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What is your stimulant of choice to keep you working through the night? - ACSparks
======
cwilbur
If I _need_ a stimulant to keep me awake, I go to sleep.
Pulling an all-nighter when I'm already in sleep debt only produces code that
sucks. The next day, I'm too tired to be functional and I've got a bunch of
code that needs to be thrown out and rewritten. Sleep is a better use of time.
~~~
ryantmulligan
Agreed. I don't even drink or ingest any stimulants. Keeps my sleep much more
regular.
~~~
cwilbur
Oh, I have no objection to stimulants in general; I like my tea and my coffee.
It's just that if I _need_ the stimulation to stay awake and working, I'm
already in false-economy territory.
------
jsjenkins168
No stimulants, just polyphasic sleep. I get the jitters if I try caffeine...
~~~
curio
The knowledge that if I go to sleep, it will take me hours to get back in the
zone again.
~~~
jsjenkins168
Try limiting your naps to 20 minutes. This prevents you from entering the deep
phases of the sleep cycle which is what causes you to be drowsy.
If you are really hardcore you can go all out and convert to the Uberman
polyphasic sleep cycle. 6 20 min naps, every 4 hours apart. Once adapted you
can code for 22 hours a day its awesome...
------
nickb
Definitely coffee. I don't drink much of it so I'm not that resistant to
caffeine. If you're a regular coffee drinker than those caffeinated candies or
energy drinks might be a better choice.
------
ACSparks
I enjoy a nice mix a Vault energy soda while listening to the Chemical
Brothers - Come With Us album.
~~~
omarish
my combination exactly.
------
papersmith
There seems to be stereotype that high performance geeks rely on caffeine
drinks to stay alive. In reality only regular sleep cycles and adequate
exercises can keep you at your peak performance over the long term.
Meditations can help you to control your focus and weed out distractions, so
you waste less of your time when the environment doesn't fit you.
If you really need to pull a few all-nighters, consider taking something on a
measurable dosage, so when you decide to rehabilitate, you can adjust your
intake on a decay curve.
------
rms
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kratom>
Kratom is a great stimulant. If you take too much, you don't get jittery, you
just get really happy.
~~~
timg
Wow, something that's legal in the US but not elsewhere. Don't see that too
often.
------
wammin
If I told you I might get arrested
------
dfranke
Tea, Earl Grey, unadulterated.
------
dfens
Jasmine tea and Led Zeppelin.
------
jwp
A very important question... Celestial Seasonings Fast Lane tea.
------
__
A strong tea, like Irish breakfast or lapsang souchong.
------
jamiequint
Rockstar Juiced or Coffee but not the two mixed
------
pg
Tazo Chai
~~~
Alex3917
Chai is good. If you have free time it's fun to experiment with making your
own. SpecialTeas.com has a variety of cheap black teas that work well, and the
other decent site is uptontea.com, which is actually based just outside
Boston. Then the rest of the ingredients you can get from the supermarket.
There are a bunch of decent recipes online; I usually use the one from the
rec.food.drink.tea FAQ
~~~
cwilbur
I buy black tea with chai spices in it already, and mix it with vanilla,
honey, and milk myself. The preparation is as important to the experience as
the beverage itself.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Patent troll Lodsys now after apps with 'More Apps' links - modmax
http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=100387
======
dstein
The only difference between Lodsys and large software/hardware companies like
Microsoft and Oracle is the size of their litigation targets.
I'm beyond convinced that the entire software patent systems needs to be
abolished.
~~~
powertower
My understanding is that Microsoft hates software patents (at least when BillG
was CEO), has only registered them out of necessity, has historically only
sued relatively few other companies, and only done so with either real patents
(non-obvious, read beyond the patent title) or as a retaliation of being sued
itself. I’m sure there are a few exceptions here as there are always.
~~~
dstein
They aren't suing every Android OEM out of necessity. Microsoft has converted
to patent troll in lieu of innovating in the mobile space.
~~~
ssebro
That's not exactly true- they are innovating, but they're also a patent troll.
There's no reason why they can't be both.
~~~
cube13
You can't be a patent troll if you're actually making a product. The entire
"business model" of a patent troll is to make money off of lawsuits, not from
actually selling things.
~~~
eru
Yes. Though of course, if a big company that was actually making things,
bought a patent troll and just let the get on with their business, I'd still
be inclined to call the new subsidiary a patent troll.
~~~
cube13
This is true. I probably should have said "companies that make products
related to their patents cannot be patent trolls".
------
BenoitEssiambre
The act of writing software can be summarized as generating ideas and writing
down these ideas in a language computers can understand and execute. Software
programmers are in the business of writing ideas all day. This combined with
the fact that the bar for ideas being patentable is very low means that
programmers probably generate and write down multiple patentable ideas per
day. From the get go they are inevitably setting up a huge patent minefield.
I don’t know if anyone has ever calculated the average density of patentable
ideas in code, but if you consider, for example, that performing an online
transaction with the last entered customer data (the infamous 1-Click patent)
is patentable, I would very roughly estimate that there is a patentable idea
every 20 to 50 lines of code. As an example, the Linux kernel (just the very
core of Linux) contains more that 10 millions lines of code. If you consider a
complete Linux distribution (by adding the graphical user interface and a
bunch of utilities) you get at least ten times that amount, that is more than
100 millions lines of code. Using the rough estimate above, we can calculate
that there are more than 2 millions patentable ideas in a consumer operating
system. That is an incredible amount of complexity. In fact, it is a testament
to human ingenuity that we can (sometimes) get all this code to work together.
Now code is not used side by side like an infantry of little computer
processes working in parallel to make computers or phones go. It is rather
organised and packaged in a huge network of building blocks, a pyramid of
hundreds of thousands of libraries, APIs or functions heavily inter-dependent
on each other. What’s more, the building blocks are usually not all written by
the same people or organisations and their consistent and stable behavior is
critical for enabling compatibility (remember, often between millions of parts
made by thousands of developers).
This hierarchical and networked architecture is inevitable and the best way to
organise complex information, however the stability it requires at the bottom
of the pyramid means that some building blocks cannot be changed once the
pyramid is built. Someone claiming ownership of the shape of a bottom block
after the pyramid is built, someone having the power to force a bottom block
to be removed and replaced with a different shaped one, no matter how simple
and obvious this bloc is, does not have power over just this block but over
the whole structure above it and all the components that depend on it. This
means patent holders have a disproportionately large amount of power when they
target such a bloc. They know that changing it would require tearing down,
redesigning and replacing often thousands of dependent projects and probably
break compatibility for millions of users of these projects. It is usually
simply not an option.
------
chrislomax
This annoys me because it is scaring off people from developing for smart
phones. This patent is so vague that even if I did know every patent ever made
then I would not even associate it with what patent he is claiming he has
violated.
Bring back Lulzsec for a day, get them to hack their systems and delete all
their patents.
I wouldn't be surprised if they had a patent for people communicating over the
internet and we are all about to be sued.
~~~
cydonian_monk
Not just SmartPhones. This kind of insanity makes me question whether I should
write another line of code for anything.
~~~
cageface
Indeed. Opening a bar instead is looking better all the time.
~~~
tomjen3
Heck, run for Congress.
Then you are one the receiving end of all the bribes.
------
modmax
How is something this vague "directed to systems and methods for providers of
products and/or services to interact with users of those products and services
to gather information from those users and transmit that information to the
provider" patentable?!
~~~
Hemospectrum
It involves a computer -- and the examiners employed by the PTO just don't
have the time or training to properly understand computer patents. That's the
only explanation.
If examiners can't figure out whether something is patentable, they err on the
side of good faith on the part of the applicant, and leave the question to the
courts.
~~~
jamesbritt
_It involves a computer -- and the examiners employed by the PTO just don't
have the time or training to properly understand computer patents. That's the
only explanation._
That's the only explanation? Doubtful.
I know someone at the patent office, an examiner who handles tech patents.
When I asked about certain patents she explained that you need to look at the
complete patent application and the specific behavior or items in the claim.
Titles are often very broad for convenience. Also, patent applications tend to
start broad and go narrow, with the overly broad requests (usually) denied.
_If examiners can't figure out whether something is patentable, they err on
the side of good faith on the part of the applicant, and leave the question to
the courts._
Where did you get this information from?
As it was explained to me if a patent is not clear or what is being claimed
not readily understood by the examiner then it gets sent back for revision.
There does not appear to be any "good faith" involved.
Some patent holders like to claim that one of their narrowly defined patents
applies to much broader behavior, and then threaten people with legal action.
In this case it is quite possible for a non-tech judge to decide that a patent
applies to things it really shouldn't.
I don't doubt there are bullshit patents or that some patent examiners aren't
as educated as they should be, but I also don't see any reason to think the
examiners are just so harried and untrained that they just shrug their
shoulders and assume everything is legit.
There are two problems with the current patent system. One is that patents are
granted where they shouldn't be. The other is that legitimate patents on
specific, narrow, precise items or behavior are later used to extort money
from people because untrained lawyers and judges will decide that a very
narrow patent should, incorrectly, apply to more broader cases.
~~~
lukeschlather
I don't see how any variation on these claims is patentable. Everything there
would have been obvious 25 years ago.
------
davesims
I was in DC yesterday, walking by the patent office and saw this quote from
Lincoln over the door: "The Patent Office adds the flame of interest to the
light of creativity"
I wonder what Lincoln would think of Lodsys.
------
sdizdar
The things what Lodsys is doing right now is actually very good. There are
more copy-cat trolls coming to the market based on the same idea "buy some
patents and let sue many private proprietors and ask them $1000 to drop
suite".
Eventually, it will be obvious even to our representatives in Washington that
something is broken and they will be forced to fix it.
As they say, our representatives will try doing the right thing but only after
they try all the wrong things first.
~~~
stcredzero
So then, there is an important free market niche for "douchebags who are smart
enough to exploit X, but too stupid and greedy to avoid outraging the wrong
people."
------
rockarage
It seems Lodsys was able to successfully patent the hyperlink, U.S. patent
system has some serious problems. Patent trolling is not the only problem, the
patent office granting patents, where the is no merit, is another big problem.
~~~
dave1619
I'm not a lawyer, but I did read through all four of their patents. There's no
way Lodsys can claim patenting the hyperlink. It's ridiculous.
~~~
rockarage
yeah, but that's what they are claiming, the app has a link to another app and
they want to sue over that. There is not in app purchase.
------
zentechen
What did Lodsys get that patent in the first place!? Who were the idiots that
approved the patent?
------
thought_alarm
My question is, if you just provide an external "Buy Me" or "More Apps" link
to the App Store you would have no idea who or how many people actually use
that link, and of those who use the link you would have no idea what they did
once they got to the store. They could buy someone else's app, they could
browse some more, they could leave a comment.
So how does that qualify as a "survey" in Lodsys's eyes?
------
mattmcmanus
Where are all of the internet's vigilante hackers when it comes to things like
this?
~~~
stcredzero
Lodsys might actually be an easier target than a large company.
------
shaggyfrog
I have a feeling that Lodsys will continue to iterate on this theme until they
get shut down. Given they have signed a licensing agreement, I'm not sure what
Apple can do, but they should take as active as a role as they can from here
on out. It certainly raises doubts in my mind as to what kind of "buy this
app" link I can put, if anything, in any apps for myself or my clients.
------
dralison
What someone needs to do is get a business process patent on "Patent
Trolling".
~~~
oneplusone
IBM has got that covered: [http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Se...](http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220070244837%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20070244837&RS=DN/20070244837)
~~~
cruise02
Nice. They beat Haliburton by a full year.
[http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Se...](http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-
bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=20080270152&OS=20080270152&RS=20080270152)
------
jamesu
I was planning on developing a few paid apps to test the market over the next
few months, but this combined with the other mobile patent lawsuits has made
me seriously reconsider it.
It's a pity the app store servers reside in the US. Otherwise i wouldn't have
to worry about these things!
~~~
cageface
You're not really any safer building any other kind of software, although you
may be subject to less patent troll scrutiny with a web app or something.
------
zentechen
Patent law reform is a must.
------
smashing
Is there any business model which can limit the damages from a patent troll?
------
barrettcolin
This isn't new news if you've been following this business since the start:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2552563>
------
samyzee
if i was you,i'd honorably ask mr.snodgrass to eat shit and die!
------
pr0filer_
Silly patents. TIL it's possible to patent cross-selling methods.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016) - anythingnonidin
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/24/top-medical-experts-say-we-should-decriminalize-all-drugs-and-maybe-go-even-further/
======
fsloth
Finally. I hope this will signal a turning point on this insane approach to
national health in all countries. Drugs are a _health_ problem, not a criminal
problem.
Lone experts have been fired in western countries when they have expressed
this common sense sentiments alone [0]. I hope this groups fares better.
Nixon started the war on drugs anyway as a mean to attack left and black
activists [1]. Any previous legislation for control has been instigated on
behalf of race and class warfare.The fact that some drugs have been the staple
narcotic in some groups has been used as a control mechanism upon those groups
by criminalizing the substance.
Substance distribution should be controlled by law. But that is status quo
anyway - governments control the distribution of any number of dangerous
substances at any point.
[0] [https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/oct/30/drugs-
advis...](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/oct/30/drugs-adviser-
david-nutt-sacked)
[1] [https://qz.com/645990/nixon-advisor-we-created-the-war-on-
dr...](https://qz.com/645990/nixon-advisor-we-created-the-war-on-drugs-to-
criminalize-black-people-and-the-anti-war-left/)
~~~
justonepost
Depends on your goal. If it's to reduce mortality, yes, decriminalize is good.
But it will increase usage.
~~~
ekianjo
>But it will increase usage.
Not necessarily. When people really want something they will eventually find a
way to get it anyway, it's not because you criminalize it that its usage
drops. Just like IP infringement has not significantly dropped since they can
put people in jail for it.
~~~
everdev
Well, barriers to entry matter. If you're craving a drug and it's sold in a
convenient store around the corner, you might purchase it more frequently than
if you had to buy it from potentially dangerous people in a seedy part of
town. That said, as with any bad habit I'm sure usage would still decrease
over time for most individuals as they mature or if healthier alternatives are
readily available.
~~~
joesb
Barrier to exit matters as well.
When you buy it from dangerous people, you have to be in contact with
dangerous people. It gives dangerous people leverage against you and people
who care about you.
~~~
alexasmyths
There is no 'danger' from 'not buying stuff from your dealer' anymore.
~~~
enord
I see you've never dealt with a dealer before.
~~~
alexasmyths
I've known many a dealer in my lifetime, and a distant family member who spent
some time incarcerated for 'high level' activity, who gives me long tales of
how the business works as well.
Dealers don't assault, endanger or attack random customers who just stop
buying.
That's totally absurd, and that someone would suggest it - indicates that they
are getting their information from Netflix/Hollywood films or something, not
reality.
The vast majority of dealers are actually fairly normal people anyhow.
~~~
enord
Well exuse me, I didn't know i was talking to a renneissance man. Addicts
wheel and deal with each other, rack up debts to eachother, steal from one
another. Some of them buy wholesale from larger distributors, usually with
credit, to be repaid with interest or else. They rob, assault, rape and kill
eachother over this stuff. I wish i was making this up.
Doctors in emergency rooms usually have instructions to confiscate any illegal
drugs they discover on OD-patients, but are faced with the very real dilemma
of leaving the patient at their creditors mercy. This can cause real harm (as
in "First do no harm") to the patient and their prospects of recovery or harm
reduction.
~~~
alexasmyths
If you don't pay your dealer, that will cause pain, and possibly violence.
But nobody is 'going after' someone who just decided to stop smoking
something.
~~~
enord
Maybe if that someone was just smoking pot and otherwise paid taxes. This
particular group of drug users are not the central point of concern of the UN
Special Assembly, even though its part of the wider problem. They are not
dying in the streets and they are not socially marginalized. Allthough
(anecdotally) i've known several fumb pot-smoking ducks who thought they could
finance their proclivity through distribution and wound up several thousand
dollars in debt to people who take names and chew bubble-gum.
------
jeffdavis
"scientific consensus"
I am very troubled by this phrase -- it's almost an oxymoron. Science is not
democratic, and scientists aren't anointed arbiters of facts.
Anyone can be a scientist simply by following the scientific method and
collecting data in good faith; and a lone outsider with new data can challenge
100 years of "consensus". Obviously they are subject to challenges themselves,
or if it's unlikely enough they might reasonably be ignored (e.g. a known
charlatan saying they observed cold fusion).
Did this terminology start with the "scientific consensus" on anthropogenic
climate change (which I do not dispute, by the way)? I think I understand why
it was used in that debate, but I don't think it was a good precedent. Now
it's being used to directly apply to policy ("growing scientific consensus on
the failures of the global war on drugs").
Before long, it will be used directly in political debates to try to force
some scientific organizations to choose a side. And then all credibility is
lost.
Researching policies that require deep analysis of scientific (or other) data
should be left to think tanks or something similar.
~~~
pjc50
> think tanks
I'm not sure what you think a think tank is, but they're basically either (a)
PR organisations, especially the ones with opaque funding or (b) some guy with
a letterhead and skill at getting articles published. They certainly _aren 't_
impartial in any way.
I'd much prefer my policy research to be done by civil service bodies which
might at least nominally be impartial.
I don't think it's feasible to impose a boundary between science and politics.
If scientists think that something is both true and important, then why should
they not speak up about it? Especially if they believe that doing so will save
lives.
~~~
dalbasal
Because of the effect of politics on intellectual honesty.
Once a debate triggers our "political" brain, it seems to scramble the kind of
intellectual honesty science requires. An even more insiduous cousin of the
maxim:
_" It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary
depends upon his not understanding it."_
I think the use of the phrase: "scientific consensus" indicates to jeff (it
does to me) that we are having that kind of a conversation, and its likely to
be quickly misused to the point where it makes reaching a political/societal
"consensus" even more difficult.
I don't think it's possible to seperate science and politics either, but I
think "Science" needs to be wary of speaking for science, instead of speaking
as well informed and interested individuals.
It's fine to speak for science on purely scientific matters. When it comes to
policy, especially social policy like this, it's preferable if they don't push
the boundary towards rhetorical cheating.
For the record, I agree with this article and most others on the "scientific
consensus" side.
~~~
jeffdavis
""Science" needs to be wary of speaking for science, instead of speaking as
well informed and interested individuals."
Well said.
"It's fine to speak for science on purely scientific matters."
The thing about science is that one high-quality study is often all you need
to have a lot of confidence. They don't need 100 experiments confirming the
Higgs boson, they just needed one really good experiment.
And bad studies can be summarily ignored for the purposes of fact finding. 100
bad studies are no better than one or zero. The only thing they tell you is an
area that may be interesting to conduct a good study later.
If there are a hundred high-quality studies saying one thing, and one high-
quality study saying something else, then something very interesting is going
on and everyone should pay close attention and get ready to learn something
new. But this is very rare and is certainly not a situation where you want to
inject politics.
So the only time when it makes sense for science and politics to intersect is
when you have one good study concluding something relevant to the policy
decision, and no high-quality studies to the contrary. And in that case you
only need to cite one study and be done with it -- you don't need to "speak
for science".
There is room to argue over the quality of experiments and studies, of course.
And that's where the sparks should fly -- not over signatures on a report. If
the results of one study are contended, it could go through some kind of
extreme peer review that can re-analyze the results or question the data
collection methods. The great thing about this is that laypersons will back
out and wait, and the scientists and statisticians can argue in peace among
their peers. When the smoke clears, then you can take those facts to the bank.
This doesn't for scientific fields where study quality is a major problem
(social sciences are hard and don't usually have nearly enough funding to
produce quality studies -- or have funding from overly-interested parties).
But in that case, you _definitely_ should not lend undue weight to the claims
by speaking for science.
------
blubb-fish
Here in Germany politicians are still stating that Cannabis is a gateway drug,
causes psychosis and makes stupid. They will even actively lie and twist
statistics.
My theory for why many politicians - especially from the right-wing - are so
opposed is b/c they didn't like their weed smoking and long-haired fellow
students. It's a Pavlov thing.
Like many people dislike golf (justly so in my humble opinion) b/c they
dislike the stereotypical golf enthusiasts.
~~~
lima
I'm strongly in favor of legalization, but I still believe Cannabis is
dangerous (just like alcohol, tobacco and countless other legal drugs are).
It's a well known fact that it can trigger psychosis in susceptible persons
and I have even witnessed it happen to a close friend.
It also had hugely detrimental effects on some of my weed-smoking friends, to
the point that I no longer want to spend time with them since it affected
their personality. I also know people who smoke it daily without any (visible)
negative effects whatsoever..
~~~
blubb-fish
it definitely should be used in moderation.
regarding psychosis - if you compare weed consumption with number of
schizophrenic diagnoses then the idea that weed causes schizophrenia can be
easily falsified.
but - of course - any psycho active substance can and will impair the mind of
somebody consuming it irresponsibly.
a lot of people micro dose weed - less than 0.05g per consumption unit -
that's not going to cause any issues.
