A giant 360 LED clock - <AUTHOR> https://www.mathieupassenaud.fr/ledclock/ <comment><USER2> I really like the Equinox Clock[1], which was made before easily available addressable RGB LED strips, so each LED is individually placed.

[1] [http://www.bramknaapen.com/equinox- clock/](http://www.bramknaapen.com/equinox-clock/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I noticed that the you made a config front-end using a web page and claimed that you're not up to date with web development. Indeed, I do find that it's unsatisfying to configure IoT devices over the web, although the web is one of the most compatible solutions. The drawbacks include the fact that if you want to configure it you always have to be on the same LAN and figure out its IP or port-forward, but if you port-forward, it will be not very secure due to the attack surface of the mini web server. Moreover, it's not very elegant for you or others to programmatically control it.

My interest recently has been on the mqtt protocol, it's like microservices for IoT. You will need to connect to a middleman mqtt server and hold that connection. When you want to change something you push the changes to the middleman mqtt server. It can be local or on the internet, but since the mqtt server is maintained and updated, it's much easier to secure the mqtt server. Or you can use someone else's mqtt server as a commodity. The app called "mqtt dashboard" acts as a client and allows you to draw a number of controls to the client if you answer a specific request. I think it's suitable for applications like this. Hackaday has a detailed article about it. I think mqtt is a great example of a great protocol for the purpose of controlling/configuring IoT devices.

[https://hackaday.com/2016/05/27/minimal-mqtt-control-and- cli...](https://hackaday.com/2016/05/27/minimal-mqtt-control-and-clients/)

<comment><USER4> > _The drawbacks include the fact that if you want to configure it you always > have to be on the same LAN and figure out its IP or port-forward, but if you > port-forward, it will be not very secure due to the attack surface of the > mini web server._

But MQTT suffers from all of these same drawbacks, does it not? (MQTT is a TCP based protocol, and will thus suffer the same issues w/ NAT, and has no security aside from "can be run over TLS" (which I frankly think is okay / the point of layers of abstraction / I would not encourage re-inventing the TLS wheel; my point is only that MQTT and HTTP are in the same boat, AFAICT.))

> _Moreover, it 's not very elegant for you or others to programmatically > control it._

I would think the ecosystem for HTTP vastly outstrips that of MQTT's…

<comment><USER5> No. With MQTT, the client device makes a connection to some _external_ MQTT server-- AWS, GCP, and Azure all have IoT bridges that speak MQTT.

There's often an equivalent service over HTTP/1.1, where devices occasionally poll a remote endpoint for commands and to update state-- but without the persistent connection, you can't do realtime commands.

<comment><USER6> > AWS, GCP, and Azure all have IoT bridges that speak MQTT.

Also worth noting for the curious that it's very easy to host your own, e.g. via Mosquitto.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> very awesome! for further inspiration, you might like the work of Craig Dorety:

[http://craigdorety.com/objects.html](http://craigdorety.com/objects.html)

Once upon a time I made a project with a similar aesthetic, but not quite as much function (ie it wasn't a clock):

[http://www.ebspelman.com/#/james-turrell- turrellevision/](http://www.ebspelman.com/#/james-turrell-turrellevision/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Love your clock! I'm working on a similar project, mine is currently being called a disco donut: [https://www.instagram.com/p/BgZeIDQlA9z/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BgZeIDQlA9z/)

Do you power your LEDs and Raspberry Pi separately, or do you use the same power supply?

</comment><comment><USER9> We did this a while ago: [https://github.com/thinking-twins/vjo- dmx/blob/master/README...](https://github.com/thinking-twins/vjo- dmx/blob/master/README.md)

Might be a good start for creatives without coding background as it is a Visualjockey Gold plugin.

</comment><comment><USER10> This project reminds me of [https://www.thelightclock.com/](https://www.thelightclock.com/) where the time is displayed by blended colors. Maybe this project could have a similar setting?

</comment><comment><USER11> I've had several strips of these just waiting for the perfect project. Anyone else have any interesting ideas for weekend projects using addressable LEDs?

<comment><USER12> [https://www.anfractuosity.com/projects/painting-a- christmas-...](https://www.anfractuosity.com/projects/painting-a-christmas- tree/) \- I created a little system to 'paint' my Christmas tree using these addressable LEDs.

The tree could be wrapped with the LED strips then the position of the LEDs was obtained using a camera (as they pulse out an ID).

I then created a little Flask app, that ran on the same Raspberry Pi which controlled the LED strips, which let people paint the tree via a website.

<comment><USER13> That's cool! And reminds me I'd like to see something like [http://wry.me/hacking/moirexmas.html](http://wry.me/hacking/moirexmas.html) on a real Christmas tree.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very cool!

One small quibble: why is the /bright endpoint a GET? GET should never have side effects. :)

</comment><comment><USER15> Beautiful!

I had not heard about this kind of addressable LEDs but now I'm inspired to think of my own projects.

</comment><comment><USER16> Here's a similar IoT LED clock my friend is working on.

