The real battle for net neutrality begins: The people v. FCC - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-real-battle-for-net-neutrality-begins-the-people-v-fcc/ <comment><USER2> In choosing a corporate shill like Pai, I think Trump has no idea of the kind of Trojan horse he unwittingly planted for his 2020 re-election. NN is, at least in my view, an entirely non-partisan, cross cutting concern/issue that concerns -everyone-, regardless of their views held on any particular point.

Yes, I am aware that increasing ISP competition will nullify the need for NN, but that is -not- where we are now, are we? Leave the regulation in place, or at least put some serious conditions and stimuli for new broadband investments if you're going to repeal NN. The way they went about it now makes it look like all they're trying to do is enrich the entrenched players.

This is sure to bite this administration in the ass far more than they imagined.

<comment><USER3> > I am aware that increasing ISP competition will nullify the need for NN

I see this argument being used a lot, but I think it is a logical fallacy.

Why do they assume that non-NN will increase ISP competition?

I have a choice of exactly one ISP in my area and I really don't see how the repeal of NN will make other ISPs lay fiber to my place.

Can someone break down this argument for me? I cannot.

<comment><USER4> I think you have it backwards. The argument is that, _assuming_ we have a lot of competition between ISPs (which is obviously a false assumption in the US), there is no need for NN.

<comment><USER5> Well, that still does make a very bad argument, exactly because it is a false assumption.

But aside from stating the obvious: I would actually be interested if there is a country where a lack of competing ISPs is not the status quo. And if there is, what the reason for that might be. If there is, I'd assume it would have to do with that country treating network infrastructure the same as roads and allowing small companies to access it.

<comment><USER6> Denmark have reasonable competition. Exactly for the reason you assumed. A small ISP just rents the cabel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _> Congress isn't sitting idly by either. The bill, H.R.4585 - Save Net Neutrality Act of 2017, has already been proposed, and more will come. After the FCC announced its decision, Colorado Congressman Mike Coffman, a Republican, immediately announced, "This conversation belongs in #Congress."_

Watch out for those in the Congress pushing a law that would actually cement in place fake net neutrality, that doens't really prevent any monopolistic abuse.

I suspect it was the plan of monopolists all along. They knew well, that blantant actions of FCC won't fly, but they hoped their corrupt influence on the Congress would allow them to pass a "law" that would let them run amok with anti-competitive and user fleecing behavior.

Example of where it can be heading: [https://web.archive.org/web/20171215060507/http://corporate....](https://web.archive.org/web/20171215060507/http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast- voices/its-time-for-congress-to-act-and-permanently-preserve-the-open- internet)

Read carefully what Comcast lobbyists are writing. They describe their own plan pretty well.

Why would someone like Comcast who fought tooth and nail against FCC net neutrality rules, suddenly be so interested in passing a law that "solidifies" and "permanently preserves" it? Only because they hope that they'll manage to solidify something that doesn't do anything, while "putting the discussion to rest" (i.e. making fixing it much harder, than simply restoring previous FCC rules again).

<comment><USER8> Comcast doesn't say that they want Congress to implement title ii regulation. You're mixing up 2 different things.

<comment><USER7> I explained above what they are saying. They want two things: prevent strong net neutrality protections and prevent it practically permanently. For that they are now pushing for a fake law about it. Their logic is, that repealing a garbage law is usually much harder, than for FCC simply passing some new regulation. Look at how long DMCA-1201 persists, despite it being an obvious garbage.

<comment><USER8> You said "Why would someone like Comcast who fought tooth and nail against FCC net neutrality rules, suddenly be so interested in passing a law that "solidifies" and "permanently preserves" it?"

You seem to be ignoring the obvious response, which is that they're fine with NN regulations as long as it doesn't come with the overhead of Title II.

<comment><USER7> Point is, they are pretending they are pro-net neutrality, while in essence they are completely against it. It's their usual smokescreen tactic, to fool those who would fall for such weasel talk.

Saying they are fine with NN regulation, but only when it's actually not doing anything to protect NN, is fallacy.

So let's be clear - they are simply lying through their teeth.

<comment><USER8> You keep on saying some version of this but aren't giving any reason to actually believe this.

What would you expect to see differently in a world in which they wanted Congress to pass clear NN rules?

<comment><USER7> _> What would you expect to see differently in a world in which they wanted Congress to pass clear NN rules?_

They should stop lying and admit they are simply against net neutrality to begin with. But I don't expect them to, naturally, since they are professional lairs.

Anyway, my point was that the public should be aware about this sneaky attack on net neutrality, veiled as "support" for it.

<comment><USER8> You aren't answering the question. You've given zero reason to think they're lying except asserting it over and over.

<comment><USER7> I see no question here. What point are you trying to make? Are you defending Comcast's attack on NN veiled as support for it (through pushing a law that redefines NN as something that does nothing to actually protect NN), or you are trying to explain that we should have expected it? If the later, it's the same thing I'm saying.

<comment><USER8> You're asserting something without offering any evidence for it - I would like you to explain why people should believe you.

<comment><USER7> Comcast opposed NN before. What other evidence do you need? They never hid the fact. They violated it multiple times, from BitTorrent throttling, to data caps, zero rating and interconnection shenanigans, and they clearly benefit from not letting strong NN protections be in place. So when they suddenly come out in support of something they call NN, if you don't see foul play, then you simply didn't pay any attention.

<comment><USER8> You mention 4 things, but only one is a NN violation and it was from a decade ago.

<comment><USER7> All of these are NN violations, or related to it.

The goal of Comcast in violating NN is not just abstract violation of it, their goal is harming competition, and giving themselves an unfair advantage. The core of the problem is that besides owning the physical network, they are also media company. So their direct competitors are video services for instance.

Comcast try to raise the price of those services for users (and thus pushing them to use Comcast's own ones instead), by combining usage of data caps (which have no technical need and are purely fleecing / anti-competitive tool) in combination with zero rating, i.e. excluding their own services from data caps. Users have to pay extra to avoid data caps. That basically taxes users who prefer their competitors. Another method they use is interconnection starvation. That simply degrades the quality of competing services, again pushing users to use Comcast's ones.

NN is relevant here (in addition to regular anti-trust of course), because Comcast are giving preferential treatment to their own traffic, while punishing competitors with data caps and bad interconnection.

So, we established that Comcast clearly violate principles of NN, and can't be interested in the least in codifying _proper_ NN law.

<comment><USER8> This is an extremely disingenuous argument.

First you point out that data caps have no technical need. Something else that isn't required technically: charging for service. Would you say that the fact they charge to use their services means they're anti competitive?

Zero rating was not included in the 2015 Order that was repealed - it was always legal.

<comment><USER7> What I find disingenuous, are attempts to whitewash abusive monopolistic behavior like data caps or claims that zero rating is not violating net neutrality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> [https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filing/1051157755251](https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filing/1051157755251)

C'mon now, how dumb do we think we are that these are legit comments?

> Name of Filer: Barack Obama

> Address: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500

> The unprecedented regulatory power the Obama Administration imposed on the > internet is smothering innovation, damaging the American economy and > obstructing job creation. I urge the Federal Communications Commission to > end the bureaucratic regulatory overreach of the internet known as Title II > and restore the bipartisan light-touch regulatory consensus that enabled the > internet to flourish for more than 20 years. The plan currently under > consideration at the FCC to repeal Obama's Title II power grab is a positive > step forward and will help to promote a truly free and open internet for > everyone.

[https://static1.squarespace.com/static/554441dae4b07d3f99017...](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/554441dae4b07d3f990170ea/t/5a32d72d9140b78109fd4dd4/1513281327086/SPL+TiPC+Preliminary+Report+12-14-17.pdf)

> 88% of survey respondents whose emails were used to submit pro-repeal > comments likely had their identity appropriated to submit a comment, > compared to just 4% of pro-net neutrality respondents.

</comment><comment><USER10> The courts are also packed with ideological appointees. I don't have much faith that they'd consider the issue impartially or with the benefit of the consumer in mind. You have to remember that they're the ones that let the DMCA and endless copyright extensions stand, along with giving us other anti- consumer/pro-corporate decisions like Citizens United.

It's a wonder that the US has any consumer protections at all, and those that are there are steadily being dismantled under the "pro-business" mantra, or whatever other fig leaf can be dug up.</comment>


3 Colombian teens on Facebook hit list killed in past 10 days - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/08/24/colombia.facebook.killings/?hpt=T2 <comment><USER2> Not sure if this is a reason to join Facebook or to stay off it...

I miss getting invited to some events, but maybe I'd like to know if someone put me on a hit list. Zuckerberg really is tricky!

<comment><USER3> > I miss getting invited to some events

These are the kind of events that I think it might be better to miss.

<comment><USER4> Once upon a time there was a fox strolling through the woods. He came upon a grape orchard. There he found a bunch of beautiful grapes hanging from a high branch.

"Boy those sure would be tasty," he thought to himself. He backed up and took a running start, and jumped. He did not get high enough.

He went back to his starting spot and tried again. He almost got high enough this time, but not quite.

He tried and tried, again and again, but just couldn't get high enough to grab the grapes.

Finally, he gave up.

As he walked away, he put his nose in the air and said: "I am sure those grapes are sour."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Real identity is actually one of the reasons why Facebook Connect is being adopted en masse. When you let your users sign up with their real identity, the number of trolls and abusers automatically goes down. Richness of expression may be affected in such systems, but for many that is an easy trade-off to make. But real identity opens up a whole new can of worms which is sadly illustrated by this case.

