broader than Apple devices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am reminded of a section in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age where (some guy) takes a whole day to track the history of the young protagonist in an internet cafe - and an explanation of passing packets between passing devices as if handing parcels to random strangers as they walk down the street always stuck in my mind

This seems to be saying that Apple has a big mesh network play ready sometime soon.

Want to bet they have a good idea of coverage already and need some testing - they might not be able to see your location but they will see the location of every phone passing your public key encrypted bits back - they get to test their mesh network ? Or am I missing something?

<comment><USER10> That was my thought too, and God I hope so.

Someone needs to push mesh networking on a more consumer level, if it has to be Apple, so be it.

<comment><USER11> There is one consumer push for a mesh-networking phone that was in the news recently, Volk Fi. Their idea is to use 900MHz radios in smartphones to hop several miles to the nearest wired hub, alongside a cellular SIM, where a hub owner earns credit for data relayed through it. Some pessimism surrounds them though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> While quoted in the article, Matthew Green's writeup provides a lot of neat ideas on how it may actually work

[https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2019/06/05/how- does...](https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2019/06/05/how-does-apple- privately-find-your-offline-devices/)

</comment><comment><USER13> This seems to be leading to the stealth reveal in the fall for a positioning system augmented by device-to-device positioning.

</comment><comment><USER14> Is this scheme where the public key can somehow rotate on it's own, while still being decryptable by the unrotated private key a new thing?

I had not heard of it before.

Edit: This other comment in the thread points at an article with some guesses as to how it might work. It mentions a system called Elgamal that has a scheme somewhat like my description above: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20134956](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20134956)

<comment><USER15> Similar to mrb's answer, but this sounds like essentially how cryptocurrency wallets work. You can just remember the root key phrase, and that is used to generate tons of addresses (i.e. keypairs). Access to the root keyphrase allows you access to money sent to any of the addresses.

<comment><USER16> Cryptocurrency wallets use the BIP32 scheme which provides an even neater ability: from a root public key alone you can generate a series of children public keys, no private keys are involved in the calculation. (And whoever posses the root private key can generate the corresponding series of children private keys.) The technical aspects are described in [https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0032.mediawi...](https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0032.mediawiki#Specification_Key_derivation) But that's overkill given the simpler requirements of Find My. Each device stores the private key so they don't need something with the feature set of BIP32.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If the phone is broadcasting the public key couldn't some malicious actor simply send the wrong location? Also couldn't they simply put it in a faraday bag or wrap in some tin foil?

<comment><USER16> Correct, reverse engineering the Find My protocol or intercepting & modifying the location API should let any half-competent hacker send bogus encrypted locations to Apple's database. What's the point though? You are just hampering with someone's effort to locate their lost device. Maybe you could steal multiple devices and purposefully spoof the location of your enemy's house, and the police will show up at their door to recover the stolen devices. Seems too high-effort for too little gain to me.

<comment><USER18> Also, in my experience, the police will not do that for you. My wife had her phone stolen from her and we were able to pinpoint the exact location and provide it to the police, they said they would not act on this information.

Just one small anecdote, but I can't imagine many departments taking it upon themselves to do so.

<comment><USER19> _My wife had her phone stolen from her and we were able to pinpoint the exact location and provide it to the police, they said they would not act on this information._

Be sure to bring this up the next time the city asks for a tax increase for police funding.

<comment><USER20> To fund them more, so that they have the capacity to handle this type of request?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The hard part is going to be the key rotation.

I'd suspect they're using something similar to Moxie's Double Ratchet algorithm since it's got some years of real world usage.

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

<comment><USER22> Or maybe they just hash the time and a pre-shared key to generate ECC keypairs, since communication is one-way.

<comment><USER21> Could be - but time would be something easily guessable if you knew the public key.

Still not bad though since the public keys are being stored on the devices.

<comment><USER22> How would it be guessable if you're hashing it with a random string?

<comment><USER21> Public keys are essentially trackable metadata if they're shared. The proposed hash of time + public key would be guessable _if_ you had access to a particular public key. Apple certainly could get the public key.

They wouldn't know specifically what data was in the encrypted message, but with enough attributes (IP, time, Apple ID, etc) they could obviously gather a high-confidence amount of tracking data still.

<comment><USER22> I said "time and pre-shared key". The public key doesn't enter into it.

<comment><USER21> Sure - that's a solution - Apple's iCloud Keychain might work there also.

I don't use it and have some reservations as Apple's iCloud services still do not provide end-to-end encryption.

I'd be interested to see what Matt Green has seen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "also to keep Apple itself from learning device locations, even as it allows you to pinpoint yours."

<comment><USER8> There is always the risk of rogue employees, but what they're probably talking about here is that they also can't be compelled to reveal the location by someone else. They probably don't want to actually say that since it might be misconstrued as trying to skirt the law or being uncooperative with law enforcement.

<comment><USER24> Isn't the explicit goal of a feature like that to be uncooperative with law enforcement? Who else is going to (attempt to) compel them to reveal user location data?

<comment><USER25> Not just that. Say they have a security breach... if there is no data, no data gets leaked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The feature of rotating public keys to enhance privacy is already used in cryptocurrencies, especially in the underpinnings of Monero. Here's one thread discussing how to make a mechanism to generate new public keys on demand: [https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/58022/a-method- to...](https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/58022/a-method-to-receive- payments-at-obscured-addresses)

</comment><comment><USER27> Instead of only finding the location of my stolen device, what I really would like is using this to remote wipe my device, before someone else can or will turn it on (if it has been turned off).

Because it is not like I will fly to some other country to catch the thief or new owner of my stolen device.

<comment><USER28> That's a feature of Find My, and has been for years on iOS. They're bringing it to macOS this year for devices with a T2 chip (the newer MacBooks, basically).

<comment><USER2> Are you sure about that? The impression I got from their summary is that the bluetooth locations are passive.

An aside: what would happen if you wipe macOS and install another base operating system.

<comment><USER29> You can't. With Catalina the device is activation locked, meaning you need the original iCloud credentials to install a new OS.

<comment><USER28> To clarify: this applies to a Mac that has been locked.

That is, if the Mac is locked with Activation Lock, it wouldn't be possible to install another OS; the firmware itself will lock the user out of the computer entirely until the machine is unlocked. This dissuades thieves from stealing your MacBook as it will effectively be useless for anything other than parts, and most thieves aren't in the tiny-amounts-of-aluminium-relative-to-if-they- just-stole-cars recycling business.

I clarify because I don't want anybody thinking one is entirely unable to install another OS _at all_. That is possible, but of course you lose out on macOS features like Activation Lock.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I keep reading that Apple already randomises MAC addresses for privacy purposes, but then how do its devices stay logged in to 'captive' WiFi, or more problematically, paired with Bluetooth devices?