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1926284625/96766872](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1926284625/96766872)</comment>


Spotify Continues to Grow Faster Than Apple Music Thanks to Free Tier - <AUTHOR> https://www.macrumors.com/2017/06/15/spotify-140-million-subscribers/ <comment><USER2> I'm surprised Apple doesn't include Apple Music for free in its ecosystem. Seems like a minuscule cost to incentivize staying on Apple hardware

<comment><USER3> Or at least at a discount like amazon does. Apple Music lacks the third party integrations and web player that Spotify does, I'd need to see a couple of bucks off for that to switch. As it is I don't see any advantage over Spotify otherwise. And, even then, I'd be hard pressed to switch as Spotify has superior discoverability imho.</comment></comment>


Diamonds Keep Getting Cheaper - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-13/the-problem-with-diamonds-is-they-keep-getting-cheaper <comment><USER2> I bought a good quality moissanite stone for an engagement ring for 2% of the price of an equivalent diamond and not a single person who has seen it has ever thought it was anything but a diamond. My wife gets compliments on it all the time. "What a beautiful diamond!" Every jeweler who has cleaned it has thought it was a diamond. The only one who could distinguish it had to use a thermal conductivity gun to do so. Buying diamonds for jewelry is honestly really dumb at this point. I effectively saved $20,000 USD going this route and no one is the wiser, execpt my wife of course :)

<comment><USER3> My wife is a very pragmatic, smart and pragmatic person. But even then she couldn't be convinced not to get a diamond. She was happy skipping the honeymoon and reducing wedding expenses, but the diamond was a no go.

The marketing is too strong.

<comment><USER4> It's not the marketing. It's the fact that it's what biologists call expensive signaling. You are spending money, not on a trip that you both enjoy, but on a ring that really only she enjoys. This is an expensive (therefore hard to fake) signal that you care about how she feels.

Now, imagine that the diamond is cheaper. It is no longer an expensive signal. Therefore, although the diamond is the same, it no longer serves the same purpose. So, the cheaper diamonds get, the less demand there is from prospective brides, even if only marginally. This fuels further declines, although that is probably already happening due to better industrial diamonds.

This takes time, of course. But that also means it has a lot of momentum. As the price decline continues, and the word of that spreads, it will accelerate.

<comment><USER3> I don't know if it's so much about the money as it is something that she just... wanted. I'm Indian so its custom to gift the bride a lot of gold. She eschewed that happily in favor of a diamond ring that cost a fraction of the gold she was offered otherwise.

But she loves her ring and has never spent a day without it. She will happily wear faux silver earrings but the ring is non negotiable.

<comment><USER5> Your wife might be special, but there are differences in the signalling of a diamond and gold despite their superficial similarities.

Gold is famous for holding its resale value; so a gift of gold can in theory be unwound to recover the money spent. It is a signal of wealth.

Diamonds cannot be resold, the money may as well have been burned. It is a signal of wealth and commitment. There is also the added bonus that a diamond is not going to be stolen.

<comment><USER6> >Diamonds cannot be resold.

I wasn't aware of this. What's the rationale?

<comment><USER7> Superstition that wearing someone's wedding ring is a bad luck. Probably was similarly manufactured to keep higher demand for diamonds.

<comment><USER8> More that the people you would take it to have way too many already, and would love to unload them on the next pigeon.

I have got some mileage out of characterizing mined diamonds as symbolizing south-African slavery. At least, my wife didn't want one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is a rather reddit-famous comment on why diamond prices are dropping:

[https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/8pb8d5/i_grow_diamond...](https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/8pb8d5/i_grow_diamonds_i_make_custom_jewelry_with_these/e09x919/)

 _Almost every car, fridge, and radio from the 1950s has long been destroyed, but virtually every diamond bought in the 1950s has the exact same utility today. Those diamonds are about to flood the market, in significantly more quantities than lab diamonds ever will._

 _There is a joke in the diamond industry that the biggest diamond mine in the world is in Florida and Arizona, but the mine is the pawn shops, not the Earth._

EDIT: formatting

<comment><USER10> There's almost no resale market for diamonds, currently. A newspaper famously tries to sell a diamond every few years and publishes the result. They've never sold one.

So the insurance value for diamonds is their replacement cost, not their 'value'. Since if you can't sell it, it's got a hard time establishing a number for value.

<comment><USER11> So, how can a person like me take advantage of this?

This seems like a great arbitrage situation.

Where would one find these diamonds that no one wants to buy?

I hear these stories, but it seems like everyone that is selling a used diamond is still asking top price for it.

<comment><USER12> Find your cheap diamonds with cash4gold style commercials on news networks and daytime TV. Sell them to independent jewelers.

<comment><USER13> The independent jewelers get them dramatically cheaper than they sell them for already.

<comment><USER14> This is sadly not true in North America. If a jewellery store wants to stay GIA certified and get all the paperwork about being conflict-free, they need to buy their diamonds at a much higher price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I inherited some very nice jewelry, including diamonds, from my grandmother. The "estimate" of the total worth was $20,000. However, when I tried to sell it, it turned out that I would only be able to realize a fraction of that estimate, from maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the "value." All jewelry is like that.

Jewelry prices, for reasons I don't entirely understand, are sort of like car values...once you drive it off the lot, so to speak, the price plummets.

So when I got married I did not ask for a diamond, as I knew it was basically worthless -- except to the jeweler.

<comment><USER16> Estimate value is replacement value from a store. (Mostly for insurance). People think it's "new" and "never worn". And stores have very high margins.

But, if you buy wholesale/used the buy/sell will be closer together. The issue is people think "used" stones are tainted for some reason. Divorced? Bad luck!

It's like a gold band. It might cost $600 in the store. But, really the cost is the weight of the gold (~$50). But, you can buy/sell it at $50 all day.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, the cost of the gold may be $50. But the cost to make it more than just the gold. It's also the skilled time of the guy making it, and the cost of other materials used (wax, plaster, etc. for the mold), and amortization of the tools.

I mean, if you just have a plain, unadorned ring, those costs are pretty low. But if it's got interesting designs on it, or is multiple materials, that's going to cause it to be more expensive.

Looking at Zales' website, they've got a 4mm 14K plain men's wedding band for $225. That's probably around 5 grams in weight, with an actual gold content probably around 3 grams. a gram of gold is ~$50 right now, so they're only getting $75 at most in profit from that ring.