</comment><comment><USER6> I hate to see how they use facebook to target victims. This hasn't been the only case of course, but makes you want to create a fake profile

<comment><USER7> It's interesting how "fake" you can make your profile. It's your profile, after all.

You start by changing your name, picture, location and everything. But as long as you want to use Facebook, you must connect with your real friends. And visible friendship connections are pretty much the thing in Facebook. Unless your friends and their friends all operate under pseudonyms, it's rather easy to track someone who's known by someone.

If your profile is totally fake then it has nothing to do with your real life.</comment></comment>


Assange 'to run for Australian senate'  - <AUTHOR> http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2012/03/201231783350968878.html

<comment><USER2> I think the point is that the auspices of diplomatic immunity will force even the USA to handle him with kid gloves.

It's kind of hard to charge someone with espionage when they are running another country. Unless the USA is also planning on snapping up Mikhail Gorbachev for espionage the next time he's in town, I think it's a brilliant play.

<comment><USER3> Diplomatic community does not extend to foreign legislators. It covers only those who are official diplomats of a foreign country (or those accorded derivative rights, such as immediate family of diplomats). Note that the right applies to the foreign country, not the individuals representing it, so the foreign country may choose (or not) to exercise the immunity.

While many countries (especially Middle-eastern countries) abuse diplomatic immunity with regards to smaller crimes (and especially parking tickets), most countries choose not to exercise the immunity in the case of felonies (except where the death penalty is on the table). Alternatively, the country will exercise the immunity but will then honor an extradition request.

IOW, unless Assange gets himself appointed as a _diplomat_ of Australia, he's done nothing to improve his situation in the US.

<comment><USER4> From the wikileak article linked below:

"Having Julian Assange elected to the Senate would give him some advantages, at the very least the embarrassment of the Australian government having to communicate to whatever authority in Sweden - or the USA as the case may be - about 'Senator Assange' or, if ensconced in Parliament, the embarrassment for Attorney General Nicola Roxon if ASIO was found to have tapped Julian Assange's parliamentary phone and internet connection."

Then it goes on about starting a wikileaks party and actually archiving some political change.

<comment><USER3> Which does nothing to improve his situation in the U.S. The U.S. already does not have the jurisdiction to wiretap overseas; it must have local agencies do so (and many of them agree to do so, pursuant to INTERPOL agreements).

The wlcentral article is clearly written by someone who does not understand Parliamentary government (probably a fellow American). Members of parliament are selected by the parties (rather than being elected directly), but the parties must meet a minimum vote threshold to receive any seats.

<comment><USER5> The cabinet (i.e. ministers) are appointed by the party with the most seats, but members of parliament themselves are most certainly elected directly by the local area which they represent.

The senate is a bit different, where you have the option to select either the specific senators you want, or to delegate your votes to a party to allocate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One of the advantages of being a member of parliament or a senator is that you have Parliamentary Privilege for anything you say in the house or senate. Perhaps if Assange got in he could leak stuff in the senate without having to pretend to be a journalist. Quite a big advantage if you live in a country with only an implied constitutional freedom of speech limited to political matters vs punishing defamation laws.

If he were to enter politics it might be as effective a way to neuter him as a show trial or assassination. Peter Lalor was one of the rebels at Australia's only real civil insurrection/revolution, the Eureka Stockade, but when he got into parliament he became an anti-democratic protector of wealth and privilege. Then you have Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil "US forces give the nod, its a setback for your country" fame who is a Labor minister and not at all outspoken these days.

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder what the US will spend to defeat him.....

I bet the CIA is working out funding ideas right now.....

This being said, I wish him the best of luck. It's quite possible such efforts might backfire if folks trace the money back far enough.

<comment><USER8> Funding 'ideas' ? Take $Xmm out of pre-mixed drug-running slush fund, donate to incumbent through multiple nyms, move on to six remaining tasks to do before lunch.

<comment><USER9> not that I wish to anyone, but seriously a sole fact that Asange is still alive proves to me a huge shift that happened at some point through US government agencies like CIA with the way they deal with outsiders like himself. Back in ole' days this guy would be quickly found hanging on the rope with hands taped behind, and officials classifying it as a "suicide". Who knows, perhaps he is just too darn popular right now for CIA to send someone to shut him down permanently. I recall the politicians bashing him that he endanger many US troops and US officials around the world with his publications, but yet 3 years later you can't hear about a single instant that someone got hurt due to Assange publications. I think down the line this guy made more good than bad; next time US will plot another inappropriate scheme between countries etc, they will think twice that sooner or later secrets can leak. On the other hand, guys like Bradley are heroes to me, especially now when he's going through hell served by US government. Respect!

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

<comment><USER8> Things have shifted because they've had to. The CIA is in the business of _clandestine_ operations, strongly preferring to support an existing entity and failing that, small operations with extreme amounts of plausible deniability. For one, JA is just the messenger (as you point out, BM is the one who leaked the cables, and that damage has already been done), and JA is/was not even all of WL (although don't tell that to JA..). but really, since he's made it into the public spotlight, direct action is out of the question and JA can only be taken down through an illusion of law and process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'd personally like to see, how a hacker runs a government.

<comment><USER10> I'm unsure as to why you were downvoted for this comment. I think it would be terribly interesting to see the extent to which a hacker mentality was visible and/or effective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> First he would need to live in Australia. He doesn't seem able to do that.

<comment><USER12> This is not true: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_44_of_the_Constitution_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_44_of_the_Constitution_of_Australia)

<comment><USER11> Looks like he is stuck in the UK under his bail conditions. So he is unable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Further background information:

2012-01-02 A 'Wikileaks' party and #JA4Senate in the Australian polity: Can Parliament be 'occupied'?

<http://wlcentral.org/node/2401>

</comment><comment><USER14> A criminal record is mandatory...

<comment><USER15> > Being convicted of a crime punishable under Australian law to 12 months or > more in prison can disqualify a person from sitting in the Australian > parliament for the duration of the sentence, even if that sentence is > suspended.

That seems a bit odd considering Australia's history doesn't it?

<comment><USER6> Only if you are totally ignorant of history. My Australian state wasn't settled by convicts just as the whole of the US wasn't settled by one ship full of Puritans. My state had a planned colonisation by free settlers attracted to civil and religious freedom and the promise of owning their own land which probably had more in common with somewhere like New Zealand than the penal colonies to the east.

<comment><USER16> It's just Americans thinking they're being funny about Australia, which is ironic given their modern-day extremely high levels of incarceration. Even the 'penal colonies' weren't just penal colonies - there were a hell of a lot of free settlers as well. Then the gold rushes hit and that's when things really took off.

Besides, in the same period we were a 'penal colony', the Americans were 'slavers' - so much for not casting the first stone...

<comment><USER15> You're assuming I'm in the USA.

I didn't write, imply or say at all that every person from day one until now was a prisoner obviously not but I figured the subject would be viewed differently in Australia.

<comment><USER16> I am assuming that you're from the USA, since most comments like that come from Americans, and it's supported by the point you highlighted that comment but didn't deny it.

Besides, I didn't say that all americans were slavers. That's not the point I'm making. Your 'considering Australia's history' comment isn't "viewed differently in Australia", it's just flat-out wrong. It's servicing a bigoted stereotype ("people from X are Y, dontcha know") rather than reflecting history.

In any case, Australia was federated on Jan 1 1901 - that's when the constitution describing this came into play - a full half-century after the end of the penal colony years, in itself a period of immense immigration. Considering this history, why is it odd that people convicted of a lengthy sentence be barred from holding high office?

<comment><USER15> I'm Canadian.

I guess we're both guilty of being ignorant of distant lands.

<comment><USER16> Meh, justify it that way if you need to - I was making an assumption based on observed behaviour, you were working from an inaccurate sterotype from 200 years ago.

<comment><USER15> You were too.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


0.3 - 0.2 == 0.2 - 0.1 is falsy. Which language gets this right? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> You should perhaps be using a rational number datatype instead of floating point arithmetic.

It depends what calculations you're doing: if you need to use transcendental functions then you're stuck with floating point, and you'll have to decide how close two numbers need to be for you to consider them equal. n.b. _you_ need to do this: no programming language can know whether false positives are more or less harmful than false negatives in _your_ program.

</comment><comment><USER3> Indeed old programming languages get it right:

Fortran (the oldest still in use):

        $ cat sub.f
        C Prints 0.3-0.2 and 0.2-0.3
              PRINT 4, 0.3-0.2, 0.2-0.1
            4 FORMAT ('0.3-0.2=',F3.1,' 0.2-0.1=',F3.1)
              STOP 1
              END
        $ gfortran sub.f -o sub
        $ ./sub
        0.3-0.2=0.1 0.2-0.1=0.1
        STOP 1
        $

Lisp (the second oldest still in use):

        cl-user> (values (- 3/10 2/10) (- 2/10 1/10))
        1/10
        1/10

Cobol (the third oldest still in use):

        $ cat sub.cob
               IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
               PROGRAM-ID. DIFFERENCE.
               ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
               INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.
               FILE-CONTROL.
               DATA DIVISION.
               FILE SECTION.
               WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
               77 out32 pic 9.9.
               77 out21 pic 9.9.
               PROCEDURE DIVISION.
                   subtract 0.2 from 0.3 giving out32.
                   subtract 0.1 from 0.2 giving out21.
                   display '; 0.3 - 0.2 = ' out32 .
                   display '; 0.2 - 0.1 = ' out21 .
                   goback.