Are the addesses only randomised for broadcast / new pairs?

<comment><USER31> I only know about the WiFi, once you start the attempt to connect to the SSID it uses your real mac. So the probing uses random MAC address

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Is the connectivity layer considered: Is the 3rd party "proxy" handler uploading the information using an Apple ID? Does Apple record, store IP information? It seems to me that by using this system you volunteer to send data to Apple constantly which may not reveal your GPS location but will reveal your network location.

I'm happy to see someone trying to innovate in this space. I still wonder if it is okay for journalists and risk affected users to use this or if they should be advised to avoid it.

</comment><comment><USER33> >Matthew Green, a cryptographer at Johns Hopkins University. "Even if I tracked you walking around, I wouldn't be able to recognize you were the same person from one hour to the next."

Thos sounds like a great way to track shoppers in, for example, a shopping mall.

If the BLE beacon is broadcasting at a predetermined rate this may also extend tracking past the rotation of keys right?

<comment><USER5> Most likely the device is already broadcasting a MAC address. But yes, with this it would work in flight mode.

<comment><USER34> The mac addresses are randomized to prevent tracking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> It's simply amazing how Apple could make P2P mesh networking viable for production use. This is highly inspiring!

<comment><USER36> I am not sure if it's the same technology, The Weather Channel App (Android) has an option for mesh network based alerts.

[https://weather.com/apps/ibm/meshnetworkalerts](https://weather.com/apps/ibm/meshnetworkalerts)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> does this mean my device will be relaying datagrams even if I did not enable "Find My" feature?

Supposing apple can't infer the precise location, of every user, they still can infer the social graph

<comment><USER38> They aren't using your social graph, they are using location proximity and transmitting the data inside existing packets sent to cell towers for connectivity purposes. There's already a ton of information passing to cell towers to identify and negotiate connections with phones that could be used to infer your social graph. You'd have to correlate that with a geo location database that knows about what type of locations you visit as there would be tremendous amounts of false signals at public places like restaurants and malls.

Long story short, Apple, cell tower operators, and mobile providers already have all the data they'd need to make these graphs. If this functions as designed, it will contain much less information and wouldn't be useful for this purpose (I.e. encrypt requests and don't pass IP info with them to any systems that have the ability to decrypt them. If you make a few hops to the systems which have the ability to decrypt them and don't share correlation IDs or the origin IP, there's no way to correlate these requests back to which device sent them or what IP or cell tower it had).

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This was to be expected, given that apple has been slowly taking away the ability to physically turn off your device. Isn't anyone else concerned about the fact that a shutdown laptop will continue to broadcast defying convention and expectations?

<comment><USER40> Opposite, I'm excited. Huge plus in a stolen/lost situation. Disable it if you don't like it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> So you can only find your phone if it's close to another (compatible) apple appliance?

<comment><USER42> That's not so bad considering that right now, if you don't have a network connection (say a non-cellular iPad) you can't find your device AT ALL unless it's on Wi-Fi.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Sounds similar to P2PE.

</comment><comment><USER44> The Wired article is not detailed enough to definitively poo-poo this scheme, but I am pretty skeptical about some of the claims, given a) how easy it is to map an IP to a coarse location, b) how easy it is to map many IPs to a small number of already-known humans/users.

That is to say: the asym crypto may strongly protect the precise (GPS or LTE triangulation) location from Apple and from others, but I do not see how a cloud-based system can ever hide coarse location _from Apple_ and/or from _governments_ as, given the short range of BT, they can reliably infer that a device (and hence its owner) is/was near whatever IP sends the encrypted precise location to their cloud. Then it's just a matter of mapping the device's "randomized" ID back to an actual user/phone. That seems easy enough as soon as a second device accesses it from an IP that's mappable to a specific residential address, Apple account, etc.

e.g.

A and B both log into iTunes or some other Apple service using email@example.com and email@example.com from HOMEIP at some point in the past. HOMEIP is never used by any other Apple accounts.

A(lice) and B(ob) exchange a secret and otherwise begin participating in this "private" tracking scheme.

A goes out shopping and while there it pushes its encrypted precise location to the Apple cloud, using random ID 424242, from MALLIP. Perhaps A's device sends it directly, or perhaps it's relayed from BT to Mall wifi to Cloud by C's device if A has both LTE and wifi disabled.

A few minutes later S(omeone) requests encrypted location for random ID 424242, from HOMEIP.

Apple (and any government compelling it to share information) can reliably infer that "Someone" was A or B attempting to track either B or A, and that the tracked phone was at/near the business address of MALLIP - their coarse location - even if they can't decrypt the precise location without the secret key. If you know from public records that A and B are married, and assume that women are more likely to be at a mall on their own than men, you may further assume that A is at the Mall while B is at home.

Result: the "private"/"encrypted" precise location beaconing has an unfixable metadata side channel that will leak coarse location data to Apple and to any governments that compell it.

<comment><USER45> What you're saying is basically that this scheme will leak the IP address you're on, because that's just how the internet works.

There's... not much that can be done about that, and there's no need for the scare quotes on the words private or encrypted. Any encrypted communication still uses an IP address that can be mapped to a coarse location; this isn't an Apple related thing.

If you want to be able to find your device (it's opt-in), it needs to relay its location via the Internet. Doing so requires an IP address, which can indeed be mapped to a coarse location in some cases (my own home IP address is totally useless, it says I'm in London when I'm on the other side of the country). I'm not sure what the big deal is.

<comment><USER44> > that's just how the internet works

Well, the Internet does not strictly require all traffic between two parties to go through a MegaCo Cloud. Location privacy in this system would appear to be greatly enhanced (vs Apple-as-an-adversary) if A and B communicated directly, or through a server that they controlled, instead of through iCloud. In concise security terms, Apple man-in-the-middles the encrypted traffic in this system and thus may perform traffic analysis, deanonymization-via- inference, etc as I said above.

It's certainly true that NAT, firewalls, and a lot of other things make direct communication between two iDevices inconvienent and frequently impossible - that's fine and fair enough. But then the Company should not be making at least partially untrue privacy and anonymity claims that are essentially impossible to satisfy when by design all of the traffic flows through their cloud.

AFAICT Apple (and likely its host governments) will still need to be trusted parties in any scheme that flows through their infra, unless you care only about protecting your precise location, and are willing to expose your coarse location to them.

To be clear, they may already have that info from other services, and you'll have to trust Apple a lot anyway since they're making the phone and some custom silicon within it. And them having coarse location is certainly preferable to them having precise location data - so this system (as we are inferring it to work) is not worthless, and is still an improvement over a naive implementation.