<comment><USER18> There are places around the world (India) Where you can pay for jewelry at the weight in gold. There is little markup for labor/design. The pieces are just as "beautiful" as anything you would get from Zales.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Diamond is a material. If materials become cheaper that's not a problem, that's usually great, especially if those materials have desirable properties. Can't wait for diamond to be as cheap as sugar (not that it will ever be), I have zero use for it as decoration but plenty of use for it as material for its properties: hardness, thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity, transparency. Not many materials come close to mixing these properties in the way that diamond does. There are plenty of materials that reflect light in pretty ways.

<comment><USER20> Diamond material is already "cheap" if you just intend to use it on a drill or lens and not a prestige object. You can get a 99.9% perfect pure synthetic diamond plate bigger than your palm for like 500k, 90% of which being the new tooling for a reactor big enough to form such an object. In contrast a high quality 15 carat gem cut can easily go above $2M.

<comment><USER19> I think our definitions of cheap are a little ways apart.

<comment><USER20> That's the price for a diamond pushing the limits of industrial engineering. You can also get a polycrystal plate of diamond with garbage optics for less than $200 if you just need it for thermal purposes

[https://e6cvd.com/us/application/thermal/tm100-10x10-mm-0-50...](https://e6cvd.com/us/application/thermal/tm100-10x10-mm-0-50-mm- thick.html)

<comment><USER21> Wow this is cool! I am trying to figure out how to make a CPU heat sink out of this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Ignoring everything else about the article, the graph of price over time is total crap. If you want to show a change in the real price of something,

1\. show the full price range in the Y axis. I'll have none of this clipping off the bottom half of the scale nonsene, please.

2\. use a logarithmic scale so a unit of length always equals a percentage change.

3\. adjust the price data for inflation. I don't want to compare apples to oranges, bananas, nectarines, and grapes! Give me a single value to consider. Ad 2002 dollar is a different beast from a 2018 dollar.

Death to bad charts!

<comment><USER23> But how else will they push their narratives?

Look at the language used:

> "lower prices and a glut of the type of stones ... have pushed the global > diamond trade into crisis ... struggling to make profits"

They've literally managed to paint DeBeers diamonds as a victim! The level of self serving propaganda from Bloomberg is amazing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Millennial here. When I got married we skipped rings because ring culture is bullshit.

(It was her idea before anyone asks. I suggested we get non-diamond or lab grown, and was pleasantly surprised when I learned she _also_ thought rings are dumb)

<comment><USER25> Both me and my fiance (now wife) are millennials as well. I hate the ring culture and all the wedding rituals (spending so much money to please others) surrounding it. In fact, I don't even believe in marriage in traditional sense (like going to courtroom to sign on a government issued certificate, which only applies to legal realms)

My fiance, whom I believe is fairly reasonable and frugal in all aspects considered, also learned (thanks to the movie, Blood Diamond) that diamonds are not worth the price and unethical. But she still wanted me to spend some amount on rings. So I had to buy decently priced wedding bands (cost about $1700 each). Otherwise, I am sure my fiance wouldn't be too happy (thinking that I married her for cheap). I really was surprised when I first heard my fiance complaining about me not planning to buy rings for our wedding. The marketing and brainwashing of women about rings and wedding culture really work.

<comment><USER26> Diamonds being unethical is vastly overstated. "Blood Diamonds" aren't a thing anymore, and end-to-end certification of the diamond supply chain is commonplace.

<comment><USER27> Do you have something to cite for this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> De Beers fights lab-grown diamonds with technology as China's synthetic gems threaten viability of their market

>Companies producing such stones have sprung up all over China, churning out an estimated 160,000 to 200,000 carats of gem-quality diamonds every month. That's enough to propel the country to the world's top spot in terms of synthetic production, industry insiders believe.

[https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2076225/de-b...](https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2076225/de- beers-fights-fakes-technology-chinas-lab-grown-diamonds)

From March 2017. The production of carbon face-centered cubic crystals has continued to grow.

<comment><USER29> Synthetic diamonds are not a Chinese invention but an American one. So if you want to point fingers, point them at GE, Norton & Carborundum[1].

As for who manufactures them there's a list[2], and most of these companies are not Chinese.

But maybe the more important point is; Why is it a problem that the De Beers diamond mining company is having some competition. De Beers has a _very_ questionable business history[3], and personally I think the world would be better without their exploitation.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_diamond#GE_diamond_p...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_diamond#GE_diamond_project)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_synthetic_diamond_manu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_synthetic_diamond_manufacturers)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Beers#Relocation_of_indigen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Beers#Relocation_of_indigenous_San_people_in_Botswana)

<comment><USER28> The early American synthetic diamond producers, such as GE, mainly focused on producing industrial diamonds for grinding and other applications not requiring gem quality. They were never interested in taking on the DeBeers monopoly with gemstones.

AFAIK, some of the earliest gem-quality synthetic diamonds were Russian. The Chinese are important because they can evade DeBeers and its influence over the diamond cutting and distribution establishment.

I'm all in favor of synthetic gemstones. Carbon is carbon, mined or not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm not convinced that 'problem' is the right word for this. If nothing else it's going to mean less market for blood diamonds.

<comment><USER31> True, the world will be a better place without De Beers and their ilk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I feel like this problem isn't specific to diamonds. The article mentions that big brand names (Tiffany etc.) are relatively unaffected and that is a pattern seen in many industries.

Skewed wealth distribution is creating demand for 'premium' products where prices far outstrip the practical value of such items. Everything else becomes commoditized as much as possible.

<comment><USER33> They are hurting. Tiffany's value has been flat for 6 years, while the broader market is up 50%+.

