Disassembling the Amazon Dash - <AUTHOR> http://www.bitsofcents.com/post/118749233621/disassembling-the-dash <comment><USER2> One neat thing Amazon are doing with this product, which I hadn't considered as an "internet of things" option, is making each unit of hardware order a single supplier's goods. All the example buttons say "Tide" or "Bounty" or "Gillette" or "Olay" right on the button - all Procter & Gamble. And the other goods pictured [1] are all brand-name goods with fairly big marketing budgets.

In the jargon of the grocery industry, this means the buttons can be "supplier funded" \- Procter & Gamble probably pay Amazon a reasonable portion of the cost of the button, as a marketing method.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/oc/dash-button](https://www.amazon.com/oc/dash- button)

<comment><USER3> What if the Dash becomes very popular? I believe we'd see an explosion of companies funding dash buttons which would, in my opinion, be a bad thing for the customer. I don't like the idea of locking myself into a brand for the life of the device.

I'd like to see a configurable button that orders, say, the cheapest paper towels that have at least a 4-star rating. The suppliers probably wouldn't be happy about the competition though.

<comment><USER4> > I don't like the idea of locking myself into a brand for the life of the > device.

You're not the target market. Some people exhibit strong brand loyalty for some stuff. In the UK you'll get people saying that baked beans _must_ be Heinz and no other brand.

I tend to agree with you. I want a button I can push to order the cheapest washing detergent. But that gets complicated. Do I mean actual cheapest price at the till, or do I mean cheapest per wash? Does that mean I want to buy a huge 15 litre tub of industrial detergent?

> that have at least a 4-star rating.

Amazon ratings are already sub-optimal. I could imagine a time when all P&G employees have to buy P&G products from Amazon, and have to give high star ratings, in order to help fix the ratings. Perhaps I'm just overly cynical.

<comment><USER5> > Some _people exhibit strong brand loyalty_ for some stuff

..but the point is that these people can _choose_ to exhibit such loyalty.

This is well-studied and understood. People can stick with a brand for years, until suddenly they change it for another and completely forgot about the other.

The dash seems like just another convenient lockin

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is it just me that finds the entire concept of the Dash ridiculous?

I mean, what's the idea, having a button for every single product we buy? And we need to set it up first. How is that any better than recurring ordering or just opening the website and ordering it? Are we expected to have an entire wall of dashes at our place?

I guess we'll need to sort them alphabetically or by color, so we don't waste time searching for the button we need.

<comment><USER7> Sure, but just a few decades ago there were people dismissing all of e-commerce saying "why would I order online when I can just pick up the phone and call in my order?" I'm sure before that there were people saying, Why do I need phone ordering when I can just mail an order form to Sears? I think it's a mistake to bet against a more convenient form of consumerism.

<comment><USER8> The problem with Dash is that it doesn't really scale.

<comment><USER9> This isn't the scaling phase. Dash is also an API for automated ordering. And the button is a test to measure the usefulness of such API.Once there's data proving the idea, and an available API, Amazon and it's partners will scale this.

<comment><USER10> Good point about being an API. When combined with RFID, I can imagine smart fridges / washing machines utilizing this API to automatically order (or suggesting human do a 1-click order) when your Tide is about to run out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So basically Amazon is tempting you to place wifi enabled microphones around your house? I sure hope it's only capable of picking up high frequency audio.

<comment><USER12> doing more listening/processing/data transfer than just the initial setup + occasional button presses would make it drain its single AAA battery quite fast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Also on the bottom is the small microphone used for setting up the Dash."

Damn... another microphone in your household capable of recording sounds near that device.

</comment><comment><USER14> All of those exposed pads on the pcb, as well as the silkscreening near a quartet of pads labeled TX1 make me think this thing is going to be amazingly hackable. The micro in there is no slouch by any means, and a wifi module is always fun. I'm giving it at most a week before interesting things are done with these.

<comment><USER15> Or one could just (pre)order the $19 Spark Photon and get a working module with code, schematics, and support. Depends how you value your time.

<comment><USER16> i hate preorders! everything cool is preorder! Why can't the future be here today?

is the spark photon really equiv to the dash? or does it still need other components in addition?

<comment><USER15> FTA: _" At the heart of the Dash is a USI (Avnet) 850101. The 850101 is a combination wireless module (Broadcom BCM43362) and micro controller (ST Microelectronics STM32F205). This makes the Dash capable of connecting to 802.11 b/g/n networks with its 120MHz ARM Cortex-M3 processor. It also happens to be exactly the same chip used inside the $19 Spark Photon."_

Avnet USI is just repackaging the chipset on behalf of ST and Broadcom. Honestly, there are other things you can order today if you don't want to wait for this one. You could try adafruit, sparkfun, or even digikey.

I personally recommend the modules from LS Research.

Module: [http://www.digikey.com/product- detail/en/450-0064/450-0064-N...](http://www.digikey.com/product- detail/en/450-0064/450-0064-ND/4006733)

Eval/Breakout board + Module: [http://www.digikey.com/product- detail/en/450-0120/450-0120-N...](http://www.digikey.com/product- detail/en/450-0120/450-0120-ND/4331950)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> We wanted flying cars, but instead we got one-button branded soap ordering.

<comment><USER18> Instasoap can't kill each other, tho.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Another always on microphone from Amazon in your home. Welcome to 1984!

<comment><USER20> The microphone is only active when you hold down the button - if it's always on (for whatever reason, accidentally or maliciously), the unit would run out of power in a few hours, it's powered by a single AAA cell.

<comment><USER9> It doesn't have to be always on, it could be remotely controlled.

<comment><USER21> It's not powered up, though. That's why it lasts so long on one battery. The button wakes it up.

<comment><USER22> There's a 32kHz RTC oscillator in the MCU, which can be programmed to periodically wake it up as well.

Without analysing the firmware you wouldn't be able to confirm for sure what it's doing.

I suppose one exercise for those inclined would be to reprogram it to listen (perhaps only during the daytime) and see how long it lasts. You wouldn't need high fidelity so a low sample rate would be enough.

<comment><USER21> > Without analysing the firmware you wouldn't be able to confirm for sure what > it's doing.

It's on your own network, so it's trivial to know when it's communicating and with whom. In principle, it could periodically wake and poll a C&C server to see whether it should start streaming audio or not.

<comment><USER23> Nothing forces it to be on _your_ network. If there's a neighbor with open wifi, or easily cracked wifi, or wifi Amazon already has the key for, (from an Amazon tablet/phone that's been connected to it before) then it could talk on that instead.

<comment><USER24> You could measure power draw on the battery and make sure no power is ever drawn except when the button is pressed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm bummed that it's apparently vendor-locked. A configurable Dash would make it applicable to all things Amazon. There are perhaps 100 places in our facility that a '"consumable X needs a refill/attention". We don't need a specific brand, and the brand we use can vary over time as needs and pricing change.

<comment><USER26> > You will see a list of available options from the product line your Dash > Button is associated with. For example, if your Dash Button can be used for > Tide detergent, you may see a list of various Tide detergent scents and > sizes that you can choose from. Tap the item to select it.[0]

That is disappointing, from the early materials it seemed like the face plate was just branding and you could select anything you wanted. They're probably partnering with the various brands that there are buttons for pay some of the cost of manufacturing the devices. There might be a non brand locked version coming in the future once they've moved past the initial release and rollout. At least I hope so.

[0] [http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201746340)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm disappointed that it isn't powered by the kinetic energy of the pressing: I heard some Philips Zigbee control devices work that way (but Wifi might be too power hungry for that). And I was expecting them to use the ESP8266 for this: Does anybody know if (at scale) that would have been cheaper?

<comment><USER15> It doesn't look like the ESP8266 has the necessary I/O to do the audio provisioning trick that the Dash is doing with that hybrid module.

Provisioning these things can be a hassle sometimes. The TI CC3xxx has a really wacky one. A custom provisioning app transmits the SSID and password of the target network by sending encrypted packets to nobody: the CC3xxx sniffs the _length_ of the encypted packets and picks up the necessary information from the string of those length bytes.

The audio thing is a lot more elegant, but needs some filtering and processing to make it happen.

<comment><USER28> The CC3XXX "SmartConfig" was complete garbage the last time I was evaluating it on a CC3200. It didn't work on 802.11n networks, only b/g. And that was when it worked. I got it only once trying on both an iPhone and Nexus 5, I would hate to have to answer any customers' support questions about using something so flaky.

The audio thing does require an app though to do provisioning, which I suppose isn't a problem for the kinds of people ordering this thing.

My preferred provisioning method is to let the little Dash-like device broadcast some setup or config access point. You connect to it, get an HTML UI to input target AP credentials into, and submit the form. It works from just about any device.

<comment><USER15> Totally agree about the SmartConfig. Interesting idea, very convoluted method.

Thankfully most devices I've been working on have a touchscreen to provision the SSID/PW, or we just ask the user to put it in a text file and inject it via a thumb drive. It really doesn't have to be this hard.

<comment><USER28> Agreed, but touchscreens and SD or USB means connectors, which are often a significant part of BOM cost and take up space. If you can do it all from the one-chip/module you have in there it's a big benefit when it comes to making something small and cheap.

<comment><USER15> Like I said, I've been fortunate to have alternate provisioning means.

I think the audio trick is a pretty elegant hack. Device agnostic and doesn't need a lot of handholding. But it also has an impact on the BOM. You need to add that Cortex M3 + microphone to sniff it out. Otherwise the whole thing could have been run off one chip like the ESP or GainSpan GS2100.