~~~
lima
> if you compare weed consumption with number of schizophrenic diagnoses then
> the idea that weed causes schizophrenia can be easily falsified
That's not how it works. There are many potential triggers for psychosis in
general (and schizophrenia in particular), and there are reputable studies
which show that cannabis consumption is one of them.
> but - of course - any psycho active substance can and will impair the mind
> of somebody consuming it irresponsibly.
I think it's safe to say that even responsible use can have negative effects
for some people.
Likewise, the claim that micro dosing is not going to cause issues at all is
unfounded and dangerous. We simply don't know enough about it to make such
claims (enabling scientific research is a big argument for legalization!).
~~~
sooheon
So what? It is perfectly legal for me to choose to sit in a cubicle and rot
away the best years of my life, a fate little better than as clinical
psychosis. Let people do the things they want with their own lives.
~~~
blubb-fish
of course you are downvoted by the cubicle victims here. but bottom line you
are right. even alcoholism and liver zirrosis is considered socially more
acceptable than admitting you are vaping a bud once a week.
------
shihching
Perverse, plentiful incentives to addict and sell -- or invest in the
manufacturer who does so -- act quicker than panels of doctors, and dodge
responsibility too easily.
Living long lives as a beacons of philanthropic humanism on top of your legal
drug empire (or profits gained through accompanying ownership) counteracts
much stigma accrued from the deaths of your customers.
> On Tuesday [July 17, 2017], OxyContin manufacturer Raymond Sackler died at
> the age of 97. The same day, 91 other Americans died due to lethal overdoses
> of the pill that made Sackler a billionaire. Sackler died in comfort, in a
> hospital bed, with the best possible medical care, “following a brief
> illness."
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/raymond-sackler-
oxyconti...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/raymond-sackler-oxycontin-
dead_us_596f881ee4b0bb3867496f43)
~~~
abakker
A bit ad hominem, right? Do we complain about Alfred Nobel having invented
dynamite, which has been used to kill people?Pain medicine especially seems
like a place where we can't rush to judgement. Even if he acted badly, the
drug has done good for some people. Billionaires acting philanthropically is
probably better than them not acting that way.
~~~
shihching
The Huffington Post article is written by an anti-corporate former heroin
addict who, yes, clearly holds animus against those who profited off of
opiates.
> By convincing doctors that OxyContin was “safer,” offering financial support
> and special perks to family physicians who were willing to push the drug,
> and investing millions in a marketing campaign that claimed OxyContin was
> not only harmless but beneficial, Purdue Pharma cornered the pain pill
> market. By 2003, Purdue was selling $1.6 billion of the pill annually.
The crux of his condemnation is the incentivization of doctors to prescribe --
which one could call bribery. Also, the misrepresentation of known addictive
and deleterious long term health effects, which I believe could likely be
demonstrated through internal company documents.
Wealth allows the purchase of goodwill at a discount price -- the ultimate
destination of Mr. Sackler hinges on both the wilfulness and premeditation of
his capitalist technique and the breadth and compassion of his philanthropy.
Collecting and displaying Oriental artwork appears to be at the center of his
humanism -- the other side of which is biomedical research. I have not
scrutinized the publications emerging from the Sackler School of Medicine in
Tel Aviv, but for the sake of his soul and millions of prescription opiate
addicts, I hope the papers reveal cures proportionate to his profits.
------
Synaesthesia
As Chomsky said, the way to deal with drug abuse is through education and
treatment. That’s how we successfully reduced smoking, drinking coffee and
other unhealthy habits in the USA. Not by throwing people in jail.
~~~
brndnmtthws
Drinking coffee is unhealthy? You sure about that?
> Studies have shown that coffee may have health benefits, including
> protecting against Parkinson's disease, type 2 diabetes and liver disease,
> including liver cancer. Coffee also appears to improve cognitive function
> and decrease the risk of depression.
[http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-
he...](http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-
eating/expert-answers/coffee-and-health/faq-20058339)
~~~
spaceseaman
The high caffeine intake is still quite bad for your heart. And it's bad for
your teeth. Just googling shows that the scientific results have been quite
mixed. By that I mean that scientists have found some positive correlations,
and some negative ones.
From my layman's perspective, I would think a doctor would say there isn't a
consensus on whether coffee is holistically healthy. In other words, it's good
for some things, bad for others.
~~~
moozilla
What scientific results are you googling exactly? Everything I can find shows
a strong consensus that coffee has positive effects across the board. This
seems like a good summary:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/upshot/more-consensus-
on-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/upshot/more-consensus-on-coffees-
benefits-than-you-might-think.html)
Highlight from that article:
>There have been two meta-analyses published within the last year or so. The
first reviewed 20 studies, including almost a million people, and the second
included 17 studies containing more than a million people. Both found that
drinking coffee was associated with a significantly reduced chance of death. I
can’t think of any other product that has this much positive epidemiologic
evidence going for it.
I don't understand how you can claim coffee is bad for your heart in good
faith if you have read _any_ of the research... for example, this meta-
analysis of 36 studies:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24201300](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24201300)
> A nonlinear association between coffee consumption and CVD risk was observed
> in this meta-analysis. Moderate coffee consumption was inversely
> significantly associated with CVD risk, with the lowest CVD risk at 3 to 5
> cups per day, and heavy coffee consumption was not associated with elevated
> CVD risk.
I think any doctor worth their salt would tell you that there is a strong
scientific consensus that drinking coffee is not only completely safe, but it
has preventative effects towards cancer, cardiovascular disease, Parkinson's,
and Type-2 diabetes.
Here's a bonus review of 112 meta-analyses:
[http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-
nutr-07...](http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-
nutr-071816-064941)
> Of the 59 unique outcomes examined in the selected 112 meta-analyses of
> observational studies, coffee was associated with a probable decreased risk
> of breast, colorectal, colon, endometrial, and prostate cancers;
> cardiovascular disease and mortality; Parkinson's disease; and type-2
> diabetes.
~~~
ssijak
Well, at least anecdotally regular caffeine (several cups per day) intake
messes up your energy level, sleep patterns, etc. And if you mess with your
adrenal glands, there could be subtle and long-lasting effects on your energy
and mood.
~~~
KozmoNau7
That's a high intake, though.
A cup of day has solely positive effects, as far as I can tell from reading
the research.
All things in moderation and moderation in all things.
------
otakucode
Drugs were not made illegal because they're bad for your health and they don't
remain illegal because they're bad for your health. Poisons are generally not
illegal. Drugs are illegal because they make people feel good or make them
happy which offends the Protestant Work Ethic. The Protestant Work Ethic says
that the only legitimate route to happiness is through physically difficult
labor which causes you to suffer. The greater the suffering, the greater the
virtue and the greater the happiness you 'deserve' as consequence. The PWE is
not openly advocated or consciously held much any longer, but it was a large
part of US history and its effects stick with us.
Aside from just the people who have bought into the scaremongering about
drugs, there is a significant contingent of people who see it as 'unfair' that
anyone could use a drug and get even temporary happiness. Nothing offends
Americans (I simply don't know how prevalent this is in other countries) more
than the idea that someone else might be having an easier time than
themselves. It's why many would prefer companies to go without substantive
punishment for harming many people over having one person receive a large
punitive judgement in court cases. The McDonald's coffee lawsuit is usually
the canonical example. If McDonald's had only paid the lady actual damages,
they would have simply continued their practices and harmed more people. But
that is preferable to the situation where that one lady got a 'payday'.
Apparently nothing is worse than the feeling that someone else has had it
easier than one has had it ones self.
~~~
coleifer
Dope costs money. When you've got a habit and no job, how are you going to
pay? People steal to support their habits. Little children have their
childhood stolen because their parents were addicts. People crash cars and
kill people. That's why drugs are illegal.
~~~
rublev
Video games costs money. When you've got a habit and no job, how are you going
to pay? People steal to support their habits. Little children have their
childhood stolen because their parents were always gaming. People crash cars
and kill people because their attention is on their little screen. That's why
video games should be illegal.
You can do this with literally anything.
~~~
coleifer
That's patently absurd. You're not likely to see a gamer out there ripping and
robbing to support a habit. Do people get addicted to games? Food? Sex?
Whatever? Yeah sure. But by far drugs lead to more crime.
~~~
posixplz
Drugs do not lead to crime. Desperation and opportunity, the need to survive,
with a lack of morality, all directly lead to crime. Drugs do not make people
commit crimes. Emotions, those mental states, do however. What we need, as a
country, society, and human race is to recognize the importance of treatment
of the mind above all else. Reduce suffering. Sure, there will always be a
degree of sadness in life, we should as an intelligent species, strive to end
mental and physical suffering.
~~~
coleifer
I don't see a lot of clinically depressed people sticking guns in people's
faces. Nor do I think lack of morality has anything to do with addiction.
Rather than treat the mind, I believe in treating the spirit.
~~~
BatFastard
Totally! Lets try to remove the hopelessness from peoples lives that makes
them turn to drugs. We can put the whole drug fighting budget into mental
health.
------
ars
And not just recreational drugs. All drugs.
We trust people to manage their own life, this includes medicine. Maybe
insurance won't pay for it without a Dr, but if someone wants to self pay,
that's their choice.
~~~
shakna
There's a whole class of drugs guaranteed to kill your child during pregnancy,
and another where the interactions may seriously harm the child. Another where
two relatively harmless drugs, when interacting, can produce the previous
results.
It isn't acceptable to just put the risk on the average, uneducated person,
who is easily swayed by the way media portrays something. We have experts for
a reason, which is to guide us in what choices are safest, or "best" in the
current circumstances they face.
Here's a little example, which is fairly common:
Alice has borderline personality disorder. Most people don't notice, she just
seems to be rather outgoing, and prone to depression and anger. Alice isn't
sure she has it.
Bill, Alice's husband, convinces her to go to therapy, where the psychologist
practices Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (as CBT is the only government-approved
therapy), which has no affect.
Alice's psychiatrist puts her on quetiapine.
The amount is strongly controlled, because an overdose is very likely to be
lethal, and one of it's known side-effects is suicidal ideation.
She gains 10kg in a month, and her mood is barely affected, but people feel
more comfortable around her. The weight gain depresses her.
The psychiatrist moves her to lithium.
Alice finds she can live a normal life, and no one notices her being
outrageous anymore.
Alice and Bill decide to have a child.
Here's the hard part of "best": lithium is class D for pregnancy.
It's probably the best medication for Alice though, who has demonstrated she
is fully capable of being a normal and productive member of society.
The same problems will continue if Alice chooses to breastfeed, which is best
for the baby, so long as they are careful around medications.
\---
Neither Alice nor Bill are remotely qualified to determine what will, or will
not, harm a child.
> We trust people to manage their own life
No, we don't.
We create laws, and regulations, to guide people into making safe choices.
Seatbelts are every bit as useful as a prescription.
~~~
DanBC
Which country are you talking about? This treatment plan for a person with
borderlinePD is likely to cause harm.
> where the psychologist practices Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (as CBT is the
> only government-approved therapy), which has no affect
CBT is a short form therapy, normally about 8 weeks.
Do not use brief psychological interventions of less than 3 months.
[https://www.nice.org.uk/donotdo/do-not-use-brief-
psychologic...](https://www.nice.org.uk/donotdo/do-not-use-brief-
psychological-interventions-of-less-than-3-months-duration-specifically-for-
borderline-personality-disorder-or-for-the-individual-symptoms-of-the-
disorder-outside-a-service-that-has)
> Alice's psychiatrist puts her on quetiapine.
Antipsychotic drugs should not be used for the medium- and long-term treatment
of borderline personality disorder.
[https://www.nice.org.uk/donotdo/antipsychotic-drugs-
should-n...](https://www.nice.org.uk/donotdo/antipsychotic-drugs-should-not-
be-used-for-the-medium-and-longterm-treatment-of-borderline-personality-
disorder)
> The psychiatrist moves her to lithium.
Drug treatment should not be used specifically for borderline personality
disorder or for the individual symptoms or behaviour associated with the
disorder (for example, repeated self-harm, marked emotional instability, risk-
taking behaviour and transient psychotic symptoms).
[https://www.nice.org.uk/donotdo/drug-treatment-should-not-
be...](https://www.nice.org.uk/donotdo/drug-treatment-should-not-be-used-
specifically-for-borderline-personality-disorder-or-for-the-individual-
symptoms-or-behaviour-associated-with-the-disorder-for-example-repeated-
selfharm-marked)
What Alice probably needs is a long form talking therapy. Have a look at
_Meeting the Challenge, Making a Difference_ for more information:
[http://www.crisiscareconcordat.org.uk/inspiration/meeting-
th...](http://www.crisiscareconcordat.org.uk/inspiration/meeting-the-
challenge-making-a-difference/)
~~~
vidarh
I don't know whether you or the person you're replying to is more correct, but
it doesn't change their point: That these decisions are not something the
average person should be making for themselves. If anything, your disagreement
kind of makes the point even clearer.
Maybe there might be an argument for people to be able to choose to obtain
drugs like the ones mentioned by GP, but not without some kind of control-
mechanism to at a bare minimum ensure they have been presented with the risks
and have given some level of demonstration that they understand them.
E.g. I quite like the mechanism now in place for online pharmacies in the UK,
where you can buy prescription drugs like Viagra, or OTC but restricted
products like Daktacort (combination anti-fungal and steroids), but need to
convince a doctor (for the former) or pharmacist (for the latter) in writing
that you've at least bothered to read what they've written about the drugs
(since nothing stops you from just faking the symptoms, but you at least need
to describe relevant symptoms free-form semi-coherently, or they'll do
additional checks before selling to you).
It has weaknesses, and certainly won't stop people from abusing abusable
drugs, but it at least makes it possible to pick up on the most idiotic
attempts at misusing drugs they don't even understand.
Alternatively, I've used PushDoctor a couple of times - a UK service that
connects you with an actual GP via video chat; the last time it took me 10
minutes from I scheduled an appointment until I'd uploaded pictures of a rash,
had a conversation with the GP and had the prescription passed to a local
pharmacy electronically; even _if_ one were to consider taking away their
"gatekeeper" role in terms of letting them deny treatments they don't think
are necessary, I don't think it'd be unreasonable to still at least require a
consultation like that for the most dangerous drugs to give an opportunity to
at least inform.
~~~
arielb1
But these are "customer protection" laws, which are intended to make sure
people are informed and to make it reasonable to shop in the street, not to
protect against people who intentionally try to break them.
They are easily opted out of - they won't prevent you from e.g. buying
whatever you want from China, and that's by design. There's no point in
protecting a customer that doesn't want your protection.
As opposed to drug laws, which are designed to make drugs hard and dangerous
to buy, even if you really want them.
~~~
vidarh
And that's how I think it makes sense to treat narcotics too.
------
runesoerensen
It's worth noting that this article is from March 2016 (e.g. before the UN
failed to course correct at UNGASS 2016), and that this and many other efforts
have failed already.
There are some related discussions in this thread from last year after UNGASS:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12601956#12602296](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12601956#12602296)
------
anythingnonidin
Some reasons for decriminalization of use and possession, summarized:
(i.e., removing criminal penalties or making it no jail time possible, but not
government supplied)
\- War on drugs has failed. Criminalization has consequences on community - in
many cases, most of the negative effects come from the criminalization, not
the drug.
\- Consensual crimes that don’t harm others shouldn’t be crimes.
\- Drug prohibition doesn’t seem to decrease use — Portugal. (Also perhaps
Czech, Italy, Spain?)
\- Drug war enforcement costs a ton, we could save tax money.
\- 1.2 million people arrested for drug possession in 2015.
[http://www.drugwarfacts.org/chapter/crime_arrests#arrests](http://www.drugwarfacts.org/chapter/crime_arrests#arrests)
\- Prisons are crowded. Would reduce this a little.
\- Easier for addicts to seek treatment.
I think the strongest reasons are that drug use should be treated as a health
issue and not a criminal issue, and that consensual crimes that don't harm
others shouldn't be crimes.
What is the single strongest reason for or against decriminalizing all drugs,
in your opinion?
~~~
rectang
The main reason we won't get decriminalization is moral panic. :( But if we
did...
There are still better and worse ways to make drugs available. Same as with
alcohol, addicts doing high volume are where the money is -- and it's better
to design regimes that prevent commercial actors from abusing vulnerable
populations. Mark Kleiman has a lot of great stuff to say on the subject.
~~~
microcolonel
> _and it 's better to design regimes that prevent commercial actors from
> abusing vulnerable populations._
Unless we're looking to apply the law inconsistently based on some arbitrary
prejudice of "vulnerability", this would seem to be basically what we're
already doing. Any decriminalization approach which criminalizes access for
addicts almost defeats the purpose according to your own rubric.
~~~
vidarh
Consider that some countries have state monopoly stores for wine and stronger
alcoholic drinks, and most no longer allow advertising for alcohol.
Similarly, consider the option of regulations like those in place for
pharmacies in some countries, that e.g. requires the pharmacist to ensure you
are aware of certain risks, but doesn't prevent you from buying.
Consider the way some countries now requires tobacco to be out of view and
with health warnings all over or no branding.
In other words: There are mechanisms you can put in place that legalizes drugs
fully, but still heavily restricts commercial entities ability to try to take
advantage of peoples weaknesses.
Personally I believe even drugs like heroin should be legal, on the basis of
harm reduction, but at the same time, I don't see a problem with e.g.
restricting where it can be sold and ensuring that it's sold in plain
packaging, no advertising is allowed, and to e.g. have a pharmacist inform you
of the risks before selling it. I don't think that threshold will be high
enough to make people go to a dealer, but it may still reduce abuse.
In the UK there are restrictions on how many pills of paracetamol
(acetaminophen) and ibuprofen you can buy at a time, for example. In
pharmacies you can buy up to 32 of each at a time, while elsewhere only up to
16 of each at a time. Those restrictions were put in place because of overdose
deaths, and they appear to have saved hundreds of lives so far, while being
lenient enough not to drive anyone to a black market.
So while I think we should be allowed to buy pretty much whatever drugs we
want, we can combine that with making it sufficiently unattractive that you're
not buying them on a whim.
~~~
microcolonel
I live in a place where the government had a monopoly on alcohol retail until
recently (Ontario, Canada). I don't think it had any impact on sales. The
biggest factor was price, the government fixed the prices fairly high (but
those prices were the same for the retail exceptions, such as brewers' own
premises).
> _Personally I believe even drugs like heroin should be legal, on the basis
> of harm reduction, but at the same time, I don 't see a problem with e.g.
> restricting where it can be sold_
Well, if you nationalize heroin retail, then you will need to have a heroin
shop in every hamlet, town, and neighbourhood. It hardly seems practical.
You'll just end up with a somewhat smaller black market, instead of
eliminating it.
~~~
vidarh
The point of having the monopoly is be able to strictly enforce restrictions
on things like marketing through an organization that is judged by compliance
rather than by selling as much as possible.
> Well, if you nationalize heroin retail, then you will need to have a heroin
> shop in every hamlet, town, and neighbourhood. It hardly seems practical.
> You'll just end up with a somewhat smaller black market, instead of
> eliminating it.
Yet somehow places like Norway, with a population density nearly identical to
Ontario manages to keep the black market for wine and spirits quite small,
despite very high taxes on them compared to e.g. neighboring Denmark.
Which means there already _is_ a suitable retail network. Or you can license
pharmacies.
And the big difference is that people would be assured of getting clean,
uncut, predictable doses. The cost of heroin is also so high and unstable that
while there is reason to be concerned about making it too cheap, a large
portion of the harm from heroin today is the high cost. The daily consumption
of heroin for a typical user in clean, medical grade heroin costs less than
$20 (we know, because it is produced for medical use, and prescribed e.g. in
UK hospitals).
------
lord_jim
Full steam ahead with decriminalization of possession/use, and with regulated
markets for psychedelic and most stimulants
However after seeing how business behaves when it can sell opiates, I'm in
favor of even more regulation than we currently have on some drug markets
(Also, if it were up to me, I'd ban ads for drugs, including alcohol and
prescriptions)
~~~
Synaesthesia
Stimulants can be pretty dangerous TBH. I don’t think class a drugs should
just go on sale, but I don’t think people should be locked up for them. Baby
steps.
~~~
vidarh
The problem is that for a lot of these drugs the greatest harm comes from the
lack quality control and regulation of sale.
Not just because it results in drugs getting cut with all kinds of shit, and
people being sold the wrong thing (e.g. selling heavily cut fentanyl instead
of heroin), but also because of a the race to find alternatives that slip
through cracks.
A great deal of modern drugs only exists to circumvent the law, either because
they're not covered for a while, or because they can more easily be produced.
E.g. a number of "synthetic cannabinoids" have been manufactured, and so far
indications are that at least some of them have health effects that are far
worse than anything possible to tie to actual cannabis.
Without decriminalising and regulating manufacture and sale, there will still
be an incentive for dealers to sell drugs like that which nobody particularly
want, and that increases harm, instead of selling clean versions of the safest
drugs.
E.g. for opiates, many of them are "close enough" in terms of effect that
there is a lot of potential harm reduction benefit just in getting the more
dangerous variants off the market by legalizing and regulating the safest
ones. Unlike blanket bans that has a hope of working.
~~~
Synaesthesia
Yes but even the pure, quality drugs like adderall, which is really
amphetamine can be dangerous.