        $ cobc  -fixed -Wcolumn-overflow -Wparentheses  -x sub.cob
        $ ./sub
        ; 0.3 - 0.2 = 0.1
        ; 0.2 - 0.1 = 0.1
        $

<comment><USER4> These code samples don't test equality. Printing the output probably rounds off the difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> As many others have pointed out, this is not really a matter of language but of the data types used. In IEEE 754 floating point arithmetic, the two expressions are not equal.

You're looking for a different data type, and many choices would give you the desired equality: a decimal floating point representation, calculating with rational numbers and interval arithmetic come to mind (technically, IEEE floating point is a kind of interval arithmetic, but you have not much control over the size of the intervals used and comparison does not do what you might naively expect, i.e., checking whether the two intervals intersect).

I suppose you should look for a library like GMP or MPIR for whatever is your preferred language. Most computer algebra systems (e.g., Sage) will also provide with what you need in some way or another.

<comment><USER6> But the APL family (APL, J, K) does get this right despite using IEEE 754 floating point - it has comparison tolerance built in.

And you would probably look at what it does with disgust, given that it breaks transitivity of equality (that is, there are numbers such that a==b and b==c but a<>c). However, in practice it does work very well. You can still run into weird corners, but e.g.

        (3*(a/3.0))==a

always holds true, unlike with C comparison semantics.

<comment><USER5> This seems to be a very sensible default way to handle the comparison, assuming the programmer already knows about the problems with floating point math. A programmer who does not know about that will probably trip up sooner or later no matter how the language implements comparison.

So personally I would not see it as "right" (or "wrong"), simply because it is a choice between many different methods with their own advantages and disadvantages. I view this not as a problem a language can (or has to) solve, but as one a programmer has to be aware of and has to solve _depending on his particular application_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Of course, Mathematica gets it right :) As a general rule, never use == and != operators on floats or doubles.

</comment><comment><USER8> It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is.

In other words, floating point operations in binary computers can give unintuitive results; welcome to the bizarre world of programming. This may be a useful starting point for reading: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1167691/ieee-floating- poi...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1167691/ieee-floating-point- pitfalls-introductory-manual) , or perhaps this: [http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19957-01/806-3568/ncg_goldberg.ht...](http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19957-01/806-3568/ncg_goldberg.html)

(Note that most programming languages have a prominent warning about this in the documentation.)

</comment><comment><USER9> IMHO, the _right_ thing to do would be to forbid the usage of == for _decimals_ values.

      1.0 == 0.9 -> Throw err
      1.0 > 0.9 -> true

In most case, you don't want to use == on _double_ because it 's very dangerous... it's way better to use (0.3 - 0.3000001) < 0.001 or something similar. So, by forbidding the == on _doubles_ , you force the programmer to use a safer way. In the same time, it's a _clean hack_ around this decimal issue. As a bonus, a programmer who doesn't know binaries arithmetic might get curious on why == isn't implemented on double and read on it.

</comment><comment><USER10> In Haskell, decimal literals can be inferred as any Fractional type (including Rational, which is precise), but they default to Double if there is no context that dictates otherwise.

        Prelude> 0.3 - 0.2 == 0.2 - (0.1 :: Rational)
        True

Above, we explicitly declare one of the literals as Rational, and the rest are inferred as having the same type (since the standard library does not allow you to do arithmetics or comparisons between discrepant types).

</comment><comment><USER11> Perl6 gets it right:

      $ perl6
      > (0.3 - 0.2) == (0.2 - 0.1)
      True

Because Perl6 use _Rationals_ by default:

      > (0.3 - 0.2).perl
      1/10

To get it to work in perl5 you need to use _bigrat_ pragma:

      $ re.pl
      > (0.3 - 0.2) == (0.2 - 0.1)

      > use bigrat;
      > (0.3 - 0.2) == (0.2 - 0.1)
      1

I think Clojure is another language that uses _Rationals_ by default.

</comment><comment><USER12> Hopefully none of them (at least none that use floating point arithmetic). When you convert the equation to the exponent notation you get this:

(1.2x2^-2) - (1.6x2^-3) = (1.6x2^-3) - (1.6x2^-4)

which is pretty clearly false. <http://www.h-schmidt.net/FloatConverter/IEEE754.html> has a pretty nice conversion tool, if you're curious.

</comment><comment><USER6> APL, J and K/Kona all get it "right" - their default floating point comparison is a "tolerant comparison", basically meaning that floating point numbers compare equal even if they are slightly apart (a few ulps, configurable). It does not extend to hashing (because tolerant equality does not actually have equivalence classes), but is nevertheless an extremely useful behaviour.

</comment><comment><USER13> I suspect COBOL got this "right"...

In C#, (0.3m - 0.2m) == (0.2m - 0.1m). The latest version of the C++ spec allows for user-defined literals, so you could do something similar there (with caveats). But as far as I know, there's no modern language in widespread use that has decimal literals which default to base-ten representations.

<comment><USER14> Some SQL implementations seem to. In Postgres:

      test=# select (0.3 - 0.2) - 0.1;
       ?column?
      </comment></comment><comment>----
            0.0
      (1 row)

(Ruby gives me -2.77555756156289e-17)

</comment><comment><USER15> Oddly Javascript does. Probably more oddly I don't get why that's "right"

<comment><USER16> I have just tested it on a Windows Vista machine, it doesn't work in Internet Explorer, Opera and Safari. Putting each side of the equation into an alert box shows the difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I found once that 3.6 - 3*1.2 == 0 was false in C, and subsequently in all the languages I could find.

I suspect it is due to the fact that those number have an infinite binary expansion...

</comment><comment><USER18> I checked in Go (golang). Verbatim, it's false. But if I save at least one side of the equality to a variable, or cast at least one side to a float, it's true.

</comment><comment><USER19> PHP (5.3):

      echo ((float)(string)(0.3 - 0.2) == (float)(string)(0.2 - 0.1)) ? 1 : 0;
      1

</comment><comment><USER20> bc gets it right

      $ bc -l -q
      .3 - .2 == .2 - .1
      1

</comment><comment><USER21> wait. why is that false? both come out to 0.1, which should be equal?

<comment><USER22> In binary, you can't represent any of 0.1, 0.2, nor 0.3 with "proper" fractions, as they are irrational in a radix-2 number system. Thus, when actually performing the operation (0.3 - 0.2) - (0.2 - 0.1), the result may actually be non-zero, although very small.

The best thing to do here would be to use an inline comparison function with a threshold:

        inline bool is_equal(double a, double b, double threshold = 0.0000001f)
        {
            if ( abs(a-b) < threshold )
            {
                return true;
            }
            else
            {
                return false;
            }
        }

Unfortunately, compounding floating point operations can drastically reduce calculation accuracy, leading to requiring a greater threshold value... Which is why I highly recommend reading the article titled "What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic" by David Goldberg (circa 1991, available at [http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19957-01/806-3568/ncg_goldberg.ht...](http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19957-01/806-3568/ncg_goldberg.html)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Any language which uses floating points to represent these values rather than fixed points.

C# and some versions of C use fixed-point representations for these values by default (or correct for floating point errors internally, as with C#), and return the correct answer of true, as .1 is equal to .1 in fixed-point representations.

EDIT: False is only the correct answer when using floating point representations, as the equation no longer boils down to .1 == .1, but something like .999 == 1.0001, etc.</comment>


Medko Helps You Connect With the Best Health Care Specialists in Latin America - <AUTHOR> http://www.medkohealth.com <comment><USER2> With a name like Medko Health, you may quickly run into problems with Medco Health Solutions (a division of Express Scripts) that has very deep pockets to challenge you on trademark issues. You might want to rethink the name.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback. Definitely something we're going to keep an eye out for! Our company/brand name is simply "Medko" and we're also not competitors with Medco (Express Scripts) so I am confident we won't run into any problems... but like you say they certainly have deep pockets and certainly something to be better safe than sorry over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It might be a good idea if the website used images of actual doctors in the system, rather than using generic clipart. For example, it took less than a minute to find one of the main images on the American Heart Association website:

[http://blog.heart.org/affordable-care-act-promises- patient-p...](http://blog.heart.org/affordable-care-act-promises-patient- protections-for-young-family-members/boy-and-doctor-small/)

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the comment and totally agree. I'm one of the founders and we would love to get our actual doctors up there as soon as possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think you'd also have to add the Portuguese language to the menu, since Brazil is a potentially large market.

Also, as someone mentioned previously in the comments, adding images of actual doctors would be a very good idea, as it increases credibility.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback, definitely will be the next language/market

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Shameless plug for a company here in Houston doing the same thing in the US:

[https://2nd.md/](https://2nd.md/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Its a popular market right now, Latam market is not as crowded as US.

<comment><USER7> Are these folks involved in Startup Chile by any chance?

<comment><USER5> Yes, we were in generation 6.2 from Feb-Aug, 2013. We remained in Santiago longer than any other international team from our generation and still have most of our team members in Chile. If you have any questions about the program, I'd be happy to chat about our experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What we need is a way for people in the U.S. to travel to Latin America and get much cheaper healthcare.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the comment – my partners and I could not agree more and that's one of our goals with Medko. Patients that would like to go abroad can use our search to find English speaking doctors in LatAm. They can also send them a message to ask about what services the specialists offers for international patients. In the near future, we plan on having specific sections of the site dedicated to U.S. patients, inlcuding all the info they need regarding doctor selection, travel tips, insurance information, and more. Medko doctors can be a fantastic solution for patients that can't afford a procedure in the US and that is something that motivates our entire team.</comment></comment>


European parliament set to call for break-up of Google in antitrust case - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/21/european-parliament-break-up-of-google

<comment><USER2> That is just pointless. Remember the Leistungsschutzrecht where german newspapers got a law passed which forced Google to pay royalties for Google News excerpts?