Doing the access point-to-client switcharoo is a good one too but needs a bit more instruction on the customer side, plus a way to whack the device back into setup mode when you need it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'll put in a shameless mention that this is exactly the sort of content my STEM education side project, TakeItApart[1] was meant to centralize. OP, we'd love to see the Dash included on TakeItApart so others can learn from your breakdown.

This annotation of the Dash components is terrific. It would be fun to probe the exposed pads to see if they have left an STM32 SWIM/JTAG header available. It's interesting that they choose to use a AAA battery but did not include a battery door so that users could replace it. Perhaps that is coming? Still, the power optimization is impressive considering how power hungry it can be to do wi-fi RF transmission (on the order of a 1 watt).

1\. [https://www.takeitapart.com/get-started](https://www.takeitapart.com/get- started)

</comment><comment><USER30> To steal someone else's tweet:

AOL in a big media deal, Clinton running for office, stocks at all time highs, _new cuecat is here_. What's not to love about 2000?

</comment><comment><USER31> Dash was not an April fools?

<comment><USER32> No, and it was pretty clear it wasn't at the time tbh.

<comment><USER33> So clear that amazon did not bother avoiding around april 1st for the product presentation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I imagine if you build up a collection of these for a variety of products you'll need something to hold them all, perhaps it could be called a DashBoard?

</comment><comment><USER35> Can anyone recommend any resources on power management on something like this?

My background in electronics is quite basic though I'd love to understand how they managed to build an ARM-based, battery-powered device that is predicted to last for years. I know it's not "always on" but it's fascinating nonetheless and I think building something similar would make for a fun project.

<comment><USER36> Most microcontrollers have extremely low power sleep states, maintaining interrupts on external inputs often only draws the smallest amounts of power. When you're designing for low power electronics like this you often run into the problem of the self discharge of the battery completely dwarfing any consumption your microcontroller has. I'm reasonably confident they chose a lithium AAA simply because they have very low self discharge, and a AAA over something like a coin cell due to the rather enormous amount of power needed to transmit 802.11.

I get the feeling that this device is pretty tentative for Amazon, they haven't gone to huge lengths to keep the price of the build down. In particular there's also a connector on the bottom right of the PCB that looks a lot like it could be for a small screen or some other peripheral.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Can anyone comment as to why they'd go for a cortex M3? @120Mhz it seems like overkill for the function of this device. I know it's pretty cheap but it could have made even cheaper with a less capable micro.

<comment><USER38> The setup process involves some audio processing which requires slightly more than trivial signal processing and also some RAM usage... Also handling the network stack requires some RAM. The combination of those two requirements and the low cost of the STM32s of that level of capability mean it was probably a sensible choice.

<comment><USER39> I'm surprised they went with F205, though. There are 32Lxxx chips with similar capabilities and lower power.

The whole thing looks like a quick turn of a reference design and the real low-cost design will follow later on.

<comment><USER38> I would agree. It looks like a quick&safe design.... If it takes off, a cost- optimised version will appear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Any clue about the software?

</comment><comment><USER41> Why is it I feel like this is just something that is designed to get me more working hours?

I like going to the store, socializing, finding things to try, being a human. Pushing a button doesn't do it for me.

</comment><comment><USER42> Why not a 2G cellular modem that sends out SMS? WiFi for location?

<comment><USER43> Cost of carrier access.

<comment><USER42> Spark Devices negotiated with Telefonica for $3/1mb/mo global data plans. Maybe the bigger question is... why can't there be cheaper data plans available.

<comment><USER44> $3 a month? That's really expensive for essentially a dumb button. Why would you bother with a 3G modem if you can just use someone's Wi-Fi? Especially since there's probably no GSM signal in your laundry cupboard,but a wifi router will be nearby.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why does amazon use a module,instead of certifying their own ? this hopes to be a large volume project , so the savings could be considerate.

<comment><USER45> To me, the choice to use off the shelf hardware reflects Amazon's dedication to lean values. In this sense, they're doing the absolute minimum (using off- the-shelf hardware instead of spending 2 years spinning their own SoC) to verify that their product (on-demand household commodity ordering) is actually something people want. Makes a lot more sense in terms of turnaround time and money - if the idea proves valuable, they can start expending the effort to reduce costs through SoC development.

As the top commenter pointed out, though, I don't think they would really need to spend the time recouping those margins - since all the brands signed up for this service are big-name brands owned by Proctor and Gamble, it could indicate a relationship wherein P&G helps them absorb some of the costs of the hardware in exchange for what is effectively marketing.

<comment><USER15> What's also interesting is that the circuit board left on the micro-SMA connector for an _external_ antenna.

The early press releases mention deeper hardware integration with consumer products. I'm guessing they're going to be dropping this board into other things besides the Dash product.

<comment><USER45> That's actually an RF testpoint, not an SMA connector (by which I think you mean UF.L connector, like this guy: [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/U.FL_conn...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/U.FL_connector.jpg)). It functions like a switch that is closed when the RF tester connects to it.

<comment><USER15> If you were to hook one of these up to the connector:

[https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11320](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11320)

Would it not function as an external wifi antenna?

(and yeah you're right about the ufl. thanks for the correction)

<comment><USER45> In a sense, you're right - it's meant as a quick release testpoint for conducted radio performance on a manufacturing line. Theoretically, you COULD hook up an antenna to it, but you'd have to know some substantive details about the integrated PCB antenna (impedance, center frequency, etc) to get good or even comparable performance out of the external one. Probably not to a male UFL connector, in any case - I'm 99% sure this type of connector is not compatible with UFL.

Mileage may vary, of course, but in my experience this type of connector is more frequently used to get conducted power RF measurements in manufacturing settings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Irresponsible product design. Unnecessary and throwaway.</comment>


What to do after the robots take our jobs - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2016/05/04/bill-gross-what-to-do-after-the-robots-take-our-jobs/#:RBDlT5dfJX5nnQ <comment><USER2> Too bad the original title sounds like click-bait and doesn't imply anything about Universal Basic Income.

I wonder if better titles (for the HN crowd) could be:

"Basic income is essentially an unavoidable Ponzi scheme" or "Basic income should be funded by printing money"</comment>


Ceden – grow Cannabis discreetly at home - <AUTHOR> https://ceden.io/ <comment><USER2> I've been waiting for this for so long... Finally a home grow system that doesn't look like a fridge. Got my pre-order yesterday :D Made in Germany 4 the win</comment>


Interface inspiration at the office - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3193-interface-inspiration-at-the-office

<comment><USER2> This is great. I used to be an avid reader of Amiga World, and this reminded me of something in one of Mojo's columns. (Mojo was a VFX supervisor on Babylon 5, which made heavy use of the Video Toaster, and LightWave – he wrote a monthly Op-Ed for Amiga World.) I'm paraphrasing, but it was something like, "If you go to film school, make sure you study things other than film. Otherwise, when you get out of school, you'll have nothing to make films about."

Edit: Ah, it was not Amiga World. It was 'New Tekniques'

</comment><comment><USER3> Really cool idea, however I'm wondering how necessary it was to hire an outside group. Why not just dedicate a space and slowly fill it with items that employees find interesting?

I do remember an article awhile ago about a company (perhaps 37signals) that kept a collection of different textures/materials to use as inspiration. I always thought this was a great idea.

<comment><USER4> A lot of times, creative processes are best fueled with unfamiliar or alien sources of inspiration. If employees brought in objects they like, how much is their decision influenced by how they already think about computer interfaces? Adding an external group to the mix is healthy in my opinion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Inventables used to provide monthly subscriptions to design teams of "interesting stuff" - much like what was provided here.

They pivoted though - now they provide hardware to designers directly: <https://www.inventables.com/>

</comment><comment><USER6> For more reflections on physical design watch the documentary on Charles Eames, trailer below.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YMzmuBBBzo></comment>


Who Saved the Most Lives in History? - <AUTHOR> http://www.scienceheroes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=258&Itemid=27

<comment><USER2> Are there really 1 billion people saved by blood transfusion?</comment>


Show HN: On-Demand Content For Startups @ $149/mo - Can I say, AWS for Content? - <AUTHOR> https://www.springzo.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey Guys. Shalin here. I have taken live the new website for Springzo. In its earlier avatar, Springzo was your typical Content Marketing Agency - <USER2> brands with their content marketing strategy, content development and its distribution.

Springzo has been that lifeboat when you fail at your venture-funded startup. My mind starts racing when I think of those tough times - investing all of the savings in the startup, raising venture money, product getting good traction but business model doesn't, the decision to throw in the towel. And the very next day, you don't know what to work on now (they say, you are always smarter in hindsight).

That was the time when I launched Springzo on the back of a typical agency model - it gave me an opportunity to work with several dozen brands, build a great team, put my finances back in order and know what we're really good at.

I think it's time to let Springzo evolve in to an offering that brands appreciate the most when they work with us - our content.

I have taken live the new website for Springzo as a productized content service.

Do let me know your thoughts on the homepage. If you have any questions on the offering or want to give it a spin, feel free to ping me.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ugh, I'm sure content like this is always fake but that third sample about Google position zero written as a fake conversation between the fake author and a fake colleague is gross.

I'm hoping the answer is no, but out of interest can you write deeply technical pieces?

<comment><AUTHOR> So, I'm happy you did read the samples :) Is the content good?

WRT the 3rd article, \- Did the conversation happen? YES \- Is it paraphrased? YES (what conversation isn't when you pen it on a piece of a paper?) \- Could we have done better at paraphrasing the conversation? YES (the fact that you found it fake)

Can we write deeply technical pieces: Some YES.

Can we discuss more on it over email. I can reach you at?

I'm at shalin AT springzo

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Outsourced content" is rarely good content. It generally reads like blogspam...