For opiates, especially people injecting, it is very inportant to get clean
drugs, and actually opiates are not particularly harmful to the body if used
correctly. They also don’t really present a threat to society if given the
drug. Holland has provided addicts with heroin with great success, as a form
of treatment.
~~~
vidarh
They can be, but so can a lot of drugs sold at the grocery store. E.g.
paracetamol/acetaminophen is one of the largest causes of liver damage in the
UK. One of the big shifts there has been to restrict size of packaging and
require pharmacists to exercise care (some will explicitly verbally warn you
about the risk).
Ultimately I think that we'd in many respects do a lot better if it was
possible for someone who wants to use things like Adderall for recreational
use to go to their doctor and ask for advice and appropriate monitoring and
know they won't be refused, than having people randomly taking it without
getting proper advice.
But I also think another large potential benefit would be for doctors to be
able to steer those who insist on using drugs to safer analogs were possible.
------
marze
Bottom line is deaths from overdose.
Drugs criminalized, USA:
150 deaths/million people/year
Drugs legalized, Portugal:
3 deaths/million people/year
~~~
yznovyak
Death penalty for drug trafficking, Singapore:
0 deaths/million people/year
~~~
maze-le
Drug use might be more prevalent than the official statistics suggest.
[0]:
[https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSSIN135004](https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSSIN135004)
------
II2II
While I support the decriminalizing of drugs, I also have to question how
effective it would be if all drugs were decriminalized and became highly
regulated.
Example 1: prescription drugs are highly regulated, yet their legal
availability has not stopped criminal activities surrounding the illegal
trade. Legalizing may solve some social issues relating to the war on drugs,
but not all.
Example 2: alcohol is legal, easily available, and has a (proportionally) low
amount of illegal trade. On the other hand, a lot of people do illegal stuff
when impared by it. Perhaps some drugs should not be legal, particularly since
there is worse stuff ou there.
On the other hand, you have example 3: tobacco. Reasonable precautions taken,
its main issue is self harm due to the impact on health. While there are
obvious reasons to regulate its use (e.g. people frequently smoke in
environments where it can harm others), do we really want to regulate self-
harm?
Perhaps we should be regulating based upon the drug, keeping some illegal,
rather than pursuing blanket legalization and regulation.
Edit: an occurance of legal should have been illegal.
~~~
tertius
> do we really want to regulate self-harm?
In the worst cases we do: Euthanasia.
Drinking under 21: We do.
Marijuana use under 25: We should.
~~~
pitaj
I don't. I think drinking age should be 18, and kids should be allowed to
drink with their parents. I think marijuana should be the same way. I think
assisted suicide should be allowed (euthanasia is different).
I think every drug, even prescription medicines, should be totally legal to
possess, distribute, sell, and buy.
~~~
tertius
Why should we limit it by age?
Also, you say that "I think x,y,z." But you do not say why. Do you have some
expertise that informs your decision on safety or is your opinion purely
philosophical (based on personal freedom or even Darwin Awards)?
------
chewz
Sure. How do you keep millions of unemployed people happy? Give them drugs and
UBI.
------
good_sir_ant
Decriminalization of drugs would have to come with a massive restructuring of
our social programs. You could get into a lot of trouble by financially
supporting people who become addicted beyond their control.
~~~
amigoingtodie
As opposed to now? Many of today's opiate addicts' supply is subsidized by the
US taxpayer.
------
SilentCrossing
The article is about "decriminalization of all nonviolent drug use and
possession". This sounds noble, but as we found out in the Netherlands you
will have to make a distinction between soft drugs and hard drugs. Hard drugs
is always associated with crime and most of the time violent crime and gangs.
So I would say. Been there done that. We are cracking down on this type of
policy, since 'education' does not work and it seems that prisons do not make
the criminal as some other comments claim... Well they can always wish for it,
but reality does not care either way.
~~~
katastic
We're living in a strange culture of over optimism that thinks if we just
magically change certain systems "literally everyone will be better."
No. Heroin users aren't going to magically become productive members of
society just because we legalize heroin.
~~~
KozmoNau7
Maybe not, but the heroin addicts will no longer have to resort to robberies
and other crime in order to fund their addictions, and it will become easier
to offer them help and treatment.
~~~
chrisan
> the heroin addicts will no longer have to resort to robberies and other
> crime in order to fund their addictions
How does decriminalization of the possession and use lead to increased money
for addicts that they will no longer have to resort to illegal acts to fund
addictions?
Less jail/court fees = more money in pocket to buy drugs?
~~~
KozmoNau7
To be clear, I'm a proponent of full legalization, not just decriminalization.
------
knodi123
Why would medical experts be considered authoritative? It's a legal and
political problem. For the record, I agree with the doctors, but I think
decades of research into marijuana have already demonstrated that medical
facts have jack shit to do with legislative agendas.
My guess is, the only way we'll move past this ridiculous situation is if a
majority of individual states decide to legalize hard drugs the same way a
minority of them have already legalized weed, and eventually the federal
government will cave in once they realize it's not going to cost anybody an
election. That is, it will take lots of baby steps over a couple of decades. I
hope I'm underestimating progress, though!
------
watertom
Legalize.
Why should we funnel money to illegal drug cartels to fuel their crime and
violence by decriminalizing drugs?
------
burger_moon
What about other drugs like steroids and growth hormones? Those are schedule 2
drugs which can be prescribed but have no addictive properties. Testosterone
is something your [male] body produces but even if you have a low free T count
doctors often still won't prescribe it, and since you cannot buy it legally
most men live out their lives feeling the negative affects of this.
Of course the focus is always on weed, opiates, and other common
hallucinogenic drugs, but what about all the other drugs that aren't.
What is the reason for those to be illegal? I legitimately don't know the
reasons because even the reasons for 'harmful' drugs causes lots of debate
such as the comment thread here shows.
~~~
redblacktree
Steroids are drugs of abuse by athletes seeking better performance in their
sports. That is the reason why it's scheduled, despite low addictive
potential.
------
sjwright
Even if you had a staunchly anti-drug stance, it's also fair to say that law
enforcement resources are not unlimited. Dealing with drugs like cannabis and
cocaine are a waste of taxpayer dollars relative to serious issues of opioids
and methamphetamine.
------
anythingnonidin
Full report:
[http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-67...](http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736\(16\)00619-X/abstract)
------
AKifer
The drug war not working does NOT mean that all the drugs should be
decriminalized. If you fail to fight drug cartels, it's a political and
organizational issue. We should never fall into the trap of mixing everything.
------
leksak
> decriminalization of all nonviolent drug use and possession
What is meant by nonviolent drug use?
~~~
DanBC
You can't be a criminal gang that murders people to smuggle the drugs into the
country.
You can't be a criminal gang that forces modern slaves to grow cannabis in
squat houses.
You can't be a criminal gang that uses violence to control a street corner.
------
danschumann
The way to "win" the drug war, is the way you win in capitalism.
COMPETITION!!! No one would go to illegal drug gangs if they could go to
7-11(or similar).
~~~
ringaroundthetx
Out of curiosity, what goods and services will people in that line of business
switch to?
Will they exploit inefficiencies in other drugs markets that the state hasn't
caught on to yet? And just accept the diminishing returns before switching to
the next drugs?
Will they try other lines of business, like computer hacking syndicates?
Or they all magically disappear, or be cut off from appearing because there is
simply no unskilled labor + high margin + low overhead business line
remaining?
~~~
danschumann
What happened to the gangsters of Al Capone's day, when prohibition took away
their competitive edge? Did they sell "insurance"? You seem quite passive
aggressive, without offering any thoughts yourself.
My guess is, most will be unemployed. They aren't criminal geniuses. They've
found a cheap way to make money and get high at the same time, most of them.
------
grondilu
Imagine a old dam. It's in poor condition, with cracks here and there, letting
some water through. Its maintenance is extremely expensive and seemingly
useless, since for ever crack that is fixed, a new one appears.
Now some guy shows up and says "this dam costs us too much and we are failing
to fix it. Let's just blow it up!"
~~~
OscarCunningham
So the problem with blowing up the dam is that there's a large amount of water
behind it that will flood out dangerously if they blow up the dam. I guess?
So what's the analogy here? You think there's a large amount of potential drug
users who will suddenly start abusing as soon as drugs are legalised?
~~~
grondilu
> You think there's a large amount of potential drug users who will suddenly
> start abusing as soon as drugs are legalised?
The opiod crisis already is quite severe. And yet most opioids are illegal. I
doubt making them legal will decrease usage. Also, if they were legal, big
pharma companies would see them as business opportunities. Things could get
ugly fast.
~~~
TallGuyShort
I'm not following any of the logic here. Big pharma companies are already
making a killing on a significant portion of the opioid addiction epidemic.
They're legally (but perhaps irresponsibly) prescribed by a doctor, and either
become abused by the intended patient or subsequently depart from those legal
channels.
The opioid crisis isn't the only crisis. America hovers around being the 1st
or 2nd worst incarceration rate in the world, and it's predominantly non-
violent drug offenses. Friend of mine just lost a job offer they had
provisionally because of a tiny marijuana possession charge from years ago,
and that's happened to them over and over again.
If your best argument in favor of continuing to ruin people lives over
something so petty is "big pharma will make money off of opioids", I call
bullshit.
edit: I would also argue that in your analogy, there is almost no water built
up behind that dam, and getting rid of the dam would hardly be noticeable
downstream. We can't even keep drugs out of prisons very well. I live in a
town that hasn't had a single case of violent crime in 13 years, and yet I
know _exactly_ where I could go and buy some heroin right this very minute if
I wanted to. I know where in the Bay Area I could buy some meth if I wanted
to. And these are locations that have been repeatedly raided by the cops, but
the selling of drugs at those locations doesn't stop, because someone else who
recently finished their sentence will just take over while the person who got
busted servers theirs. I was in a concert venue last night with cops, and
weed, everywhere. Freaking out about the weed, but no one caring about people
having 6 or 7 beers and then getting in their cars to drive home drunk at 1am.
The dam makes zero sense to me.
------
bigtex
This was a very good interview with a neuropsychiatrist, Dr. Phyllis Bonafice,
who has a different opinion,
[https://youtu.be/W_i2mC5fAmI](https://youtu.be/W_i2mC5fAmI). I do think
focusing on treatment more than punishment may be a better idea in most cases.
------
vectorEQ
a lot of drugs used to be legitimate drugs,but are now illegal to be able to
sell other shitty substances which are more expensive and often less
effective. example: mdma treatment for ptsd. most ptsd treatments are ill
effective these days, but before wo2 mdma treatment was very effective. it's
now only able to be given in certain places, usually from people who can't
licence themselves properly, adding risk to this treatment where before it was
solid. [http://www.mdmaptsd.org/news.html](http://www.mdmaptsd.org/news.html)
most banned substances are just 'buisness deals' between pharma industry and
government. For the US people, this is not just due to war on drugs. war on
drugs is an effect , not a cause.
------
transverse
Instead of drugs, I think we could ban fried chicken and watermelon exceeding
a diameter of three inches. It would be more effective for the goals the
government has in mind. Fried chicken is well, fried, and a large watermelon
can be used to hit someone and cause head injury.
------
blauditore
Honest question: How would decriminalization of drugs work in practice? Would
it be legal to e.g. import and sell cristal meth in stores? What about cheap
self-made alcohol that might contain dangerous stuff like methanol; where do
you draw the line?
~~~
MaxfordAndSons
Decriminalization ≠ legalization; the idea here is decriminalizing usage and
personal possession, which in no way entails legalizing production,
cultivation or commercialization. The point is to enable addicts to seek
treatment without fear of legal trouble.
~~~
subroutine
I would argue, somewhat pedantically, that decriminalization = legalization.
Drug use can either be legal or illegal. Drug possession can be either legal
or illegal. Same for drug, manufacture, and drug distribution.
In that order: use, possession, manufacture, distribution
I think you will get a reduction in the number of people who would agree with
having no restrictions. For instance, drug use is probably ok, but not while
driving a vehicle, or playing a competitive sport. Drug possession is probably
fine, but not more than X amount. Drug manufacture might be fine, if you are
just growing/making for yourself. Drug distribution is probably not ok unless
you have a license and follow state/federal guidelines.
I think where the law breaks down is under: 'possession'
If it's legal to possess say, 200 pills of oxy at any time, no Rx, no
questions asked, I don't see how that isn't going to result in increased
distribution.
------
stretchwithme
I think the best approach is to allow each neighborhood to decide what
recreational drugs, if any, can be consumed in public. And only enforce such
restrictions with fines, not jail time.
Regulating at the neighborhood level makes it easier to live in or travel to
the kind of neighborhood you want to be in. People that want to use drugs in
public where they live can pick their neighborhood accordingly.
The more permissive neighborhoods can tax drug use to pay for any negative
consequences of drug use. Maybe they need more enforcement of traffic laws,
for example.
If we allow everything everywhere, eventually there will be pressure to
control everything again. Better to allow people who want drug-free
neighborhoods to have them, while ensuring that those who want to use drugs
are still able to.
------
mac01021
I can't read the article because I have no Washington Post subscription.
But isn't this more of a question for an economist than one for a medical
doctor?
------
Yaggo
I like how 'drug' can refer to both medicin and non-medical substances in
English. In Finnish, they are two separate words.
------
Madmallard
Seems really dangerous to have things like PCP and Heroin available
------
pcurve
I think this can cause interest shift in relevant job sectors.
~~~
anythingnonidin
How so?
------
AKifer
I'm thinking internally if all this buzz on drug decriminalization isn't just
the visible part of darwinian process that will naturally eliminate the
stupids and the mentally weak from humanity gene pool.
~~~
fifnir
Yeah their idiotic comments in online forums should hopefully make them
undesirable to the opposite sex...
------
csmark
So 22 medical experts state the War on Drugs "directly and indirectly
contribute to lethal violence, disease, discrimination, forced displacement,
injustice and the undermining of people’s right to health."
In Mexico 23,000 people were killed in drug related violence in 2016. Drug
overdoses in the USA jumped to 59,000 in 2016. Arrest numbers in the USA in
2015 totaled 10.8 million. Drug related: 1.49 million; (Broken down: 1.25
million for drug possession; 340,000 for sale or manufacture.) 1.09 million
drunk driving; 11,092 for murder or manslaughter.
Ratios of note: 438:1 Possession:Sale or manufacture; 1.25:1.5 Drunk
driving:Drug related.
Government v Science: In 2009 a British psychiatrist and
neuropsychopharmacologist was sacked from his position chief drug advisor
position in government after publishing a list of most to least harmful drugs.
"Alcohol and tobacco are more harmful than many illegal drugs, including LSD,
ecstasy and cannabis..."
He also stated horse riding was safer than ecstasy with 100 riding fatalities
per year(on average).
The political blowback was massive. On the floor in House of Commons MPs
vehemently rebuffed the document and its author. It was a parade of "my
ignorance trumps your expert scientific opinion."
The congress and courts in the USA are no better. There's no official list but
there is a pattern that has no scientific basis. The crack epidemic of the
late 80's saw congress pass mandatory sentencing laws for crack. Crack is the
crystalized version of cocaine. It was popular in the inner city minority
population. Movie stars from the 80's would have a "cocaine nail." The nail on
the pinky finger (it could be any finger) would be noticeably longer. Carrie
Fisher in the Empire Strikes Back has one that really stands out.
[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/oct/29/nutt-
drugs-...](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/oct/29/nutt-drugs-policy-
reform-call)
[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/oct/30/drugs-
advis...](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/oct/30/drugs-adviser-
david-nutt-sacked)
It was difficult to locate reputable sources of recent data on costs in the
United States. Tobacco and alcohol combined total slightly over $600
Billion/year while illegal drugs are estimated at just under $200 billion.
[https://www.verywell.com/what-are-the-costs-of-drug-abuse-
to...](https://www.verywell.com/what-are-the-costs-of-drug-abuse-to-
society-63037) Joshua J. (2017) The Consequences of the Use of Illicit Drugs
and Their Associated Private and Social Costs. In: The Economics of Addictive
Behaviours Volume III. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
[http://ktla.com/2017/05/09/23000-killed-during-mexicos-
drug-...](http://ktla.com/2017/05/09/23000-killed-during-mexicos-drug-wars-
in-2016-making-it-second-deadliest-conflict-in-the-world-after-syria/)
[http://www.occnewspaper.com/americans-are-still-getting-
arre...](http://www.occnewspaper.com/americans-are-still-getting-arrested-for-
marijuana-possession-at-staggering-rates/)
So you discussed your drug habit with your physician? Physician–patient
privilege isn't a sure thing anymore. The police are requesting and getting
warrants to access a person's medical files. I didn't know this was happening
until I started writing this post.
[https://www.aclu.org/other/faq-government-access-medical-
rec...](https://www.aclu.org/other/faq-government-access-medical-records)
Anythingnonidin has a good list of reasons.
A few others:
\- Alcohol is legal yet it's the only drug where stopping cold turkey can be
fatal. Most people have heard of DTs or the shakes. So drinking too much too
fast and not drinking afters of hitting the bottle every day can both be
fatal.
\- It's impossible to overdose on cannabis. People do have bad reactions or
trips and go to the hospital but it's nothing life threatening.
\- For profit prisons (almost always) cannot take prisoners who've committed a
violent crime. Wonder why the dealer to possession ratio was 1:438? This is
probably a factor.
\- We have 5% of the world's population but 25% of the world's prisoners
\- Tuberculosis, HIV, Hepatitis C - The sentence wasn't for live but these
transmissible diseases are.
\- "If we legalize drugs think of the damage to the economy. ATF, prison
guards, police, cities that are only financially solvent because of the income
from the courts and prisons would face financial ruin. \- Innocent until
proven guilty unless there's a empty cell? How is this not a conflict of
interest for the parole board?
\- So we hear nothing about how many drunks get behind the wheel of a 3000lb
vehicle. Only after 3-5 DWI's will they possibly face prison time. Someone
smoking weed is "a threat to national security?" They pose a threat to the
safety of the community. That car swerving down the road only get a slap on
the wrist.
\- I don't think it should be all drugs and I don't think the article made
that argument. The point was to stop treating a health condition as a crime
and end what Nixon started.
------
palad1n
Paywall?
~~~
grzm
There's a workaround via Facebook: here's an example of its use:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15270969](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15270969)
~~~
anythingnonidin
A clickable one for this one would then be:
[http://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.washingtonpost.com/n...](http://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/24/top-
medical-experts-say-we-should-decriminalize-all-drugs-and-maybe-go-even-
further/)
------
caxistic
Needs to go even further, and deregulate access to prescription drugs as well,
to open up provider competition and increase consumer choice.
~~~
anythingnonidin
What does this mean? Make all Rx drugs OTC?
~~~
andrewfromx
I think we leave the Rx system as is, in that we still let pharmacists do
their job and protect their mainstream normal patients and give good standard
of care, but any party drugs where there is already a clandestine market
become OTC. i.e. if you want some weird medicine for some weird thing that no
one else wants, you'll have to go through the steps to get a Rx for it. But it
won't be hard to get. Because once adderall is OTC there will be 1000's of
freed up doctors who don't have to write Rx for that.
~~~
fujiters
I just wish we could do away with having to get the prescription in the first
place and have the pharmacist be the gatekeeper. You keep a medical history on
file so they can quickly figure out if the medication you want is likely to
cause complications. Then I don't have to leave work and meet with my doctor
every few weeks/months to get another prescription which I then have to take
to the drug store and wait to get filled.
~~~
vidarh
In the UK we now have at least three alternatives (other than "grey market"
import; most prescription drugs outside of narcotics can be legally imported
to the UK for personal use):
For OTC drugs with restrictions, online pharmacies can sell subject to asking
you sufficient questions (and potentially doing a followup call if you answers
raises questions). This covers drugs like steroid creams and the like which
may have risks, but are usually ok.
For prescription drugs, online pharmacies can likewise sell to you if they
have you fill in a questionnaire and a qualified GP agrees to write a
prescription for you. This is increasingly done for low risk but prescription
only drugs like Viagra.
The mechanisms above are simple enough that even though buying from e.g.
companies shipping from Indian manufacturers is trivial in the UK, I'll prefer
UK online pharmacies when possible as the extra hassle is minimal and they're
better regulated.
Alternatively there's a service called Push Doctor (I've got no connection to
them other than being a satisfied user) that lets you have an actual
conversation with a doctor over a video chat (+ text chat and ability to
upload images) after which they can issue you a prescription that gets sent
electronically to the nearest pharmacy. I've tried it twice - once I got seen
within an hour, the other time in less than 10 minutes, and the prescriptions
were ready within half an hour in both cases, so I could just wait for a text
message and go pick it up when it was ready.
It's a fantastic service - the only downside is it's private only, and while
the consultations aren't expensive (28 pounds or 20/month), for more expensive
prescriptions it's not great as you'd be paying full price for the drugs (but
you do have the option of e.g. use them for diagnosis and go see your GP to
get an NHS prescription if they think you need anything expensive, so you at
least avoid having to visit your GP for minor things); I'd love to see this
service get a deal with the NHS...