<comment><USER34> That is the case for most stocks. 63% lose money. 35% make back the money the first 63% lost, and then the last 3% drive the insane gains.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm a millennial too and these threads always annoy me because I'm on the "losing" side of the discourse. I thought rings were important and I got my wife a very nice custom engagement ring from an artist on the internet with a real excellent cut 1.5 carat G color ring which cost me less than 10k for the stone. The design of the ring is completely custom and the wedding bands are also custom each with stones of a different color. One more masculine and one feminine.

To me, at my professional salary level, $15-18k for the set was worth it for what they meant to us together. It's ok if the diamond has horrible resale or in 10 years that stone will be worth 5k. We can always upgrade and move that stone to earrings or whatever.. Although any near term purchases of jewelry will definitely be "mossy" as they are called by some in the trade.

<comment><USER36> In 2005 I bought a car for around $5K and it's still working well. I am still having trouble understanding the rationale of spending 10K on a small piece of body decoration that only a small number of people will even notice. I understand this has to be very culture-specific.

<comment><USER23> I'm with you. I hate debt and don't mess with it. My cars were all purchased in cash and I live well within my means. But I like to keep in mind not everyone is in my position in life.

IF the couple has paid their student debt, and IF they own their cars and house outright, and IF they have 50 to 100x the price of the purchase in the bank as savings, I say enjoy your money. As long as you aren't putting yourself in a position to become a slave to your debts over silly shinny objects, great for you.

Otherwise, I don't think such extravagant spending outside of this scenario would not pass muster of any rational, analytic reasoning, say, a la 'Judge Judy' or 'Suze Orman' (as she appears on TV when not talking about issues where she has a conflict of interest, just her regular advice)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Strange that the article does not mention lab grown diamonds. I would have assumed that the increases in production of lab grown diamonds combined with increasing consumer acceptance of lab grown diamonds would be a large contributor to price declines.

Is there reason to believe this is _not_ the case?

As an aside, has anyone ever purchased a lab grown diamond? What was your experience? Where did you purchase it?

<comment><USER38> Not diamond but bought a 3 karat moissanite pendant necklace for my wife a few years back. Being synthetic it had a perfect crystal structure leading to a glow/reflectiveness hard to get in diamond without breaking the bank. It still looks good and wife loves to wear it.

Bought it at a local helzberg store.

<comment><USER39> SiC (moissanite) is also birefringent which makes it look a lot more sparkly (each incident ray of non-polarized light is split in 2, so if illuminated by a single bright light source you get twice as many sparkles).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Diamond doesn't even qualify as a rare substance on earth. Honestly, I don't know how the diamond racket has kept it together this long in the information age, but their racket can't collapse soon enough.

</comment><comment><USER41> Diamonds Suck - [http://diamondssuck.com/](http://diamondssuck.com/)

HN Discussion - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12944464](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12944464)

</comment><comment><USER42> If I'm to have an engagement ring for (presumably) years and years, I'd much rather have something that I'd want to wear and fits my own personal interests/taste.

I'd take a stone that's a beautiful color over a diamond any day.

</comment><comment><USER43> DeBeers are losing money?

"Hello? Is that the Tiny Musical Instrument Company? I'd like to make a bulk purchase of violins."

<comment><USER44> Can you get them small enough to set in a ring? I imagine they'd be quite expensive for craftship of such fine detail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> There's nothing more depressing than seeing how little diamonds are worth second-hand when you are trying to get rid of a reminder of a failed relationship...

<comment><USER46> First off, I'm sorry thrower123, hopefully this might help anyone else from avoiding the same situation...

LPT (maybe) anyone: If you married someone who insists on a _new_ diamond ring (first of all, I'm sorry), just buy secondhand, buy a jeweler's box off eBay, and if she's going to want to see the receipt, use all the money you saved to buy a thermal printer (though I wonder if there's a service that will print thermal paper and mail it to you...)

You can say you sold your gold/guns/whatever, hide it somewhere, and if you get divorced (you did marry someone who wanted this absurdity after all), those assets are now out of the picture because you sold them.

/joke, please don't break the law

<comment><USER47> Maybe just don't get married if that's how you are planning to start your marriage.

<comment><USER48> It's a perfectly proportional response to someone insisting on a new diamond ring. But yes, not marrying them would be even better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I actually read the famous _" Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?"_[0] by The Atlantic over 30 years ago and since then, there have been multiple predictions of diamond prices collapsing. (Various reasons given such as Russia, China diamonds flooding market, synthetic diamonds, used diamonds, etc).

And yet based on some quick googling, diamond prices exceed US inflation when comparing year 2000 to 2016. The reported diamond price of $30925 exceeds inflation calculation of $21045.[1][2]

[ Screenshot in case Statistica puts graph behind paywall: [https://imgur.com/a/pOgsyy5](https://imgur.com/a/pOgsyy5) ]

There seems to be a fundamental flaw of in the mental model of everyone predicting that diamond prices will crash. It would be interesting to hear a theory on why it never happened. I don't think the answer is as simple as "DeBeers marketing and supply restrictions" because there are a many diamond supply chains they don't control.

[0] past discussions: [https://hn.algolia.com/?q=sell+a+diamond](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=sell+a+diamond)

[1] [https://www.statista.com/statistics/279053/worldwide- sales-o...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/279053/worldwide-sales-of- polished-diamonds/)

[2] [https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/)

<comment><USER50> > There seems to be a fundamental flaw of in the mental model of everyone > predicting that diamond prices will crash. It would be interesting to hear a > theory on why it never happened.

I would guess the flaw is the same as in the theory that bitcoin will crash to zero.

If you ask me to formulate the flaw based on my way too cynical worldview, it would be something like "massively underestimating the amount of people who have zero clue about what they actually are buying"

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Artificial diamonds are more flawless than natural diamonds. And natural diamonds are not rare. And they're not forever because they burn easily.