But real internet anonymity and location privacy is hard to achieve; just ask any tor developer. So please don't let the marketing dept openly claim that, or even imply that, when the claim can't realistically survive a two minute security audit by HN infosec nerds. To be specific the WWDC claims that "this whole interaction is ... anonymous" and "there's no need to worry about your ... privacy" are what I am taking some issue with here.

<comment><USER46> Any mobile device will ping central servers for notifications, update information, ntp, etc etc. Apple or google or at&t will of course always have your current IP address and be able to provide it to police if served a search warrant. In what way is the "find my" service expanding that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Clever ... ??!!!

Still miss the larger picture. Now the genie is out, a country will have technology to monitor all things and people all the time.

The world is not just Apple. Someone will use the sane idea to do evil behind this.

And even Apple has to work inside say china and follow their law. What if they ask ...

We have been here before. Internet !

The links to us all. The freedom to publish and share. Then someone turn it into a way to record and monitor everything you said. And e-wall the whole country and round up any people they do not like.

Good luck. Guess technology is neutral. It is not it's fault. But beware of the gift from clever Greek. Or in that story the golden Apple.

<comment><USER48> > Now the genie is out, a country will have technology to monitor

The genie has been out for a long time. Apple is using _existing_ technologies to achieve this

> Someone will use the sane idea to do evil behind this.

Where have you been the past few years? You are already being tracked everywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Apple's Find My features are what turn iPhone theft into complete iCloud vulnerabilities. This was first seen with the social engineering attacks made possible in Find My iPhone. All an attacker needs to do is spoof an SMS and phish your account credentials. It's likely this feature too will lead to clever hacks used to further damage users.

<comment><USER50> How, exactly ?

<comment><USER49> First forensics to try and crack the pass code (takes about 2 days). Next turn on the phone just long enough to take down the phone number provided. Then wait another day or so and turn on the phone again. At the same time send the recovery number an SMS linked to a fake iCloud website and grab the credentials when they log-in. I have concrete examples of the processes, tools and servers used to pull this off. Apple Support is aware this is a common occurrence - they told me so over the phone.

If you'd like to know more specifics, please feel free to contact me.</comment></comment></comment>


Why Big Tobacco and Big Vape Love Comparing Nicotine to Caffeine - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/26/18513312/vape-tobacco-big-companies-nicotine-caffeine-comparison-drugs-chemicals <comment><USER2> This article is total garbage. Nicotine is no more harmful than caffeine if used in moderation. Some people are so anti-tobacco that they lose all logic and resort to old research. For more objective, modern research, read [https://news.sky.com/story/nicotine-no-worse-than-cup-of- cof...](https://news.sky.com/story/nicotine-no-worse-than-cup-of-coffee- report-10349589)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://xkcd.com/2130/](https://xkcd.com/2130/)

"big vape" definitely falls on the right side.</comment>


Computational Semantics with Functional Programming - <AUTHOR> http://homepages.cwi.nl/~jve/cs/

<comment><AUTHOR> I found this on Reddit [http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/88ou0/cs_recomm...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/88ou0/cs_recommendations_for_the_autodidact/)

It's a 400 page book to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2009.</comment>


How to write timezone friendly django application using MySQL - <AUTHOR> http://notes.alexdong.com/utc-timezone-daylight-saving-django-and-mysql

<comment><USER2> The basic steps for this are: store everything in UTC, do all arithmetic in UTC, store user's timezone info and convert to that at the last second. Python does not have built-in TZ information so you need pytz installed.

<comment><USER3> Storing in UTC goes for all languages, all applications, all realms.

Computer Time = UTC

Think of converting to local timezone as the same as adding commas to a number to make it look nicer. It's useful for humans but the computer doesn't care.

<comment><USER2> Exactly. I also prefer to store things in a UNIX timestamp. Even with it's limitations, it's still the easiest way to do time arithmetic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> We do it without storing a user's time zone via jQuery and a custom script that converts all UTC time stamps on a page to the local time setting of their computer. This works well for us because we have travelers who use the service through a variety of time zones.

The second touch point is our iPhone app, and the SDK has built-in support for converting UTC to the client time.

</comment><comment><USER5> "UTC used to be called GMT."

Not exactly. iirc UTC is based on atomic clocks while GMT is based on astronomy. The whole time measurement system is quite complex and messy.

But in most cases it probably is fair to call UTC and GMT equivalent.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right. UTC is within 0.9 sec from GMT. Nowadays, it seems like GMT and UTC are two interchangeable names, who'd expect to think they were actually so difference in terms of how each gets calculated.</comment></comment>


Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/opinion/dalai-lama-behind-our-anxiety-the-fear-of-being-unneeded.html <comment><USER4> It's odd, the world is the safest and most stable that it has ever been. There has never been a better time to be a human being, and yet, the media and certain politicians would have you believe that there is disaster after disaster, terrorist plots afoot around every corner, feeding your fear day after day. If ever there was an example of the devil at work, then that's it(and I'm not even religious).

Uncertainty about the future has always been the same.

Don't listen to those devils.

<comment><USER5> If you are rich and already in the top class, then maybe.

But it's not terribly good for the middle class.

<comment><USER6> It may not be as good as it was 50 years ago, but there's a case to be made that it's nearly as good as it ever was prior to 1900.

<comment><USER4> It's better in every way. Racism, sexism, apartheid, LGBT, corporal punishment...

<comment><USER7> If you genuinely think these are the best markers for improvement in society, you must be an extremely lucky person. Having a job, having a job that doesn't completely suck, having enough money to move out of your parents house at the age of 30. These are things that people are facing today. In Australia, there are lots of people that are still living with their parents into their 30s because they simply can't afford rent or a mortgage.

Racism and sexism and other terms are used more for political purposes these days then they are for anything of worth. Why didn't you mention the discrimination people with autism face, for example? Autism simply isn't a useful political tool because it doesn't get enough votes. Yet people with autism face more discrimination then the types you have listed. It is politics and nothing more.

<comment><USER8> You are obviously a white male. You have no credibility when it comes to denying discrimination. You have never been in danger of being fired or lynched for some intrinsic characteristic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Yes, the poorest among us are materially well-off, by any historical comparison. Yet the article speaks to how we're doing psychologically and spiritually. It's a little glib to tell people they'd better get happy and appreciate how much better we have it than ye olde folks of yore.

Trump has gotten this far by stirring up rust belt fears of human obsolescence. Less-educated white males are seeing their place in society disappear. If you don't think "the rest of us" have to care about that, wait and see the response as autonomous vehicles take out the trucking industry.

Even if Trump loses this time, the same underlying sentiments will produce more Trump-y candidates in the future, unless something can be done to create real change and ways for all sorts of people to be active and valued participants in our society. It's important to recognize the pain and suffering behind the fear of being unneeded.