With the above setup there's very little reason to take risks as the barriers
are low enough for most people to have very little reason to circumvent them.
I do agree with you though that for most drugs delegating it to a pharmacist
would probably provide a good enough barrier - at least in the UK, and I
suspect most other places too, they're well educated. When it isn't we should
ask why. E.g. are doctors looking for signs of any issues? If those issues are
simple enough and there's low enough abuse potential, then either let
pharmacists do it or standardize a questionnaire.
------
dispo001
Drugs cause psychopathic behavior in those who didn't take them.
It is all because of a self-enslavement formula where it is magically expected
to have every angle of everyones life managed by others.
I say we force them to smoke the weed and calm them the fuck down. It's just
better for them.
~~~
dispo001
I suppose I should clarify that without joking so much.
Drug addiction can be very harmful but society retaliating against the victim
is endlessly worse.
Its like death by a thousand cuts, everyone seems to want to take a stab at
the person as if that is going to cure them but it only makes them use more.
They have to hang out with criminals to buy their fix and become one
themselves to finance it.
A drug addict can be successful and have a happy life but only if no one finds
out. When people do it triggers a kind of social death spiral.
You get the proverbial guy drinking a liter of coffee then smoking a cigar
with a glass of whiskey at 11 am ranting about drugs as if the drug user is
the embodiment of evil on earth.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
NIST to redefine the kilogram based on a fundamental universal constant - nixme
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/07/05/scientists-are-about-to-change-what-a-kilogram-is-thats-massive
======
anonymfus
_> When the International Committee for Weights and Measures announced that it
would reconsider the kilogram definition, it said it would require three
measurements with uncertainties below 50 parts per billion, and one below 20
ppb. But with the new NIST measurement, the world now has at least three
experiments below 20 ppb — another was conducted by a Canadian team using a
Kibble balance, the third by an international group that calculates the Planck
constant based on the number of atoms in a sphere of pure silicon._
_> The weights and measures committee will meet this month to establish a
global value for Planck's constant by averaging the values calculated at NIST
and other labs. And in 2018, at the next General Conference on Weights and
Measures, the scientific community will draft a resolution to redefine
kilogram based on this constant._
Looks like the current title "NIST to redefine the kilogram based on a
fundamental universal constant" is confusing because it implies that NIST
defines kilogram but it's International Committee's for Weights and Measures
job.
------
kiernanmcgowan
The kilogram is not the only unit that will be redefined based on universal
constants. The seven base units[0] will transition to being based on
elementary charge and the Planck, Boltzmann, and Avogadro constants[1].
[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_base_unit#Seven_SI_base_uni...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_base_unit#Seven_SI_base_units)
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_redefinition_of_SI_ba...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_redefinition_of_SI_base_units)
~~~
grondilu
Slightly off-topic, but looking at the temperature section in your second link
reminded me of the latest video from Linus Tech Tips[1] where he gets bashed
for using the expression "degrees Kelvin". Personally, I don't see the
problem. Since a kelvin is a hundredth of the difference between boiling and
freezing temperatures of water, there is a notion of scale so the term
"degrees" makes sense.
1\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60OkanvToFI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60OkanvToFI)
~~~
amptorn
Yes, in the same way that a half-marathon is 13 degrees mile long.
~~~
analog31
The half-marathon is a race that commemorates the Greek soldier who ran
halfway from Marathon to Athens after the Battle of Marathon.
~~~
amptorn
Your username is "analog31".
------
sanxiyn
> Scientists don't know whether the BIPM prototype is losing mass, perhaps
> because of loss of impurities in the metals, or if the witnesses are gaining
> mass by accumulating contaminants.
Can we stop this nonsense? It would be a big problem if it were true, but it
isn't. It's the later (contamination weight gain) and we have fairly good
understanding of what's going on. For example, see
[https://phys.org/news/2013-01-kilogram-
weight.html](https://phys.org/news/2013-01-kilogram-weight.html)
~~~
DonbunEf7
As Veritasium explains [0], _all_ of the reference kilograms have drifted, and
some appear to weigh _less_ than they used to. So even if we know the precise
mechanism of action of the drift, it doesn't help with the fact that our
measurements are less reliable than they used to be.
Of course, what's probably happened is that our measuring tools have gotten
more accurate!
[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMByI4s-D-Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMByI4s-D-Y)
~~~
cmurf
The kilogram is a measure of mass, not weight which is a measure of force. In
order to really figure out mass, I'd think the localized gravity has to be
accounted for. e.g. GRACE maps gravity variation around the earth by measuring
the acceleration difference between a pair of satellites.
~~~
mattashii
The measurements were taken at the same place at around the same time, so
fluctuations in local gravity should have been negligible compared to actual
mass fluctuations.
------
madengr
There is an alternate definition using a sphere of silicon with N atoms:
[https://www.nist.gov/physical-measurement-
laboratory/silicon...](https://www.nist.gov/physical-measurement-
laboratory/silicon-spheres-and-international-avogadro-project)
What's really need though is a universal, stable over eons, single standard
for time, length, and mass. I believe time is N cycles of an excited sodium
(light) emission. Length is N wavelengths of that same emission in a vacuum.
Mass would be N atoms.
So why are they not using a single element to define everything? Is it a
matter of finding the proper element that is easy to excite and stable enough
(chemically and atomically) over the long term? Sodium is very reactive and
easy to excite. Silicon is probably the opposite.
~~~
dtech
A second (time) is already defined on cesium transition, a meter (length) is
defined as a fraction of the distance light travels in a second. Both things
which we can accurately measure for some time now, and which universal and
stable over eons.
What is the problem that would be solved by switching to a single element?
~~~
madengr
I don't recall. I just read some article recently about trying to define time
and length with sodium; trying to define everything with a single element that
is very common. Of course it could also have been a 50 year old Asimov book.
------
ZeljkoS
Interesting fact: this is important for US too, because pound is defined as
exactly 0.45359237 kg
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_(mass)#Current_use](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_\(mass\)#Current_use))
~~~
zorked
It's kind of not important because nobody measures the kinds of things that
require the level of precision applied to the kilogram definition using
pounds.
~~~
GCA10
I was about to argue that the illegal drug trade might be a counter-example,
but haven't they gone metric, too?
~~~
randlet
Even if they did use the imperial system, no drug dealer is going to care
about a change in the 8th decimal place of the definition of the pound.
~~~
undersuit
Carfentanil is LD50 at 0.05mg. Don't be Bill Gates, 640KB is not enough for
everyone and the 8th decimal of the pound is a lethal dose of Carfentanil.
~~~
MBlume
Wait no this doesn't make sense. It's not an 8th decimal of a pound, it's an
8th decimal of _what you 're measuring_. If you're measuring out a pound of
Carfentanil you might be off by 0.05mg, but if you're measuring a dose you'll
actually take, you won't.
~~~
undersuit
It still stands that a LD50 of Carfentanil is able to be estimated away
because of the change in the precision of a pound.
------
shawncampbell
It's a little ironic that the article expressed the value of Planck's constant
using an SI Unit with kilograms.
> _Based on 16 months ' worth of measurements, it calculated Planck's constant
> to be 6.626069934 x 10−34 kg∙m2/s._
~~~
JoeAltmaier
Right - can somebody explain how this unit of kg-m2/s (weight diffusion? work-
seconds?) can be used to define weight? Seem circular.
~~~
plus
Right now the mass of the kilogram prototype is _defined_ to be exactly 1 kg.
If someone adds or removes matter from the prototype, then the numerical value
we assign to the mass of _everything else_ in the world would change, but the
prototype would remain 1 kg. On the other hand, currently, the value of
Planck's constant is known only to a certain level of accuracy.
Under the new system, Planck's constant would be defined to be exactly
6.626070040e−34 kg.m^2.s^-1, with no error bars, and the prototype would no
longer be exactly 1 kg. If we refine our estimate for the physical value of
Planck's constant, its numerical value of 6.626070040e−34 kg.m^2.s^-1 _would
not change_ , but the numerical value for everything's mass would.
This definition of 1 kg requires we first define 1 m and 1 s, but there are
already good definitions for these quantities based on fundamental physical
properties (namely, the speed of light and the frequency of the transition
between the two hyperfine levels of ground state of the caesium-133 atom).
------
msimpson
I always get a kick out of this:
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c9/Pr...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c9/Prototype_mass_drifts.jpg/399px-
Prototype_mass_drifts.jpg)
~~~
hsod
context?
~~~
msimpson
It's how the mass of the International Prototype Kilogram and its copies have
drifted over time:
[http://www.bipm.org/en/bipm/mass/ipk/](http://www.bipm.org/en/bipm/mass/ipk/)
(verifications tab)
------
nerdponx
Why is the kilogram the base unit and not the gram?
~~~
FabHK
Good question. Apparently, the unit (mass of 1 litre of water at the ice
point) was supposed to be called "grave", but then it was considered that most
measurements would be for much smaller amounts, and so it was switched to the
gramme, but then for the definition they stuck to the original idea, now re-
christened kg.
I don't quite understand this, as they could've defined it to be the mass of
one cubic centimetre of water, rather than a cubic decimetre of water. Or they
could've said that the unit is gram, and 1 g is 1/1000 of the mass of this
artefact.
I've also read stories that revolutionaries objected to the name "grave", as
it is close to _Grave_ (French), _Graf_ (German), that is, the title of
nobility (anathema for the Republicans of the French Revolution). Thus,
instead of 1 grave we have 1 kilogram.
At any rate, it was all rather messy and political, as the delightful book
_Whatever Happened to the Metric System?: How America Kept Its Feet_ by John
Bemelmans Marciano recounts.
See also precisely this question at Physics StackExchange:
[https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/64562/why-
metric...](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/64562/why-metric-
system-uses-kilogram-as-a-basic-si-unit)
------
Aardwolf
They define it based on Planck's constant, so the results also depends on the
definition of meter and seconds if I understand it correctly.
Would it have been possible to define it as the weight of N amount of
electrons (assuming all electrons have the exact same weight under all
circumstances) or another fundamental particle?
EDIT: it would be the weight of 9.10938356e31 electrons at rest
~~~
roywiggins
One way has been by counting silicon atoms in a nearly-perfect spherical
crystal.
[http://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.4921240](http://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.4921240)
~~~
marcosdumay
And they are using this as a definition for the unity of atomic mass.
------
kronos29296
Always thought why didn't we have some super complex standard for weight when
we had one for length and time. Now my thoughts have become reality. Though
since I am non sciencey, It makes me ask Why so long?
~~~
gh02t
The article explains, albeit it's maybe not very obvious if you aren't
acquanited with metrology.
> So in 2014, at the quadrennial General Conference on Weights and Measures
> (yep, that's a thing), the scientific community resolved to redefine the
> kilogram based on Planck's constant, a value from quantum mechanics that
> describes the packets energy comes in. If physicists could get a good enough
> measure of Planck's constant, the committee would calculate a kilogram from
> that value.
> “But it's a very difficult constant to measure,” Pratt said. He would know:
> He and his colleagues at NIST have spent much of the past few years trying
> to come up with a number accurate and precise enough to please the finicky
> physics community.
Basically, it was hard to measure Planck's constant precisely enough to be as
precise as the old standard. For compatibility reasons, the way this usually
works is that they will measure Planck's constant and then define the kilogram
so that `(k * Planck's constant) = (old mass of the kilogram)`, where `k` is
whatever constant that makes this work out. To do this properly, you need to
be able to measure Planck's constant with the same level of precision (and
accuracy) as the old mass of the kilogram was known. Apparently this wasn't
easy, presumably because Planck's constant is very small.
~~~
kronos29296
I used to wonder (basically my physics class where they took an entire class
about dimensions and verification based on that. Now I know better.)
------
leeoniya
[https://www.wired.com/2011/09/ff_kilogram/](https://www.wired.com/2011/09/ff_kilogram/)
------
slim
It does not make sense, practically. So they'll be using a balance with
multiple moving parts made of multiple minerals that have to be precisely
calibrated with margins of error adding up, instead of a simple platinum
cylinder?
Although, it makes sense politically
~~~
oh_sigh
The problem with a physical standard like that is that you can't (easily) ship
it to labs all over the world so that they can calibrate to it. At least when
you use fundamental constants, each lab can set up their own equipment to
produce the correct measurement.
Also, anything physical will shed atoms, which will affect the mass.
~~~
zimpenfish
Or, indeed, get coated in atmospheric gunk.
[https://www.wired.com/2013/01/keeping-kilogram-
constant/](https://www.wired.com/2013/01/keeping-kilogram-constant/)
> Cumpson suspects that because the kilos living in national labs have been
> retrieved and handled more frequently than the international kilo, more
> carbon-containing contaminants have built up on them over time.
------
kazinator
Ha, the irony! The _USA_ 's NIST defines a SI unit to the rest of the world;
meanwhile, most of citizens don't know what it is.
~~~
gumby
> Ha, the irony! The USA's NIST defines a SI unit to the rest of the world;
> meanwhile, most of citizens don't know what it is.
...except actually it's the International Committee for Weights and Measures.
However I will help you retain your justifiable sense of ironic superiority:
the US is one of the 17 original signatories to the metre convention (in May
1875: [http://www.bipm.org/en/about-us/member-
states/original_seven...](http://www.bipm.org/en/about-us/member-
states/original_seventeen.html)). Also all the US conventional units have been
based on the SI metre and kilogramme since 1959. And of course the metric
system is familiar to any American in the military and/or who uses illegal
drugs.
Although its not part of the BIPM, my favorite such standards organization is
the International Earth Rotation Service (justified paying my taxes -- what if
they stopped???). Sadly they recently renamed themselves "International Earth
Rotation and Reference Systems Service"
Apropos of little: I used to live quite close (a couple of hundred metres) to
an official metre, as there is one on the wall across the street from the
French Senate. When the system was originally promulgated, markers were
erected around France; you could bring something (piece of string or whatnot)
and make your "own" metre to bring home and measure things. There are two or
three of them still extant.
~~~
kazinator
Submission title says "NIST".
> _and /or who uses illegal drugs._
:)
~~~
gumby
Yes, but the article is clear. The headline is from the Washington Post. The
apparatus itself was indeed developed by NIST.
------
moonbug22
That's also a dreadful pun.
~~~
tartuffe78
For those who missed it, the original submission title (from the article) was
"Scientists are about to change what a kilogram is. That’s massive."
~~~
mabbo
Thank you, that _is_ awful. I love it.
~~~
scott_s
The last line of the article is also an awful groaner.
------
cpr
An interesting (banned) TEDx talk by Rupert Sheldrake, one part on the
changing "fundamental constants", starting here:
[https://youtu.be/JKHUaNAxsTg?t=591](https://youtu.be/JKHUaNAxsTg?t=591)
The other parts are a bit "woo" and I'm sure would be laughed at by the HN
crowd. But his points about fundamental "constants" changing, and the
metrologists' dogmatic (really, anti-scientific) response, are worth
pondering.
~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
Just in case folks are unaware, this is the parapsychology guy that believes
the following:
> Sheldrake's morphic resonance hypothesis posits that "memory is inherent in
> nature" and that "natural systems, such as termite colonies, or pigeons, or
> orchid plants, or insulin molecules, inherit a collective memory from all
> previous things of their kind" ... Sheldrake proposes that it is also
> responsible for "telepathy-type interconnections between organisms". His
> advocacy of the idea encompasses paranormal subjects such as precognition,
> telepathy and the psychic staring effect as well as unconventional
> explanations of standard subjects in biology such as development,
> inheritance, and memory.
The reason his TED talk was pulled is because he's a crank, and the entire
talk is a confused defense of pure BS.
~~~
cpr
Yes, but did you watch the section on fundamental constants? Even if he's a
crank, his questions are valid, and metrologists who define away problems with
fundamental constant measurements are to be questioned.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
High Sierra December Bug: Month 13 is out of bounds - reimertz
https://robservatory.com/month-13-is-out-of-bounds/
======
reimertz
This bug seemed to have turned my rMBP into sluggish blob because when I see
slowdowns, I also get a bunch of these error messages.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Noam Chomsky: Coronavirus – What is at stake? - Dim25
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-N3In2rLI4
======
andrekandre
some takes from the video (listening is better of course)
\- corona virus was easily solvable as demonstrated by south korea, taiwan and
china, but market failures cause by emasculated public institutions and
companies more interested in selling consumer products exacerbated the crisis
\- we are very dangerously closer to midnight on the doomsday clock (90 sec
away) and seems the implication is because of the volatile situation in south
asia (it seems he was implying india and pakistan?) caused by many things
including climate change, and strongman leaders who also have no idea what
they are doing (trump/boris) in the uk and us
\- south asia is on its way to becoming unlivable, as certain areas last year
reached upwards of 50 degrees centigrade; with continuously rising temps and
increasing droughts this will only exacerbate tensions as time goes on
\- we will get through the corona virus, but if sometching isn’t done about
global inequality, the slow collapse of democracy around the world, and
finally climate/environmental crisis, we will not “get though” it
\- we are stuck in the ideology of markets and markets only, where private
profit, not not societal needs are considered, and we need to break out of
this ideology if we want to survive the coming crisis post-corona
\- if there is anything positive to come out of this corona virus, it’s that
people take the time to think about and act on what type of world do they want
to live in, do we want to continue the same path towards destruction, or will
we de-atomize ourselves and start to come together to face the looming
problems (which are surmountable if we work together and pool our resources as
people and countries)
.... that’s not verbatim of course, but my interpretation of what noam was
saying
~~~
Dim25
thanks for this, that's quite useful, especially because original video
doesn't have a great quality of audio.
------
rankor
Damn he looks old -- praying we don't lose him to covid
~~~
Dim25
indeed he does. sending good vibes towards Noam!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Bitcoin Crosses The $600 Mark As Its Rally Endures - McKittrick
http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/30/bitcoin-crosses-the-600-mark-as-its-rally-endures/
======
FatalLogic
Bitcoin seems to be seeing steady growth in adoption by businesses that will
accept it as payment, but I haven't seen any stats showing that it's getting
similar growth on the payroll side. Who is getting paid in Bitcoins?
So, there are a lot more places to spend Bitcoins these days, but maybe not a
matching increase in the quantity of Bitcoins available to be spent?
Companies that receive Bitcoins _could_ be using them to pay for services from
other companies, from freelancers, or from employees, but that's currently not
an option for many companies, because they use a payment processor that
accepts Bitcoins and pays them in dollars.
~~~
CodeCube
Even if bitcoin payroll never happens, I don't think that's that much of a big
deal. The open market will always be there as a way to acquire coins.
~~~
FatalLogic
If you mean exchanges, then that works, but it's less efficient. To put it
very simply: people will only buy bitcoin from exchanges if they believe the
price will increase enough to cover the costs of doing so.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Credit Karma glitch exposed users to other people’s accounts - pseudolus
https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/14/credit-karma-glitch-accounts/
======
pugworthy
Though not literally the same as loss of life, there has to come a point where
software "glitches" that lead to this kind of release are treated in a way
similar to a software "glitch" that leads to accidents with computer
controlled machines. Boeing's majorly paying for this right now, but companies
like this just get to say "Oops" and move on.
Again, it's not the same as people dying in a plane crash, but it's not in
the, "The car I ordered wasn't the same shade of blue I thought I was getting"
category either.
As a software engineers (if you are one), we at some point have obligations to
our end users that top the obligations to the people who pay for our work. And
if I worked for Boeing, it's not my personal obligation to safety that keeps
that plane safe, it's Boeing's obligation, and their interest in a culture
that manifests a mindset in developers of "There's a lot riding on your
decisions."
~~~
rectang
The difference between those two "glitches", receiving an incorrect product
and Credit Karma's exposure is: that toxic asset, your data.
We are eventually going to come around to the fact that business models which
require keeping sensitive user data are highly risky — just like businesses
that handle toxic chemicals.
~~~
pessimizer
Not unless there's legislation giving people some ownership of their data and
companies some responsibility in its stewardship. Until then it'll be an
externality, which means that hoarding data is essentially free money.
Just like businesses who use and discard into the environment toxic chemicals
that there are no regulations covering.
------
maximente
it's time to factor in guaranteed exposure of data when considering pros/cons
of consuming any online service.
questions i've been asking myself lately:
\- how embarrassing or worse would an HN data breach (plug in favorite
$social_network) be to me when logs are exposed that link my activity in a way
that can trivially deanonymize me? how much does this reduce the value of
consuming the service in the first place?
\- how embarrassing or worse would a data breach at Uber/Lyft/other ride
sharing be for me? consider exposure of geolocation + timestamps. how much
does this reduce the value of consuming the service in the first place?
\- repeat for things like online dating or whatever else
these additional questions have helped me put risk vs. reward into perspective
when consuming services, no matter where they live or how useful they seem
prima facie.
~~~
buboard
My bigger question is why are people embarassed for their opinions even if
they were expressed as trollish? There was a time when it was normal to
disagree with people
~~~
Mountain_Skies
It's not just a question of embarrassment. There are activists who specialize
in identifying people who engage in wrongthink and contact their employer to
get them fired from their job. Employers who don't comply face boycotts and
social media attacks on their reputation.