These are all things you're not supposed to know.

</comment><comment><USER52> The function of the diamond engagement ring no longer exists: it was essentially a down payment: if the engagement were broken off, the former fiancée could sell the diamond instead of bringing a breach of promise suit. Those suits have faded away; all that remains is the vestigial diamond.

Weddings are full of such rituals; European weddings typically had seed cakes (fertility, get it?) dating at least from Roman times. Victoria had a big white cake and a big white dress and that set the fashion not just for Europe and North America but many parts of the world too.

My mother has a diamond ring -- my parents _were_ married in the era of breach of promise suits -- but more interestingly I have seen the gold she was wearing in her wedding (in a wedding sari not white dress): it is so pure (soft) it could only be worn that one time and was given as wedding gifts also as a hedge against financial misfortune.

I remember as a kid jewelry was bought and sold entirely by weight -- the workmanship was free! (Obviously nobody in my family was buying gems or I would have learned how they interacted with this system.) I have no idea if this is still the case as I am not a good boyfriend/husband in this regard.

</comment><comment><USER29> The problem for the diamond mining industry is that they're getting cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER53> I am reading these comment about their Wife being either smart, socially conscious or whatever it is, but still being sold into buying Diamonds due to _Marketing_ , High Price Signal or _Culture_.

This completely misses the point, Diamond is Beautiful. We human, especially female likes beautiful things. It is no coincidence that humans around the globe, hundreds of different cultures over different continents all settles on similar gems stones. For whatever physiological reason we humans like Shiny Object.

And moissanite stone, as far as I have seen are no diamonds, may be to those who are less demanding, the colour and shines are slightly different. And to those who demands quality, once you have seen a beautiful diamond, you can not unseen it. There is a reason why Tiffany and Cartier still command a premium.

</comment><comment><USER54> Start making diamond knives, buttons, zippers, put diamonds on Air Jordans, sell an iPhone with a diamond Apple logo so people can see it while you obnoxiously take selfies and give it a "posted from Apple DiPhone" tag for social media, pay male celebrities to be seen with diamond earrings and nose rings, sell diamond-studded Bibles signed by Kanye West, and open a line of diamond essential oils (which will be easy because they have no smell so just sell expensive mineral oil). This is easy. People spend money on themselves so make it all about the buyer being the recipient rather than the buyer using it as a gift and use all of the shallow marketing tricks that have been proven to be effective.

<comment><USER55> who hurt you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Diamonds are generally boring unless you're into fluorescent minerals. Then, depending upon their inclusions, diamonds can take on an insane array of colors under a UV light. That white diamond suddenly turning cherry red can be quite the pleaser. But most people don't know that about a diamond, and insist on flawless stones instead, which tend to have practically no character.

</comment><comment><USER57> Is that a problem or simply a fact? It seems like cheaper diamonds improve my life much more than more expensive diamonds would.

</comment><comment><USER58> Surprised by the mention of the morality of 'Blood Diamonds'... this is classic western privilege, where the moral significance of an issue is proportional to the light of our attention. Do we really presume that the life of a wretched child in the Congo is going to improve because we buy an emerald instead?

<comment><USER59> Not that it makes blood diamonds ok, but I would be curious to know how many people sneering at people buying real diamonds made their comment using hardware produced in a sweatshop, that was produced using minerals acquired using practices that are just as bad as those to acquire diamonds?

Obviously the diamond trade is terrible and is built on the backs of suffering, but a lot of the people I know IRL who literally used the movie blood diamond (or material talking about the benefits of artificial diamonds) to convince their fiance to go for an artificial diamond. But when trying to discuss the ethics of electronic production they literally just do not give a shit. Maybe it's just a classic case of people can only care about so many things, and these people just made the diamond trade their thing to care about, but to me, it came off like they only acted like they gave a shit about the diamond trade to save a few thousand on a ring without pissing off their fiance.

<comment><USER58> Yeah, it is somewhat convenient in a way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Did I really just read an article on pricing diamonds in 2019 that neglected to mention how diamonds are manufactured these days? It's impossible the writer doesn't know. So what is going on?

<comment><USER61> He e are they manufactured?

<comment><USER62> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_diamond](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_diamond)

<comment><USER63> I don't think that's what they were talking about. I think they were referring to the fact that diamonds can be created synthetically in a lab now.

They said "manufactured" not "mined"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Diamonds are worthless. This has been true for a long time especially after the huge number of small Russian diamond entered the market in the 1980s.

</comment><comment><USER65> Can we use diamonds to replace silicon in semiconductors? Wouldn't it be a better material for wafers in order to achieve >10GHz frequencies?

</comment><comment><USER66> It's a commonly known fact the bigger the rock, the more unattainable the woman.

</comment><comment><USER67> I wish people stop posting articles behind pay walls

</comment><comment><USER68> There's no mention of synthetic diamonds. Odd.

</comment><comment><USER69> The growth in demand isn't keeping up with population growth because young people are not getting married, don't have enough money, read on the internet who mines the diamonds. Screw diamonds and the idiots who are upset they are getting cheaper.

<comment><USER70> And in some cases are willing to spend more on lab grown.

People will call it "virtue signaling" or whatever, but ultimately a lot of diamond mines around the world are run on blood (war, slavery, abuse, dangerous work conditions, etc) and they want no part of that, and are happy to let others know they made that choices.

So the diamond industry is getting squeezed from three sides. Customers too poor, inexpensive lab grown out of China, and a customer base who would rather not be associated with this: [https://time.com/blood- diamonds/](https://time.com/blood-diamonds/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> It's OK - if your partner really wants one and somehow you can afford, go for it. If not, than don't. No point of complaining or badmouthing (or promoting) diamonds.