Google just delisted them entirely, the newspapers saw a massive traffic drop and decided to allow Google to use their excerpts for free.

In case this gets through, Google will simply close shop in the EU, wait for the population to cry up, and after the EP/EC have realized their mistake, come back again.</comment>


Big Wins Processing Big Data: Behind the Scenes with Big Data at Torbit - <AUTHOR> http://torbit.com/blog/2013/02/19/big-data-at-torbit/

<comment><USER2> fwiw: there is a pretty cool paper on abstractions over mapreduce to make life simpler: <http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1806638>

</comment><comment><USER3> Go is awesome. :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Solid write up. What were the advantages/disadvantages to writing a DB engine in Golang vs C++ or Java

<comment><AUTHOR> Both Go and Java are more likely going to have a faster development cycle for many developers than C++ and are less likely to have memory management bugs because they are garbage collected and memory safe[1]. Compared to many languages like Ruby, Python, etc all three of those are "high performance" languages. With a lot of optimization C++ has the potential to probably be the "fastest" solution. It all comes down to balancing execution performance, memory efficiency and development maintenance efforts.

While Go is a young language, I find working in it to be extremely productive, it makes concurrency easy to implement and get right, and produces application with good run-time characteristics.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> ATLAS is a very bad name to pick; it's already taken when it comes to numerical data processing.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is just an internal project name. If we open source the map reduce library we can always rename it.</comment></comment>


Russia's Usmanov to give back Watson's auctioned Nobel medal - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30406322

<comment><USER2> Having never heard about the controversy, I was quite shocked to learn exactly what Watson said in 2007:

        In 2007, the Sunday Times ran an interview with Dr Watson in which he
        said he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because
        "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the
        same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really".

        He told the newspaper people wanted to believe that everyone was born
        with equal intelligence but that those "who have to deal with black
        employees find this not true".

Source: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11261872/James- Watso...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11261872/James-Watson- selling-Nobel-prize-because-no-one-wants-to-admit-I-exist.html)

It's painful to see scientists fall prey to overgeneralization from small, non-representative samples - especially when their words have influence. I'm glad Usmanov returned the medal - Watson certainly earned it for his earlier accomplishments - but I'm not surprised Watson's unable to find jobs.

<comment><USER3> At least he has provided scientific bases for all his "contraventions". I don't say I agree with him or that he's right, but all this politcorectness bullshit should not be brought to science and even such inconvenient topics (i.e. race influence on intellect or sex drive) should be open for research. Imagine the consequences if scientists were afraid to speak, because they might offend some group of people.

<comment><USER4> I don't know, he just seems like one hell of a bigot in general.

Science could probably just as easily prove that consuming human infant meat is very healthy, that wouldn't make the idea any less revolting when one applies common sense.</comment></comment></comment>


Wikimedia expresses concerns about India's proposed intermediary liability rules - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/26/wikimedia-foundation-expresses-deep-concerns-about-indias-proposed-intermediary-liability-rules/ <comment><USER2> they is too much misinformation on wikipedia about india. they need to have some accountability too</comment>


Ask HN: How to Become a Technical Cofounder - <AUTHOR> I've got some startup experience + a few years of big co engineering, and am interested in exploring early stage startups. I'm craving the startup experience again, and would be interested in something early stage, but am skeptical that the economic side is worth it to join an early stage company as an employee.<p>What are things you'd recommend doing to develop skills to be a good cofounder? How would you go about finding opportunities? <comment><USER2> I think the best thing you can do to gain some startup experience (since you have some good engineering experience) is to go for a Principal/Founding Engineer role at a company. This will give you a respectable amount of cash and equity such that you will not need to make drastic changes to your lifestyle. This is better than joining an angel-investment stage startup.

However, if you are hell-bent on becoming a technical co-founder, make sure that you bring some other skills to the table. You will need to make sure that you have the resources to pay your AWS bills, be able to hire people and then fire them when necessary. Furthermore, you will need some measure of product skills (because at this stage, you will need to determine the featureset of the products).

So this is why you should go for a PE role, and then if you find the right idea, go for a co-founder role.

<comment><AUTHOR> What in your opinion makes for a strong PE candidate? Is management experience a requirement?

I could pursue management experience at my bigco, but it seems really boring and frustrating.</comment></comment>


Advanced Bovine Depilation - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.burnsidedigital.com/2013/06/advanced-bovine-depilation/

<comment><USER2> I'd be interested in a website where snippets of code from open source projects are posted and then dissected. Basically, it would let us crowdsource the discovery and cataloging of idioms and tricks (like the C function decorator trick he discovered).

On occasion I've seen Stackoverflow questions which led to this, and they usually led to some very insightful information.

<comment><USER3> Why not start such a site yourself? Even if you are unable to dive too deep, you can leave questions and people can answer.

OTOH, I think SO covers a lot of ground if you have questions. I also like the annotated source code movement in the JS community with annotated source codes available for many libraries. [http://www.explainjs.com/](http://www.explainjs.com/) is helping people deep dive quickly.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I keep meaning to dive into the MRI source code but have never known where to start. I suppose I just need an excuse like the one the author had here and a little more motivation and a little more time. :-/

<comment><USER4> For anyone else that's about to fire up a search...

MRI: "Matz's Ruby Interpreter or Ruby MRI (also called CRuby) is the reference implementation of the Ruby programming language." (with thanks to Wikipedia).</comment></comment>


Snappass - It's like SnapChat... for passwords - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pinterest/snappass <comment><USER2> Name sounds like you're cracking people in the posterior with a wet towel.</comment>


Tesla Faces Criminal Probe Over Whether It Misstated Production Figures - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-faces-deepening-criminal-probe-over-whether-it-misstated-production-figures-1540576636 <comment><USER2> This twitter thread has some additional information from Wochos vs Tesla in which twelve different former employees told either Musk or Ahuja (CFO) that their production plans were impossible. [https://twitter.com/orthereaboot/status/1046754488353271808?...](https://twitter.com/orthereaboot/status/1046754488353271808?s=19)

<comment><USER3> I've been in plenty of meetings where engineering says something isn't possible. We (I'm one of the engineers) aren't always right. It's a defense mechanism so we don't agree to something we think will _probably_ fail and thus sacrifice credibility.

<comment><USER4> What should Musk argue in his defense then? "My engineers are too modest about their abilities, so I took their estimations and multiplied them by 1,000, because I truly believed they could do it?"

<comment><USER3> Yeah, 1000x seems a little out there. What if it was 2x? What about 5x? How accurate are the projections required to be? If Musk truly believed they could do it and the multiplier was 2x, who is at fault? I'm not sure it would be a crime if Musk believed there was possibility (lacking intent to deceive, also I'm definitely not a lawyer...).

<comment><USER5> And is it production estimate, or a production goal? If someone gives you a goal of 1000x the current production, assuming you can request/specify whatever you need to get there, that's very different than if they say, given the exact production line we have now, what is the estimate of what we can produce. Tesla was somewhere in between given they were at the stage of thinking about setting up the production lines and going to setup them up simultaneously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Every time I see a negative Tesla headline, I start to watch their stock price. I'm convinced a lot of these sloppily written articles are designed to move markets. [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-probe/tesla-says- it...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-probe/tesla-says-it-has-not- received-subpoena-on-model-3-production-idUSKCN1N02LO?utm_source=applenews)

<comment><USER7> So you think the reporters are committing security fraud?

<comment><USER6> To be clear about my statement: I think it's totally possible given the sensationalism around Tesla. Whether it is happening or not is a whole different matter. Hence my interest in watching their stock price when this sort news hits the press.

<comment><USER8> This is Fox News-like hysteria coaxing.

"Is it possible that Hillary is the anti-Christ?"

"We're not saying she is, but we're just asking the question, is it possible?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think the title of the article slightly overstates what is being reported. "Misstated Production Figures" makes it sound as if Tesla lied about what it _had_ produced, as opposed to just giving unrealistically rosy projections.

I can definitely see how Musk's "funding secured" tweet crossed the line into potentially criminal behavior, but honestly, I have a hard time seeing how overly optimistic projections can be criminal if there is even an iota of a possibility that they could be met, no matter how unlikely.

<comment><USER10> > _I have a hard time seeing how overly optimistic projections can be criminal > if there is even an iota of a possibility that they could be met, no matter > how unlikely._

This is a public company, not an Avengers movie trailer.

They can't just conjure arbitrarily positive numbers out of thin air.

Their statements to investors and potential-investors must be fact based and made in good faith.

Otherwise, what's wrong with Musk's tweet?

I'm sure there was "an iota of a possibility" that someone crazy enough would buy Tesla at $420.

There's "an iota of a possibility" for a lot of far-fetched scenarios, but public companies must be truthful and reasonable in their statements made to the investing public - especially when they err on the side of optimism.

<comment><USER9> Musk's tweet would have been totally OK if it didn't include the words "funding secured". That is a past-tense statement that was clearly false.

If he said "I'm planning to take Tesla private" that would have been fine, even if the likelihood of Tesla going private was very remote.

<comment><USER11> His subsequent tweet removes any doubt about what he meant:

> Investor support is confirmed. Only reason why this is not certain is that > it's contingent on a shareholder vote.

I'm convinced that he lied to hurt the short sellers.