~~~
Ascetik
Indeed. I was doxxed over a religious position I hold and underwent a 3 month
investigation at work for it. It was absolutely horrible and very stressful. I
have a family and small children. Some psycho who just couldn't handle that
someone diaagrees with them spent the actual time to call my employer with the
malicious intent to get me fired. That this type of behavior is tolerated by
corporations is a gross injustice and it should be illegal.
------
SilasX
Heh, CK also alerts you when your data or password has been compromised in a
breach. Must be real fun to have to list themselves!
~~~
rvz
> Must be real fun to have to list themselves!
Exactly, we need to be very serious about the security of the thousands of
users at risk here and it's ironic how they list themselves in this security
fault. This to me looks like clownish behavior here.
But come on! You have to give them credit for informing you about all the
other security breaches out there and now including themselves. But hey,
karma's a bitch isn't it? :)
~~~
SilasX
Actually, I'm not even sure if they will go through and treat themselves like
a normal breach. But it will be a jerk move if they don't, and funny/ironic if
they do.
~~~
dragonwriter
> Actually, I'm not even sure if they will go through and treat themselves
> like a normal breach
They've explicitly claimed the “glitch” which exposed customer personal data
to other customers was not a breach, so it's pretty clear they will not.
~~~
sieabahlpark
A botched deploy wasn't a breach...?
------
harryh
FWIW: CK doesn't appear to show SSNs or account numbers which would limit the
damage from this kind of error.
------
jlmorton
Note that there are Twitter reports about this happening as early as 12 hours
before Credit Karma's initial response.
It seems this was happening for a long time, but Credit Karma did not notice
until their social media team came in at 9am PDT.
------
caconym_
Well, this makes me feel better about not signing up for CK because it gave me
a vague skeezy feeling.
We need to make some big changes and I am not looking forward to living in the
inevitable future where they haven't been made.
------
PopeDotNinja
At some point in the near future, a company with a data breech will update
it's TOS post-breech to say that all data should be considered public & that
the service is for entertainment purposes only.
------
PL1
I have tried to have my account deleted a while ago but Credit Karma refused
to do so.
Terrible company.
~~~
skellera
Very terrible.
Had a terrible experience with them when they started their tax service (first
year of it). I let them know they had the wrong format for Hawaii tax IDs and
they told me I was wrong and to go somewhere else because I didn’t know what I
was doing.
Turns out they had their shit wrong. Glad it happened so I realized how trash
their company was. Thankfully I was able to make them delete my account.
~~~
fourstar
Can you post the conversation with all personal information redacted, please?
Very curious to see how this went down.
~~~
skellera
Sorry, I just looked and I don’t have the chat transcript. Only thing I have
is the support email response after I asked to cancel my account because of
the service I received from the chat support. I wish I kept it though. They
were extremely rude and I was thrown off by how bad it was.
------
bubblethink
How do you close the CK account and remove their authorizations to credit
reports? I don't see any option in settings.
~~~
fourstar
You would need to deal with the bureau(s) since they ultimately have control
over your data. Good luck with that.
------
sucrose
I noticed something was odd... I've been trying to sign into their app the
past couple of days and keep receiving "Invalid credentials" errors. The
website worked fine for me.
------
notatck
Caching issue.
~~~
benburleson
Does this imply you're only potentially compromised if you were logged in
during the time "the glitch" was live?
~~~
WrtCdEvrydy
Yeah, that's generally how caching problems happen.
Caches are built and served to the wrong person so everyone who saw someone
else's profile can probably be sure theirs was shown to someone else.
------
ErikAugust
“Denied there was a data breach”.
Yet you could simply refresh the page as any logged in user and see a new
random account. This is a data breach. You could build a scraper in ten
minutes.
~~~
fourstar
How useful is that data without a name attached?
------
kraigspear
Let me guess, 6 months of free credit monitoring to make up for it.
~~~
SilasX
Future Not-The-Onion: "Most Americans have more free credit monitoring than
their life expectancy".
~~~
mulmen
Our children will fight for single-payer credit monitoring.
~~~
DoreenMichele
Our grandchildren will live in caves and eek out a living from the family
farm. But at least they will have solar power.
------
astura
Chase had exactly the same issue a while back:
[https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/02/chase-glitch-exposed-
cus...](https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/02/chase-glitch-exposed-customer-
accounts/)
------
sofaofthedamned
Does this apply to the UK version of CK too?
------
mizchief2
that's it i'm canceling my account with them. Their scores are way off, they
just use you as a way to sell more credit cards, and now they are giving out
my info. They are worse than useless now.
~~~
missingrib
>Their scores are way off
Is this true? Why? Where can I go to get a more accurate credit rating?
~~~
euroq
There are dozens of models that various companies use. When applying for a
mortgage, there are different models used when applying for a car or an
apartment. Credit Karma gets their scores from the credit bureaus with some
particular model, which probably isn't the same one when you go try to get a
car. It's not _wrong_ it's just different.
~~~
astura
To be clear: credit karma shows VantageScore 3.0 whereas most credit cards,
mortgages, and auto loans use a FICO score more often. That being said,
there's a bunch of FICO versions in active use. For a rundown of them see
here: [https://www.investopedia.com/articles/credit-loans-
mortgages...](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/credit-loans-
mortgages/081416/fico-5-vs-fico-8-what-are-differences.asp)
Some esoteric lenders might use VantageScore and, for the most part, if you
have a good VantageScore 3.0 you'll most likely have good FICO scores.
~~~
ceejayoz
There's a good 55 point gap between my FICO and my VantageScore, so if you're
getting a mortgage or something, you'll definitely want to check the FICO
value to at least know if that's the case for you.
------
gouggoug
I noticed that today and got very worried when I saw I had apparently taken a
$300k home loan. I immediately assumed someone stole my identity.
I noticed that refreshing would give me other results and got less worried
about identity theft... and more worried about what was happening at CK.
------
r00fus
How can Credit Karma say there was no breach? Just because their database
wasn’t exposed doesn’t mean my personal information wasn’t exposed.
They got a lot more explanation to do.
------
abledon
"Bing Bam Boom - It's Done!"
"what?"
"Your data is exposed"
------
OrgNet
I used to like credit karma, a few years ago... now my bank does the same
thing without having to share my data with yet another company
------
notatck
Caching issue. :(
------
deepsun
I bet they have the top security certifications up-to-date.
------
ProAm
Glitch or poorly written software by a startup?
~~~
ergothus
Why is the "by a startup" relevant?
~~~
NickBusey
They have been owned by Equifax for a while now, not sure startup is even an
accurate term for CK, let alone why that would matter.
Edit: Ok, they may not be owned by Equifax, but they are 10+ years old with
700 employees and over $500 million in revenue in 2016. I don't know what
definition of 'startup' you use, but that doesn't meet my definition.
~~~
ceejayoz
I don't think that's true.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_Karma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_Karma)
------
imnotlost
Even if you delete your account, they probably still keep and sell your data
to anyone who asks.
Is there any way to force a US company to scrub your data, including from logs
and backups?
~~~
pugworthy
If you haven't read it, please read
[https://www.creditkarma.com/about/privacy-20190404/](https://www.creditkarma.com/about/privacy-20190404/)
I haven't read it in detail, but they may cover your first sentence.
~~~
imnotlost
Read it - they don't delete your data.
~~~
pugworthy
I was specifically addressing the "sell your data to anyone who asks" part.
Keeping it is one thing, suggesting they sell it to anyone who asks is
another. My guess is, no - they don't do that.
~~~
skellera
Keeping your data and selling it anonymized is no better. They should not
profit from your data when you leave.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Trump demands FED to cut interest rates to zero 'or less' - spacedog11
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/11/business/economy/bonehead-trump-jay-powell.html
======
5822130027
USD is heading towards a 40% devaluation.
I wasn't convinced at first, but it makes sense after you think about it on a
longer time scale.
The amount of sovereign debt is just unpayable in any real terms ( basket of
goods ).
75 million baby boomers ! with rising projected fiscal deficit from here on
out.
The easiest solution is to let the currency take a hit and default nominally.
It won't cause a huge amount of inflation, only ipads, and foreign imported
goods gets slightly more expensive.
I also do not think other countries devalue as many pundits think.
CNY has been trying to gain purchasing power, as a side karma benefit, the CCP
gets to own people taking money out of china and moving into USD, when USD
falls by 40% then nowhere is safe ! It reduces pressure from chinese citizens
to move assets abroad.
The amount of dollar denominated debt globally is just too high, so trump is
right.
------
olliej
For the clueless among us, is he suggesting that the Fed pay immensely
profitable businesses money to borrow money from the Fed? Wouldn't that
literally be saying "give tax payer money to incredibly profitable banks and
organizations for no reason"?
------
turtlecloud
What do the history books tel us about money?
It always gets devalued!! Look at the USD trend since the fed was created over
100 yrs ago.
Soon $100 will be the new dollar bill.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What about us under valued developer - swcoders
Hi All,
I think I am undervalued developer. I have good expertise in my field and I have caliber to solve the hard problems. I am not too good to show my skills to others. On my day job I have good impact on others but I am some what undervalued. I am capable to do so many things but my day job is not much challenging. In interviews I was not able show my true skills so that I am in very small company. I think big companies do not give shit to candidate expertise. I am very good at my work.
I need your advice. I am really got depressed some time because of this. My day job does not have good challenges and I think this is my mistake because I am not able to show my true potentials to others.
Please advice. What you do to show your skills. How you get a good job. What should I do. Please help!!
======
hex13
"In interviews I was not able show my true skills" Do you have sideproject?
This makes a lot easier to show you true skills if you can show to recruiter
what you have done, talk about it etc.
Besides, to pass well a programming interview you need one more thing: self-
confidence. Somebody mediocre but with a lot of self-confidence looks better
on job interviews than somebody with good skills but with low esteem and with
no confidence.
Recruitement is a psychological process rather than technical.
Second important thing is to be cool or appear cool to you recruiters. If
you're good at programming this counts as cool. If you have some interesting
sideproject you can talk about, this also counts as cool. If you are up-to-
date with current trends (you probably need read much of Twitter, HN, Reddit,
Github etc.), this also counts as cool etc.
TL;DR keep calm and be confident and appear cool.
~~~
swcoders
Thanks for the advice. Can you please advice me what type of side projects I
might choose. I get really confused when trying to work on side projects. So
Please advice what type of side project I should work on. Currently I am
working on mobile platforms.
~~~
hex13
You can do something that
\- it's interesting to you, something you will be passionate about. Something
that is fun to program.
or
\- something that will help you learn new things, that will help you grow as a
programmer
or
\- something that solves you problems (for example open source library that
solves some problems you encounter when programming on mobile platforms)
or:
\- something that solves problems of other people
> Please advice what type of side project I should work on.
"should" is Wrong word. You can. It's more like mental attitude. Take a look
around on hacker and startup communities. Many things arose from sideprojects.
But even if you don't have this kind of sideproject mental attitude it's still
good to spend some time programming on your own, at least to get familiar with
other tools/libraries and approaches than you have in your work. If you can
really don't know what to do it's still better to make anything just for learn
new things (for example to learn popular framework you don't know yet)
------
christopherDam
I think there are lot off people like us who are undervalued
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Wozniak: Web crackdown coming, freedom failing - tux1968
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJnghGBBP2Q
======
tux1968
"Conservative and libertarian types say government shouldn't have any control
over the internet, that (it) takes away our freedom. Wrong! It takes away the
freedom of the companies that are taking away the freedom from us. Every
freedom we have in the United States, every one of them was given to us by
congressional regulation."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
An impending funding crisis threatens Zcash - lordbtc
https://decrypt.co/7570/impending-funding-crisis-zcash
======
prepend
It’s unclear to me how much should go to founders of things like currency.
Shouldn’t the amount of funds to a dev team depend on some sort of measure of
value rather than a cut of all future tokens? That seems unsustainable and
part of the reason why a cutoff would be designed into the system.
I’ve been through a lot of discussions around what a fair price is to pay for
the devs of a community resource and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it resolve
well. A few examples I remember are plastic and kur5hin shutting down, digg
and reddit and slashdot for selling off with digg and slashdot going into
barebones ad models and Reddit doing whatever they’re doing.
One of the big disagreements I witnessed a lot of discussion around was how
much founders thought they should get just to run community resources and how
much the community wanted to pay. The most concrete I remember was the
plastic, or maybe it was netslaves, founder wanting $300/month to run the
servers. Not much at all, I think it was between 2000 and 2005. A few members
offered to run it for free and he wouldn’t do it because he also needed the
servers for his other projects. That spiraled into a boring discussion about
why a community would pay for some private servers.
~~~
lacker
The real problem here is that the compensation structure was initially defined
to give the dev team payments for four years and then stop. That makes sense
for stock options, when there are established mechanisms to expand the options
pool later. For a cryptocurrency it creates a big problem for you, that you’ve
punted four years down the road.
We’ll see if Zcash developers manage to fork into a coin that keeps paying
them to work on it, but I think the lesson here is to incorporate this up
front in the model. Any amount can be fair if it’s fairly communicated up
front.
~~~
jdsully
Shareholders don't expect to keep getting additional shares as time goes on.
The point is you increase the value of each share by improving the company (or
in this case the currency). They already have substantial ownership in the
currency - this should be sufficient.
~~~
lacker
Shareholders don't expect to keep getting additional shares, but employees do.
The main problem isn't that Zcash needs to incentivize shareholders, the main
problem is that they need to incentivize engineers to work on their software.
~~~
jdsully
Given the assets they have - the interest alone out to be enough cash to
employ their devs. ZCash doesn't throw off interest directly but wall street
is pretty creative at turning assets into cash flow.
------
mindcandy
"Can the community save itself from the impending crisis" is a bit clickbaity
when the funding cut-off has been an explicit step in the plan from the
beginning.
------
rolltiide
This relies on - and takes advantage of - a lack of understanding on how these
organizations are able to operate
Drop all the currency terms and what you have is a product, a consumer good
sold to the public that some employees are given. The employees are free to
sell in parallel to the organization selling it.
When that runs out the organization still has 100% share ownership
So THEN it gets put on the same lower level of flexibility as startups and all
private tech companies.
So the answer is not that hard: it issues stock options to founders and
employees when the product sells dry up. This is not funding just
incentivizing, which the article and crypto industry conflates.
The organization and founders have been funding themselves by exchanging the
product for cash. LOTS of cash, for years.
The organization has an unknown amount of cash REVENUE from simply selling
Zcash from their treasury+mining, this is done on the open market
~~~
evian83
"A new lawsuit is sorely testing the Zcash Founders Reward model"
[https://www.finder.com.au/a-new-lawsuit-is-sorely-testing-
th...](https://www.finder.com.au/a-new-lawsuit-is-sorely-testing-the-zcash-
founders-reward-model)
"Ex-Employee Sues Startup Behind Zcash for $2 Million Over Unpaid Stock"
[https://www.coindesk.com/ex-employee-sues-startup-behind-
zca...](https://www.coindesk.com/ex-employee-sues-startup-behind-zcash-
for-2m-over-unpaid-stock)
~~~
rolltiide
what point are you trying to make? OP's article isn't talking about the
incompetence of ECC in making a stock option plan.
------
dijit
Meta: I’m not fond of the trend with these huge banners. The view portal is
basically non-existent.[0]
Thank god for reader mode. It really seems to be essential, but this site
doesn’t even support reader-mode.
[0]: [https://i.imgur.com/jWA4pX6.png](https://i.imgur.com/jWA4pX6.png)
~~~
cududa
Literally everybody on this website agrees with you. These comments aren’t
particularly useful
~~~
dijit
Unless the author/designer of the site sees it as feedback no?
I’m glad people agree with me though. Though I f that were the case wouldn’t
there be an enormous push back against stuff like this in most circumstances?
I know hacker news isn’t all web developers but it would echo a wider
sentiment. Surely?
------
make3
who cares, crypto currency is a dumpster fire
~~~
dang
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here. We've asked you this before,
and if you keep doing it, we're going to have to ban you. I don't want to do
that, so please use the site as intended, described here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
~~~
make3
I apologise, you're right, I was having a bad day. I'm surprised though, on a
post with two downvotes?
~~~
dang
I'm afraid I don't understand your question.
~~~
make3
that you would threaten to ban for something that got two downvotes is
surprising to me
~~~
dang
Ah, I see. Well, moderation is orthogonal to comment voting. If a user is
breaking the guidelines, it doesn't matter how many points the comment has.
It's a bit like a constitutional democracy: the constitution part trumps the
voting part.
When we post something like "if you keep doing it, we're going to have to ban
you," that's because the account has a pattern of posting unsubstantive
comments or otherwise breaking the site guidelines. It's technically a reply
to one comment, because we have to hang it somewhere, but it's really a
response to a pattern.
That said, it's been a while since we had to warn you and your recent history
looks ok other than
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20126286](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20126286),
so I can see why my comment came as a surprise. But it would be good if you'd
omit the really low-information comments and up the signal/noise ratio a bit.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Yahoo approaches Hulu about possible acquisition - varworld
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2011/06/hulu-receives-unsolicited-acquisition-offer.html
======
billturner
This is really quite sad. In 1999, Yahoo bought the streaming media company
(not just video, but radio/sports/original content/etc) I worked for,
broadcast.com. They then proceeded to slowly drive the property into the
ground, to where now, there's so little of it left it's pathetic.
If they had really grasped on to what we were doing back then, and ran with
it, Yahoo would have come out ahead of YouTube, Google Video, and, I could
imagine, many of the current streaming radio players out there now (lastfm,
rdio, etc).
But that didn't happen. They silently killed off what they spent so much on to
buy.
~~~
staunch
No, they would not have. Nothing Broadcast.com did offered any advantage in
creating something like YouTube.
Broadcast.com was almost 10 years ahead of its time and probably would not
have survived on its own. Yahoo made one of the worst acquisitions in history
and then did the smart thing by cutting their losses.
Until around 2005 (when Flash Player 7 implemented progressive streaming)
there was no good way to stream video on the internet and not enough users
with broadband to build a big business around it.
YouTube was created at exactly the right moment, by a startup, which is how it
would have happened regardless of what Yahoo did.
~~~
Terretta
4 paragraphs:
1a) i dont know, but I'm sure some of these other points aren't right
1b) true, in the official product offering, but scaffolding was there
2a) false and true (thanks to burn rate and earlier assertion being false)
2b) true (price required plan not supported after purchase) and true
3a) false (multibitrate Windows Media was fantastic with a great video and
audio codec, while Flash was plain bad till H.264), and in the years you say
there wasn't demand, we built a similar business that routinely helped
customers reach hundreds of thousands or even millions of viewers at a profit
for them and a profit for us.
4a) YouTube (non-essential/comedy/ugc content being perfect for a ubiquitous
animation player supporting a crappy codec via pseudostreaming) isn't Hulu,
and isn't Broadcast.com. Hulu secured content users want to pay for.
Yahoo needs users' attention.
~~~
staunch
You could browse the web on a mobile phone before the iPhone too...
Windows Media was horrible from a end-user UX perspective (not well integrated
into browsers, differences across OSes/browsers, version/codec issues) and
required special server software.
RTMP streaming over Flash Communication Server was great on end-user UX but
still required special server software.
Real Video/QuickTime sucked on both sides.
There's a world of difference between something being technically possible and
being good enough to cause widespread adoption.
There were many streaming businesses that saw small scale success (like
Broadcast.com) before Flash 7 was released. Just like there were some fairly
successful business built selling Java games on flip phones.
------
zaidf
Is Hulu even an acquisition target at _any_ reasonable price? I always felt
the media co backers of Hulu(Viacom, Time Warner etc.) want to keep it
independent and use it more to progress their corporate cause than make a
return by selling Hulu.
I'd put Hulu as one of the least likely companies to be acquired.
------
jerf
I haven't really loved Hulu, in fact just today I canceled my premium free
trial with them... but they don't deserve _that!_ Nobody deserves death-by-
acquisition-by-Yahoo.
------
leif
I read the title and half expected an article about Yahoo! asking Hulu to save
them.
~~~
floppydisk
That was the first thing that crossed my mind when I saw the article. Yahoo. .
. buying something huge? Is the world ending?
------
Steko
This can only end badly with AOL acquiring Hulu and running 10+ minutes of ads
per 23 min show.
Yes I realize this is about Yahoo but I don't think they can afford it.
------
nextparadigms
Does anyone else think Hulu would be a good acquisition for Google, especially
now that they have Google TV? It would've been better if they bought Netflix a
while ago, but Hulu seems to be like the next best thing. Plus, it's based on
ads and everything.
~~~
AllenKids
The second Google purchases Hulu, the site's content licenses will be revoked
by All the providers and they'll demand a renegotiation of far more favorible
deal.
Hulu was only able to stay afloat because it was backed by FOX NBC and Disney,
and got all those shows at a heavily discounted price. The networks were very
cautious to not create an iTunes for TV that would grow to be too big to
control, they use very restrictive and short term content license to ensure
that.
------
varworld
It seems like Yahoo has decided to bet on their Connected TV brand, with this
bid for hulu and recent acquisition of IntoNow makes it pretty clear. This may
be a better direction for their display ad business instead of generic
internet services.