<comment><AUTHOR> With Springzo, it isn't. Give it a try. We also have a 7-day money back guarantee...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can we plug your service into Substack or Medium and get ∞ profits? In theory? :D

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm up for it. Would love to hear the apprehension/feedback you have on the service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting. Do the content writers make the content for your own site?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep.</comment></comment>


Texas Woman with Cerebral Palsy: Uber Denied Her Service Over Two Dozen Times - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/texas-woman-with-cerebral-palsy-says-uber-denied-servic-1823927550 <comment><USER2> With the rise of the gig economy, I suspect that the ADA will come under severe attack in the next few years. My guess is that most AirBnb apartments don't really have ADA compliant accomodations. For example, many second floor apartments only have stairs without elevators or wheelchair ramps. In addition, there have been some high profile cases such as Berkeley removing free, public lectures because of ADA violations [https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/03/06/u-california-...](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/03/06/u-california- berkeley-delete-publicly-available-educational-content)

as well as the abuse by some of bringing companion animals onto airplanes.

With independent contractors making a large part of the work force, accommodating is harder for individuals than for companies, and so political momentum may build up for repeal of the various laws.

<comment><USER3> > I suspect that the ADA will come under severe attack in the next few years.

I'm not worried. No politician will carry the flag of denying rights for people with disabilities.

<comment><USER4> I am, especially with this administration slashing regulations under the guise of being "business friendly".

<comment><USER5> Eliminating protections for students with disabilities was one of the first things on Devos' docket upon taking office.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If a bus driver is allergic to a dog, then it's usually not an issue because the dog won't be very close to the driver, but in the case of an uber, it could be a real problem.

I'm sympathetic to this person wanting to take an uber, but uber needs to be able to allow drivers to mark their cars as "dog friendly". That way she can get a ride, and allergic drivers won't suffer.

<comment><USER7> This makes sense. If instead of a dog it's a wheelchair, it's undeniably "not your fault" if you car literally can't handle it.

The other issue is that we, as a society, subsidize the additional cost for the handicapped; I doubt that Uber subsidizes the additional cleaning for transporting a service dog.

<comment><USER8> _it 's undeniably "not your fault" if you car literally can't handle it_

If you are working as a commercial driver or employing commercial drivers then yes, complying with the law is very much "your fault".

<comment><USER7> Most taxis can't do wheelchairs, either. No-one blames the taxi driver.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If it takes more time to get a passenger with cerebral palsy in and out of the car, then a driver who picks one up is losing money compared to transporting a regular passenger. If the government wants encourage ride-sharing services, instead of punishing low-paid workers for doing what's in their interests, it should give drivers bonuses for transporting passengers who present difficulties.

My wife is a doctor. She does not get an extra fee for treating non-English speaking patients, but she needs to pay a translator, and the appointments are longer. She is effectively punished for seeing patients who don't speak English. By the same logic as above, either the insurance company or the patient should pay an extra fee when a translator is required. Otherwise, doctors will be motivated to avoid working where lots of patients need translators.

<comment><USER10> Perhaps we want to help people with greater needs, and not stick them with higher prices everywhere they go - in part because people with greater needs often have fewer resources.

Every business must pull its weight in contributing to society and make some sacrifices; otherwise society, the economy, your community wouldn't function. Your wife, I, and everyone reading this benefit from the sacrifices others have made over centuries. We are specks of dust on the shoulders of giants, so personally I'm happy and proud to be able to give a little.

> My wife is a doctor. She does not get an extra fee for treating non-English > speaking patients

Maybe she should get a smaller fee for treating easier patients, and not only those who are easier to communicate with but those with easier conditions to treat, those who are more agreeable, those who can comprehend medical issues more readily, those who are on time, those who can afford medications, devices, tests, treatments, etc.

Every business has a variety of customers of differing levels of difficulty, and generally charges them all the same; it averages out. Go buy some clothes; if you take more of the salesperson's time, they don't charge you more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> just to prevent more "but the driver has an allergy, too" comments:

yes, some might. and we can have a debate about that. but most don't, and an allergy is explicitely _not_ the reason _all_ of the drivers in this case gave. so it doesn't apply here.

<comment><USER12> The difference is that at some point in your Uber "career" you will be expected to transport someone with a service animal and you can't legally refuse to transport them. The way the law is written you can't even ask to see proof it's a service animal, if someone tells you it's a service animal then it _legally_ is a service animal to explicitly prevent this form of discrimination.

If you can't perform all the _legal_ requirements of a job then there's a case to be made that you probably shouldn't be doing that job.

<comment><USER4> Taxi drivers can't do any of that either, so I don't see the problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When booking a ride, Uber needs three toggles:

\- Do you a service dog

\- Do you want AC

\- Do you want to talk to the driver

Edit: I can't format.

<comment><USER14> That could lead to discrimination if someone see's a person has a service dog.

The whole point of the ADA is to not treat people with disabilities as if they are second class citizens.

<comment><USER13> Of course. But that driver could have a disability - their allergy if it's severe.

Maybe it shouldn't be a toggle, maybe it's a part of both the driver and users profile so a driver can't descriminate and instead it's more of a matching algorithm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Try getting an uber with a child seat.

<comment><USER16> Don't Uber already provide that? I saw it in NYC (maybe they pick few cities now to test this out)

[https://help.uber.com/h/3abcbae1-132b-42a9-8277-0dab00fa3879](https://help.uber.com/h/3abcbae1-132b-42a9-8277-0dab00fa3879)

<comment><USER17> Only in NYC so far, last I checked.

My wife knows a taxi service here in Boston that we use when we're travelling with the little guy. Last time we flew, we were picked up in a black car with tinted windows and leather seats. There was a stylish black carseat in the back for him ready to go. Sadly, he's still too young to feel like a rock star.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's interesting that the lawsuit is against Uber, and not the "independent contractors" that fulfill the service on Uber's behalf. Likely because there's no money in suing drivers, while Uber itself has billions.

</comment><comment><USER19> Uber is apparently the best way for this woman with cerebral palsy to get around, given how much she uses it. Even with some drivers deciding that they don't want to take her.

</comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash The headline should specify that Uber drivers denied service, not the company itself. The drivers violated Uber's own policy regarding service animals.

<comment><USER20> Was disciplinary action taken against those drivers? If they continued to be associated with Uber, without consequences, then Uber is complicit in their behavior.

>Steele's suit notes that Uber corporate were not especially helpful in resolving her ongoing denial-of-service issues.

Seems like Uber is the ultimate root cause.

<comment><USER21> This[1] suggests that they do have specialized channels to report this exact type of problem, and that they do investigate and take action on reported cases. It says they also periodically send reminder emails about the legal requirements for drivers.

I talked to a driver once that said that he got suspended when a rider had erroneously reported that he "looked high" (despite that being the only complaint that day despite him having had many passengers). He complained that Uber had not even bothered to hear his side of the story before suspending him and they should've told him to come to a driver center to get tested, instead of just taking someone's report at face value. He said he went to the hospital to get drug tested and had to submit the results to get reinstated. So at least from anecdata, it seems non-compliant drivers do get booted on a shoot- first-ask-later fashion.

It sounds like the problem here is that some drivers still choose to break the law on the 1 out a 1000 chance they run into the service dog situation, even despite all the warnings telling them not to do it.

[1]([https://accessibility.uber.com/](https://accessibility.uber.com/))</comment></comment></comment>


Almond: An Open, Privacy-Preserving Virtual Assistant - <AUTHOR> https://almond.stanford.edu/ <comment><USER2> I was more impressed by this project's backbone service Thinkgpedia, a common natural language interface to different web services and internet-connected hardware. I'll definitely find use for it in future!

I started using Almond application for Gnome. It delivers on many fronts, but still lacks polish.

Some typed prompts would never get an answer. Some prompts got misinterpreted, for example "tell me a dad joke each day at 9 am" would get scheduled at 12 am. The wake word is followed by audio ping, but there should also be a visual clue.

Still, very cool technology. My favorite skill is "Miscellaneous Interfaces" with queries for random number, opening URL, throwing a coin...

I'll try to stick with this for a week, to automate some OS actions and my git work flow.

<comment><USER2> After few days of evaluating I see that Gnome client is broken in several fundamental ways and unusable as of now.

        - No way to clear history, it's getting huge now and mostly consists of "Sorry, I don't understand" answers
        - When going to My Skills and back to chat, it scrolls to beginning which is frustrating.
        - Scheduled actions never actually happen.
        - In-app "training" doesn't work, returns "Sorry, I did not understand that. Use 'help' to learn what I can do for you."
        - Online training _could_ work if one could learn their ThingTalk language. My usecase was simple - teach it that "throw dice" is same as random number from 1 to 6, but I could not conjure precise ThingTalk spell.
        - Screenshot, locking PC and other OS actions didn't work on XFCE. Not Almond's fault, but less usable for me.

Are authors dogfooding? It lacks quite a few quality-of-life improvements.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Home Assistant (the excellent open source home automation project) recently integrated with Almond (and Ada for voice): [https://www.home- assistant.io/blog/2019/11/20/privacy-focuse...](https://www.home- assistant.io/blog/2019/11/20/privacy-focused-voice-assistant/)

<comment><USER3> How do I know which home automation project I should invest my time into? I'm aware of at least 3 FOSS ones.

<comment><USER4> Home Assistant is the clear winner, in my mind. It's a very robust project (four full-time devs, plus a huge community), very actively developed ([https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/categories/release- notes/](https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/categories/release-notes/)), and has a very healthy and helpful support community.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Too bad Chrome stopped supporting the web speech-to-text API. But I guess it overwhelmed Google's network/servers!? I remember back in Windows XP? There was speech recognition, where you first had to read a bunch of text in order to train it. It didn't use a online service afaik. And it was decent. With today's hardware it should be possible to do speech to text on the client! eg. without sending the audio to the cloud for processing!