EDIT: wow, quiet a few downvotes (was expecting). Anyways, allow me to clarify --

I could go ahead and demonize chocolate (cocoa) or coffee (coffee farming is no field of dreams for workers) but more realistic approach is to see:

(1) The companies such as DeBeers have stopped trading (or at least try their best) blood diamonds

(2) Governments have banned blood diamonds -- at least countries like Canada has.

(3) Diamonds may be symbol of decadence and Masonite maybe the logical answer but you can argue same thing about wanting to drive an expensive sports car where a humble cheap sedan would do the job.

(4) People are complex - there are ladies who don't like or are against diamonds or they realize it is not worth the cost, etc. Then there are ladies who _want_ diamond, PERIOD. Who am I to rule against them knowing there are people who _want_ horseback riding or equally wasteful activity such as wearing designer shoes or buying the latest iPhone.

Point is, not everything is so black and white, right and wrong. There needs to be a fine balance and we should not follow a herd mentality in either extreme (criticizing or encouraging).

<comment><USER72> > Diamonds may be symbol of decadence and Masonite maybe the logical answer > but you can argue same thing about wanting to drive an expensive sports car > where a humble cheap sedan would do the job.

This comparison would be accurate if a Toyota and a Ferrari were virtually identical, with the easiest way to tell them apart being that the Toyota was perfect and the Ferrari had imperfections in the interior because the leather was hand stitched. And if the hand stitching was historically done by slaves.</comment></comment>


New framework that came out this week, - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/letsgetrandy/DICSS/issues/7

<comment><USER2> This is either hilarious or everything that's wrong with the white male dominated world of software.</comment>


Humans not users - <AUTHOR> https://johannesippen.com/2019/humans-not-users/ <comment><USER2> As a designer, I have no problem calling myself UX designer. Sure, "users", whatever. We never lose sight of the fact that user is a human being and we are designing for other sensitive, diverse people.

User is an established term for a person in software, just like customer is a term for a person in commerce, or patient in hospitals. These are all humans and nobody is losing sight of that. No need to rebel against that just to express certain moral high ground.

<comment><USER3> I agree. I've always seen 'users' as simply a term for 'people who _use_ my software'.

It's a bit like when a local airline here once spent millions in branding research, and started calling their passengers 'customers'. It was really odd to be sitting at the airport and hear the call "XYZ Airline would like to advise all customers on flight 123 that their aircraft is ready for boarding through gate 6"...

I always think of the term 'passenger' in more romantic terms, whereas 'customer' seems more mundane. FWIW, the airline seems to have dropped that branding now, and have reverted to calling their, ahem, passengers as 'passengers'.

<comment><USER4> In Sydney, the public transport trains refer to all of their passengers as "customers" as well.

Every single time I am referred to by that name over the PA it weirds me out. Maybe if this was a private system, but for public transport? Customer is just the wrong word.

<comment><USER5> When I was in jail they referred to me as a "client" which I thought was rather odd.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not too pick on PMs or MBAs, but everything described as "bad" here is terminology from those world, not UX design. Aside from the fact that UX literally has the word user in it, this is not the language I ever hear fellow designers use except when adopting business-oriented terms in business contexts. Most of the time those I talk to simply say "people." People looking for X, people trying to do Y.

This is sematic nitpicking while simply reiterating "human centered design" talking points.

There's nothing necessarily wrong here but it feels like standard Medium fluff.

</comment><comment><USER7> I find that a lot of articles/talks by designers make such declarative statements... "Design for PEOPLE, not USERS!". Lots of time spent on semantics.

Even basic "user personas", however, attempt to capture the "not just a user" dimensions, and a decent business plan needs to answer questions like "What's in it for me? How is it better than <substitute x>?"

<comment><USER8> Yes, and a lot of us marketers are scratching our heads when designers talk about "human-centric design" (i.e. making products by thinking about what people want, what marketers have been doing forever) as if it had really profound and new insights. But it's certainly a good approach so, it's worth promoting.

<comment><USER9> Marketing personas are often not aligned with UX personeas, not due to a mistake but due to the fact that the two functions operate in different domains

The customer for dog food is not the dog, for example

<comment><USER8> And the user of dog food isn't the dog either, believe it or not. Dog food is designed for dog owners, not dogs. Everything is designed for humans.

<comment><USER9> Indeed, the primary criterion in dog food design is smell and consistency of output. #2 is cost — how can you tweak ingredients as to legally be allowed to label it "lamb dinner" at lowest cost

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Just saw another day on Twitter after a brand referring to their followers as beeflings. [https://twitter.com/mulegirl/status/1088946637454471169?s=19](https://twitter.com/mulegirl/status/1088946637454471169?s=19)

<comment><USER3> That would be just one step away from calling them "meatbags" as Bender would do in Futurama...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm on board. I'm a designer - and I don't think about "users." I think about people using these instruments. The difference, in my experience, is profound: I'm connecting with a complex, amorphous process rather than a mistakenly defined unit.

It comes down to accuracy. "People using xyz" is simply more descriptive than the shorthand.

At the same time, it CAN be useful to mistakenly define an element in a system for the sake of making it usable. That's where "user" comes in - it's a simple enough concept to make it fit into frameworks. But please, please... be aware that it is indeed akin to shorthand.

</comment><comment><USER12> Hey everyone, this is Jo, the author of this article – AMA. Just kidding, really appreciate the discourse happening here, reading every single one of your comments.

A question for the UX designers in here: Do you think about what your users do when they don't use your product? What tools/models do you use for that? Very curious for your feedback!

</comment><comment><USER13> If you go around calling users "humans", people will think you are an android (lower-case), robot, or space alien; or somebody who believes they are one of those.

</comment><comment><USER14> Reminds me of the old joke: only two fields call their customers "users" and one of them is drug dealing.