------
orofino
Yahoo simply isn't going to be able to buy themselves out of the hole they've
made. Honestly, I'd be surprised if they could muster an offer that Hulu would
find appealing.
------
sixtofour
Well, Hulu comes pre-neglected, so it will fit right in to Yahoo's portfolio
management.
------
spoiledtechie
I personally think Yahoo is Corporate greed at its highest. Nothing good has
come from Yahoo management and higher ups. The only good that has come have
been from developers. To me personally, I think Yahoo is all about money now.
Hulu would make another target to rake in profits and then dismiss or run into
the ground like other commentors.
------
aresant
As a talent acquisition to get a hold of Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu, I'd love to
see this happen.
Kilar gets online media, gets working with the content providers, gets ad
driven content businesses.
~~~
Terretta
What did Yahoo do with Stewart Butterfield?
Look back through "talent" buys... They tend to leave Yahoo more quickly than
other buyers like Microsoft or Google.
------
amurmann
Am I the only one who doesn't understand why Yahoo is even still around? Since
at least three years I have only heard about Yahoo products because they were
canceled.
------
46Bit
Can we have it the other way around?
------
killerswan
Hulu to buy Yahoo? Impressive.
------
andrewcross
If Yahoo acquires Hulu, does that mean it will come to Canada? Pleasee!!!
~~~
waterside81
I'm in Toronto and watch Hulu/Netflix US all the time. You need a VPN service.
StrongVPN is $7/month. Worth it if you're exploring cutting the cable from
Rogers/Bell/Telus.
~~~
jackowayed
If you have a server in the US (any very cheap hosting--I think even shared
hosting--should work), you can also just do SSH tunneling.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How to read deep learning/machine learning papers? - ghosthamlet
======
PaulHoule
When I read math-heavy papers I often read them over and over again over an
extended period of time. Back in the early 00's I would get paper conferences
proceedings out of the library at my local uni and read them on the bus, now I
read on a tablet while I spin at the gym.
If you really have to understand them, there is no substitute for working out
the math partially or completely by hand, try to find a different way to
derive things, reproduce the results computationally, etc.
Do that on more than 1 or 2 papers then you will start finding errors!
------
billconan
I'd suggest searching for and reading blog posts of people who are studying
deep learning.
Academic papers are very pretentious, they are the tools for scholars to
declare victories. They are not the best materials to understand.
[http://www.wildml.com/](http://www.wildml.com/)
[https://medium.com/mlreview](https://medium.com/mlreview)
[https://distill.pub/](https://distill.pub/)
~~~
ghosthamlet
Thanks for you suggest. I just live math, and math + DL/ML/AI is very
interesting, the DL framework/library is like normal software
framework/library, easy and fun to use, but math relate papers are more fun.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Spotify: context switching done right - cdbattags
https://cdbattaglia.com/words/spotify-context-switching-done-right
======
cdbattags
Hiya, folks! I'm starting this a series of how CTOs and product owners attempt
to keep track of all different "contexts" surrounding the same data/product.
Spotify is a great example with their supposed C++ master lib.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
“Disappointing” iPad 3 speculation - kacy
http://www.marco.org/2012/03/06/disappointing-ipad-3
======
martingordon
I think we see this "disappointing" talk from many of the old-timers because
they've spent 25 years writing about specs and that's the lens they use to
look at the iPad. "It's not getting a quad-core processor? Android tablets
have quad-core chips. How disappointing."
They don't care that Apple and third parties ship software that utilizes both
cores (iMovie, GarageBand) and that hardly anyone ships Android software that
utilizes more than one core, much less all four. They don't care that Apple
may have tweaked last year's dual-core chip to get better performance and
better battery life. According to them, since 2=2 and 2 < 4, the iPad 2 is a
lackluster upgrade and is empirically worse than an Android tablet.
Meanwhile, 50 million people could care less what's inside an iPad. All that
matters is that the hardware and software work well enough for what they want
to do.
~~~
kiloaper
>Meanwhile, 50 million people could care less what's inside an iPad.
I assume you mean ' _couldn't_ care less'. [1]
[1] <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw>
~~~
martingordon
Ugh, I always find myself correcting people on that and I hate myself for
letting it slip through.
------
staunch
If someone created a teleportation device that could beam you to any location
within a 1000 miles it would cause mass hysteria. When the next version was
released a few years later, extending the range to 2000 miles, it would be
"meh".
------
akent
From one of the reviews of the original iPad linked to in this post:
_The iPad is not the transformational device so many Apple enthusiasts were
hoping for. It won’t turn all the content industries upside down, it won’t be
your primary computing device, and it’s not even a bigger, better iPhone._
(<http://mashable.com/2010/01/27/apple-ipad-downsides/>)
Still seems true to me today.
~~~
solutionyogi
I am a geek and I own two iPads (one for me and one for my family back in
India), allow me to share my opinion.
My parents have a PC at home but my mom can't use a PC because she can't read
English. My dad can find his way through but he will avoid using PC unless
it's absolutely necessary. iPad is the first computer which my parents are
able to use. I am finally able to video chat with them. I can easily share my
photos with them. I have created a 'family' Apple account which syncs to
iCloud and I copy photos on my computer and it automatically shows up on their
iPad. My mom may not be able to read English but we could teach her the
'swipe' gesture to unlock the iPad and show her the 'icon' to touch so that
she can see my photos. She used the 'flick' gesture to scroll through photos
without any instructions from us.
If you discount iPad, you are seriously underestimating the potential of the
device for all the non technical people out there. My parents have completely
stopped using PC as iPad is capable of sending emails/seeing my photos/video
chat.
~~~
acqq
It went OK with my parents and iPad until my parents managed to delete Skype
app. Holding the finger on the icon a little longer, then pressing it again
and hitting the cross that appeared. Maybe even tapping OK afterwards. iOS
should get a little better fitted mode to delete apps for "old or challenged
people" (hint: not so easy to do). You show them how to tap, you don't show
them how to delete apps as they will never needed, but they still accidentally
enter the mode as it's just a longer hold on the icon.
Only programmers can like modes. Normal people die because of modes, two years
ago one a computer in Airbus turned off "controlling with software" mode
because some speedometer didn't get input, pilots didn't understand the
effects of such mode change.
Modes bad. Not always having a clear "go level back" bad. And even if I
haven't tested, I'm quite sure that anything non-Apple is even worse. Although
I'd like to be proved wrong, it seems that nobody is even able not to just
badly copy Apple.
~~~
ugh
That’s what the Parental Controls are for, silly. That’s why they are called
that :-)
------
dbecker
The pundits also panned the iPhone 4S for the first couple days when it came
out. And then, after it'd been out for about three days, they changed their
tune and started raving about how great it was.
------
frou_dh
I'm interested in how the iPad's cameras square with the general sentiment
that Apple "does things right or doesn't do them at all". They're not purely
for FaceTime, as the general Camera app is also a top level choice, with
garbage results.
Also, we're told that Apple are "beyond specs" in marketing, yet I've seen
several official Apple banners (online and physical) that lead with devices
having X cores and Y megapixels.
~~~
pooriaazimi
I believe the reason for those disgusting cameras (on iPod touch and iPad 2)
is thickness... The camera manufacturers don't make such thin cameras. iPad 3
is thicker, so they can shove a higher resolution camera in it.
------
Mythbusters
There are enough fans of the brand and the device that they will lap up even a
marginal improvement over an existing product.
~~~
sarvinc
You really can't say that about many other brands. If I had to guess I would
say you have to make pretty great devices, for a while, before you get that
kind of brand loyalty.
Also, the question is do you think this is a marginal improvement and if so
what would they have to do to make this more than a marginal improvement?
------
wavephorm
Yeah, whatever. Find me one person that doesn't want a super high resolution
digital tablet.
This stuff was Science-Fiction just 5 years ago. If Apple didn't bring it to
use we'd be using desktop GUI computers forever.
~~~
ekianjo
It would have come sooner or later, it's not because Apple was the first to do
it that nobody was thinking about doing such kind of interfaces before. You
should know by the history of patents that similar ideas are always flowing
around in different places - We would NOT have been using desktop GUIs forever
on portable devices.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Build. Launch. Dominate – Collection of awesome online marketing tools - scottatmu
http://www.buildlaunchdominate.com
======
scottatmu
Like most developers and marketers out there, I had tons of online tools but
didn't have an easy way to organize them. Thus enter BLD.
Prior to launching BLD, when I'd come across a tool I'd bookmark it in Chrome.
Problem was I had so many tools bookmarked that I couldn't really remember
which tool did what.
I ended up building BLD to solve that issue so I could easily categorize and
screenshot each tool so when I needed it I could find it fast.
After running this locally on my computer I thought I'd share it with others.
Thus BLD was soft-launched late last night at the tail-end of a long coding
session.
Let me know what you think.
------
marclave
A really good resource is Launchaco
([http://launchaco.com/](http://launchaco.com/)) [shameless plug]. It helps
you choose a name, check social presence of name and then helps you make a
unique, responsive and elegant landing page instantly!
~~~
scottatmu
Awesome. If you head over to the website there is an ADD A RESOURCE link. Just
fill out that form and I can get it added to the website.
~~~
marclave
Already did :) Thanks for the speedy reply!
~~~
scottatmu
Got it added ...
[http://www.buildlaunchdominate.com/resource/launchaco/](http://www.buildlaunchdominate.com/resource/launchaco/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Hacker News now uses Google Captcha - auslander
Just got hit with one.<p>1. Since when?<p>2. What for?<p>3. Bye and thank you for the fish.
======
haneefmubarak
Hacker News uses CloudFlare, which uses ReCAPTCHA if it thinks malicious or
excessive traffic might be coming from your IP address.
~~~
auslander
I was pretty sure they have stopped using CF ..
~~~
haneefmubarak
You're right (my bad), they now use AWS. I imagine they're either using some
other DDoS product or spun up something simple that does basic prevention,
likely via CAPTCHA for suspect traffic.
ReCAPTCHA is basically the industry standard when it comes to CAPTCHAs, so
whomever likely just went with that instinctively.
------
auslander
Last HN post from auslander, bitches :) It was a good run!
Changed password to the blindly typed one.
Google must die, lol
~~~
sprremix
What's the purpose of that? You can still reset it
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
AP Style alert: Don’t capitalize internet and web any more - aaronbrethorst
http://www.poynter.org/2016/ap-style-change-alert-dont-capitalize-internet-and-web-any-more/404664/
======
thinkpad20
I take a little issue with the article's quoted claim that "capital letters
are speed bumps for the eyes when reading. They should be eliminated where
possible." Says who? Capital letters appear all over, for a variety of
reasons, and it doesn't cause any issues. Not to mention languages like German
which capitalize way more than English.
~~~
jakub_h
> Not to mention languages like German which capitalize way more than English.
And as everyone knows, Germans drive like crazy on their Autobahns, so they're
clearly not the type of people who would willingly put speed bumps into their
sentences. Therefore, capital letters don't work like speed bumps at all. My
logic is bulletproof, case closed!
~~~
cm3
This myth may have been true 30 years ago, but if you go on any Autobahn
today, you will find there's at most 5km, if at all, of unrestricted sections.
Germany is famous for its forest of street signs and speed restrictions on
roads are very popular with the administration. There's often config like
UNRESTRICTED -> 100km/h -> 80km/h -> 60km/h -> 100km/h. Or the worst: 70km/h
-> 100km/h for maybe 150 meters -> 70km/h again. Arguably the 100km/h section
could be replaced with no signs aka still 70km/h. But, street signs are
popular in Germany and sometimes I have the impression somebody gains by the
number of signs posted. Yeah, so no unrestricted autobahns, really.
I've found it more relaxed to drive at a constant 120km/h in the Netherlands.
No braking and accelerating all the time.
~~~
rangibaby
Japan has a similar system. Thankfully, speed limits are rarely enforced on
highways, and hidden cameras aren't allowed.
~~~
cm3
I didn't know Japan had limitless highways.
~~~
masklinn
They don't, and most japanese roads (including highways) have ridiculously low
speed limits[0], but as rangibaby notes the speed limits are uncommonly
enforced, nobody respects them
[0] default 60km/h[1] for undivided inter-urban roads though it's common to
get a 50 or even 40km/h speed limits, the default highway speed limit is
100km/h[2] but it's commonly lower than that, and I've seen limits as low as
70km/h on highways, keep in mind that all highways are toll roads and they're
expensive as hell (entry fee of ~¥200 plus ~¥25/km[3], Hokkaido has a special
tourists rental ETC[4], Honshu does not)
[1] under 40mph
[2] 62mph
[3] ~¥40/mi
[4] from ¥1800/day for 2 days to ¥800/day for 2 weeks or more, unlimited
travel. With regular ETC, going from Sapporo to its airport (New Chitose) is
¥1400.
~~~
cm3
But I've heard very good things about Japan's bullet trains, so I'd guess
there's lees need for highways.
In Europe only France seems to have high speed train that actually goes at
high speeds. German ICE is chugging along in first gear all the time except
for short stretches but those are are very few and between.
I once took Cologne to Amsterdam with ICE and it took more than 3 hours, which
defeats the point of a fast train.
~~~
rangibaby
JR built Shinkansen-only tracks that have their own stations and no level
crossings, which means they are essentially going their full speed the entire
journey.
Driving is still popular here.
A) It's fun, there is a lot of beautiful scenery to admire and highway service
areas have restaurants where you can eat some local food or buy souvenirs from
that area.
B) It's cheaper to go by car once you have four people, even with highway fees
and gas (most journeys in Japan aren't that long in terms of actual distance
traveled, and normal cars are legally mandated to have very good fuel
efficiency).
TBH my favorite way to travel is by highway bus. They used to really suck, but
have gotten better in the last five years or so because they have a lot of
competition from high-speed rail and cheap airfares. You can travel
comfortably in a big seat with free wifi and power outlets very cheaply,
usually less than half of the equivalent Shinkansen ticket, in exchange for
the journey taking a few hours more.
------
ddddddddq
Why the hell not? It's a proper noun, and we capitalize them. The proper noun
"Internet" refers to a specific instance of an "internet", a common noun.
~~~
smitherfield
But in real-world usage the word "internet" always refers to _the_ internet.
You would never refer to "an internet"—more likely terminology would be
"intranet," "LAN" or "corporate network," or, in a historical context,
something along the lines of "internet precursor."
~~~
TeMPOraL
That's exactly why you capitalize it - because you refer to a _specific_
thing. The Internet, God, the United States, etc.
~~~
IshKebab
"the moon", "the sun", "the planet"
~~~
TeMPOraL
Last time I checked it was "the Moon", "the Sun", and "the planet Earth".
~~~
dmurray
Is that really the AP style? If so I agree it's strange not to keep "the
Internet".
~~~
fasteddie
As of 2009, it was "moon" and "sun."
[http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/moon-vs-moon-a-
study...](http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/moon-vs-moon-a-study-in-
arrant-pedantry-152666843/)
------
Ankaios
Internet Style alert: Don't capitalize associated press any more.
~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
After all, clearly it is just one of many associated presses.
------
skywhopper
I have to agree with others here that the particular reasons given in the
article for why AP will no longer be capitalizing "Internet" don't really make
sense. I'm pretty sure I always capitalize it, except perhaps in IM/chat when
I capitalize very little.
I don't know if I've ever capitalized "web". Certainly I remember how the
NYT's insistence on spelling "weblogs" "Web logs" drove me nuts for years
(this was way back in 1999 and the early 2000s before "blog", kids). The
reasoning and usage of the people who coined and actually use a new word
surely should have some influence on how it is spelled when the word is
reported on.
Which brings me back to "Internet"\--same argument from me: the style should
follow that of the people to whom the word is most relevant, unless they are
just ludicrously out of step with common usage.
So I'm curious if they actually did research on how people spell "Internet" in
non-casual settings, or if they are just trying to set a precedent and truly
believe that capital letters are "speed bumps" (that's true in a sense: our
brain pauses on them precisely because we've trained ourselves to understand
that they are used for Important Things like names).
------
goodcanadian
Wow, reading the comments is fascinating. It is amazing how strong people's
opinions can be on something that is ultimately inconsequential. Well, here's
my two cents:
I've never thought internet should be capitalized. I was always under the
impression that was the majority view of tech people though from reading the
comments here, I may be mistaken. It seems even that what is or is not a
proper noun is not self evident. I do not consider internet or moon or sun
(other common examples in these comments) to be proper nouns. Those are not
their names. Just because we generally consider them singular and unique does
not make them proper nouns anymore than "the car" is when I talk to my wife.
We only have one car. It is singular and unique, but "Car" is not it's name.
However, follow whatever rule you want. Most people are terrible at following
the rules anyway, even when they know them. We just have to accept a certain
amount of variability in these things. Just know that it will always look
strange to me to see internet, sun, or moon capitalized.
~~~
rayiner
The Moon and the Sun are the names for those things and are proper nouns. See:
[http://itsnameisthemoon.com](http://itsnameisthemoon.com),
[http://itsnameisthesun.com](http://itsnameisthesun.com).
~~~
goodcanadian
I understand that is the opinion of many people. It is not, however, my
opinion. In my opinion, those are descriptive and are not in fact names. If I
were forced to name them, I might call them Luna and Sol.
~~~
tptacek
Click through to the article; you've literally restated one of the FAQs.
------
rsync
Internet should be capitalized when referring to the single, proper Internet
that most of us use.
However, one can create other internets, and those are not capitalized.
~~~
gaur
Seems like identical reasoning can be applied to many other nouns which are
definitely not capitalized:
> Atmosphere should be capitalized when referring to the single, proper
> Atmosphere that most of us breathe.
> However, there are other atmospheres (e.g., on other planets), and those are
> not capitalized.
~~~
moefh
On the other hand:
> Sun should be capitalized when referring to the star at the center of our
> solar system, as opposed to other suns -- the stars at the center of other
> planetary systems.
~~~
jen729w
Bad example, I'm afraid. The Sun is, specifically, our star. Other stars
aren't suns, they're stars with other names.
~~~
moefh
It's common usage to call other stars at the center of planetary system
"suns". For example:
> As we came to understand that the stars in the sky are other suns [...]
\- [http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-
areas/exoplanet-e...](http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-
areas/exoplanet-exploration/)
See also the 2nd definition at [http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/sun](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sun) :
> : any star that has planets which move around it
------
gaur
When in doubt, I usually check Wikipedia's style guide [0] rather than
anything else. Some of it is Wikipedia-specific (e.g., markup syntax), but
there is also good general-purpose advice. It also has the major advantage of
being free.
[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style)
~~~
sjy
I agree, Wikipedia's style guide is great! I think it strikes a good balance
between prescription and flexibility, eg. being able to use local date formats
and spellings in articles that relate to that locality.
------
shirro
I don't agree with this. The Internet is clearly a proper noun like America,
Jesus or Associated Press. It is somewhere between a place and an idea which
might confuse the AP people but it is THE big thing between a place and idea
of our time and it deserves proper noun status.
I take less issue with web being written lowercase. It is a shortening of
World Wide Web anyway.
------
applecore
It's interesting to see both terms genericized. It was Alan Kay who said:
_> The Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural
resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. . .
. The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs._
[http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/interview-
wit...](http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/interview-with-alan-
kay/240003442)
~~~
_asummers
Alan Kay has so many amazing quotes. One of my favorite funny ones is from an
OOPSLA lecture where he says "arrogance in computer science is measured in
nano-Dijkstras".
------
narag
Do proper names in English use article, really? I had the exact opposite idea
(as in my own language). Actually I believed that "the" Internet was a weird
exception, not the rule.
Is there a specific rule? I ask because I haven't seen "The Michael" or "The
Germany". I did see "The Netherlands", but that seems like an exception.
~~~
munificent
> Is there a specific rule?
There isn't a systematic rule as far as I know. Some proper names get a
definite article, some don't. Sometimes "the" is part of the name and
capitalized, and sometimes it's not:
Germany, Washington, New York, Jesus, Dolph Lundgren, Apollo, Godzilla,
JavaScript, Madonna, Microsoft.
Uncapitalized: the Netherlands, the South, the President of the US, the
Everglades, the Pleiades, the Rolling Stones.
Capitalized: The Hague, The Rock.
English is weird.
~~~
narag
Thank you for the clarification.
It seems strange that "the President" is a proper name.
In Spanish we used to say e.g. "el papa" (pope) when not mentioned near the
proper name "el Papa Francisco".
Nowadays even if they're still common names, a lot of public positions and
institutions are capitalized by media, probably to show that they're more
important than us, common mortals :-)
I remember being annoyed writing documents for the job that insisted in taking
this fad to an extreme and capitalizing everything that was even vaguely
related to the authority positions.
There's a special level at hell for language reformers.
~~~
munificent
> It seems strange that "the President" is a proper name.
I believe you say "the president" (lowercase), but "the President of the
United States". It's only capitalized when part of the full title, I think.
------
stevewilhelm
I wonder where the AP weighs in regarding the use of Wi-Fi?
Wi-Fi is a registered trademark [1], with a standard implementation, but I
could easily see the sentence, "My phone is using wifi to access the
internet." being acceptable.