<comment><USER6> Web speech to text is still available on Chrome... [https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/demos/speech.html](https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/demos/speech.html)

<comment><USER5> I get a cryptic error message that just says "network", others seem to have the same problem. Does it work for you??

Here's another demo that shows the error message at the bottom: [https://mdn.github.io/web-speech-api/speech-color- changer/](https://mdn.github.io/web-speech-api/speech-color-changer/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can anyone tell me how this is "Privacy-Preserving"? Like how is this different than what the major tech firms like Google, MS, and Apple offer?

<comment><USER8> From what I can tell it's available as actual software running on your device instead of an online service. Additionally, it seems to be fully free software.

<comment><USER9> From what I can read in the privacy policy, speech recognition is performed via an API from Microsoft. So it's both online, cannot be considered fully free software (as a major part is performed by a closed API) and I'd hesitate to call it privacy preserving. At least when using the voice command feature. Written commands should be offline, private and done by open source I think.

Someone please tell me I'm wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> From the Privacy Policy:

> The Almond app also makes use of the Microsoft Cognitive Services Speech API > to perform speech recognition. This is only activate when you click on the > "Listen" button. ... These services are governed by their own privacy > policies.

Too bad. I hoped this would have an offline speech recognition engine.

Also with all the talk about preserving privacy I find it disappointing that you have to dig through the privacy policy to see that your audio is sent to MS.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, with that 3rd party's (and whoever else) policy, Almond is neither "Open" nor "Privacy-Preserving". The title almost seems like clickbait now.

The project itself (Almost) seems very useful though and I would gladly use it if it could run locally instead.

<comment><USER11> Can you tell me what you found useful?

None of their examples made sense to me... notify me when the nytimes adds an article? So... like constantly? Or filter on a keyword? Like I'm going to know ahead of time all the potential keywords for a given article of interest that hasn't been written yet? And I need to know that second vs my daily news consumption during the right time?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This talks about privacy and data ownership, but I can't tell from the site if the processing is all local (like Snips or Mycroft) or if data still has to be trusted with a remote party. Maybe I missed something.

<comment><USER13> Mycroft is not at all all-local. It also sends audio data into the cloud for processing. It's a disgrace really.

<comment><USER12> Oh wow! Well, glad I went with Snips then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A thread from 2018: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17532003](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17532003).

</comment><comment><USER15> also [https://getleon.ai/](https://getleon.ai/)

<comment><USER16> It would be cool to integrate the deep speech engine with home assistant. That's one of the big benifits of leon in my opinion.</comment></comment>


Sony's Deal with Microsoft Blindsided Its Own PlayStation Team - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-19/sony-s-deal-with-microsoft-blindsided-its-own-playstation-team <comment><USER2> > This shows "a new Sony" and should be applauded by investors, SMBC Nikko > Securities Inc. analyst Ryosuke Katsura wrote in a report. "Management is > adapting rapidly to change."

Uh, no. This shows that the developers have absolutely no control, say, or ownership over their work. Things like this happen in companies (or divisions within a company) right before their best people jump ship because they are so poorly respected they are literally not given the time of day by management.

I'm reminded of Ray Kassar's comment about programmers being at the same level of someone who puts the game boxes together.

<comment><USER3> I'm a developer and low-level manager, and wouldn't expect to have much input in this kind of decision. Especially in a behemoth like Sony. This is C-level- executive decision making territory.

I might have something to say about the idea from a technical perspective, if asked, and if that aspect of the platform were my purview, and I suspect they discussed it with plenty of knowledgeable people at some level.

I'm sure some people who were developing their in-house cloud solution feel like they've been blindsided, but if they'd succeeded, they wouldn't be in this position. The article says they've been struggling with it. They likely had a chance and missed benchmarks one time too many.

They're likely better off using a major cloud provider anyway. They've already solved the big problems.

<comment><USER4> I could get on board with this if the devs had a say in setting those benchmarks.

<comment><USER3> Any good executive consults with their subordinates to create realistic objectives. This is so fundamental that it's implied. That's the CTO's job. They will in turn rely on their subordinates all the way down to the lowly developers.

Are you suggesting that developers deserve some kind of vote? They're a cog in the machine. Sony isn't a democracy or a worker's collective. As a developer myself, I'm not trying to diminish the role. I like to think I can provide a valuable perspective and that I'd be consulted about my small part. I'm certain that's exactly what Sony did, because they are a successful, well-run company that's been doing this longer than I've been alive.

Beyond that, no, the developers shouldn't have much say. Their role is to help determine what's required to achieve the objectives set by management. Good management will consult with them, set goals, and change tack if the objectives aren't met. If they still can't achieve the objectives in a timely and cost-effective way, management will replace them and go with a vendor. This is all right and good.

<comment><USER4> _Are you suggesting that developers deserve some kind of vote?_

Of course not.

 _Their role is to help determine what 's required to achieve the objectives set by management. Good management will consult with them, set goals..._

This. Consider yourself lucky that you've never worked someplace that starts off with "These goals are aggressive, but in my mind achievable" and then proceeds to give you objectives that are a wildly optimistic extrapolation of a of a previously achieved timetable.

This isn't just developers, either, but that's the context here.

 _Any good executive consults with their subordinates to create realistic objectives. This is so fundamental that it 's implied.

...

I'm certain that's exactly what Sony did, because they are a successful, well- run company that's been doing this longer than I've been alive._

If you're right them I'm onboard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I bet this 'strategic alliance' doesn't go beyond microsoft selling a bunch of servers for cheap to sony.

Big companies rarely collaborate well on wide-ranging things unless the companies share board members/heritage.

This deal was clearly spearheaded by the Azure sales team, and vague promises of collaborating on future services were probably thrown in to sweeten the deal, but I doubt will go anywhere.

<comment><USER6> Msft is very pushy around Azure - they really try to behave like they are on par with aws (they are not. well, maybe on paper). O would not be surprised if this deal is a result of regular Msft blackmail-style negotiations.

<comment><USER7> Can you explain why Azure isn't on par with AWS?

<comment><USER8> Last time I was using Azure was in 2015. At the time, their UI was completely broken. My company was getting charged for using our support hours to get support for a broken Azure UI, and they were telling us to use their APIs instead of the UI to do basic stuff like launching mobile services and VMs.

Our Microsoft rep recommended we consider deprecating our SAP instance with Dynamics CRM as we could get more discounts and support hours as part of a better valued package and our CIO in that meeting laughed in her face.

Azure might be just as good as their competitors in 2019 or even better but your question reminded me of way back when it was a piece of shit and our clueless CIO was mostly bought in because Gardner could have told him to fellate a horse, and he would have obliged.

<comment><USER9> > it was a piece of shit and our clueless CIO was mostly bought in because > Gardner could have told him to fellate a horse, and he would have obliged.

2018/19 that's still the only kind of CIO that would choose Azure if the choice is otherwise unconstrained. Most Azure offerings are somewhere between Alpha/Beta stage of maturity with glaring issues, only cursory (often outdated/outright wrong) documentation, zero community around them.

The only way Azure gets picked is if the decision maker is an idiot guided by the likes of Gartner, or there are other factors at play. Other factors usually being the Azure sales teams leveraging existing MS mindshare and pandering to entirely non-technical decision makers with co-investment or support, the sum value of which is still far less than the cost of choosing Azure.

<comment><USER10> That's not true. If you're already running a .net shop and you're already using VS as your IDE, then Azure is a great choice.

<comment><USER11> if you are a .net shop Microsoft makes your life a lot easier if you use their products and for the vast majority of .net shops, MS products are good enough.

Not saying that people don't complain about them or that there aren't better things out there, just that they are good enough

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a great example of what Marc Andreesen called the Moby Dick theory of big companies [1]. Paraphrased, the behavior of any big company is largely inexplicable when viewed from the outside. And from the inside, too!

[1] [https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part5.html](https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part5.html)

<comment><USER13> It was an interesting read; do you know which company the author is talking about in that part :

> I am thinking of one high-profile Internet startup in San Francisco right > now that is extremely promising, has great technology and a unique offering, > that did two big deals early with high-profile big company partners, and has > become completely hamstrung in its ability to execute on its core business > as a result

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Phil Harrison drove Playstation worldwide studios game development through their glory years and is now running Google's game streaming efforts 'Stadia'. He was at msft xbox for a while and knows the overall landscape well. This 'deal' may be a bid to counter the smartest guy in the space and Google vs Azure for hosting

</comment><comment><USER15> Probably due to the top down management style of Sony, but when both CEOs meet and make such a big public announcement, there's definitely something behind it backing things up.

Personally, I see it as two entrenched players seeing a potential newcomer (i.e. Google Stadia) and realizing it would be better to work together and keep the duopoly going than let a newcomer tear away both their market shares.[1]

It's always better to pick the devil you know, as they say.

[1] [https://www.polygon.com/2019/5/16/18628245/sony-microsoft- co...](https://www.polygon.com/2019/5/16/18628245/sony-microsoft- collaboration-google-stadia-cloud-gaming)

<comment><USER16> Nobody is losing any sleep about Google's vaporous Stadia offering. It is yet another game streaming service, which aren't rare[0] (Sony, Nvidia, and Microsoft already have one). Plus they're starting with little strategic advantage in the space, with most of their early games being limited Android ports.

After Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo I'd imagine the largest competitor/concern would be either Apple or Oculus (with their new Quest console), Google perhaps next, but that has nothing to do with this alliance. Google cannot even encourage games on a tablet or Chromebook, let alone a TV.