Interesting questions abound:

If prescription anti-depressants worked, wouldn't Americans be the happiest people ever?

We already know behavioral advertising changes one's perception of oneself -- does that shift affect well being?

What's the psychological cost of commodifying one's special moments as social media posts?

How do we engage undocumented kids who feel sidelined by the lack of paths toward rewarding careers?

How do our attitudes toward birth, death, and caring for the very young and very old work against well-being?

Why do we measure economic health of our country without reference to the distribution of ownership of capital? (We carefully measure the number of wage slaves, but who's measuring the number of people who own productive enterprises? Stocks are too far removed from "productivity" and shouldn't count.)

<comment><USER10> Oh no please not Trump again, he's got all the bad press in the Western World. I read a Dalai Lama article to bust into Trump bad press yet again.

Someone's gotta build and repair those self driving trucks, ey? And it won't be robots or software developers with a laptop, it's gonna be non educated hard working males of all colors who are not afraid to get their hands dirty.

Otherwise your politicians are gonna orchestrate WW3 for all the non educated males to participate, because the Pentagon's got all the latest and greatest toys they spent trillions in taxpayer money on and they're dying to try them out.

I hope that the self driving trucks part will work out well. But it's still Silicon Valley vapour, until we've got better batteries and solar powered charging stations in the desert, not to mention Alaska.

<comment><USER11> >>Someone's gotta build and repair those self driving trucks, ey? And it won't be robots or software developers with a laptop, it's gonna be non educated hard working males of all colors who are not afraid to get their hands dirty.

Presumably it will mostly be the people who currently repair the trucks continuing to do so, which still creates the problem of what to do with the former truck drivers replaced by autonomous drivers.

<comment><USER10> Autonomous truck towers for instance. Because there's gonna be a lot of towing until the autonomous trucks work out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "In America today, compared with 50 years ago, three times as many working-age men are completely outside the work"

I was taught that work is one of only two uses for a man. That other being a good father. It must be wrong but it is an unshakable thought. I can't imagine how I would hate myself if I couldn't provide. This fear, even though I have no dependents, is far greater than my fear of being unneeded.

Maybe it's different for other people.

<comment><USER13> > I can't imagine how I would hate myself if I couldn't provide. This fear, > even though I have no dependents, is far greater than my fear of being > unneeded.

it's one, if not the biggest, fear of my life. my wife is a college student and a housewife (college is different in brazil, it's not fulltime like in the us). not being able to provide would mean we would suffer a bit.

i have a recurrent dream where i go look at my bank account/savings and it's zeroed, meaning i can't pay our bills. i always wake up really freaking scared.

<comment><USER14> God that sounds horrible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Anecdotally, I've been thinking about this. "Being needed" is can also be looked at as "having a sense of purpose".

Today, the only "Sense of purpose" is wealth accumulation and debt reduction. There is very little we can do with:

\- Family (marriages, divorces are way too high)..not permanent

\- Community (everyone lives in distant houses and neighbors change frequently)..not permanent

\- Kids (nobody can afford one), parents (either divorced, separated or in an old-age home)--not permanent

\- Friends (too little time to socialize, too much competition, competing with the Joneses, too much changing locations, hard to make new ones)...not permanent

There is very little satisfaction in fighting for the above because NO effort to above leads to PERMANENT satisfaction (except maybe wealth). Therefore, demotivating any real sense of purpose for anything besides digits on your online accounts...which really isn't the same as "being needed".

<comment><USER9> In my experience wealthy people != satisfied people.

Take heart! Plenty of marriages do endure. Community does exist. People can and do find joy and meaning in raising kids on paltry incomes. Friendship is possible!

Relationships can be more satisfying when you drop the expectation that your efforts will be reciprocated. Giving can be its own reward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> That's gross oversimplification for western amateur audiences. His Holiness is trying to speak the language of common western consumer.

Behind our anxiety is ignorance. Period. Ignorance is described as a veil that obscures the view of _what is_ from so-called primordial awareness or Atman, if you wish - the aspect of the whole (Brahman) in us. (The Buddha explicitly rejected the notion of Atman, but numerous later Indian (tantric) writers messed everything up). It is like continuous day-dreaming. The meaning of Awakening is literal awakening from this habitual delusional day-dreaming to what is.

Most of our fears are due to misapprehension of reality, like classic mistaking of a rope for a snake, and our attaching to (and hence the fear of losing) that illusory my self, which is nothing, but an appearance to ignorant and confused introspection.

This crude formulation is as old as Upanishads.

<comment><USER17> It isn't surprising that comfortable pop psychology is more welcome on the NYT opinion pages than esoteric theology.

<comment><USER16> There is no known contradiction of original Buddha's doctrine with modern evolutionary psychology and cognitive neuroscience. The modern notions of Cognitive Dissonance, cognitive biases, framing effects and modern western philosophy of mind only supports Buddha's views.

The only applicable critique is that original Buddhist doctrine is too general and allows flexible interpretations, nevertheless lots of scholars would maintain that Buddha's approach is one of the earliest attempts of systematic study of the mind using an imperfect method of introspection (famous Upanishadic _neti neti_ doctrine is, perhaps, the earliest known to us), leaving validation of the insights to everyone who wished to follow the same path.

Buddha's investigation into the nature of reality and mind, which obscures it, is qualified for philosophy - precursor of modern sciences, not a religion (there is literally nothing to be saved). Theology has been developed by various competing sects hundreds of years later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'd like to read everyday articles like these. We are drowned in hateful speech. Would feel better reading something like it.

<comment><USER19> medium.com

<comment><USER20> "Medium: Growth hacking your way into SF gentrification."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> A question that comes to mind: What is the future of "meaningful work" If technology is poised to render sustenance-based work obsolete? The utopian idea is societies where education, arts and entertainment are what we consider to be "work." It's something that's been talked about since the industrial revolution, but assuming it's a multi-generational shift how do we set course to ensure a sense of well being in the human species?

<comment><USER22> This is such a good point!

I have a feeling industrial based societies will automate themselves out of relevance. Because those who are bored will just find things for themselves to do anyway. Crafts, cooking, gardening etc, stuff people did before the industrial revolution.

In some ways it's the end of the treadmill and we'll be back at square one.

<comment><USER23> > In some ways it's the end of the treadmill and we'll be back at square one.

Well, there's something to be said about a peaceful, physically healthier, longer lived, and better nourished humanity. Even if it all boils back down to cooking, cleaning, maintaining the homestead, and taking care of the family in the end.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is the big missing piece with basic income: People need meaning in their lives as much as they need money.