[1] [http://www.wi-fi.org/](http://www.wi-fi.org/)
------
mark_l_watson
My wife is my copy editor and she has me capitalize Internet and not
capitalize web - and that also seems right to me.
------
daxfohl
What about the Information Superhighway?
~~~
labster
The highway's jammed with broken startups on a last chance power drive.
~~~
justinlardinois
Underrated comment.
------
dredmorbius
Someone tell the associated press we're totally down with that.
Signed,
The Internet
------
empressplay
I can't help but think there's a political motive in here somewhere? Stripping
the Internet of its proper noun status could serve to help thwart attempts at
declaring ownership over it, and help arguments to have it declared more
globally as a common carrier.
------
ankushnarula
Next thing you know they'll tell us to stop capitalizing the Aristocracy.
~~~
f1hybrid
"The Aristocrats"
Best story ever.
------
neuromute
Not an April Fools' joke. Colour me surprised, as some of the quoted previous
AP changes are hilarious: 'more than' can replace 'over'... "More than my dead
body!"
------
nxzero
Historically speaking, there were many Internets, and even today there are
many Internets, it's a myth that there is an Internet, the Internet, etc.
For example, users in China have an Internet that is different than an
Internet in another country.
Personally, if their was to be a style change, it in my opinion would be to
stop saying "the Internet" since it is vague a leads to the public believing
it exists.
------
DonHopkins
I am looking forward to the day that AP starts replacing the missing
penultimate "e"'s in the poorly spelled names of companies that were too cheap
to buy the correct domain name, like Flickr and Flattr.
------
VonGuard
Fuck that. The Internet is a thing. The Web is a thing. Both are singular.
Both are proper nouns. There's only one, though it may be huge.
------
amelius
Can we also please put an end to the silly camelCaseNamingConvention, and use
the much more clear underscore_naming_convention instead?
------
barney54
I always thought it did not make sense to capitalize Internet and web, so it's
nice to see the AP catch up.
------
michaelbuddy
Interesting this made top voted story. People have strong views on the style
guide I suppose.
~~~
zorked
Just wait until Associated Press mandates tabs over spaces.
~~~
newjersey
They clearly won't because they've shown just now that they are incapable of
making the right decision.
Edit: they did make the right call with email though so there might be hope.
------
ChrisArchitect
was there a push for the AP to not even use "internet (lowercase)" anymore,
but go further, what the masses would call it - "Facebook"? (jury's out on
whether that needs a capital haha)
------
JoshMnem
They are proper nouns. There is basically one Internet (in common speech) and
one WWW. Other internets are not the Internet. (My spell checker doesn't
recognize "internets".)
What's next: "you are" will formally become "u r" bc ppl r 2 lazy 2 type?
~~~
mc808
Next? No. Eventually? Maybe. We don't generally still say eow, þu, þe, ge,
etc.
~~~
JoshMnem
Languages evolve, but I don't think that misuses should be formalized as
correct. It's already hard enough for speakers of some languages to understand
English's capitalization system. I think that adding more exceptions makes
learning the language more difficult to learn.
People frequently spell "I" with a lowercase letter, so why formally approve
lowercase for "internet" but not for "i"?
------
finin
wait, what?!?
------
kristopolous
"Internet" used to be used without an article prefacing it. Sentences were
structured like "you can get on internet with just a modem and a computer".
Example usage from 1993,
[https://youtu.be/KDxqfgIDvEY](https://youtu.be/KDxqfgIDvEY)
Also antiquated terms like "cyberspace" never adopted an article. "He's on
cyberspace" not "the cyberspace".
~~~
mwfunk
As an old-timer: that was the exception, not the rule. It was just as much
"the Internet" in 1993 as it is now. It just wasn't as widely known by the
mass public, so different usages were less likely to be caught by editors/etc.
~~~
kristopolous
The usage appeared even in books on the topic. In my personal library I have a
1993 book, "The Electronic Traveller: Exploring Alternative Online Systems".
You can see the lack of articles being used here:
[http://imgur.com/a4qbEuJ](http://imgur.com/a4qbEuJ)
Both styles were widespread. Briefly...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Finding Creative People Is Easy (And Here's How) - grellas
http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/06/finding-creative-people-is-easy-and-heres-how/240069/
======
wccrawford
Oh jeez. At the first sentence I hoped the answer was not going to be
'Everyone is creative', but yup, there it is.
No, they aren't. 'Creative' as a attribute for a person means that they have
creative impulses and aren't afraid to express them. Nobody is arguing that
people are born without brains. They are arguing that people are disinclined
to use their brains in that fashion, or that it's difficult for them.
When it comes to coding, I'm amazingly creative and I have no problem
admitting it.
When it comes to visual, audio, or any other artistic expression, I cannot
claim to be creative at all. I'm simply not that kind of person. I would love
to be! I want to play piano, and draw, and write novels... But I know the
effort involved in doing those things far surpasses the effort needed to be
creative at programming on the same scale.
~~~
RyanMcGreal
> No, they aren't.
You seem to be confusing "creative" with "artistic". Creativity can mean a
customer service employee coming up with an imaginative, memorable and
successful way of satisfying an upset customer. It can mean a driver finding
ways to shave five or ten minutes off a delivery route. It can mean a coffee
shop owner turning a "cash only" sign into a "we accept these currencies" sign
(as per a recent HN post). It can mean reorganizing a paper route to reduce
"dead-walking". It can mean finding a way to cut 50 pounds of onions without
getting teary-eyed. It can mean reorganizing a desk to make it more effective.
It can mean taking the time to codify a word-of-mouth business process in a
clear process document. It can mean a manager setting up a venue for staff
meetings that encourages meaningful participation. It can mean tweaks to an
assembly procedure that reduce errors.
I'm firmly of the opinion that there is no job so menial and mechanical that
it can't benefit from creative input by the people doing it. Companies that
cherish and empower their employees unleash these kinds of creative
improvements and enjoy the productivity gains they produce.
~~~
wccrawford
Since I very clearly wrote that I'm 'creative' when it comes to programmer,
I'm sure I'm not confusing those things.
~~~
RyanMcGreal
Maybe I misunderstood you, but it seemed to me that you were circumscribing
creativity to 'traditionally' creative activities, like music, painting,
programming, and so on. My point is that you can be creative in _any_ field of
human activity, even fields we don't normally associate with creativity.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Would you lend $10 to a business in your neighborhood? - jeffreygruber
Just seeing if any of you would do it!
======
japerr
I'd do it. Is it an investment? What is the rate if return? This sound like
micro-lending. Kiva.org, Prosper.com and many others I'm sure.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Tomato – Pomodoro Timer - jastr
http://stripenight.com/tomato/
======
decasteve
Years ago a Buddhist monk recommended to me to set a bell every 30 minutes as
a mindfulness practice. When you hear the bell, look up, bring your
consciousness back to your breath for a few breaths, make sure you are aware
of your body posture, especially when sitting in front of a computer, and then
go back to what you were doing.
The pomodoro technique always reminds me of this.
~~~
lozf
If you have sox installed, simply
while true; do sleep 1800; play -n synth 0.15 sine 800; done
~~~
FungalRaincloud
Or, in powershell (sans sox),
while($true){(New-Object Media.SoundPlayer "C:\YourPreferredSound.wav").Play(); sleep 1800;}
I'm using the Single Hit Tibetan singing bowl from: [http://www.sound-effects-
hunter.com/tibetan-bowl-sound/](http://www.sound-effects-hunter.com/tibetan-
bowl-sound/)
~~~
kzisme
Does this help you mentally? What changes have you seen since starting this
'mindfulness' practice?
~~~
FungalRaincloud
I'm hesitant to say anything about mental effects, since I'm far from able to
objectively measure such things, especially since I haven't been keeping any
kind of measurements or records. But it certainly keeps me from slouching
quite as much.
------
Briel
Here's a productivity tricks that works for me:
Reason why I stop working on a project is because after a while (or 10
minutes...), it just gets boring.
So I toggle between 3-4 similarly important projects a day. The excitement of
doing something new when I switch helps me keep working (just on a different
project).
Yes there is a cost to mentally switching regularly but it's worth it to avoid
the much higher cost of watching Youtube instead!
~~~
ohadron
Very similar to the highly effective Structured Procrastination method -
[http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/](http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/)
------
otto_ortega
My favorite Pomodoro Timer is:
[http://tomato-timer.com/](http://tomato-timer.com/)
This one is lacking some features (I understand it aims to be minimalistic,
but it cut flexibility on the process...)
~~~
macavity23
I find [http://moosti.com](http://moosti.com) to be the best of the web tomato
timers
------
conception
Plug for [https://complice.co/](https://complice.co/) for group pomodoro's.
There's a hacker news channel. Pretty interesting concept, especially for
mobile workers who still want to "chat" with someone.
------
welanes
Nice. For those who'd like a todo list to go with their Pomodoro* timer, I've
created Lanes: [https://lanes.io](https://lanes.io).
It tracks how many pomodoros you complete each day and how long you spent
being productive. Plus you can see the aggregate # of poms completed by all
users of the app (which I find motivating).
*Not strictly a Pomodoro as the timer can be adjusted, but hey that's what the users wanted.
------
jastr
OP here - interesting to see not only how many developers on HN use the
Pomodoro Technique but also how many have built their own app!
~~~
christiangenco
I made my own timer after trying almost everything else out there.
The one I have now is a tomato emoji in my Mac menubar. When I tell it I'm
working, it asks what I'm working on (so I can keep it in a logfile and do fun
analytics on it later), then plays my work playlist in iTunes and updates a
webpage[1] that lets my wife know I'm working for the next 25 minutes.
When the time is up, it stops the music and asks how the pom went (also for
the logfile).
It's absolutely the perfect solution for me. I can't imagine finding an app
that does these things that someone else had built. The ROI on building tools
for myself that help my workflow has been extremely positive.
1\. [http://gen.co/ischristianworking/](http://gen.co/ischristianworking/)
------
asciimo
I just set a 25 minute time and forgot about it. The gong sound terrified me.
------
Scarblac
Another Pomodoro timer that assumes that a Pomodoro is 25 minutes, even though
that was only an example that worked for the author.
------
dcousens
I just use `notify-send` every 30 minutes...
[https://github.com/dcousens/dotfiles/blob/master/.xinitstatu...](https://github.com/dcousens/dotfiles/blob/master/.xinitstatusbar#L88-L94).
------
esseti
I use this
[http://martakostova.github.io/timer/](http://martakostova.github.io/timer/)
(compiled by myself) . It's good becuase it can run script, so i can sete
myself to a DND status on slack when the pomodoro is running and turn back
online after that. E.g.f for start you can use a script like this
do shell script "curl
'[https://slack.com/api/dnd.setSnooze?token=<yourtoken>&num_mi...](https://slack.com/api/dnd.setSnooze?token=<yourtoken>&num_minutes=$duration'")
------
gourou
I thought this was gonna be a post about cooking, I'm still not sure what this
is
~~~
LoSboccacc
Pseudoscience based time management
~~~
Blaque
Despite the snark of your answer, I'd be interested to know if you have any
examples of science-based time management. It seems that this field is mostly
trial-and-error, the techniques either work for you or don't.
~~~
LoSboccacc
Eh it's not like I intended pseudoscience as pejorative, but as in there some
evidence in cognitive science that defocusing and refocusing on tasks help
efficiency, but as all thing in this field reproducibility and other issues
make it a tall order to call it scientific.
------
alexose
I love it! Doesn't get much more minimal than that.
Here's my relatively bloated pomodoro tracker:
[http://alexose.github.io/pomodoro/](http://alexose.github.io/pomodoro/)
------
gianc
Hi, nice one!
Just a suggestion, check the behaviour of the "do_it" div. If I click on it
and then click outside without writing anything, the div will collapse leaving
a blank area, and it will not be possible (or it will be very hard) to open it
again.
I did one too before summer. Here's mine
[http://codepen.io/gianc/full/oLdGAv](http://codepen.io/gianc/full/oLdGAv)
I'm still learning, any criticism and/or advice is appreciated.
------
criddell
This is great. Now good luck resisting the urge to add just one more feature.
I really hope you don't because there are other more feature-bloated timers
out there. This seems perfect to me.
~~~
criddell
After looking again, I realized uBlock was reporting that it had blocked
something and so I took a look and it is Google Analytics. Just out of
curiosity, why include that?
~~~
dougblack
I would imagine the creator would find usage stats interesting.
~~~
jastr
Yup!
~~~
criddell
Thanks for making it. Like I said, I really appreciate how sharply focused the
timer page is. If I were to suggest anything, it would be to get rid of the
analytics tracking. Is Google telling you anything useful? From my point of
view, it consumes resources, doesn't add any functionality, and leaks data
about your visitors.
------
wodenokoto
Is there an article outlining the idea behind these tomato timers, similarly
to GTD or is it in reality just a simple system that I am trying to read too
much into?
~~~
Walkman
[http://pomodorotechnique.com/](http://pomodorotechnique.com/)
~~~
mysterypie
Anyone else getting a black screen that says, "Sorry -- Because of its privacy
settings, this video cannot be played here"?
I can't tell what it's complaining about. I'm allowing tracking, DRM, cookies,
everything I can think of.
Oddly enough, I was able to easily download the video using youtube-dl, a
general-purpose command-line video downloader for Unix/Linux/Windows/Mac[1].
The video was well done and informative, but I still don't understand why it
doesn't play on their web page.
[1] [https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl](https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl)
------
andyjohnson0
Nice work! A good, minimalist solution.
\----
My personal favourite is Strict Workflow [1], which is a Chrome extension. It
has the added benefit of preventing idle website browsing during a work phase.
[1] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/strict-
workflow/cg...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/strict-
workflow/cgmnfnmlficgeijcalkgnnkigkefkbhd)
------
pedasmith
I get distracted by shiny things, so I made a low-distraction work timer
[https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/low-distraction-
work...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/low-distraction-work-
timer/9nblggh5r6z1)
It moves pretty much imperceptibly so that it doesn't distract from the task
at hand.
------
prawn
I use Timebar, which is unfortunately no longer available through the Mac App
Store. [http://lifehacker.com/timebar-turns-your-macs-menubar-
into-a...](http://lifehacker.com/timebar-turns-your-macs-menubar-into-a-
timer-484724310)
It turns your entire top menu bar into a countdown bar which you can keep an
eye on peripherally as you work.
------
f_allwein
My preferred behaviour for pomodoro timers is: start the break countdown
automatically at the end of a pomodoro, but wait for the user to click to
start the next pomodoro. Does it do that?
For everyone who has not tried the pomodoro technique (25 minutes focused
work, 5 minutes everything else): give it a try! I'm constantly surprised at
how much I can get done in 25 minutes.
~~~
jastr
Developer here - it doesnt auto-start the break timer.
Interesting that you would want to start the break countdown but not the next
work timer.
~~~
Veen
I prefer this too. I'm strict about work intervals but flexible about break
intervals. Usually so that I can use the break to chat to my gf, go for a
short walk, or make a cup of tea or whatnot without worrying about going over
by a couple of minutes and having to reset the timer.
~~~
f_allwein
Yes, that's what I meant. If the break does not start automatically, I tend to
forget to trigger it, whereas if the next pomodoro does start automatically,
it may catch me in the middle of doing something else.
------
sc4les
I have a simple PS script to use at work (so I don't have to install any extra
applications, plus I can customize it easily). It shows the remaining time as
well as a desktop notfication: [https://github.com/maxlorenz/ps-
pomodoro](https://github.com/maxlorenz/ps-pomodoro)
------
amasad
For a minimal OS X native app check out Pomodoro One. So simple and clean yet
had a great impact on my productivity.
------
h2hn
I made a pomodoro app for Linux based on taskwarrior. I have been using it for
a while with free sync online ...
[https://github.com/liloman/pomodoroTasks](https://github.com/liloman/pomodoroTasks)
------
Derbasti
Ah, memories. I did one of those, too, a few years ago: [http://pomodoro-
timer.org/](http://pomodoro-timer.org/)
It even has an animated tomato, uses localstorage to save your work record,
and makes ding in the end!
------
gerbal
I really dig the aesthetic and simplicity of
[http://luckyshot.github.io/twentyfive/](http://luckyshot.github.io/twentyfive/)
------
Numberwang
I like and am at the same time annoyed that it is so simple.
One the one hand I have a doze features I'd like to have. On the other I know
those are mostly time wastes.
------
fomq
Yay. Here's mine: [http://xcvfd.com/pomodoro](http://xcvfd.com/pomodoro)
------
tianshuo
My favorite timer is pomotodo.com which merges a todo list with a pomodoro
timer, and gives stats on completion rates.
------
kinleyd
I use Pymodoro in a dzen bar in a minimalist tiling windows manager. Really
nice.
------
Gnarl
Can it send email?
------
Walkman
Why is this on front page? It has two buttons and one text input.
~~~
ohadron
The 'Flappy Bird' effect.
------
0xdeadbeefbabe
Has anyone tried shocking themselves? I feel like this pomodoro idea is ripe
for creative disruption.
~~~
gunn
[http://pavlok.com/](http://pavlok.com/)
~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
Oh boy.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Negotiator Chatbot for WordPress Webshops - Alkubot
https://www.alkubot.com/
======
Coviam
Artificial intelligence is profoundly reshaping the customer support scene.
From mechanized messages to the visual pursuit, AI enables organizations to
interact with their clients through various touchpoints and improve their
experience. So, customer support chatbot and other automation tools help
businesses boost customer experience and achieve faster growth. Find out more
at [http://s.engati.com/1t8](http://s.engati.com/1t8)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Hundreds of people prosecuted for practicing "interior design" without a license. - bokonist
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/08/designing-monop.html
======
bouncingsoul
Not saying I agree, but here's a letter to the Economist defending interior
design licensing
([http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1...](http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10097589)):
SIR – Lexington seems to have confused interior design with interior
decoration. The interior-design profession is regulated because the designers
provide services that carry substantial risk of harm if performed by
unqualified people. They design spaces in a manner that can, among other
things, reduce the likelihood of the spread of germs and disease in hospitals;
increase productivity in commercial offices; and encourage learning in
schools. Most important, they understand buildings from the users'
perspective.
Interior designers are required to know about building codes, mechanical and
electrical systems, fire suppression methods and sustainability measures. The
“state-mandated test” that Lexington referred to was developed by our
organisation and examines a designer's competence in these areas: it does not
cover “fabulous taste”.
Jeffrey Kenney, Executive director, National Council for Interior Design
Qualification, Washington, DC
~~~
paul
I wonder if Alabama and Nevada (states with licensing laws) have better spaces
than the other states. I'd guess no.
------
bokonist
This is prime evidence for the need of separation of state and education ( or
state and credentialing). Any profession can lobby the state to increase the
barriers of entry to that profession. Buying the service becomes more
expensive and young people must spend far more time in school. A small gain to
the current practitioners of the profession ends up being a huge cost to
society as a whole.
~~~
gaius
State and economy is general.
~~~
sethg
Economic transactions with strangers (beyond simple cash-and-carry
interactions) require trust, and most people look to the state as the
guarantor-of-trust of last resort. Which is why states have been involved with
the economy ever since Sumeria.
"Separation of state and economy" is about as likely as "separation of
medicine and chemistry".
------
sh1mmer
What a ridiculous argument. There are so many industries that have the
potential to affect health and safety with no regulation. All common sense
must now be regulated, for you own safety. Those without enough common sense
will be excluded from anything.
------
mechanical_fish
I've kept the faith for so long. But I'm having a bad week. So someone please,
please tell me that HN isn't turning into Reddit and that this completely
irrelevant submission is just a bad dream, like the _Star Wars_ prequels.
~~~
stcredzero
I wonder if this is a reaction to my comment that better credentialing and
education was needed in the programming industry. It is needed, from the
standpoint that lots of shoddy work gets done. I don't think there's a reason
why this couldn't be done by the private sector, though.
------
viggity
I'm not so sure about the harm part, livefreeanddesign.org (the site for
unlicensed designers) is giving me Post-Traumatic Stress due to its 1990's web
design.
~~~
hussong
_g_ you're right, I wouldn't turn to them for advice on design or
architecture.
------
Prrometheus
Some egregious certifications that are required in other states cover hair-
dressers and florists. I remember reading about someone that wanted to open up
an African hair braiding salon but was denied because she hadn't completed a
year-long certification course on hair-dressing that had nothing to do with
the African braiding style.
------
qqq
Yeah. Read _The Machinery of Freedom_ by David Friedman for more on that sort
of law.
~~~
Prrometheus
That's a great book. I wish they had it online. It can't sell many copies.
I contacted David Friedman about that. He says that the publisher holds the
copyright, not him. I actually think they would sell more copies if people
were able to link to it online.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Seattle Is Dying - kappi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpAi70WWBlw
======
erentz
Has a “enforce the laws” vibe in the first half which might turn people off,
but I think it’s important to wait and see the “provide the intervention,
treatment, and training” part at the last half.
------
spydum
Yikes, I recently went to Seattle and that was the most surprising thing to
me: the camps along the highway - far more obvious than anything in SFO/SJC
area. Downtown was nutty as any big metro but the camps are just something
apart.