Apple are a slightly bigger threat because the Apple ecosystem already supports larger and richer games, including on tablets and TVs.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_gaming#Cloud_gaming_serv...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_gaming#Cloud_gaming_services_\(Gaming_as_a_Service_\(GaaS\)))

<comment><USER15> Why the mad dash from Sony and Microsoft to partner, in a such public manner at that, almost immediately after Stadia's announcement then?

You can't really refute the actions from these companies themselves; they speak for themselves.

<comment><USER17> A possible scenario is that Sony has been floating this for a while but MSFT has resisted.

MSFT probably agreed to go in giving Sony good terms because they are afraid of Stadia. Not because it's a threat to their gaming business but because it's a threat to Azure. Heavy Stadia use means GCP has a high use tenant that pays for their use which they can use to make the rest of their offerings cheaper without losing profit. And that would hurt Azure, which is gonna be huge if MS is gonna live up to its trillion dollar valuation.

IOW they are worried that Google Stadia will be to GCP what Amazon retail is to AWS.

<comment><USER18> I'm pretty sure google is to gcp.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This isn't entirely surprising. On-premise infrastructure is getting extremely hard to scale for high scale services like gaming. Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have completely bent the market for data centers and hardware due to their cloud footprints. At this point, you have to be fairly niche or have really strong security requirements to justify the time and cost of not building on AWS, Azure, or GCP at that scale.

From what I understand, even Apple is starting to build more of its services infrastructure in the cloud, although those agreements aren't being widely broadcasted.

With that view, it should be obvious that a hardware-focused company like Sony simply could not scale the internal teams and infrastructure required to support high scale software services like on-demand gaming. They were going to have pick a cloud infra provider, and with every cloud provider also making their own foray into gaming, they had to make frenemies with someone.

<comment><USER20> I've been wondering what Microsoft gets out of this deal. Sony doesn't really have the size or the expertise to even continue in a gaming market that has moved entirely to the cloud. Microsoft could just let them die. Makes me think Microsoft has something sinister planned where they're able to take a lot of Sony's IP without paying for it.

<comment><USER21> Maybe it is like the investment that Microsoft made in Apple, Microsoft doesn't want to have a complete monopoly in games consoles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Gaming as a service is something that literally no one but corporations are interested. It's the latest evil after the attempted murder of physical copies.

<comment><USER23> _something that literally no one but corporations are interested._

I'm interested, assuming a reasonable price and performance level. Not having to have gaming PC plus being able to easily play a bunch of new games for a few hours without shelling out $60+ each are both things that sound interesting to me.

Then again I think the last physical game I bought was Europa Universalis III a decade ago, so physical copies haven't really mattered to me for a long time.

<comment><USER24> The problem is that the "avoid shelling $60+ each" idea continues to be a dream. Games are added only many months later when the first-week/month revenue well runs dry, and by then you'd probably find a good deal online. The gaming PC argument can work, but PC-based game-subscription streaming services usually end up running at mid-high graphical settings (OnLive did, at least), and you can build a PC nowadays to satisfy that at not a high cost. (But we'll see what Stadia ends up delivering)

The closest we got (if I remember correctly) was Darksiders 2 launching on OnLive at the same time as PC, but it was also a rental game rather than being part of their Netflix-style subscription PlayPack.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Related from 3 days ago: "Sony and Microsoft set rivalry aside for cloud gaming alliance (nikkei.com)" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19930955](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19930955)

</comment><comment><USER26> Wasn't there a recent deal between Microsoft and Nintendo as well?

</comment><comment><USER27> The strange move from a risk management perspective is partnering with their main rival. I'd have probably went with Google for two reasons:

1\. They'll likely fail in their gaming effort with Sony still being in strong position in market.

2\. They have a competitive cloud with bright engineers that can solve infrastructure problems better than Sony.

</comment><comment><USER28> This is one of those things that you look back on as a pivotal fork in the road which leads to the death of either the Xbox or the PlayStation.</comment>


Ask HN: Would you rather go to TED or Davos? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I'd have to say TED but that's only because I'm not familiar with Davos. Are you referring to the economic forum? In that case TED because of the variety of topics. I stand to be corrected of course.

</comment><comment><USER3> Davos, just because of the people who are there. TED talks are like mind crack, it gives you a quick hit but fills your head with bad ideas.

</comment><comment><USER4> You could also go to the BIL conference - <http://www.bilconference.com>

<comment><USER2> Thanks for this link. Bookmarked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Are these conferences good place for startups to present their product and/or network with angel investors..etc..?

</comment><comment><USER6> Davos every time. Look at the people who'll attend. The calibre is guaranteed to be higher.</comment>


Betaworks: Inside the Much-Buzzed-About New Media Incubator - <AUTHOR> http://www.pehub.com/64688/betaworks-inside-the-much-buzzed-about-new-media-incubator/

<comment><USER2> Fascinating piece. Betting the entire company on the real-time web market is an interesting idea.

Betaworks is definitely an interesting company, considering the whole VC- funded-incubator model mostly failed in the late 90s, the most famous one, of course, being Idealab! (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealab>).

As opposed to YC which aims to provide advice, more than anything else, they're "incubating" ideas and then seeing what sticks. So I guess they're more involved than the incubators of yore.

They're definitely doing something right, first with the summize acquisition and then with bit.ly so perhaps it will work this time around.

Now will it work? Shrug.</comment>


Killing the Competition: How the New Monopolies Are Destroying Open Markets - <AUTHOR> http://www.harpers.org/archive/2012/01/hbc-90008429

<comment><USER2> Um, the only problem is that the "new monopolies" aren't monopolies. I'll ignore the fact that the writer doesn't seem to know the difference between a monopoly and a monopsony.

But even so, somehow in this monopsonistic market, finding talent is difficult. Salaries are moving ever upwards, and you hear nothing but complaints from participants outside the alleged monopsony about how hard it is to find people. (I'm one of them.)

That doesn't sound like a monopsony. That sounds like a competitive market where demand outstrips supply.

<comment><USER3> Demand is only outstripping supply because they aren't paying sufficiently. That's the essence of the market. If they would only pay more, then demand would certainly not outstrip supply.

<comment><USER4> The problem is that just paying higher salaries would not necessarily correlate to increasing the supply of _good_ developers. The sort of developers who only come in because you're paying 200k rather than 150k are usually not the sort Google wants to hire.

So the supply _will_ increase, just of lesser developers. Additionally, I think it is possible to pay developers _too much_ : I recall some study about how a salary beyond a certain point can actually make developers _less_ productive. (I could very well be mistaken on this--I'm too lazy to go look right now.)

Basically, trying to hire great developers is complicated and just having more random people go into software is not the answer. Software is already one of the best paying "hacker" jobs around anyhow; you're not likely to attract true hackers based on more money.

<comment><USER5> > The sort of developers who only come in because you're paying 200k rather > than 150k are usually not the sort Google wants to hire.

A listed-company with a market capitalization of USD 100+ billion cannot count only on its employees' passion anymore. If it pretends like it's doing so is disingenuous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This excerpt is pretty poorly written. He makes a bunch of assertions without adding much in the way of facts. I dunno, there may be a case to make there. But he certainly hasn't made it.

</comment><comment><USER7> This article just doesn't ring true to me at all. I am a developer in the Bay Area. I have helped recruit other developers from Google and other dominant Bay Area companies. I have not yet encountered the idea that developers ever feared career reprisals when leaving Facebook, Google, etc. Could be selection bias, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER8> The reason why this article is hardly comprehensible is that author is reaching out to a libertarian crowd while noting a problem generally noticed by the left - labor rights.

</comment><comment><USER9> What a lot of hot air. Silicon valley is one of the best places to work, and engineers are one of the privileged professions that are doing great even in the down economy. Even if big companies are colluding on non-poach agreements, why would that have any effect on startups? I'll poach Google/Facebook/Apple employees all day long.

Also, get a load of this:

> _One team, he recounts, worked for 110 hours per week for nine months > straight. But "everyone believed they were making something important."_

Bull-fucking-shit. Bullshit. You and your team did not work 15.7 hours every single day for 9 months. That's bullshit and the guy has no credibility.

</comment><comment><USER10> Monopolies? Seriously, tech industry in general is probably one of the most dynamic market right now. Most big players secure dominance for barely 10 years, and only a select few will continue its legacy for any time longer than that. New players pop up providing new goods and services pop up all the time as well. If companies in tech industry are referred to as monopolies, there is no tangible meaning left in the term "monopoly".

<comment><USER11> The article asks a valid question: "Why aren't the employees of the cartel members baying for blood?" Presumably it is because any compensation from their employer will be more than cancelled by damage to their career, by the same employer?

There is a monopoly at work though. Since prospective employers engage data mining companies to build profiles from any and all Internet content, and there is only one Internet, the Internet has a monopoly over employee's reputations. If your reputation is tarnished on the Internet, for example, by being named as a plaintiff against your employer, it will be tarnished with every employer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> the TechCrunch link posted today shows very strong evidence of collusion and criminal conspiracy, but I'd agree that this Harpers thing builds up a whole tower of empty, meaningless nada on top of that very solid foundation.</comment>


MIT discovers the location of memories: Individual neurons - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/123485-mit-discovers-the-location-of-memories-individual-neurons <comment><USER2> OMG, it's the ultimate mechanical_fish pet peeve collection! TL;DR: I rant.

ONE: I can't find the citation of the scientific paper on ExtremeTech. (Let alone a link. Who would dare to dream of a link?) They do refer obliquely to "the paper" once. (What paper?)