<comment><USER12> > I'm convinced that he lied to hurt the short sellers.

Luckily, it'll be for a court to decide if it even goes that far.

<comment><USER13> Musk and Tesla already settled with the SEC over this event a few weeks ago.

<comment><USER12> Thanks! I thought this was some other sort of malarkey besides that event.

<comment> village-idiot There was tons of Malarkey, but it's mostly over.

Musk was offered a settlement, he refused at the 11th hour, the SEC threatened to sue for everything, then he settled for a higher amount than the initial offer.

What remains is convincing a judge that the settlement is just.

<comment><USER12> > What remains is convincing a judge that the settlement is just.

"Judge approves Elon Musk's settlement with SEC" (Published 9:36 AM ET Tue, 16 Oct 2018 Updated 3:29 PM ET Tue, 16 Oct 2018)

[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/16/judge-approves-elon-musks- se...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/16/judge-approves-elon-musks-settlement- with-sec.html)

<comment><USER14> It depends on whether Musk stays within the terms of the settlement, and whether the SEC has the courage to pursue any breaches.

The SEC is not exactly at the forefront of enforcement though, despite its title. The Madoff Ponzi scheme was discovered by Harry Markopolos, who reported it to the SEC, and the SEC sat on it for many years before any action was taken.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> standard paywall avoider: [https://archive.is/3FHRo](https://archive.is/3FHRo)

Mods: could you update link?

<comment><USER16> We don't change links like that because it's important for users to see what site an article is from. But it's ok to post workarounds in the threads, as you and others did.

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

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989)

<comment><USER15> Thanks for the explanation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It'd be great if we held politicians and the news media to the same standard.

</comment><comment><USER18> _UPDATE_ : Tesla says it has not received subpoena on Model 3 production.

Seems like very sloppy reporting at the WSJ especially when information like this can move markets.

> (Reuters) - Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) said on Friday it had not received a subpoena > from the U.S. Department of Justice regarding production guidance for its > Model 3 sedans, in response to a Wall Street Journal story that said the > electric carmaker was facing a deeper criminal probe.[4]

>The FBI is reportedly looking into whether Musk or the company made projections which they knew they couldn't meet. [2]

This is wild! This makes 0 sense because Musk admitted a few months ago that he was wrong about automation at the factories. If that is the case, Musk really did believe he could produce those numbers.

How is it possible to try someone of misstating something that was "impossible", when they constantly do the "impossible."

This is what he said a few months ago on CBS This Morning on April 12, 2018:

""Excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake," Musk wrote, responding to a Wall Street Journal reporter's tweet. "Humans are underrated." He also talked about this with CBS News' Gayle King, adding "we had this crazy, complex network of conveyor belts….And it was not working, so we got rid of that whole thing.""[3]

For those that cannot read the WSJ article, this is what I think are the important statements that the WSJ stated:

> A few months later in July, Mr. Musk sounded confident that Tesla would be > producing 20,000 Model 3s a month in December 2017, in line with his > previous pledge of having 5,000 vehicles a week by year's end. "Looks like > we can reach 20,000 Model 3 cars per month in Dec," he tweeted on July 2, > 2017, days before the first Model 3 rolled off the production line.[1]

> In the early weeks of production, the company's body shop, where the > skeleton of the cars would take shape, wasn't fully functional, according to > an October 2017 article in The Wall Street Journal. Tesla was still hand- > building parts of the Model 3s, and the body shop wasn't fully installed > until September, according to people quoted in the article that were > familiar with the situation. [1]

> Now the FBI is comparing the company's statements with its production > capability during 2017. [1]

[1] ([https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-faces-deepening- criminal-...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-faces-deepening-criminal- probe-over-whether-it-misstated-production-figures-1540576636))

[2] ([https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-26/fbi- investigating-...](https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-26/fbi- investigating-if-tesla-misstated-info-about-model-3-production))

[3] ([https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/13/elon-musk-says-humans- are-...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/13/elon-musk-says-humans-are- underrated-calls-teslas-excessive-automation-a-mistake/))

[4] ([https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-probe/tesla-says- it...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-probe/tesla-says-it-has-not- received-subpoena-on-model-3-production-idUSKCN1N02LO?utm_source=applenews))

<comment><USER19> The WSJ article doesn't claim that Tesla received a subpoena. It's former employees who received subpoenas.

<comment><USER18> >But it hasn't been previously reported that the Justice Department is focusing on Tesla's Model 3 production issues dating to early last year and that the criminal securities-fraud probe is intensifying.

Does that _not_ imply that the "Justice Department is focusing on Tesla's Model 3 production issues."

Why else would Tesla release a statement?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The production line is what you always see on TV when cars are being talked about. Yet this is 'final assembly' and just the integration of the other bits and bobs. Clearly 'final assembly' is important but it is not everything. Components and sub-assemblies matter too.

By analogy:

Things at Tesla happen in 'Elon time' and most fans of the brand are happy with that. For them it is like having a baby, with hopes that the baby will grow up to be a child reading '5000 words a month' before their first year of school, in a school that isn't fully built yet. They know that there can be problems 'building the school', 'sourcing books' and what-not and are okay with that. So long as they can see progress they are happy. After all the school has done an excellent job of 'educating older kids' albeit a smaller number of them.

Yet others who sent their kids to schools that follow a more orthodox curriculum come along wanting to do-down this rival school. They find what hasn't been done and latch on to 'the lack of progress on the main hall'. They ignore the 'well stocked library' and 'completed classrooms' and go running off to the authorities. How can the kids sit their exams with no assembly hall, they ask? And no, a 'hastily elected tent' won't do.

The authorities who aren't directly in the teaching game have to take on board the nay-sayers complaints. The opinions of the parents don't matter to them, they are listening to these outsiders wanting to do everything down. They don't know if these are technicalities or whether the parents were tricked into something that was never going to happen. So it all gets serious.

</comment><comment><USER21> Being public seems like such a distraction. Doesn't seem worth it.

</comment><comment><USER22> So if on the misleading investors scale, Theranos is a 10, this seems to be like 3.

<comment><USER4> Apples to oranges. Theranos was never public, which is why they managed to escape scrutiny for years and "achieve" a multi-billion dollar valuation for a product that didn't even work.

Tesla on the other hand has been public for a while and actually makes working cars. They are however strapped for cash and the CEO may have made material misstatements about production capability in order to borrow more money.

Theranos' fraud seemed to be driven by simple greed. I don't think Musk is a fraudster, but his ego and immaturity is starting to overshadow what he's trying to accomplish.

<comment><USER23> Aren't they no longer strapped for cash?

<comment><USER24> Maybe? The recent numbers looked really good, so they might be out of the woods. Assuming they can keep the numbers up, and assuming the numbers weren't the result of accounting tricks, I'd say it's looking good for Tesla paying off their debts next year. If the numbers were massaged though, or if they aren't maintained, they could be in trouble. Well have a better idea when independent analysis of the quarter comes out, and a much better idea when they start paying off their debts in 2019. I'd be cautiously optimistic personally, but not shocked if it turns out badly either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I guess FBI has nothing better to do

</comment><comment><USER26> [https://outline.com/YuuEJJ](https://outline.com/YuuEJJ) \- avoid paywall

<comment><USER27> You have to enter the link from the homepage; the link doesn't work on its own (today, from Chrome).

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm not getting the article, just a teaser which is 381 chars long.

Yet the html alone of this page ist over 1 megabyte.

The meta tags make up 7200 bytes. 20 times more metatags then content.

</comment><comment><USER29> I am _never_ taking a company public. Why would anyone subject themselves to this?

<comment><USER30> No one takes a company public for fun. They do it for funds. Especially for something like a car company that requires a lot of initial investment to get going. They can't start making money right away like a SaaS company might.

<comment><USER31> Not wanting to take a company public reminds me of the story of one of Schwarzenegger's critics.

"I never want to you look like you."

"Don't worry, you never will."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This time the shorts have them. This is very different that no demand, out of money in q3, can't make them, Wells notice, break, no batteries available, no lithium, all the execs keep leaving, autopilot broke, there's not really a big waiting list. This time it's different.

</comment><comment><USER33> Personal view here but this is insane. Sure many people ( even his own employees ) told him it was impossible. That does not mean Elon thought it was impossible. People have been telling him that for forever now. Why are people so hellbent on attacking this wonderful innovative company?

<comment><USER34> Personal view again. I aM convinced that the shorts are behind these media smear campaigns. Scumbags are guaranteed to lose their bets and they are doing their best to minimise damage. They don't care abou innovation or climate change. All thy care is about their fucking money. Sorry about the rant and yes I am long TSLA. I have had enough illogical Twitter spats with some noted shorts to come to this conclusion.

<comment><USER35> This is fanciful. No short seller held a gun to Musk's head and told him to call people pedophiles, tweet about funding he never had, smoke weed on some idiot's podcast or have the personal life of a hip hop artist.

Also just because they're innovative and are solving climate change doesn't mean we all just have to look away all the time.

<comment><USER34> True and I don't claim that musk is right always. He is human, makes mistakes, that doesn't mean he is a criminal, which is what the shorts are implying with these smear campaigns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is "news about potential news".

> Federal Bureau of Investigation agents are examining whether Tesla misstated > information...

FBI agents look into a LOT of stuff. That's literally their job. Frankly, I'm not going to think one-way or the other unless the FBI comes up with an official statement.

I think investors might need to be worried: you know, buy the rumor sell the news sorta thing. Investors / speculators are super interested in trying to predict the future, even with unreliable information like this one.