</comment><comment><USER15> Despite the unnecessary beef with the term "user", the author seems to sugarcoat the only metric that matters at the end of the day - $$$. All of these altruistic reasons designers and app creators claim will help their users is just another way of saying we need more $$$. Let's be real for a minute and admit that our job as UX designers is to figure out how to squeeze more $$$ out of users.</comment>


The Best Time to Submit to HN Is... - <AUTHOR> http://hnpickup.appspot.com/

<comment><USER2> Did Schrödinger's cat just meow? People will try to submit their stuff during good times and skew the data soon.

<comment><USER3> Torn...vote up the story cause its interesting or don't so people don't see it and skew the data? ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> AppEngine quotas killed the page.

<http://hnpickup.appspot.com/dm.json?ndata_elements=1> :

OverQuotaError: The API call datastore_v3.RunQuery() required more quota than is available.

<comment><USER5> With no new data since March 1, it seems like the page would be better served as just a static page, instead of regenerating the graph from data every time...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I always understood HN to be more a place for sharing interesting stories than a machine for garnering attention, but the very idea of a "best time" seems to imply a secondary motive for sharing a link. Not sure I'm comfortable with that.

</comment><comment><USER7> Love the graph. Would love to know the sample size of the data.

I assume you posted this at the "best" time possible, right? Its performing OK i would say but I guess you cant always rely on the data alone...

</comment><comment><USER8> Anecdotally, I've had the best luck on weekends. There seem to be less submissions so your stuff can make last on the front page a little bit longer.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you really want easier success on HN, be topical. Notice how stories about a certain topic often come in 'waves'? You can ride those.

Doing it all on time is like noticing most DJs drink Red Bull instead of Coke and drinking Red Bull to improve your chances of becoming a DJ ;-)

</comment><comment><USER10> I was especially glad to see this, since a 'AskHN' post I submitted once didn't get any responses.

But...

All I see is a grey page with some text surrounding the middle area. No data.

On Firefox, IE & Chrome.

I bookmarked it anyway, so I can look at it after it works again, which I hope is soon.

Right now it's 15 hours after the post was submitted to HN.

</comment><comment><USER11> Sweet post! Could you create a buffer like app for posting to hackernews which just posts at the right time to maximize the time to pick up the story?

</comment><comment><USER12> Ummm, correlation does not imply causation?

<comment><USER13> Sure it does.

Since the 1950s, both the atmospheric CO2 level and obesity levels have increased sharply.

Hence, atmospheric CO2 causes obesity.

<comment><USER14> If only you were talking about methane then it would be the converse.</comment></comment></comment>


Maglev: A Fast and Reliable Software Network Load Balancer [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//pubs/archive/44824.pdf <comment><USER2> Most probably Google has stopped using this long ago.</comment>


Show HN: Physics-based CAD - <AUTHOR> http://www.prandtl.design/ <comment><USER2> This is not Physics-based at all, you need to introduce other variables like wind speed around the drone, the direction of the wind, angle of attack, viscosity, etc. This example is parametric modeling at best or a configurator, not saying that is bad, just has a misleading title. I do not see any real geometry manipulation or groundbreaking CAD being attempted. Here is a viewer that Autodesk released this year using javascript.

[https://developer.autodesk.com/](https://developer.autodesk.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> For sure, there's a lot missing, title is probably misleading. Definitely nothing new in terms of the CAD, browser CAD has been well done, just look at professional products like Onshape. Right now it's primitives only for this, one of the next steps is to look at how full meshes can be optimized. A simple example of this could be wings: [https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~pabbeel/papers/2013_gp_win...](https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~pabbeel/papers/2013_gp_wind_turb.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's called parametric modelling, and many CAD software use a parametric kernel (solver). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer- aided_design](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-aided_design)

Is this somehow different? Please explain

<comment><AUTHOR> The difference is that there is a simple physics model that's driving the dimensions. So the arms are getting resized according to beam bending, the battery is a certain size for the energy requirement, motors are sized by kw/kg and kw/m^3 and so on.

There's definitely ways to make this sort of model in something like Solidworks through the use of a variables interface that interacts with the drawing dimensions. Though it can't do any sort of fast optimization with the physics relations. What's happening here is a guaranteed global optimal design is being returned for a given set of inputs and objectives in a few seconds.

<comment><USER4> This sounds interesting but I can't react the site. Could you please explain how you get a guaranteed optimum? What if you have conflicting objectives?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think by react you meant react to, which was fair enough, it was dodgy as. Now running well.

The property of getting a guaranteed optimum is something that arises from setting the design problem up as a geometric program. You won't always get a solution (for example, a certain size quad has a minimum prop diameter). Though if you do, it is guaranteed to be optimum because the problem is convex as outlined here: [https://gpkit.readthedocs.io/en/latest/gp101.html](https://gpkit.readthedocs.io/en/latest/gp101.html)

Also, conflicting objectives are naturally traded off until you find a Pareto optimal solution. Using geometric programs lets you balance conflicts in a design quickly. This is why they are super useful for aerospace applications, where you are always looking at a tradeoff between weight and at least one other variable.

<comment><USER4> I meant to write reach, sorry. Glad that it's working well now. Thanks for the reply, and for the link, it sounds like something fun to get into =).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice project. What are you hoping to add in the future?

Our team works on goal directed design as well, but at the moment it's less of an interactive optimization tool and more of an involved job running process a la Optistruct. One of our fun projects was a drone body as well :)

link for the interested: [https://autodeskresearch.com/projects/dreamcatcher](https://autodeskresearch.com/projects/dreamcatcher)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, that is really beautiful. Topology optimization is cool stuff.