And they link to MIT's press office, whose brand is really solid, so everything they write is almost like science! And there you can skim the article twice and finally spot the citation:

 _Susumu Tonegawa, the Picower Professor of Biology and Neuroscience at MIT and lead author of the study reported online today in the journal Nature._

Okay, gotta go find an online _Nature_ subscription to find out what's going on. There's an hour of my day spoken for. At least they're trying to ensure I get some exercise.

Why is the actual journal article important? Just look at this thread here on HN. We have people doubting all sorts of things, but these may well be things that are addressed in the _actual work_. The content of the popular articles means very little: They leave out most of the details. The details matter. The whole _point_ of this study is to try and tease out more details.)

TWO: But, wait, there's more. I first tried to read ExtremeTech on an iPad (original edition). The article popped up in one of those insufferable iPad- only JS-powered "mobile editions" with Swiping Action. Unfortunately, there was only the first page of the article. It cut off in midsentence. I tried pressing the giant button marked "Next" on the right side of the screen. I got a big white screen. I flailed around with my fingers. A _completely different article_ eventually rendered itself. I flailed around with my fingers some more. Eventually the original article reappeared, still incomplete. Fortunately, one more roundtrip to the next article and back and I finally got the whole thing to render.

Then I pressed the back button and everything seemed to hang. I closed the browser window and thanked the gods for my escape.

Why on earth do publications use these broken things, when simple web pages render so nicely on the iPad? The site does have something like a dozen tracking cookies on it; does this imply that they have data showing that swipability is so important that it _doesn't even have to work_ in order to attract more ad impressions/clicks/Tweets/whatever? Or does it merely suggest that they are so busy struggling with glass-cockpit syndrome that they can't perceive that their site is broken on the iPad?

<comment><AUTHOR> I will add a link to the paper itself; sorry about making you jump through hoops.

<comment><USER3> Hey, props for responding to criticism! As a (now ex-)neurobiologist, it's maddening when journalists don't cite the paper they talk about. I helped start ResearchBlogging.org way back in the day to help fight this very problem.

If I may make a suggestion: wrap your citations in OpenURL COinS format. ResearchBlogging.org provides this functionality automatically, but you can do it yourself too. It provides a lot of useful meta-data, citation information and the ability for plugins to interact intelligently with the web-page

[1]<http://ocoins.info/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Is this similar to the DOI thing? I have been thinking about doing that, too.

<comment><USER3> It's related. DOI is basically a universal identifier that acts as a "domain name" for academic literature. This is to prevent broken links over time.

The big providers (Elsevier, etc) are obligated to maintain the DOI no matter what happens on their end. E.g they may completely change their site architecture, or change domain name, but as long as they keep the DOI updated with the current location of the paper nothing goes wrong. DOI's all around the internet will still continue to point at the paper.

It's a lot more robust than directly linking to the paper itself.

COINS is a way to embed bibliographic meta-data into a webpage. There are a number of plugins/extensions that will grab this metadata and do useful things. One example is an extension which automatically redirects links through your library's link resolver so you get the paper and not the paywall page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The data doesn't warrant the title of this post. Even if a single neuron is responsible for triggering a memory (which is hard to say based on mice in the first place), it doesn't follow that the information is stored in the neuron. As an analogy, if we erase a specific bit in memory, whole parts can become unreadable. For example imagine changing a bit in a pointer. That doesn't mean that all of the information was stored in that bit.

<comment><USER5> I agree with this. Because of the brain's ability to access things which are not exactly constrained to it's physicality, I think the brain acts as a type of radio and tunes into memories. Not exactly sure how they are stored.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a very strong urge to believe that the brain "tunes" into some kind of non-meatspace realm (spiritual, quantum, etc.)

Fairly sure that it'll turn out that it just depends on the massive complexity of neuron/synapse connections, though.

But then you think of concepts like 'group psyche', and twins that are separated from birth but share the same thoughts/feelings over a distance...

Hopefully science will get to the bottom of it soon :)

<comment><USER6> The twins thing is easily explainable by a programming reference. Seed 2 instances of the same random generator class with the same seed and have them run a million numbers on different computers... the millionth number will always be the same. Humans are just big wet sloppy computers with a little more noise than our PCs (environment is different for everyone, even identical twins are not in the exact same space) so it's likely that twins will more often than anyone else be thinking in parallel with each other from time to time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can't help but think that what they've discovered is some meatspace equivalent to the hash key or an index key to a memory. By "turning it on or off" you can lose or find a whole table row or hash value, but surely a "single neuron" can't "store" a generalised "memory".

<comment><USER8> A neuron "could" store a generalized memory (the amount of information it stores is gigantic, w/o pendantically considered the DNA). However, it's more complex than that (there are many types of memories and many means of retrieval). Basically, memories are sets of synaptic connections, and a neuron has many synapses (average ~7,000 synaptic connections/neuron to multiply by our 10^11 neurons/brain). As you said, it may be a "key", but it should be seen more like the memory _is_ a complete list of hashes. Not {"key": memory} but {"key1": {"key2": {"key3": {...} } }, {...}, {...}, ...} and the set of {key1..keyN} is the memory. So if you removed whichever keyI in the middle, you lose the information. (That's not really true because there is high redundancy, but there are keys/synapses/nodes less redundant than others. The fact is, they don't fire on only "one" neuron, they fire at a very precise region but the light still goes through a population of neurons.)

<comment><USER7> Fascinating, thanks! Have you got some links or keyphrases I should feed Google or Wikipedia to learn more (at a "curious but not neuro-science trained dilettante" level of understanding)?

<comment><USER8> I'm in this lab <http://www.lppa.college-de-france.fr> and mostly learned through colleagues (I'm doing CS/AI/ML, not neuroscience). I've read some parts of "Neuroscience 3rd edition, Purves et al., Sinauer Eds." which has nice pictures but I think there are better books and better advices than mines on this. Perhaps start with Wikipedia, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocampus> // <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_consolidation>

<comment><USER7> Thanks again! stuck in the reading queue for the weekend. (Phear my curiosity, people waiting for a table in my café!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> They didn't 'discover the location of memories', they simply discovered that they can trigger a reaction that looks similar to that of the original incident by focusing energy on parts of a mouse brain that were actively stimulated during the incident.

This is Pavlovs dog with optics, not revolutionary science.

<comment><USER10> I don't understand your reference to Pavlov's dog, it's more comparable to Penfield's work with stimulation of specific points of the brain. Also the ExtremeTech headline is a bit misleading. The related MIT article is a little more clear that this involves memories in a small cluster of neurons, not one memory per neuron as is implied by the heading above. [http://www.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/conjuring-memories- artifi...](http://www.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/conjuring-memories- artificially-0322.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea -- sorry, I mention later that it's a cluster, but I will update the first paragraph to mention that it's a cluster, not single neurons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I always was under impression that there are no memories as we think about photographs, but rather state of the brain is one whole memory system, which react to external signals accordingly to previously "memorized" signals.

As I understand, that they just found a way to excite particular small part of the brain which triggered reaction without external signaling. I.e. bypassing all intermediate parts (external sensors, nerves, other neurons, etc). I.e. it is more like to directly feed engine with gas and electricity to create a spark to make it revolve completely skipping engine control unit, ignition key, clutch pedal, fuel pump.

And when they refer to memory loss due dying neuron, this is more like part of circuit is removed which supposed to give certain reaction to certain signals, not like "rm /home/user/file.txt" with the rest left in place. So I do not believe thing similar to MiB is possible with this knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER12> 'The mice "quickly entered a defensive, immobile crouch," strongly suggesting the fear memory was being recalled.'

Yes, possibly. Or maybe it had something to do with the hole that had been drilled in their skulls and the frickin' laser beams being fired at their brains. Pretty cool stuff though.

<comment><USER13> They obviously controlled for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The journal article can be found here: [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vnfv/ncurrent/full/natu...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vnfv/ncurrent/full/nature11028.html)

It doesn't seem to claim that an _individual neuron_ is the location of a memory, but rather that triggering a small number of specific neurons is necessary and sufficient to cause the behavior that would be consistent with the recall of a particular fearful memory in mice, when optogenetically triggered.

In other words, they labeled some neurons with an optogenetic receptor during fear conditioning. Then, thanks to the optogenetic labeling they previously did, they were able to activate this receptor (using light) in a totally different context (one that didn't normally elicit the freezing response associated with mouse fear). When they did so, the mouse exhibited the freezing response. When they ablate these neurons, there is no fear response. The conclusion is that these neurons are necessary and sufficient to encode the fear memory.

 _Caveat lector_ : my summary is based on the _abstract_ so I am just parroting what they have concluded; I haven't read the paper's methods and results for myself. Also, this is the "near-final" version published in advance online today. It may change for final publication.

</comment><comment><USER15> Impressive as this may sound this is not the first study of its kind. Studies since 2009 (mentioned in the abstract) in the amygdala have been able to direct and inactivate fear memories in a reversible manner via optogenetics again (see <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2844777/>) . In these studies killing as much as 15% of the cells did not erase the memory, indicating that it's ensembles, not single neurons that encode fear memories.

To complicate the picture even more, each neuron is part of more than one memory engrams, and memories are stored in synaptic connections which are formed in the vast dendritic trees of neurons. So you have a very sparse and reduntant encoding of this associative memory.

Finally, note that both the amygdala and the hippocampus are very old structures so we don't know if the same processes take place in the neocortex (although it's likely so).

I don't mean to belittle the article, but it's mostly proof of concept if you have followed the relative literature. Tonegawa's lab had some even more fascinating papers published recently that probe the process of memory encoding to the level of single dendrites.