But for the typical person, we shouldn't make an opinion of the matter until the FBI at least brings forth a case.</comment>


Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models - <AUTHOR> https://superthinking.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> A few years ago I published a large list of mental models I find repeatedly useful ([https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly- use...](https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly- useful-936f1cc405d)), discussed at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12040707](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12040707).

I've spent my spare time since (day job is running DuckDuckGo) with my co- author (statistician, researcher, and wife!) turning that list into this book, which weaves the 300+ mental models into nine narrative thematic chapters, paired with 150+ illustrations. Here's the full list of models from the book (in order): [https://superthinking.com/download/MentalModels.pdf](https://superthinking.com/download/MentalModels.pdf)

Happy to answer any questions about it and/or the process of getting this published. It's my second book (first is Traction).

<comment><USER2> You wrote two books and you run DDG? Got any advice on balancing it all?

(also thanks for DDG!)

<comment><AUTHOR> You're welcome. Sorry for being self-referential, but we really did put our best productivity advice in the book -- Chapter 3: Spend Your Time Wisely. Here are the "Key Takeaways" from that chapter (there is a little section at the end of each).

* Choose activities to work on based on their relevance to your north star.

* Focus your time on just one of these truly important activities at a time (no multitasking!), making it the top idea on your mind.

* Select between options based on opportunity cost models.

* Use the Pareto principle to find the 80/20 in any activity and increase your leverage at every turn.

* Recognize when you've hit diminishing returns and avoid negative returns.

* Use commitment and the default effect to avoid present bias, and periodic evaluations to avoid loss aversion and the sunk-cost fallacy.

* Look for shortcuts via existing design patterns, tools, or clever algorithms. Consider whether you can reframe the problem.

<comment><USER3> How would you tackle multiple priorities/north stars? What if I want to be the best parent I can be _and_ save enough for retirement? I can't put off being a parent until I have enough to retire on, nor can I wait to start saving for retirement until after I'm "done" being a parent.

<comment><USER4> Stronger: _I can 't put being a parent on hold to write my book_. Not if I already have kids. I can't put it on hold to build my career, or launch my startup. They need you _today_ , not when your "north star" is done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> More of a meta comment than a criticism: there's been a real explosion in interest in mental models this last decade. Mental models have become top of mind in the SV community (and its associated thought leaders), from Farnham Street, Naval, Tim Ferriss, Patrick Collison and many others regularly talking about them and their creators such as Buffet / Munger / Kahneman etc.

What's happening here? Is there some kind of fundamental set of truths we have stumbled upon that make these models timeless and universally useful, or are we just at the top of the hype cycle? Are there cons to internalizing these models, or is this always-relevant wisdom that should be imparted upon all of humanity?

One could also wonder if there's anything new at all to these mental models, or if these have always been universally valid and applicable principles that the community has repackaged in a more polished and condensed format.

Disclaimer: I love this whole subject and immediately bought the book, BUT I'm also somewhat wary of everybody drinking the same koolaid, including myself. Are these truly valuable, or are they purely fashionable, and so people are cargo culting famous SV personalities? i.e. is this the wisdom version of Jack Dorsey meditating and fasting?

<comment><USER6> My view on why they attract me: I'm technically inclined. Loved maths and physics during school and college, where one basic, but fundamentally powerful idea, enabled to solve so many problems. It seemed knowledge distilled. You just apply and combine and operate, and boom: The Right Answer.

Then picked a business book, where one idea is iterated for 100 pages. Looking it from different angles, explaining, examples, anecdotes. I'll-tell-you- something-I'm-doing-it-I-told-you recursive sandwiches. "By the end of this book" nonsense. It seems facile, it does not demand pencil-and-paper work like in maths. Also, one idea per book? Wasted time.

Finally a book comes that just lists ideas. Not very detailed. Seem very fundamental. It reminds a little bit of a maths cheatsheet, the minimal expression of the Maxwell equations that will solve all business issues. It sounds exciting!

But as others noted: if you cannot work them, exercise them, and think formally through implications, it is cargo culting from maths. At least to an extent.

(Sorry for the style im in my mobile)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't you think that by trading off complexity of the models you use general usefulness? For example, the 80-20 principle is not about the numbers 80 and 20, but it is just an x-y principle where 80 and 20 are areas of a (particular) curve. If you teach it as "the 80-20 principle" then maybe at best it's a mnemonic for some people in productivity.

I'm sorry, but I'm not a fan of productivity tools based on improperly formulated "rules" or "hints".

HNs anti-procrastinator is more precise and useful to me.

<comment><USER8> I have never heard of "HNs anti-procrastinator" \- can you point me somewhere?

<comment> the-dude It is in your profile: noprocrast, maxvisit, minaway

<comment><USER9> I'm still confused. Can you elaborate.

<comment><USER10> Your profile is [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=therealdrag0](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=therealdrag0). When you, the owner of that profile, visits it, you will see many settings. Among them are noprocrast (boolean), maxvisit (number of minutes), and minaway (number of minutes). When noprocrast is set to yes, Hacker News will refuse to load if you visit it too much, to help you avoid procrastination.

For the details of what each of those three settings means, visit [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=814695](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=814695).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ordered the book (Yiikes, I had to use Amazon because of you as it seems the only online store to deliver the hard copy in Europe. Usually, I refuse to use this service as I'm totally against the business model of this company).

The great thing about HN is that it let me thanks you for DDG!

<comment><USER12> Book Depository is always a good option for deliveries outside US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I had pre-purchased it, and just got it on my Kobo.

I know that Amazon offers financial incentive for people publishing electronic version on kindle only, to the point that a series one of my kid was reading on her e-reader restricted the last few books to the kindle (To be fair we emailed the author and she sent pdf copies of the ramining books for free). Thanks for making your book available beyond and outside the Amazon empire!

</comment><comment><USER14> This looks really awesome I've always been curious of mental models so I just ordered a copy from Amazon. Also Gabriel, kudos to your work and DDG, I'm right near DDG headquarters and it's nice to know things like DDG are being created in my area.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Congrats on the new book. How come the ebook (Kindle) is more expensive than the physical one? With higher commissions (and no printing or logistics costs) for the ebook, I'd expect the other way around.

<comment><USER16> For me, on Amazon, I see the ebook as $14.99, hardcover as $19.60 and paperback as $24.87.

I'm surprised the hardcover is cheaper than the paperback.

<comment><USER17> It's $5 for me. Can you confirm if the price has been updated since you posted or maybe it's because I am from India.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Just bought it. Anybody that can build a successful search engine on perl probably has something useful to say. :)

If you want to increase sales you should get some reviews up there on Amazon. If you have a mailing list you can offer a limited number of free private ebooks to beta readers and encourage recipients to leave an honest review. That's standard practice on Amazon. The only stipulation is the review has to be voluntary and honest. Ideally you'd already have that in place on launch day but it's not too late.

</comment><comment><USER19> Any chance it'll be available for sale in a store that includes a digital copy with a physical purchase?

e.g. I'd love to grab a hardcover copy with an included MOBI/PDF/EPUB digital edition.

<comment><AUTHOR> Doubtful. It's published by Penguin, and I don't think they do this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Somebody should tell this guy lol [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19895407](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19895407)

<comment><USER11> Done[1]

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19896707](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19896707)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The "preview" button at the top of the page goes to a form to enter my email for "book updates".

I'd be interested in reading a sample, does the book updates form provide one?

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a sample on the Amazon page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Thank you for this - long overdue in my opinion and I wholeheartedly agree this should be taught in schools. Just ordered a copy on Apple Books : )

</comment><comment><USER23> Riding on the coattails of the mental models zeitgeist, here's my newsletter if anyone's interested: [https://alexpetralia.github.io/newsletters](https://alexpetralia.github.io/newsletters)

(Caveat: it's far less organized and frankly, worse)

</comment><comment><USER24> Looks great and I can't wait to read it!

Another good book in this area, more focused on math perhaps (haven't read "Super thinking" yet) is George Polya's classic "How to Solve it".

A short book I found super handy and have re read a few times.

</comment><comment><USER25> Your cover art on downpour doesn't have a picture FYI.

Thanks for writing it, ordering soon. Just deciding between the audio and the paper

</comment><comment><USER26> Currently not available in AU kindle store?

<comment><AUTHOR> I see at [https://www.amazon.com.au/Super-Thinking-Upgrade- Reasoning-D...](https://www.amazon.com.au/Super-Thinking-Upgrade-Reasoning- Decisions- ebook/dp/B07FRXC3KN/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1560858454&sr=8-1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Great work. Just ordered. Thanks for putting this together. I saw Charlie Munger and was sold.

</comment><comment><USER28> Not available on book depository?

<comment><USER29> [https://www.bookdepository.com/Super-Thinking-Gabriel- Weinbe...](https://www.bookdepository.com/Super-Thinking-Gabriel- Weinberg/9780241336359?ref=grid-view&qid=1560863317907&sr=1-2) ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> got a copy. Look forward to it!

</comment><comment><USER31> Quoting "Art of the Deal" and extolling Trump's virtues as a dealmaker didn't really sway me. Regretting this purchase.

</comment><comment><USER32> Me: CTRL+faudio

Firefox: 0/0

Me: Damn

I completely stopped reading books and only listen to books these days.