<comment><USER25> Personally I do not feel my job adds meaning to my life. In fact it deprives me of the time and energy to pursue the meaningful things I actually want to do.

<comment><USER26> I have a similar view (although protestant work ethics would probably disagree), and while a basic income will not provide meaning (nor is it supposed to), "primum edere deinde philosophari" is still true. Any pursuit of meaning would be literally meaningless if we go hungry every day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's an interesting source. Tibetan society pre-1940s (most recent Chinese invasion) was incredibly feudal. The Dalai Lama was the top of the feudal society, both monarch and high priest. I've spent a bit of time in Tibet, and the Tibetans dearly love the current Dalai Lama. Now, maybe he's an exception for reasons of being a leader in exile, and a general scholar and nice guy.

But I wonder, in most feudal societies, do the serfs feel needed by their societies and their monarchs?

</comment><comment><USER28> The comments in here remind me of this video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsXFwy6gG_4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsXFwy6gG_4)

Eric Schmidt takes the side a lot of people here take, which is "everything is getting better", and Peter Thiel takes the other side, that things aren't getting better.

I don't think things are getting better at all. You can easily just use your own metrics and then come to the conclusion that everything is getting better. The problem is, your metrics are bullshit so you are coming to the wrong conclusion.

I have seen all kinds of metrics used in here like "don't have to hunt", "live longer", "safer", "can watch netflix". I don't think any of these things have to do with whether or not people's lives are getting better.

You can just take one of those metrics - "live longer", and see that in itself, it can't measure "getting better", because you can live for 80 years and have a terrible life, or have 60 years of an excellent life.

I think people in silicon valley are just completely clueless and are making the wrong bet, which is why they never see things like Trump coming. Things aren't getting better and people know it.

</comment><comment><USER29> I am not certain the author of the article has identified the true cause/root of the problem. To me, the need to be needed is certainly important, but, I do not think that that need is the true cause of the anxiety described in the article. The way the western world has reacted to immigration and socio- political landscape currently obtaining is not well explained by the need to be needed as explained in the article.

To me, the need to be needed/fear of being unneeded takes a back seat to the idea of 'other'. The otherness of the migrants, of the new persons, the lack of 'connection' with them certinly is a better explanation than the feeling of being superflous.

My view is that if we, as humanity in general, could only see each other first as individuals and secondly as persons with intrinsic worth - basically treat each other as we would a treasured member of our family, their troubles with the same sense urgency with which we would treat our close friend, brother, sister in the exact same circumstances, then the world would be a better place for all.

But, it feels like this is naïve, not 'realistic' or 'practical' there is too much standing in the way, at least thats what it looks like to me when I attempt to do so. It gets overwhelming, emotionally anyway. To me, behind our anxiety, as humans, is the fear of what would happen if we truly saw others as though they were ourselves. Really and truly. I am not sure we can do so, because we would realize just how fucked up the world was. I for one would rather not, the shame, fear is too much. I would rather build a wall and tell myself there is not much I can do, I do not have enough to help, I would be disregarding my responsibilities. But I know the truth. I am just scared.

</comment><comment><USER30> _And although all the world's major faiths teach love_

That's not what I see when I look into the holy books. Let's be frank here, faith and religion are still _the_ tools to turn ordinary people into genocidal maniacs.

<comment><USER31> I know what you mean (turning someone into a pillar of salt, killing infidels, etc), but there's a stark difference between the "tenants" of a religion and the single books that drive them. Hence why there's a million different flavors of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc - they all take their given "book" and interpret it differently.

If you generalize Jesus' teachings, they're hard to argue as immoral - be good to your fellow man, abandon your earthly possessions, wash the feet of another because he is your fellow, stuff like that.

Anyway my point is, a tool is just a tool to be used as you will. Religious texts can be used to bring people together or start a war, obviously - <USER2> look at the current shitstorm surrounding "radical islamic terrorism." There are over a billion Muslims in the world, 99.99% of whom live peaceful lives - and a small percentage are convinced to turn their religion into an ugly justification for bloodshed. No religion is immune to this.

<comment><USER23> > If you generalize Jesus' teachings, they're hard to argue as immoral - <USER3> > good to your fellow man, abandon your earthly possessions, wash the feet of > another because he is your fellow, stuff like that.

Well, Jesus generalized his own teachings like this, quoting the scriptures of _his_ time, in the gospel of Matthew:

> "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And he said to him, > "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul > and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a > second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two > commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."

If God doesn't exist or isn't a good God, then it's not hard to argue that following Him could be immoral and teaching people to follow Him is surely immoral. And that's speaking as a Christian.

Paul even wrote, "...if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.... If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied."

> Anyway my point is, a tool is just a tool to be used as you will.

This point is well taken, though I would rephrase it. People take all sorts of things and then change them to suit their purposes. Jesus himself railed against this sort of thing, calling religious hypocrites "vipers" and "whitewashed tombs".

> No religion is immune to this.

Well, certain religions are certainly against this sort of thing. I'd argue that someone who has taken Jainism, say, and added violence, they've invented a new religion and stolen (and corrupted) the word "Jainism". This sort of thing has happened to Christianity for 2000 years. There's no copyright on the word. Just like a hacker can do whatever, say he's from Anonymous, and everyone takes that assertion on face value.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is a refreshing and useful article in light of the upcoming election and political fallout. It's a reminder that the world, despite the media/politics, is getting better and better, and consequently the need for human labor is decreasing. The Dalai Lama doesn't offer any answers, only recognition of the "problem" and hope that we can collectively find a solution.

It's especially important for us as the very people who are actively trying to make human labor obsolete. As a generally libertarian minded person, I find this is a very compelling article for compassion in a relentlessly utilitarian society.

</comment><comment><USER33> to be fair though, if you're feeling severe anxiety you should go see a doctor.

i've been seeing a lot of articles on hn lately that are like "just think your way into a good mood yay" or "heres arbitrary reason for how you feel etc" when we all know there's many environmental or genetic factors that play into how our minds develop.

maybe it's the fear of the being unneeded or maybe if you have anxiety you should talk to someone or it's likely both.

<comment><USER34> "Severe anxiety" was probably not the best choice of words.

I believe from a Buddhist perspective, anxiety is a pretty basic thing, i.e. it is considered the normal state of the not-yet-enlightened person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> There is a lot of discussion on HN (in this thread and in many others) about what we will do when technology replaces a significant fraction of our jobs. People are talking about a 10%, 50%, or even 99% reduction in the workforce size due to technological advances (mostly AI).

I totally reject the conclusion that the workforce will be significantly reduced by any imminent technology. Look at humans throughout history. We have continuously invented ways to automate (or nearly automate) away the labor behind our needs and desires, but people have been working 40+ hour weeks since the industrial revolution. It seems that our wants and needs advance as quickly, or even more quickly, than our ability to meet them with technology.