</comment><comment><USER16> Here is a simple explanation of the experiment:

1\. The set of neurons that was active only during learning was determined.

2\. The genes activated in those neurons were determined.

3\. Genetic engineering was done to make the activation of those genes always happen in conjunction with activation of the gene being responsible for the neuron becoming sensitive to light.

4\. The mouse was put through a learning experience, during which the small group of neurons affected became sensitive to light.

5\. Via stimulating those neurons with light, the experience was reproduced in the mouse in a completely different environment (so the comparisions to Pavlov are not justified).

In this way the abstract concept of a memory and of the process of remembering something was related very closely to a specific physical phenomena. Even the methods used to make the experiment are interesting by themselves (at least for a lay person) and I think you cannot easily dismiss the importance of this discovery as some people do here. Please read the article here to get a better picture:

[http://www.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/conjuring-memories- artifi...](http://www.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/conjuring-memories- artificially-0322.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> I wish I could block all extremetech stories from My HN feed. The are universally overhyped, never the original source, often draw unjustified conclusions, and are a pain to read (at least on an iPad - they use a non standard interface and pop overs).

<comment><USER18> Maybe some "flag this" concensus would work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> MIT scientist Sebastian Seung talked about this possibility in his 2010 TED talk, "I am my connectome" (<http://www.ted.com/talks/sebastian_seung.html>).

</comment><comment><USER20> I think this has been overhyped just a bit. I realize that a discovery of this nature is a big deal, but it's not what journalists are making it out to be.

</comment><comment><USER21> >MIT researchers have shown, for the first time ever, that memories are stored in specific brain cells. By triggering a single neuron, the researchers were able to force the subject to recall a specific memory. By removing this neuron, the subject would lose that memory.

That's incredibly poor reasoning. Using the same logic, I can "show, for the first time ever" that C structures are stored in individual memory pointers.

</comment><comment><USER22> I read the MIT news piece and didn't find any reference to the removal of a neuron that would eliminate the memory. Was that in a longer research paper?

</comment><comment><USER23> My brother, who is studying in medical school right now pointed this out to me: "the whole time i was reading this though, i was bothered by what usually bothers me about studies regarding the mechanics of the brain, which is that we dont know our measures of "activation" are sufficient for determining a causal relationship between activation of certain neurons and the recall of certain memories."

</comment><comment><USER24> Off topic: I live across the river from MIT. I work in asset management and worked for an angel investment fund. I'm working on a startup at night. If you live in Boston and want to meet for coffee email me.

I'll meet anyone from HN, even if you just want some career advice for working in asset management or just want to talk about random stuff.

My email address is my hn username at gmail.

</comment><comment><USER25> Maybe this means we can finally build a machine like the one in the matrix that lets us bootstrap our brains with kungfu.

But more importantly, I think the most significant result of this research, should even a bit of it prove to be true, is the possibility that it could help us understand, and maybe even prevent dementia. That's exciting!

<comment><USER14> Sadly, and I mean very sadly, this doesn't mean that. =)

The reason it doesn't mean that is that they are triggering naturally- programmed neurons via light. They are not programming them via light.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> > The question now, though, is how memories are actually encoded — can we > programmatically create new memories and thus learn entire subjects by > inserting a laser into our brain?

That's a pretty scary area of technology. I hope that as a civilization we will become responsible enough to use that before we discover how.

</comment><comment><USER27> I wonder if by deleting not so nice memories (i'm guessing that would be one of the first applications) the person will continue to make the same decisions over and over, because they might not remember them and keep re-experiencing (and learning) repeatedly?

</comment><comment><USER28> If you are interested in this sort of thing (memory storage in the brain, recall etc.) you might be interested in Wilder Penfield's work. (e.g. <http://primal-page.com/penfield.htm>)

</comment><comment><USER29> "The mice 'quickly entered a defensive, immobile crouch,' strongly suggesting the fear memory was being recalled."

Perhaps the defensive, immobile crouch had something to do with having a hole drilled through their skull and a laser shined through said hole?

</comment><comment><USER30> <you drill a hole through the subject's skull and point the laser at a small cluster of neurons, the mice quickly entered a defensive state>

      This is a expected  response and perhaps has nothing to do with remembering.

</comment><comment><USER31> This article sucks, the quality of online journalism has taken a new low...there are no citations...just rambling that eventually one finds to be a total misunderstanding of the results and of science in general...ahhhh...

</comment><comment><USER32> There was a Ted talk some time ago about the work on optogenetics (in fruit flies I think) <http://www.ted.com/talks/gero_miesenboeck.html>

</comment><comment><USER33> That title is incorrect. These researchers did not stimulate one neuron to activate one memory. They stimulated a group of neurons in one region using a fiber optic.

I'll go through the experiment for those who don't really get the write up. Quick background:

0\. Neurons are specialized cells in your brain, their firing is the basis of cognition. Neurons that fire strongly together tend to get linked. Not all your neurons are firing all at once. Not all neurons participate in a memory, but a large collection (0.1-4% depending on brain region) are used for each memory. (at least in naive mice) Memories are highly distributed across brain regions and within brain regions.

1\. There is a gene 'cFos' that turns on in neurons that undergo activity. It is very short lasting, about an hour, and then it is back down. It is very cell specific, only cells used have been activated will show this gene.

2\. There is a genetically inducable protein you can put in cells so that when you shine them with light they will start firing.

3\. Anything genetically inducible can have a tag added that will make it impossible to induce when an animal is on a specific drug. (We'll call it Dox.)

The researchers made it so that when cFos is activated, it will transcribe the inducible light activated channel. But, it will only do this when the animal isn't on Dox. So they took the animal off Dox, exposed it to fear conditioning (they shocked it in a unique box), then put it back on Dox. So only the cells that were active during the fear conditioning will be turn on when they shine light.

They then put the animal in a new box and shined light, and the animal froze. (A sign it was afraid) They concluded that activating cells that had been active during the storing of the memory can 'reactivate' the memory, even out of it's context.

Of course there are a few major problems with this. The region of the brain they worked in is a relatively minor area of the brain. They admit in the course of the paper that each cell is used to store many memories. (They claim the assembly of cells activate the memory? But they never bother testing this.) Their firing pattern is far from physiological. The mice who underwent this 'memory reactivation' did not freeze as much as mice in normal fear conditioning and did not seem to learn the 'reactivated memory' at all. (Though again they didn't really bother testing this.) Normal fear-memory is learned quite well. This is a very preliminary but very important study in the field. It will be interesting to see how they follow this up.

Also, the Npas4 stuff is completely irrelevant to this article. There are countless markers that when 'knocked out' make it impossible to store memory.

Also here is a (paywalled) link to the paper:[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vnfv/ncurrent/full/natu...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vnfv/ncurrent/full/nature11028.html)

Here is a link to another (paywalled) paper which came out today which did almost the same thing and say almost opposite results (the details explain this oddity): <http://www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6075/1513.full?rss=1>

Here is a (paywalled) more layperson write up to the second article: <http://www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6075/1455.full>

</comment><comment><USER34> [http://blogs.nature.com/actionpotential/2012/03/fear-of- the-...](http://blogs.nature.com/actionpotential/2012/03/fear-of-the- light.html)

</comment><comment><USER35> Besides the fact that the scientists used trauma to retrieve their data, what a beautiful notion: collecting a memory at the tip of every neuron.

</comment><comment><USER36> I don't believe a word of this. It isn't _proof_ of any such a process. This to me appears as inappropriate reductionism.

The brain is highly volatile both chemically and physically and is changing minute by minute. The notion that a memory belongs to a single group or cluster of neurons is absurd. They are constantly being reordered and reprioritised and changed throughout the lifetime of the animal. And being lost due to chemical damage and the effects of ageing and free radicals.

The nature of memory and conciousness isn't just the physical existence of neurons. Who _you_ are is more than the sum of the parts.

The mind is also as much a process of the body -- your conciousness and mind grows within it from birth and a large part of who you are is as much a product of that, its hormones and its metabolic chemistry as anything that resides solely between the ears alone.

</comment><comment><USER37> The Nature abstract is about a "population of neurons" and triggering a memory related behavior while the extremetech article talks about "specific brain cells" and memory storage.

Nothing to see here, move along.

</comment><comment><USER38> I always take these with a grain of salt. One day a study comes out saying that memories are not stored in a specific location, that scientists can cut out large portions of mice brain and the mice will retain memories, and the next day a study comes out that specific memories can be created or destroyed with specific neurons.

</comment><comment><USER39> There's an obligatory Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind reference to be made here...

<comment><USER20> There was an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind reference in the article. You should have read it.</comment></comment>


Go project is moving to GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/golang-dev/sckirqOWepg

<comment><USER2> yay! That leaves SDL as the last bastion of hg irritation I have to fight with.

Great move~</comment>


Cheesegraters and Crystals - <AUTHOR> https://leancrew.com/all-this/2019/06/cheesegraters-and-crystals/ <comment><USER2> "I have no idea how this "maximizes airflow"—I suspect maximum airflow would come if the holes from one side were drilled straight through."

I believe the claim apple are making is that increases the surface area, and therefore it acts as a more effective heat sink, not that it maximises airflow.

<comment><USER3> It sure doesn't look like the case is touching any components thus acting as a heat sink.

<comment><USER4> On the monitor it's a pure heat sink. On the computer probably not so much.