<comment><AUTHOR> Audible version here: [https://www.amazon.com/Super-Thinking-Book-Mental- Models/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Super-Thinking-Book-Mental- Models/dp/B07RP1RK8S/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1560858566&sr=8-1)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any good resources for generating a privacy policy and terms of use? - <AUTHOR> I'm curious to know if there are any solid reasources available for generating a privacy policy and terms of use for online services. Something that falls between copying from a similar service and hiring a lawyer. I'm looking for something legit enough to pay for (obviously that is popular), but that isn't as expensive as hiring a lawyer. <comment><USER2> Have used iubenda.com for my client sites in the past, worked well.</comment>


Ask HN: Any way of avoiding the $800/yr FTB tax on CA LLC's? - <AUTHOR>

According to the secretary of state:
Registration of a limited liability company (LLC) with the California Secretary of State (SOS) will obligate an LLC that is not taxed as a corporation to pay to the Franchise Tax Board (FTB) an annual minimum tax of $800.00 and a fee based on the annual total income of the entity. The tax and fee are required to be paid for the taxable year of registration and each taxable year, or part thereof, until a Certificate of Cancellation is filed with the SOS. (Rev. and Tax. Code §§ 17941 and 17942.)
Now Im wondering, as a freelance software developer if its possible to avoid this tax somehow (legally of course, I realize that simply not paying it is technically an option :).
Since my clients are remote and my work is in software for entities around the states do I have any legal leg to stand on to say, incorporate in another state which has lower annual LLC taxes? Since Im living in CA and doing the work here I take it thats a no. <comment><USER2> C-Corps have the $800 minimum franchise fee waived for the first tax year. Otherwise, no - there's not a legal way to do it.

</comment><comment><USER3> You can register an LLC in almost any state; you don't have to live or work there. You just need a registered agent -- some address with a person available to take official mail for your business -- in the state. And there are companies that sell registered agent services for much less than the $800/year tax you would avoid.

<comment><USER4> I've heard you are supposed to pay the $800 a year CA tax even if you are incorporated out of state, as long as your operations are really in California.

<comment><USER3> I don't live in CA, so I don't know whether the state taxes foreign entities that do business in their state, you may very well be right.

It doesn't prevent you from organizing an LLC elsewhere if you had reason to, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thats all really helpful actually. Its clear though that there is still one outstanding question, i.e. does CA have a specific requirement that even if youre incorporated out of state you are still responsible for the $800/yr ftb tax.

I think Im going to register in Oregon b/c I would have access to individuals who could act as registered agents but I still need to find the answer to the above question.

</comment><comment><USER5> Next time you hear your politician complaining about corporate fat cats who don't pay their fair share, vote for the other guy.

</comment><comment><USER6> You should incorporate in Delaware due to their favorable taxation policies and their relatively low yearly franchise tax ($200). Check out <http://www.bizfilings.com>. They will even act as a registered agent for you.

</comment><comment><USER7> Why doe the limited partnership pay the annual fee of $800 but not a general parnership?</comment>


Misogyny is alive and well in technology circles - <AUTHOR> http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/16/misogyny-is-alive-an.html

<comment><USER2> The biggest reason that misogyny exists in tech comes down to the fact that there aren't many women in tech. As an example my Calculus based physics course in college had 150 people enrolled. 3 of whom were female. And honestly, when roughly 2% of a workforce are women, there is a real risk of misogyny developing. The solution to this problem is that we in tech need to do more to inspire young girls to enter the tech industry.</comment>


When Best Buy Swipes Your Driver's License, Here's What It Knows About You - <AUTHOR> http://www.courant.com/business/custom/consumer/hc-bottom-line-best-buy-returns-20120409,0,5063368.column <comment><USER2> The article says that someone returned a defective DVD to Best Buy, who accepted the return but stated that that person 'could not return or exchange any other items, even with a valid receipt' for the next 90 days.

How is Best Buy's restriction not a violation of the UCC's implied warranty?

</comment><comment><USER3> Why does anyone shop at Best Buy? Ever? I see no appeal to the place and no value-add to spend time there. Obviously, others do though. Curious what it is that Best Buy shoppers like about it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Actually, Best Buy potentially knows a whole lot more about you from one swipe of your driver's license.

Your name, birthday, sex, height, weight, eye color, address; basically everything that's on the front of the license is also encoded on track 1 and track 2 of the magnetic strip on the card. How much of this Best Buy pulls off (and stores) is a good question.</comment>


Four Solutions to a Trivial Problem [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftcIcn8AmSY <comment><USER2> I watched the whole thing and was a bit disappointed I must say. The TLDR (or W as in watch perhaps) is essentially _if we write our programs in a map /reduce (functional) style fashion then the compiler/runtime can sometimes[1] choose between a parallel and a sequential implementation at runtime, depending on what computational resources are available_. Seems fairly obvious to me... I would have much preferred the 10 minute version of this talk.

1\. Given that the underlying operations are order and grouping independent (associative and commutative) of course.

<comment><USER3> I think calling it a "map/reduce (functional) style" is an understatement. The presenter is suggesting that when a problem must be solved in parallel, don't just code the low level parallel implementation. Analyze the problem, divide- and-conquer, then use high level abstractions that make parallelism a responsibility of the underlying implementation.

This concept may be familiar to you, but talks like this will be necessary until parallelization is as seamless as garbage collection.

<comment><USER2> > Analyze the problem, divide-and-conquer, then use high level abstractions > that make parallelism a responsibility of the underlying implementation.

That's a better summary than mine, but I still think it's too little substance for a 60 min talk. If you want a parallel(izable) implementation then divide- and-conquer is a well-known schoolbook approach. The problem as I see it is that it's not easy to build (or understand) algorithms like that. I saw very little in this talk about how to address/solve that, except the obvious: better education.

I think it was also a bit irritating that he pretended there was nothing a compiler could do about the accumulation loop he presented as the first example. Isn't it obvious that a smart compiler could (in principle) optimize that loop so that it could run in parallel on multiple cores...?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm trying very hard to follow along but this quickly devolves into language that isn't easy to follow. When he starts going into combining "bitonic globs" is when I start having trouble focusing.

For someone that's familiar with parallel programming topics and language, is this talk easy to follow? I'm trying to figure out if the fault lies with myself or the presenter. The vibe I'm getting is that showing slides full of code in an obscure language isn't a good teaching method, but I also don't have the prerequisite background here so my opinion isn't useful. I also don't do work that involves these classes of problems.

<comment><USER5> I could see the gist of the procedure i.e. representing it as globs which allow you to break up the data into 2 so you can run it in binary tree like steps.

But the code was pretty useless. I didn't know that language and within the short time span that it was presented I couldn't understand the code.

Clearly this would be better presented as a paper so you could have time to go through it but I think if you ignore the actual code completely I still understood (or at least i think i do) the talk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> My key takeaway was that mathematical properties like associativity, commutativity, idempotency, and having an identity value are good tools for communicating with compilers. An associative binary operator plus an identity is enough to automatically turn your + into a Σ, with the compiler being able to choose a parallel or sequential implementation.

Guy's example code uses a language that looks like mathematical notation, but I think that if you could tell the compiler what's associative and what the identity value is, you could get there with procedural code provided you use for-each instead of classic for. There's also probably a better way to phrase the first line than "var x = operator.identity;" so that more natural code ends up parallelizable, but I don't know what it is.</comment>


Ask HN: Definition of "startup"? Business entity required? - <AUTHOR>

Does creating a "startup" entail creating a real business entity (such as an LLC), including tax id number, special bank account, and so forth?<p>Or does simply putting an interesting webapp online with a plan to make money qualify as a "startup"? <comment><USER2> I think many people say they have a startup, when in reality, they just have a webapp. A startup should be a business (which might involve a webapp or service).

</comment><comment><USER3> A project to deliver a product or service cradled with uncertainty.

</comment><comment><USER4> "These companies, generally newly created, are in a phase of development and research for markets " wikipedia .

before internet become popular there was no concept startup , when jobs was making lisa in garage he didnt called that startup.</comment>


Apple continues stealthy buying streak with micro LED startup LuxVue - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-continues-stealthy-streak-of-acquisitions-with-micro-led-startup-luxvue/ <comment><USER2> Apple has a lot of money offshore that they can't bring back to the US without substantial taxes being paid.

If they acquire foreign companies, isn't that a great way to launder the money? The companies can continue to reside overseas, pay their overseas employees, but assign their productivity and IP to the US company.</comment>


Atul Gawande's 'Checklist' For Surgery Success - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122226184

<comment><USER2> Significant discussion about this idea (checklists in surgery, and beyond) when it was submitted three years ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=436575>

This article and that discussion are both fascinating reading.</comment>


A New Age of Animation - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/05/a-new-age-of-animation/483342/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Japan is worried about this. K-Pop is overtaking J-Pop. Korea is subsidizing Korean entertainment aimed at other Asian nations. This is considered an aggressive use of "soft power" in Japan. So Japan now has a Cool Japan Fund.[1] This is a well-funded venture capital operation, funded by the Government of Japan and some big banks, to export Japan coolness. They've funded a free anime site (daisuki.net), an anime translation service, and a Japan channel for other Asian countries. Plus various food-related projects.

They're looking for profitable projects to fund. See their investment criteria.[2]

[1] [https://www.cj-fund.co.jp/en/](https://www.cj-fund.co.jp/en/) [2] [https://www.cj-fund.co.jp/en/investment/flow.html](https://www.cj- fund.co.jp/en/investment/flow.html)

<comment><USER3> I've noticed that many official k-pop videos have English, Japanese and Chinese subtitles, a clear sign that they are reaching out to fans oversea.

However, most J-pop isn't even available on YouTube.

I'm surprised to hear that daisuki.net is a free site. Have been watching rips from there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > But one company is finally helping Korean studios go fully digital, and the > impact for animation in the U.S. could be significant.