I think a good analogy (for this crowd) is personal computing. Every year our computers get much faster, yet the overall "speed" of the experience remains about the same. Why? Because as soon as we get our hands on a new CPU we go and write a program that requires more CPU power, rather than simply watching our old programs run faster. I don't think there is anyone out there running Netscape on Windows XP on top of a brand new Intel Processor with 32GB of RAM.

I think we are being a combination of overconfident and unimaginative when we think we are on the brink of a technological utopia where DeepMind AI does our job for us. We are unable to imagine the wants we will have in the future. This is by definition, if we could imagine them we'd have already started working towards them!

I will present a concrete example, one that's overused but still effective. Consider the smartphone. This is a device that is pocketable, affordable to ~50% of the world's population, and can answer nearly any factual query in seconds. I think if you had told someone in the 90s about that they would assume we'd have vastly more leisure time. We'd have fired all the librarians, replaced the teachers with machines, and our children could complete 12 years of education at home in a fraction of the time. But of course this is not what happened. In fact we created __more __work for ourselves, I bet half the people in this thread are employed by a company that makes software for smartphones. We didn 't know we'd want 100 apps and games on each phone, but now that we're here we won't easily give them up.

I don't mean any of the above to sound negative. This is a wonderful thing! This infinite cycle of desire is what has driven us to this point and is what will drive us into the future. But the one negative consequence (in my opinion) is that humans will not soon be a leisurely species. We will keep busy, and we will keep inventing things to busy ourselves with.

<comment><USER36> _I totally reject the conclusion that the workforce will be significantly reduced by any imminent technology._

Your main point is correct, but take in account this, too: So far technology has replaced or created new jobs _requiring not much more in terms of skills_. To make a very simple example: cars were not extremely more difficult to drive than a cart. And way easier (less physical strength required, for example) than riding a horse.

So if someone was intellectually capable of learning to drive a cart, they could probably manage a truck. People leaving their farm (thanks to increased mechanization of farm labor) could move to the city and work in a plant or in a blue collar job with little training.

Of course, advances in science and technology also created whole new jobs that required a lot of study (I dunno... Engineer, Chemist) but it was not like everyone who was made redundant as a cart driver or a farmer would move to the nearest city and become a scientist.

So the problem seems to be this: assume that half of the truckers will be made redundant in 10 years. How many of them will succesfully "pivot" in something else, like truck AI programmer? 1 in 1000? Of course, they could become ... truck mechanics... but, wait... we already had mechanics working on human- driven trucks, and the fact that some trucks are now autonomous will not require an large amount of extra repair shops to cater for them. So, what will the not-truck-driver-anymore guys do?

<comment><USER37> Also another factor - the minimum viable skill level rises.

In Spain, some years back (6 centuries?), being able to read and write, could get you respect and lifetime employment. Being able to read silently - reputation and awe. Without your lips moving - quiet speculation about deals with the Devil.

Now being able to read gets little Casey to middle school.

It's not hard to image a few years out, a little Casey with more category theory than almost anyone here, and a better feel for system decomposition and design. Also with more numerate physics than most current physics 4th-year undergraduates, and a better understanding of biology than many current first- tier medical school students. Low bars all.

I've seen two threads here today, saying things like 'that new Javascript tooling is bafflingly complex' and 'they wrote something incomprehensible about functors returning monoids'. Welcome to the future.

Maybe the future is like immigration - you often lose a generation - one that works really hard, for little joy, so their kids can make it. Only the future really doesn't need or want the work many have to offer. And with wealth and education inequality, their kids may not have much of a chance either.

And for high-skill individuals feeling secure and smug, it's amazing what we're starting to be able to do, combining machine learning with human/software hybrid processes, to deskill professional work. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Any analysis of anxiety that does not distinguish between males and females is going to be extremely hamstrung.

Each half of the species has very different socio-biological failure modes.

<comment><USER39> Is anxiety a failure mode? Or is it somehow exactly what's needed to tell us that something's missing?

<comment><USER38> The distinct failure modes being the source of anxieties.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> white-flame These problems and anxieties stem from a belief that things are unfair. Be it racial biases, economic disparity, or policing offensiveness, many of these complaints boil down to this: In such a "modern" society, shouldn't we be finally past these problems? Why does it look like they're getting worse?*

People contrast the problems they face against the positive strides they see elsewhere, and it foments an us-vs-them mentality, projects a "f- you, got mine" on the positives, and increases outlooks of entitlement.

This is a continually escalating and divisive cultural cancer that's erupting. However, it has little to do with feeling "unneeded" (though obviously in the lost jobs cases that's mixed in), but rather more of people feeling actively antagonized. It's a mess.

(* answer: greater information flow and media that profits from outrage)

</comment><comment><USER40> Not necessarily. For most people, yes. But for those with eyes open the anxiety and agony is that our solutions are needed but that we cannot enlighten human societies. The best we seem to be able to do is either fund activities on our own or find those who have kept themselves true enough to be able to understand, recognize, correctly learn, and practice truths. But it's difficult to find those who want to know, so while valuable, this way is quite arduous and lonely. The Dalai Lama may talk about western psychology's abandonment and bonding conditions, but he has not wanted to meet even me as I know the one truth that he has not been able to realize even half of one of Buddha's teachings.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's odd to see this sort of philosophy/theology posted on here, but since the subject was broached, from the article:

> Virtually all the world's major religions teach that diligent work in the > service of others is our highest nature and thus lies at the center of a > happy life.

Actually, Ecclesiastes (great read for all philosophy geeks) is a long discourse of happiness, the point of life, etc. Its final conclusion was:

> Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

The core of Judeo-Christian theology is the supremacy of God and trust that following His instructions is the best way to live the best possible life. Of course there is a lot of teaching about how to care for others, and there's a lot of teaching against selfishness, but that is the result of following a good God, not the point in itself.

Ecclesiastes actually brings up charity as wise, but falls far short of saying it's the point of life. It points out that there's limits to human knowledge. In my wording, help people, because that could be you tomorrow, but the person you save from a fire today could drown tomorrow. You'd need to be able to see the future to utterly help someone, and only God has that kind of foresight. So if you trust that God exists and is good, you should obey His teachings.

> Indeed, what unites the two of us in friendship and collaboration is not > shared politics or the same religion. It is something simpler: a shared > belief in compassion, in human dignity, in the intrinsic usefulness of every > person to contribute positively for a better and more meaningful world.