<comment><USER5> This makes a lot of sense. High nit monitors, are extremely hot. (they're basically light bulbs), and the hotter they get the shorter they last. In that case it makes a lot of sense to maximize airflow and heat dissipation, not just one or the other. And from a design standpoint it does so in a very thin space which is important because equivalently bright monitors are about a half a foot thick if not an entire foot thick. I'd imagine the effects are still helpful for a hot computer as well. People are really under appreciative about the design and engineering work that went into building the latest Mac Pro, the monitor (and even the stand), but I realize I'm probably in a very small minority of people.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


If Marissa Mayer Were A Man - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/adea61cf8573 <comment><USER2> I'm certain that anyone who axes a popular benefit like telecommuting at such a large company is going to catch a ton of flak regardless of their gender.

If anything, I think her situation (brand new baby regardless of her gender) is less likely to draw criticism because she has more reason to telecommute than nearly anyone and also stands to lose more by not having it. It's a "lead by example"/"if I can do it so can you" approach to fixing their telecommuter problem.

<comment><USER3> Conversely, she's been criticised because of the amount of money she's spent being able to have her child at work with her - a luxury not afforded to most other employees.</comment></comment>


First Confirmed Denisovan Skull Piece Found - <AUTHOR> https://www.sapiens.org/evolution/denisovan-skull-found/ <comment><USER2> For those like me who had no idea - Denisovans diverged from the branch that became Modern humans 600-744,000 years ago. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denisovan](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denisovan)

<comment><USER3> Thank you, stranger.

<comment> forgot-my-pw lostlogin is the name. Seems to be a distant relative of mine...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's amazing and exciting that we know so little about a human lineage that contributed a measurable amount of DNA back to us hundreds of thousands of years after our lineages diverged.

</comment><comment><USER5> How did they confirm such findings? I guess DNA can't survive for so long. Did they deduct this from shape?

<comment><USER6> With modern extraction techniques DNA is doable.

<comment><USER7> There is a really fascinating (IMHO) podcast about the use of modern DNA analysis and the insights into ancient populations on the After-On podcast with David Reich [https://after-on.com/episodes-31-60/034](https://after- on.com/episodes-31-60/034) Up until podcast, I didnt even know there was a branch called Denisovans. Although not generally a big interest of mine, I found it interesting enough to read Reich's book which was a fascinating detective story and a very new view onto ancient history.

<comment><USER6> +1 for the book! Just finished it a couple of weeks ago. And if you liked that, consider The Tangled Tree by David Quammen.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Improving Lua performance using baked functions - <AUTHOR> http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20672 <comment><USER2> [https://gist.github.com/realmonster/93090d4ef0b40c1b88d62f88...](https://gist.github.com/realmonster/93090d4ef0b40c1b88d62f8840fad675/5310f3bf8463ae6e0a766e4608f268fd28762184#file- demolition-man-lua-L91)

Wow, now this is deep!

Anyways, I liked the post. I also recommend:

[http://lua-users.org/wiki/OptimisationTips](http://lua- users.org/wiki/OptimisationTips)

[http://lua-users.org/wiki/OptimisationCodingTips](http://lua- users.org/wiki/OptimisationCodingTips)

[https://www.lua.org/gems/sample.pdf](https://www.lua.org/gems/sample.pdf)

Oh, and luajit! Mike Pall please come back!

<comment><USER3> > Wow, now this is deep!

It certainly doesn't help that GitHub renders tabs as 8 spaces wide instead of something more sane.

<comment><USER2> Agreed. You can change it by appending `?ts=2' at the end, such as:

[https://gist.github.com/realmonster/93090d4ef0b40c1b88d62f88...](https://gist.github.com/realmonster/93090d4ef0b40c1b88d62f8840fad675/5310f3bf8463ae6e0a766e4608f268fd28762184?ts=2)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > And because indexing by string is more harder task, including hash > calculations if it's using hashtables as implementation

FWIW, Lua uses string interning ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_interning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_interning)). The hash calculation for looking up _G["print"] occurred at compile time. _G["print"] should be as quick as indexing an array because the hash calculation is memoized and comparing string equality is equivalent to testing pointer equality. (Indeed, in a simple test both _G["print"] and _G[42] take about 1/10th of a second to iterate 4 million times on my circa 2012 Core i7.)

That said, using lexically bound locals (aka upvalues in Lua parlance) is indeed faster as loading the variable becomes a simple pointer dereference through the [anonymous] function object. A simple test suggests about 25% faster.

<comment><USER5> _G[42] is probably still hitting the hash unless you populated it with 1 to 41.

<comment><USER4> I was getting some spurious runs where the array access was _slower_ , but didn't think it was worthwhile to mention in the post. Immediately after posting my curiosity got the better of me. After filling in _G[1,2048] the times were consistently the same. The code I was playing with:

      local n = 16777216
      local _G = _G

      for i=1,2048 do
        _G[i] = i
      end

      do
        local start = os.clock()
        for i=1,n do
          local f = _G["print"]
        end
        print(os.clock() - start)
      end

      do
        local start = os.clock()
        for i=1,n do
          local f = _G[42]
        end
        print(os.clock() - start)
      end

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I did something like this back in 2010 with javascript when browsers were _much_ slower at executing code. I was experimenting with manual image scaling and rotation without use of built in canvas functions, mostly to get perfect nearest-neighbour rendering and do extra tricks like perspective transforms which were not really available at the time (just affine transformations were built into the canvas API).

I was struggling to hit 60fps so I devised this hacky system where I'd leave various markers in a "template" function, then parse that using Function.toString() and replace certain areas with unrolled loops, removed if conditions etc. Put the generated function code in a new Function() and used that for the remainder of the animation loop until settings changed.

Actually worked pretty well, along with some other optimizations, was able to hit 60fps in chrome and almost that in FF, depending on the scaling mode of course. At the time my manual implementation of bilinear filtering destroyed the frame rate no matter what, but these days browsers can run it without breaking a sweat. They've come a long way performance wise.

I still have it stashed away on my webserver, so here if anyone is curious. Code is a mess though: [http://bigmooworld.com/pwings/pilotwings/pilotwings.html](http://bigmooworld.com/pwings/pilotwings/pilotwings.html)

You might recognize it..

</comment><comment><USER7> This reminds of the kind of metaprogramming found in languages like www.terralang.org</comment>


Learn Smalltalk in the browser - <AUTHOR> http://amber-lang.net/learn.html

<comment><USER2> Earlier entry: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2995689>

<comment><AUTHOR> I should've searched for Smalltalk. My bad. This link might still be of interest to people who want to get started in Smalltalk :).</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Smaller-scale startup ideas related to space? - <AUTHOR> I'm really excited how the space industry is gaining momentum, with SpaceX just announced more details of their Lunar/Martian plan, and a number of countries starting to set/pursue their goals in space.
I would love to take part in this space industry growth. However, I am from/living in a country that does not have a proper space program, nor it will have a solid one soon.
So I'd like to ask are there any space startups or ideas out there that:
1. Do not necessarily require being in a country with a space program/industry (i.e. US, Russia, China, India, etc.)
2. Are focusing on non-transportation part of space industry, i.e. creating equipments/tools/software for space use, space agriculture. Not building the actual rockets or satellites.
3. May not be commercializable now, but will be in 5 to 10+ years?
I'm hoping to hear anticipations, not accurate predictions, of what you think the space industry would be like when it reaches the mass.
What ideas that excite you and might make you jump into the space industry? Perhaps similar to when the internet started its accelerated growth, we talked of the coming of blogs, social media, online payments, e-commerce, etc. <comment><USER2> There is a very low barrier of entry to cubesats, that is something you can get into if your country doesn't have a space program.

Communication with satellites is also something you can do w/o a space program, see

[http://www.work-sat.com/Home.html](http://www.work-sat.com/Home.html)

I have listened to people talking on the space station w/ my handheld, also with the kind of setup many hams have in their car I have used the APRS repeater on the ISS to reach 1000+ miles away.</comment>


Ask HN:  What happens to unvested equity in an acquisition? - <AUTHOR>

If, for example, shares are vested over 4 years, but in the third year an acquisition occurs.  What would happen to those unvested shares? <comment><USER2> Either the unvested shares won't vest immediately and things will go as you expected them to before acquisition, or they will all vest immediately, or they will vest immediately but be subject to a buyback. I've had all three in contracts.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're asking from the perspective of evaluating an options package being offered to you or if you're planning to offer options to employees, I'd say it's pretty usual to expect all options to vest in the event of an exit/acquisition.

</comment><comment><USER4> It depends on what the options contract says, so read it and you'll see. Sometimes there is a provision for partial acceleration of vesting in the event of an acquisition.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks all! So basically it should be in the contract how it should be handled in case of an acquisition.</comment>


Hearst data mining challenge - <AUTHOR> http://www.hearstchallenge.com/

<comment><USER2> I get sick to my stomach each time I see a contest like this. All risk is born by the participants, and no matter the outcome, the only result for the contest runner is a demonstrably larger bottom line.

I believe that to have paid professionals perform a similar level of work, the price point would be well over the main prize of 25,000.

<comment><USER3> I think it's a fairly clever attempt at getting something for nothing. Also a fairly desperate tactic, but amusing none the less. What do they have to lose, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks."

Jeff Hammerbacher

<comment><USER5> Yeah, but you know what? I more than _DOUBLED_ my salary by leaving breast cancer research and spending my time thinking about ads. So fuck anybody who has a problem with that. Blah blah blah make a difference and work on a deadly disease... _or_ have the financial ability to go snowboarding and have savings and own a home.

Second, I'm not sure someone who started at an ibank and then went to fb has much room to throw stones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Assuming that the people managing this challenge are the same ones as those that did the previous Hearst Challenge, I'll stay far away from it. They don't think through the rules, and change them on the fly. Last time, at one stage, the leader in the challenge gave up and quit.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's amusing that the Hearst family made its fortune mining gold. Just 150 years later, they're mining data.</comment>