Does this not smack of a PR piece?

[http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

<comment> TD-Linux It must have worked even better than expected, because the featured company's website seems to be down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Korean animators can draw 240 pages for a single 20-second scene, and around > 7,000 drawings per half-hour episode.

I'm embarrassed to say that I thought animation was somehow more automated now. I had no clue each micro-movement was still hand-drawn, and that frankly blows my mind, and gives me even more respect for animators.

<comment><USER6> It depends on the show. You see more and more CG, especially in cheaper shows, but the AAA shows and movies will still have each frame drawn by a human. And even with CG you'd likely review each frame to ensure it came out correctly.

<comment><USER7> Most studios doing 2D television animation in the States are using Flash (mostly CS2 or CS3 vintage) and it's still slow, tedious work drawing every frame.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> American prime-time cartoon seemed overly focused on non-serious work.

Don't get me wrong, I loved _Courage, the Cowardly Dog_ , but there's a reason why I continue to watch anime.

<comment><USER9> Most American cartoons like that have very _episodic_ designs. This presumably is great for business, as you avoid a series of uncomfortable questions about what happens to your cash cow when your series comes to an end or takes a turn that people aren't interested in anymore. It also means that new viewers are missing very little, so you can run a bunch of cartoons and not worry about getting people hooked up front in Ep 1 and you can experience business synergies from broadcasting a variety of cartoons and getting people to try new things (it's very low risk).

With live actors, I guess dealing with your stars is already a series- longevity issue, so maybe people are more willing to countenance finitude? And there are different kinds of hype-train available with real actors, and the audience for live shows has self-segregated.

My dream is that some day someone at Cartoon Network who watched _Puella Magi Madoka Magica_ will get an experimental budget to launch a dozen episodes of a real, serious cartoon series with incredibly good writing, and win all the awards. (Bonus points if they also troll people into thinking it's fluff for the first two-and-a-half episodes and try to break their minds.) In the meantime, I guess there's _Steven Universe_? which at least deals with serious issues a little (still in episodic ways)

<comment><USER10> > Bonus points if they also troll people into thinking it's fluff for the > first two-and-a-half episodes and try to break their minds.

You might like Space Dandy. Japanese again, but they really play around with continuity expectations between their episodes. I'm pretty sure most of s1 is meant to occur simultaneously in parallel realities due to the (lack of) continuity between episodes and occasional story-ending events. It's never really explained. And then s2 seems to tie some of the threads back together into a cohesive story arc over the season. Bonus: it's almost always available on Netflix, with their recent push for more anime.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Holy crap, I can't believe so much stuff is still animated on paper. When I was in the animation industry back around 2000 it was pretty clear that hunching over a light box was on its way out; I even worked on one project that was using traditional ink and paint for stylistic reasons (it was trying to look like an old 1920s cartoon) and the folks overseas thought we were crazy for doing this.

</comment><comment><USER12> Why do they use Korean animators? I was under the impression that South Korea was a quite developed country and economically on more or less equal footing with the US.

<comment> adam-a South Korean cost of living is about 2/3 of the cost in the USA, so wages are likely a bit cheaper [0]. I would guess that since, as the article says, the industry has been centred there for 30 years, at this point they probably trump the US in expertise and experience.

[0] [http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Cost-of- livin...](http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Cost-of- living/Average-monthly-disposable-salary/After-tax)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's interesting to realise how animations are still visualised on paper.

</comment><comment><USER14> Given that video games exist, thus it is clearly possible to animate highly diverse and dynamic scenary and complex interactions, why the hell are people drawing scenes still? That was never explained well.

<comment><USER15> Photography exists and still people insists on painting on canvas. How come?

<comment><USER14> Presumably to create art/conepts that don't exist in real life and thus can't be photographed...

My point is that, you have a fairly known batch of charachters, obviously you can't (and probably shouldn't) eliminate real artists but it seems like software would be much better than a warehouse of humans. I gave the example of video games because they clearly create a game engine and level editor and thus they re able to internally build maps quickly as well as allow the charachters to interact with both the environment and otehr characthers.

I know nothing about animation, but I rememeber seeing a demo of adobe after affects that lets you create and animate a charachter with just photoshop and your laptop camera. So I don't understand the leverage of having a warehouse of people draw _by hand_ 20-30 images per 1 second of telelevision. The after affects came out pretty awesome, so I suppose having more people and better software would be a huge improvement on what is already pretty awesome.

Maybe that is what they meant by "transition to digital" but they didn't make it clear how or why computers are emloyed and the processes they cant do.

<comment><USER11> The "transition to digital" this article is talking about is to throw out the old method of drawing animation on a huge pile of paper, and move to drawing it in a huge sequence of frames in the computer. It would still very much be a human process; essentially, you use a bunch of well-trained human brains as a very powerful non-photo-realistic renderer.

I am, frankly, kind of amazed these studios are still doing it on paper. I learnt to animate on paper and it was a royal pain in the ass. Working digitally lets you have a very fast feedback loop for developing the motion; I think the best analogy to use here is probably that of a REPL versus a slow compiled language, where you can very quickly make a tiny edit, test it, then make another tiny edit based on how it tests, and another and another.

<comment><USER14> yeah. I am getting downvoted, but I am totally with you here. The arguments above seem nonsensical, e.g. tradition, resistance to change, not having the resources (except large media companies, i.e. the subject of this discussion who have the resources), and liking the aesthetic hand drawing produces (which I suspect could be duplicated in a computer).

> I think the best analogy to use here is probably that of a REPL versus a > slow compiled language

I agree. Something like this analogy, except after it is "compiled" and after it would be "rendered by the REPL" it would be a commodity. I mean this in the sense that, typically working close to the metal allows for amazing optimizations but in terms of a video/animation you are rendering a static piece of content. So I agree, you are just spending large amounts of time and resources for what seems like very little leverage.

I bet that some talented kid at RISD or another artschool who is technical and artistic could probably do a better job with adobe creative suite, so I don't understand why an entire industry would do it like this. Also pixar was started >30 years ago at ths point.

I am not trying to condemn the industry or peoples views here. I am just trying to understand the impediments to this. It seems to be unpopular, but also have no logical reason. The only one that seemed reasonable would be difficulty to produce the aesthetics, which would be especially true for a legacy show like the simpsons where the charachters strongly predate the new technology. However, southpars, the simpsons and family guy have noticeably improved their animation and charachter rendering so I don't see this as fully valid.

edit: I should say that tehri (in a dead comment) does make a compelling argument. Reproduced for those who do not have _show dead [x]_ enabled.

> Because it's really, and I mean REALLY hard to teach the computer to create > stylised illustrations from a 3d scene. Even harder, to actually animate the > scene geometry in a way that corresponds to what a human animator would > draw. Think to one of the core principles of animation - squash and stretch. > Every character is more or less a soft body that deforms in a volume- > preserving way to add emphasis to movement and intent and that's a really > important artistic element of animation. For example, just watch an old > Tom&Jerry short and try to imagine how you'd represent these characters as > 3d geometry. How would the animator move and deform them? How do you do the > effect where Tom is hit with a shovel in the face and turns into a table? > With hand-draw animation (either digital or on paper) you are just drawing > the final result, but with 3d animation you have to describe the actual > physical geometry in the scene.

<comment><USER11> South Park is actually fully CG. Done in Maya IIRC. The original short it spawned from was construction paper being moved around on an animation stand, but now it's completely virtual.

The entire industry does not do it like this. I worked in the industry around the turn of the century and saw a lot of new shows starting up on full-digital workflows. I am really surprised that it is taking some overseas shops this long to switch from roughing the animation on paper to roughing the animation in the computer.

Building it in 3D and making the computer "draw" it is another thing. I mean, we still have people doing beautiful stop-motion work because that's what they like the look of, even though CG movies tend to have a similar look. It's very much an aesthetic choice. It's art, and sometimes art involves weird choices.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A 20th-Century Master Scam (1999) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/18/magazine/a-20th-century-master-scam.html <comment><USER2> My dad served time for painting and selling forgeries, FBI claims he was passing works off for over 30 years and he ended up getting popped for wire fraud (soliciting buyers via email). All his works had provenance, turns out the dealer who was certifying his work was in a bad spot and was willing to vouch for what was obviously not authentic stuff.

The problem with art is that people have been forging works forever. It's impossible to get a feel for how many fakes are out there because so much art is passed down within families and never makes it onto the market and therefore never seen by experts who can spot a forgery.

My old man claims the whole art world is in on the take. Picasso claimed he painted fakes all the time and Matisse famously said "I have painted 2000 pictures. 5000 of them are in the USA."

The predatory nature of the art world allows for fakes to more easily enter the market. For instance, my dad was selling his pieces for a couple grand each and the dealer he sold to was reselling them for upwards of 20x what was paid (per court documents). If it seems too good to be true, it didn't seem to matter. The dealer wasn't charged and is probably still quite happy to sell fakes for a huge profit, caveat emptor and all that.

Anyways, that's my observation from the sidelines of the art world. I prefer stable investments like Beanie Babies and Nascar collectable plates, not paintings.

</comment><comment><USER3> He is now in jail again for defrauding a 71 year old woman out of £700,000.

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

<comment><USER4> Important to note that this is the guy who was actually running the fraud - the artist creating the forgeries served 4 months in prison and now makes an apparently successful living painting reproductions and original works.

[http://www.johnmyatt.com/](http://www.johnmyatt.com/)</comment></comment>