I'm eager to collaborate productively with everyone. But if you're interested in being my friend, you need to understand where I come from. I value human life because mankind was made in the image of God (imagao dei). My eagerness to give human compassion, dignity, and usefulness another shot grows out of my trust in God and his teachings that say to do just that. But I do that in spite of the track record of humanity, not because I have faith in what humans will do in the future. Who knows the future?

There's a bit of an "all religions are the same" meme out there, and it's important to correct it, especially when respectable people repeat it.

</comment><comment><USER41> Article is about modern human psychological well-being; comments are about how materially satisfied modern (Western) humanity is, so what's the fucking problem, gosh!? The best part is the latter doesn't actually discount the former, it just trivializes its importance.

Oh HN, never change.

</comment><comment><USER42> I Want You To Want Me [0]. Some of us just want to love and be loved.

[0]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbw- PVwBU9k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbw-PVwBU9k)

</comment><comment><USER43> if you have paywall issues: [https://archive.fo/yBrfC](https://archive.fo/yBrfC)

</comment><comment><USER44> For as prolific as he is, the Dalai Lama doesn't pop up on my radar much. But here he is in the NY Times opinion pages sharing monism.

 _This speaks to a broader human truth: We all need to be needed._

There's an old but relevant perspective on life. We value ourselves by how much we can contribute to the lives of others.

Still though, I'm left wondering, what combination of forces summed up to this particular writing crossing my path?

 _Leaders need to recognize that a compassionate society must create a wealth of opportunities for meaningful work_

Oh, there it is. A message about the importance interpersonal relationships to self worth is co-opted and reduced to nothing more than calling on the government to make sure everyone is feeding their 40 hours into the system.

<comment><USER31> I don't understand how "meaningful work," when the Dalai Lama says it, means "40 hours into the system." My understanding of Buddhism is "meaningful work" or "meaning" can be slaving away 60 hours a week at your own company, sitting on concrete tinkering away at a motorcycle, or even living on a mountain shaving your head and relinquishing all possessions. The idea is to "find meaning," that is, only do things that for _you_ are important and for _you_ give you a sense of purpose.

<comment><USER45> This is a common misconception in my line of understanding of Buddhism. From how I see it, there's not even a "me" or "you", maybe there's a "I am you; you are me", or "nothing at all", depending on the line you may follow.

For me, Buddhism teaches about selflessness, not stuff like carpe diem or find meaning of live or whatever; also teaches about the dangers of dying and being reborn/transmigrate in a much worse state, so we should quickly get out of this cycle of suffering. If you are sharp (in terms of Budddhism) you will want to fix this ASAP. If you are not so sharp, they will have to use expedients to slowly show you whats the proper path to happiness - for example showing that clinging to stuff doesn't bring lasting happiness.

Getting out ot our own ignorance requires real effort, not just reading and making assumptions from the comfort of our views.</comment></comment></comment>


AI Generated Pics - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/beezeetee/TDPDNE <comment><AUTHOR> AI generated images based on 42,273 pics scraped from Reddit

<comment><USER2> Pics of what?</comment></comment>


Go Will Dominate the Next Decade - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/go-dominate-next-decade-ian-eyberg <comment><USER2> Dominate _what_?

The entire field of software development? The number of new lines of code produced? Accounting systems currently in Cobol? Medical systems currently in MUMPS? Quantum chemistry software currently in Fortan?

Will it dominate the field like Perl?

Or just dominate the conversation of the self-appointed cool kids?

Regarding "Over half of the top 20 companies in the U.S. ranked by market capitalization are currently using Go."

There's good odds that over half of them also use Java, Python, C++, Ruby, Lisp, Rust, and Erlang.</comment>


Mapbox GL for iOS - <AUTHOR> https://www.mapbox.com/mobile?utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=mobile

<comment><USER2> This the most sophisticated Map Solution out there. Mapbox is simply awesome

</comment><comment><USER3> nice

</comment><comment><USER4> cool stuff</comment>


Face based authentication - <AUTHOR> http://lifeasiknow-it.blogspot.com/2009/07/pam-face-authentication-musings-face.html

<comment><USER2> The attribute/simile based method (<http://www.cs.columbia.edu/CAVE/projects/faceverification/>) holds highest score on LFW (<http://vis-www.cs.umass.edu/lfw/>). LBP is really old (though it is amazingly good in old time).</comment>


15-Year-Old's 200 Vintage Apple Computers Are Now a Mac Museum - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/10/technology/apple-computer-museum-maine-teenager-alex-jason.html?smid=tw-share <comment><USER2> Reminds me of how I started my MicroVAX collection, I saw a couple at a closed auction and had to bid the minimum to see the price they went for. Turns out it was the only bid and I found myself the owner of a couple of MicroVAX 3's in the ginormous BA123 roll-around chassis.

The other thing that it reminds of that things in context are more valuable than things in isolation. Specifically by going to the trouble to research the systems, understand their place in Apple history, the exhibit takes on a value that simply having an old Apple computer would not.

My hat's off to the kid.

<comment><USER3> Acceptable usage?

      MicroVaxen 3

      MicroVax 3en

<comment><USER4> Obligatory VAX jousting video. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYP-F7XxrDA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYP-F7XxrDA)

<comment><USER2> Ok, that is sad. I get it, really I do, but its sad to see what were once machines doing service to some goal somewhere, being smashed together for kicks like that.

<comment><USER5> Don't worry, this was 2002. It'd be like jousting with a couple Proliant G3s or something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Amazing! Absolutely gorgeous collection. I wonder how came into possession of an original Apple I board - that's like finding the Holy Grail!

<comment><USER7> Seriously. I thought 'oh cool, I have a bit of a collection too' and then the article casually drops that he has an Apple I. Not exactly something a 15 year old typically gets their hands on.

The video (1) shows these machines in fantastic condition - this must have cost a pretty penny, most old machines from eBay or craigslist aren't in great shape. Only thing I can see is they could use a bit of retr0bright to get rid of the yellowing.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb_-1Sb8Bbw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb_-1Sb8Bbw)

<comment><USER8> The use of retr0bright could be controversial, I would think: For many collectibles, the value goes down once that sort of restoration is undertaken. I know that's true for collectible coins, at least...

<comment><USER9> right right right, don't do anything to the plastic. To a museum the natural aging of the plastic is part of the artifact and its history. Ret0bright[1] is a chemical combination that could have effects down the line. museums have to think in terms of storing artifacts for 100 years.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retr0bright](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retr0bright)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _On Saturday he was looking for so-called Easter eggs, or surprises hidden by software programmers, on Macintosh SE models that reveal a slide show of the company's development team._

>G 41D89A

That one has been etched in my brain for the last 29 years.

<comment><USER11> Also, a hardware Easter egg, some Macs had a bunch of signatures inside their cases. Of course, you need a foot long hex wrench to get inside to see.