I think it's key for optimization to be fast so that the designer can get a feedback loop going between the computer and the ideas in their head. Would love to talk about whether geometric programs might help Autodesk generate topology faster.

Near future stuff is probably a real-world component input (optimized shopping), and making things more flexible so you can drag and drop something together from components.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cool, I think more applications should be using solvers like this.

What solver are you using? Is it solved server side?

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently solved server side, though assembled on the client side (see console) with gpkitjs and then passed through to GPkit.

Packages here: [https://github.com/lochieferrier/gpkitjs](https://github.com/lochieferrier/gpkitjs) and here: [https://github.com/hoburg/gpkit](https://github.com/hoburg/gpkit)

Geometric programs are super cool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting, do you have some more info about how it works? When I make the battery larger, is it considering the weight of the battery? Weight of motors, props, etc?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes it's considering the weight of the battery, as well as the weight of the motors. It doesn't factor in the props, I didn't get around to that. The props have inaccurate geometry of course, which I'm looking to fix with a mesher.

Have a look at the console for how the geometric program is assembled.

<comment><USER7> Cool. I think this tool has a lot of potential users, especially if you can make it pick between commonly available props, esc, motors and so on. Imagine how cool this would be if it could make a list of those things and export a 3d-printable frame :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I managed to break the tool by inputting some infeasible inputs and then changing them again several times, and then refreshing the page.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is my first time putting something up, everything is breaking, fixing it now.

<comment><USER9> No test like a production test.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> this is more a configurator than a CAD.

</comment><comment><USER11> That page is broken

<comment><USER12> Slashdot Effect probs

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope, I just have no idea what I'm doing.

<comment><USER13> _hugs_

Takes some balls to go live with a project when you're on a step learning curve. Congrats :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed it, didn't know about pythonpath with gunicorn.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


ACLU director: Pardon Bush and those who tortured - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/opinion/pardon-bush-and-those-who-tortured.html?_r=0

<comment><AUTHOR> "If the choice is between a tacit pardon and a formal one, a formal one is better. An explicit pardon would lay down a marker, signaling to those considering torture in the future that they could be prosecuted."

Now that's a truly strong signal to send to past and future torturers!

<comment><USER2> Pardoning Nixon prevented all future presidents from coordinating illegal actions, so it must surely work. In fact, let's extend that to other crimes! Think someone might have committed murder? Pardon them too!

In truth, it's a false dichotomy. A tacit pardon by this administration means the next could decide to prosecute.</comment></comment>


Who must you trust? - <AUTHOR> http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2630691

<comment><USER3> _In the late 1700s, a Frenchman named Claude Chappe3 invented a visual telegraph that used semaphore towers spaced 10 to 15 kilometers apart. With a telescope, each station could see neighboring towers and relay their semaphore positions to the destination.

In a world where long-distance communication was via horse-carried letters, Chappe's telegraph was a wonder. Signals from Paris were received in Lille, where the first stations were built (about 218 kilometers or 136 miles apart), after only a few minutes. The network soon spread to Brest, Toulon, Strasbourg, and later even across the English Channel.

Semaphore positions were defined in a codebook allowing a variety of messages to be sent. The well-crafted codebook provided easily recognizable semaphore patterns for common symbols, as well as error-correction codes that allowed a proper message to emerge despite errors in transmission or reception.

The Chappe network was in continuous use for more than 60 years. An electrical telegraph network supplanted it once the technology of long-distance insulated wires made that invention practical.

For our purposes, though, the most interesting aspect of the Chappe network came about in 1836 with the discovery that stock market information was being relayed across the network, buried in other messages, by means of what we now might call steganography. The semaphore operators were paid to introduce certain errors in the messages of various customers. Because of the error- correction codes the messages arrived intact, but if someone was privy to the raw symbols transmitted, the introduced errors contained a message that provided an advantage in buying or selling stocks._

TIL 1830s European stock traders were already into latency arbitrage using an early form of surreptitious DSL over optical telegraphs...

<comment><USER4> In _The Wordly Philosophers_ , Robert Heilbroner tells of a tactic of John D. Rockefeller in which the assistant hired by a competitor to signal trading information was bribed to the benefit of Standard Oil.

One of the few apparently verifiable elements of the Rothschild legacy is their use of time arbitrage to trade advantageously on early news of the outcome of the battle of Waterloo: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothschild_family#The_Napoleon...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothschild_family#The_Napoleonic_Wars)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I sit here looking up at a sky with Mars hanging just above the half moon and realise that trying to enumerate who we trust is almost a fools errand - <USER2> have never computed the paths of the planets from my own observations, never verified we _do_ revolve around the sun. I trust the consensus of the majority, based on the detailed calculationsnof the few.

Heartbleed was and is the same. I am not goingnto review the medical literature on anti-biotics, read our politicians receipts nor any part of the thousand other things that I need to trust apart from computer security.

I have no quibble with "know the ground upon which you stand and be able to rebuild it" but we must all make a judgement on where to draw the line.

Looking at Mars I realised that the line is a darn sight closer than I realised.

<comment><USER6> _I am not going to review the medical literature on anti-biotics_

I'd argue that occasionally sampling such things is worthwhile. While you aren't going to become an expert, I think that with a few hours spent on a few key papers, you (I, some people, likely you) can often learn enough about a tiny portion of a field to gain useful insight. Most likely this insight won't take the form of "X is true" or "Y is false", but "I should give more credence to X in the future" or "when I see Y reported in the media I should suspect exaggeration of the underlying research".

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Forgiveness is a gift. Trust is earned."

The opening paragraph strikes me as just nuts. You don't create a trusting atmosphere like that. That is the opposite of what it takes to create real trust. Thus, honestly, I really did not read beyond that. I kind of skimmed but just really could not get into it.</comment>