[http://www.cultofmac.com/122408/signed-by-steve-jobs-co- sign...](http://www.cultofmac.com/122408/signed-by-steve-jobs-co-signatures- inside-the-original-macintosh-case/)

<comment><USER10> Oh man, that Torx wrench. Pre-internet, that was nearly impossible to find unless you knew someone that had a Mac repair business.

<comment><USER12> They were routinely sold under the name "MacCracker" \- and had a flat disk with a ridge. Once the screws were out, the ridge would be worked as a lever to separate the edges.

Bottom has some screen shots:

[http://www.tcocd.de/Pictures/Micro/Apple/mac128.shtml](http://www.tcocd.de/Pictures/Micro/Apple/mac128.shtml)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Also mentioned in the article, in case you're not in the U.S.: Last year, the largest private collection of historic apple products has opened as a museum in Prague: [http://www.applemuseum.com/en/about- us](http://www.applemuseum.com/en/about-us)

(Reviews on tripadvisor are a bit mixed, but looks promising)

</comment><comment><USER14> Lawn cutting? I'm more curious about how they fund this. And why? such a young kid collecting stuff like he's a storage wars hunter

<comment><USER15> Perhaps you could even call it a "hedge fund"

<comment><USER16> No more internet for you today, young man.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > Other prized artifacts include ... the first prototype of a mouse, known as > the Cursor III ...

Is that correct?

<comment><USER18> No the first prototype mouse was this one I think: [http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001083.htm](http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001083.htm) Made in the 60s and patented in 1970.

The Cursor III is this: [http://www.vintagemacworld.com/add2/add8.jpg](http://www.vintagemacworld.com/add2/add8.jpg)

<comment><USER17> wow. that vintage Mac peripherals photo is awesome. everything _still_ looks futuristic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > Lisa 2/5

Love the design of this model. Reminds me of the VT-100 [0] I used and loved at Uni. For some reason, machine design (desktop) has got flimsier and moved away this style.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT100)

<comment><USER20> The change from CRT to LCD likely is a big contributor to the change of design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> They're over 5 years old? That's just sad.

<comment><USER22> It says "vintage", not "old". And next year it will be 6 years, then 7...

<comment><USER21> [http://winsupersite.com/hardware/apple- decides-600-million-p...](http://winsupersite.com/hardware/apple- decides-600-million-pc-users-5-year-old-pcs-sad-fact)

<comment><USER22> Oh, I'd forgotten about that quote. I get it now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Apple itself, founded by Mr. Jobs and his high school friend Stephen Wozniak in a suburban California garage in 1976"

never heard of it

<comment><USER23> California? It's that big state on the left side of the map. It looks like a rectangle, bent in the middle. Like a UPS box.

Take a right turn at Albuquerque. Stop when you hit water. Can't miss it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> What a rich little snob of a kid! I had to beg & plead & promise dad I'd start a business (selling labels??) so he'd get me an Apple IIc. Which I was very happy for. At the age of 12. Thanks Dad!

<comment><USER25> I'm not sure it's warranted to call him a rich little snob. I read this article and one that it linked to, and it seems like he worked hard earning and saving money to build the collection. Maybe his parents are rich and are really the ones funding this but I didn't see anything to back that up.

<comment><USER26> No average 15-year old can "work hard" and simply "earn" the enormous gobs of money this kind of collection costs. Someone older who can be assumed to have worked their whole life and slowly accumulated a large collection, such a person have demonstrated dedication and sacrifice, which signifies genuine interest and love for the subject. But someone 15 years old? They _must_ have simply bought it all, over a comparitively short period of time, for ungodly amounts of money. And when neither time, effort or sacrifice is involved, it's very hard to trust the person to be genuinly interested.

Sure, they _could_ still very well be genuinely interested and dedicated to the subject. But, while we normally can make the reasonable assumption that a person who owns a large collection necessarily is genuinely interested in the subject (per the above reasoning), in _this_ case this reasoning is not valid. They still might be genuinely interested, but we have no way of knowing that.

<comment><USER27> No way ... except, perhaps, by reading TFA:

"Alex said his first breakthrough was buying a collection of 50 Apple computers — enough to fill a 26-foot-long U-Haul — with $2,000 he had saved from mowing lawns."

"Alex described himself as a longtime tinkerer who studied how tractors worked at the John Deere dealership, explored the innards of computers ... He was inspired to pursue Apple computers after he upgraded the hard drive and RAM on his first computer, the iMac G5, on his own."

And in a referenced article <[http://www.cultofmac.com/417572/teen-uses-lawn- mowing-money-...](http://www.cultofmac.com/417572/teen-uses-lawn-mowing-money- to-fund-incredible-apple-collection/>):

"Alex quickly discovered he could not tinker much with his G5 because it was already at its limit for upgrading. So he sought older Macs for sale to take them apart, get them working, and learn how they are put together."

But I guess it's easier to just pontificate.

<comment><USER26> Sure he's interested – _for the moment_. It's whether the interest will persist that we have no way of knowing. My point was that since he has done this for such a short time, the size of his collection can't, as it normally would, indicate time spent and thus a larger than passing interest.

Also, my comment was to someone that seemed to claim that someone that young could simply "work hard" and earn the money. Now, unless you're surrounded by people with way too much money than they know what to do with, this isn't true.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


PEP 465: Dedicated infix operators for matrix multiplication and matrix power - <AUTHOR> http://legacy.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0465/

<comment><AUTHOR> Pending resolution of a few details, Guido has indicated that he is ready to accept the PEP:

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/python- ideas/aHVlL6BAD...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/python- ideas/aHVlL6BADLY/GBCTSbY40QQJ)</comment>


Ask HN: New Laptop, No OS, Where To Buy? - <AUTHOR>

Is there an online retailer you would buy from if you needed a new laptop as your development machine?
Has to be under $500 and no OS. Will just do a fresh Ubuntu install.
Thanks for the guidance - <comment><USER2> Sadly, computers are cheaper with an OS. The vendors pile junk like 90 day virus subscriptions (that must be renewed) and Microsoft Office instant upgrades on to the computer as to lower the price.

I'd pick something off <http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/> and be done with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> This was very helpful thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just buy a laptop as usual. But then return the pre-installed Windows to the manufacturer (not the retailer), for a refund.

Your right to do this is protected by various competition laws prohibiting 'tying' - the bundling of third party products. For generic PC hardware, Windows _is_ third party - it's not exclusively necessary to run the machine, since there are many other third party OSs available.

More details are in my comments in previous threads: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2600047> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1642068>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much. I was not even aware of this. I really appreciate it. Opens up my options.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> eBay, used computers can be just as good as new.</comment>