------
yasp
15:00-18:00 is unreal. What the hell?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: EasyEndorse, a simple way to collect testimonials - whichdan
http://easyendorse.com
======
whichdan
Hi all. I just launched EasyEndorse about a week ago, as a bootstrapped solo
founder. I'm happy to field any questions/suggestions, and you're more than
welcome to email me directly.
I'm initially targetting small B2C companies (restaurants, web hosts, doctors,
etc), so if anything on the site comes across as vague or unclear, please
don't hesistate to point it out. Any feedback on how to improve the API/code
samples would also be greatly appreciated.
You can check out the API docs and code respectively at:
<http://api.easyendorse.com/easyendorse.com/> and
<https://github.com/EasyEndorse/EasyEndorseAPI>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ludum Dare game programming competition grew massively bigger - 1401 entries - willvarfar
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview
======
swah
I don't get why your post (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3883263>: Show
HN: made a game you can play safely at work - Disguised as Eclipse) don't
appear. I just see your posts on HackerFollow.com and then can't open them.
~~~
willvarfar
I deleted it since it wasn't getting upvoted. Just tidying up. Sorry.
<http://williame.github.com/ludum_dare_23_tiny_world/>
I hope you enjoy playing it :)
~~~
swah
Oh, ok, you're kind of A/B testing the time for sending your posts :)
~~~
willvarfar
Indeed
[http://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/18839832580/reddi...](http://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/18839832580/reddit-
vs-hacker-news-vs-twitter)
But honestly, I think this game won't be so popular even if I resubmit
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Politicians are so predictable, a robot can literally write their speeches - t23
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/01/25/politicians-are-so-predictable-a-robot-can-literally-write-their-speeches/
======
daveguy
1) This is AI theatre. We have been able to write plausible prose since at
least the 80s using Markov models + ngrams and sentence structure. (Thanks
Chomsky! ... from An Introduction to Information Theory by John Pierce 1980)
2) what's with all the Washington Post spam? Do all of their articles just get
mirrored on HN every morning now?
------
harigov
Aren't politicians using a lot of data driven techniques to come up with their
speeches? Basically have a focus group answer questions that let data analysts
pick the right set of words that enables politician to reach out to targeted
population.
------
Impl0x
The journal article referenced in the OP actually seems to use more than just
Markov chains.
[http://arxiv.org/pdf/1601.03313v2.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1601.03313v2.pdf)
------
bayonetz
Related: I recently ran Watson's Tone Analyzer and Petsonality Insights
services on the presidential speeches of all presidents since Reagan.
Unsurprisingly, there was hardly any difference between speeches. I ran other
types of documents like research papers and blog posts to make sure Watson
wasn't just broken. Those had plenty of variation. There very much is a
formula to modern speechwriting...
------
bitwize
Lincoln's favoritism for short, succinct speeches is, regrettably, a widely
admired but not often imitated trait.
------
somberi
Often wrongly attributed to Ben Franklin (1):
If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.
(1) [http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-
letter/](http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/)
------
coreyp_1
It sounds like they just implemented a Markov Chain. Why is this news?
~~~
viach
Because they didn't know they _elected_ a Markov Chain?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What is your sleep schedule? - smartera
And how consistent are you on keeping it over long periods of time and over weekdays/weekends?
======
keldaris
4-6am to ~1pm. Whenever some unforeseen external factor forces me to change it
(usually an unwelcome social obligation in the morning), I quickly gravitate
back to it.
------
astrodev
4am-7am - 11am-2pm, all week, very consistent, extremely stable against
perturbations
------
systemshutdown
Sun-Thurs: I try to go to bed by 9pm, read/watch some show and hopefully fall
asleep around 10pm, wake up at 5:45am.
Fri/Sat varies.
------
swah
00:00 to 06:30 but I wish I could sleep an extra hour. Zero dream recall these
days.
------
abhimskywalker
12ish midnight to 6:30ish am
------
subsidd
1am to 5am
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
“How old is the shepherd?” – The problem that shook school mathematics - fjmubeen
https://medium.com/@fjmubeen/how-old-is-the-shepherd-the-problem-that-shook-school-mathematics-ad89b565fff#.7wxk6psys
======
harperlee
I don't think it reflects the fragility of the student's mathematical
reasoning behaviour so much as their ability to play the meta-game of the test
itself. They know they are expected to provide answer, and that they don't
know how to reach for it - so they play the odds. I for one have used this
technique, exploiting for example the fact that in school, correct answers
tended to be round numbers, as an heuristic, for example.
I believe if "insufficient data" was stated as a possible answer (which the
student's are not accustomed to), they would state that.
~~~
mc32
Exactly. Students say to themselves, "while questions can be tricky, they are
seldom so tricky that no answer is expected. As far as I can recall even for
tricky questions, an answer was ascertainable, I must be missing something,
this is all I got, so here goes. A remote chance is better than no chance
(answer) and at least I tried and didn't give up".
------
StefanKarpinski
The obvious way to improve this is to make "insufficient data" a somewhat
common answer to problems (others have mentioned this). Despite the apparent
flippancy, I think this is a deep change, since despite its simplicity, it
forces students to think about the problem solving process itself.
------
rossdavidh
I think that, if they were trying to determine this outside the context of
"here's a math problem from a teacher-type person", they would realize there's
no way to know more easily. But, this still makes an important point, that the
way we teach math doesn't look much like how we use it, which raises the
question of whether we are really preparing students to use the math they are
allegedly learning.
------
robocat
> Yesterday 33 boats sailed into the port and 54 boats left it. Yesterday at
> noon there were 40 boats in the port. How many boats were yesterday evening
> still in the port?
Solvable: solution is a range.
All problems become unsolvable if you allow unknowns to creep in: "I have one
apple in two hands. How many apples do I have?" is completely unsolvable
unless you make assumptions about absolutely everything.
~~~
fallingfrog
Yes, minimum zero, maximum 73..
I don't know if it's really a bad thing for students to assume that their
teachers are not going to mess with them by giving them an unsolveable
problem, doesn't that just indicate that they trust their teacher? In the case
of real world problems, there may or not be a specific correct answer, and I
think students know that on some level. Maybe a better way to ask that
question would be, "Suppose you know that there are 125 sheep and 5 dogs in a
flock. Your friend Amelia asks you, 'How old is the shepherd?' What would be
your response?" That way the hypothetical nature of the question is more
obvious.
------
perilunar
Obligatory link: A Mathematician’s Lament
[http://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament.p...](http://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf)
------
nitwit005
If you want to know how a student will confront a real problem, you need to
create a context where they won't try to outsmart whoever wrote the question.
It's entirely possible to solve a math problem using psychology instead of
math, because math problems are made by people. We've all done a horrifying
amount of schoolwork, and thus have a pretty good data set in our head from
which to extrapolate.
Suppose I tell you that an algebra textbook question includes the numbers 32,
4 and 64 in the problem text. What's the answer? I'd bet most of us would
guess 2 or 4.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Minimum-wage worker needs 2.5 full-time jobs to afford a one-bedroom apartment - pseudolus
https://www.businessinsider.com/minimum-wage-worker-cant-afford-one-bedroom-rent-us-2018-6
======
hirundo
If you believe that labor is not an exception to the law of supply and demand,
then it follows that raising the minimum wage will reduce the demand for
labor, and increase unemployment among those with the least productivity. The
net affect of that could well increase poverty, working against the good
intentions of minimum wage advocates.
If so, if we raise the minimum wage 2.5 times, so that every full time worker
can afford a one-bedroom apartment, there would be a greater number of
unemployed workers than before who cannot afford housing.
If, again, the law of supply and demand applies here, a better approach would
be to increase the supply of both jobs and housing by reducing the regulatory
burden on each. Less regulation on business means more and more profitable
businesses competing for an inelastic supply of labor, raising labor prices.
Less regulation on housing means more of it at lower prices. Lower quality
housing that would otherwise be illegal is made available to people who could
otherwise afford none at all.
If you're an unemployed person living in an illegal shanty town, subject to
continual law enforcement harassment, even becoming a poorly employed person
living in a legal shanty town is an improvement, where an increased minimum
wage is not if you can't get a minimum wage job.
~~~
bagacrap
Supply and demand are not linearly correlated even if you do subscribe to this
"law", so increasing the minimum wage may have a disproportionately small
impact on overall job numbers, meaning greater total wealth held by minimum
wage workers in aggregate. Do you really think Subway franchises are running
on such razor thin margins that they'd be forced to shutter stores if they had
to pay their workforce marginally more?
~~~
zeroname
> Supply and demand are not linearly correlated even if you do subscribe to
> this "law", so increasing the minimum wage may have a disproportionately
> small impact on overall job numbers, meaning greater total wealth held by
> minimum wage workers in aggregate.
The effect of not ever getting into the workforce _at all_ is devastating to
those few that don't make the cut. Meanwhile, the effect of a couple of
dollars extra to those already in the workforce is comparably small.
Consider that minimum wage _could_ be raised arbitrarily. If 10$ is too low
and 15$ is better why isn't 20$ even better? Why not 30$? The argument for
which cutoff to choose can't be based on some basket on what people need to
live a certain standard (i.e. a one-bedroom apartment in some urban area).
> Do you really think Subway franchises are running on such razor thin margins
> that they'd be forced to shutter stores if they had to pay their workforce
> marginally more?
Some of them certainly do. Subway is in decline:
[https://www.businessinsider.de/subway-closes-over-900-us-
loc...](https://www.businessinsider.de/subway-closes-over-900-us-
locations-2017-12?r=US&IR=T)
Lots of low to minimum wage employers indeed do have razor thin margins. For
example, Wal-Mart only has about 4000$ of profit per employee. Companies like
Amazon only lose money on their fulfillment centers.
~~~
hellllllllooo
> The effect of not ever getting into the workforce at all is devastating to
> those few that don't make the cut.
This devistation is a societal choice made by having a non-existent social
safety net in the US. In other countries it's less devastating due to
government programs and universal healthcare that protect people while still
incentivising them to search for work.
You are using the lack of protections and support for the poorest in our
society as an argument against paying them more.
~~~
zeroname
> This devistation is a societal choice made by having a non-existent social
> safety net in the US. In other countries it's less devastating due to
> government programs and universal healthcare that protect people while still
> incentivising them to search for work.
First of all, I agree that raising minimum wage without a proper social safety
net is completely irresponsible.
However, if you look at countries like France with "free" education,
relatively high minimum wage, lots of labor protection and a strong social
safety net, you will find massive youth unemployment. The social safety net is
supposed to _catch you from falling_ off the rope. If you're never allowed to
get on that rope because you're not employable even at minimum wage, you're
likely to stay in the net forever. Soon enough most people around you _rely_
on the safety net and it becomes the social norm.
~~~
hellllllllooo
The US is so far away from that I wouldn't worry too much. See original
article. People often seem to hypothesise and focus on bad things that could
happen at the expense of bad things that are happening. The is plenty of room
in between the two extremes of US and France.
------
Octoth0rpe
This article seems to _repeatedly_ misuse the metric 'per hour', or assume
that the posited worker was able to work two jobs as the same time. Example:
> If a worker holds two full-time minimum wage jobs, they'd be earning $14.50
> an hour total
No. They'd be making $7.25 per hour, and working 80 hours per week. Unless
again they're able to work both jobs simultaneously, which very, very few
people are (I've seen parking garage attendants manage this).
I wish the author would rewrite the article in terms of monthly income / hours
worked per month.
~~~
analog31
Measuring income as a multiple of a minimum wage job is something most of us
can understand, and it brings into relief the inadequacy of the minimum wage.
It's like reporting distance in football fields.
------
scarface74
The purpose of a minimum wage job should not be to live on your own and
support a family. Some jobs aren’t worth $17/hour
Instead of increasing the minimum wage, why not offer job training, universal
health care, have reasonable zoning laws that make affordable housing
possible, get rid of regulatory capture that forces undue licensing to do
things like braid hair, make the Earned Income Tax Credit easier for employers
to distribute during the year, make child care more affordable?
Why put the burden of social policy on private businesses instead of society
through the government where it belongs?
~~~
Octoth0rpe
> Why put the burden of social policy on private businesses instead of society
> through the government where it belongs?
Because 1) Businesses just like people benefit from the conditions created
through government spending, and therefore have some degree of obligation to
support that spending via taxation, 2) businesses are in some way a part of
society, and 3) I'm not sure how you're distinguishing 'through the
government' vs something else.
~~~
scarface74
I never said that business shouldn’t pay taxes. But what do you think is going
to happen to the local pizza shop that my 16 year old son and his two friends
work at that probably is only making his owner $50K a year once they have to
pay them a “livable wage” of $17/hour?
[https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228698](https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228698)
It’s amazing that HN posters, many working at unprofitable companies funded by
VCs are more than willing to tell other companies how much they should be
paying their employees when they actually have to do the unheard of business
move of running a profitable business instead of losing money year after year
hoping for an “exit strategy”.
~~~
Octoth0rpe
> I never said that business shouldn’t pay taxes. But what do you think is
> going to happen to the local pizza shop that my 16 year old son and his two
> friends work at that probably is only making his owner $50K a year once they
> have to pay them a “livable wage” of $17/hour
I dunno, the same thing that happens in other countries with significantly
higher minimum wages? Some prices go up, some people in the economy make a
little less, and overall the floor rises.
I would note that there is more than one way of looking at the problem than
just "raise the min wage to $17". Another way would be that we need to lower
the price of entry level apartment rentals; or a mix of raising wages by some
amount and lower rental prices till we achieve a middle ground that we as a
society find ethical.
> It’s amazing that HN posters, many working at unprofitable companies funded
> by VCs are more than willing to tell other companies how much they should be
> paying their employees when they actually have to do the unheard of business
> move of running a profitable business instead of losing money year after
> year hoping for an “exit strategy”.
Please don't make assumptions. None of that describes me.
~~~
scarface74
_Please don 't make assumptions. None of that describes me._
Seeing that HN is completely supported by a VC and serves an advertisement for
YC, I think it is relevant.
------
atemerev
Quite normal everywhere in the world. It almost sounds like a contradiction in
terms: “minimum wage” and “own apartment”. Here in Switzerland, I probably
won’t be able to ever afford my own apartment, despite earning about
$100k/year (and with “minimum wage”, it is solidly in a realm of fantasy).
Were things different in the United States at some point?
~~~
maratd
> Were things different in the United States at some point?
No, but there is a political movement in the United States toward a universal
income upon which anyone can live comfortably and this is a symptom of that.
Jobs that were previously considered in the realm of "teenager jobs" are now
perceived as actual career tracks and a means toward a living. I'm not sure
how flipping burgers is a career, but to each his own. On the other side,
those same jobs are also being heavily assaulted by automation.
~~~
ceejayoz
> Jobs that were previously considered in the realm of "teenager jobs" are now
> perceived as actual career tracks and a means toward a living.
This is a funny way of writing "previously lucrative careers available to
blue-collar workers have largely evaporated".
~~~
hedvig
> "previously lucrative careers available to blue-collar workers have largely
> evaporated".
This is a funny way of writing "citizens should just accept any scraps they
get"
------
300bps
Article didn’t seem to spell out the math on the methodology being reported
on.
Essentially they’re saying someone would need to earn $17.90 per hour to
afford a one bedroom apartment. This is apparently calculated by taking the
number $930.80 (presumably the average one bedroom monthly rental) and
dividing it by .30 (the article states this is a common measure of
affordability to spend 30% of your income on housing costs) which equates to
$3,102.67 monthly income. They then multiply this by 12 to get a yearly income
of $37,232 which works out to $17.90 per hours for 40 hours per week.
So the most important number seems to be they’re saying a 1 bedroom apartment
costs $930.80 and they don’t take into account the fact that people often live
with either a significant other or a roommate and that multi-bedroom
apartments cost less per resident on average.
~~~
zokier
> they don’t take into account the fact that people often live with either a
> significant other or a roommate and that multi-bedroom apartments cost less
> per resident on average
If the wage:rent ratio is so that you need 2.5x full-time jobs for one-bedroom
apartment, then it naturally follows that even two persons doing full-time
jobs will not afford even a one-bedroom apartment, never mind a two-bedroom
one.
------
jandrewrogers
It is misleading to compare the minimum wage to the 40th percentile rent. Who
do they thinking is renting places below the 40th percentile? The 40th
percentile income is $30k.
When I was poor, I wasn't renting at the 40th percentile. And I split the rent
with others as is common when you are poor. Trying to survive on minimum wage
sucks but this study is exaggerating the reality to make their point.
------
jeffbax
The minimum wage dominates so much of our discourse considering it is such a
small ~1% of total US labor with the bulk of actual minimum wage earners being
people who are likely in college or still living with their parents.
Sorry, but even high income earners in expensive cities generally go the route
of having roommates. Those are the breaks until we can build more housing
stock, and even then it wouldn't likely be wise even if you could squeeze by.
Articles like this are pointless, the fact of the matter is that a 1BR is not
some kind of entitlement and most people earning minimum wage don't tend to
stay there all that long.
------
thex10
One thing usually absent from these threads is the idea that there should be
more variation in the housing options available.
So while we could argue over raising the minimum wage 2.5 times... I think
it'd be much more useful to consider the thought exercise of creating a wider
set of housing options. Perhaps full time minimum wage work could reliably
afford a single person some sort of minimum viable apartment or room - small,
no frills shelter. But this would require more alternatives than lots of
"luxury" apartments and a constrained supply of existing "normal" apartments.
~~~
iguy
Many well-intended regulations push against the creation of small apartments.
Changing the plan to have two 300 sq.ft. units instead of one 600 sq. would
cost nothing in building material, but both those flats need two exits (for
good fire reasons!) so you add another staircase, and both may need parking
(by local law) so you add another 200 sq. ft. outside (per floor), and maybe
they all need to be wheelchair accessible (ADA) so maybe you need a second
lift, or extra corridors... and suddenly the small units aren't 50% the rent,
but 80%, and so they don't get built.
------
TheLoneAdmin
Sure, there is a wage problem. My issue with the way the cost of one-bedroom
apartment is calculated. It is based on the HUD fair market rents (FMRs) at
the "40th percentile of rents that a family can be expected to pay". That
means that 39% of one-bedroom apartments are cheaper than the rate given. If
minimum wage people are supposed to have a 40% apartment, who is supposed to
live in the 1-39% apartments, middle class?
I expect the lowest 10% of wage earners to live in the lowest 10% apartments.
I'd like to see what these numbers would show then.
------
waynecochran
The are many well paying jobs available that are _not_ getting filled. Go
learn to weld, operate heavy equipment, plumb, etc... The real question is why
anyone older than a teenager works for minimum wage (at least more than
temporarily).
[https://mrwf.jobboard.io](https://mrwf.jobboard.io)
------
robomartin
All of these discussions ignore a reality: In a global economy both capital
and industries are mobile.
If the business equation is made unsolvable at location A and a solution can
be had at location B, both capital and, eventually, industries, will migrate.
And people will lose their jobs.
I am surprised this is even an argument today. How much more evidence does
anyone need than China? Try to buy a bath tub or a computer made in the US or
Europe and see how well that goes.
Those jobs evaporated along with the corresponding industries and the
ecosystems that supported them.
It’s a combination of labor, regulatory and tax policies that continue to
drive nail after nail into more and more coffins. I say this as a manufacturer
with over thirty years of entrepreneurial experience in the US and Europe.
Those who support these policies love the poor so much that they make more of
them every day.
------
esotericn
Minimum wage jobs are not intended to be full time permanent work.
The problem is that a ton of people end up treating them as such because they
don't feel they can do any better.
That's what needs to be fixed, really. The idea that stuff like cycling about
doing food delivery is going to pay for a nice flat in city like London is
absurd.
It's a job for kids to do whilst they learn how employment works.
In smaller towns in the UK you can buy a small terraced house with two min
wage earners.
~~~
gbear605
It’s not that they don’t _feel_ they can do any better, it’s that they
actually cannot get any better paying job.
------
hackeraccount
The real question to my mind is why people need multiple part time jobs
instead of a single full time job.
My assumption is that the fixed cost for a full time job is high enough that
paying someone less then some amount doesn't make financial sense. Further
there's a group of people out there getting part time jobs because the pay
they'd get is less then that amount.
~~~
tropo
We mandated expensive benefits (healthcare for example) for full-time workers.
Now those workers must take multiple part-time jobs, with extra commute costs,
and of course they still don't get those expensive benefits.
------
anovikov
How is it possible that rents are rising while incomes aren't? Is the housing
stock shrinking, or growing slower than population? OK there maybe some
banking/Fed/investment related trickery moving housing prices (to buy)
irrespective of "organic" demand, but not rents, right?
~~~
rectang
Business is innovating through extraction of ever greater wealth from its
workforce. Commercial entities are organisms evolving in a savage environment,
doing what it ever takes to survive. Labor, in contrast, does not innovate as
quickly in response and is being eaten.
~~~
anovikov
Come on, it is supply and demand. Rents can't be raised unless demand is
rising or supply is falling. Neither seems to be the case.
------
bellerose
Too many people exist compared to the past. Optimization has made it where
less employees can cater compared to the past. People used to die earlier in
life and inheritance was more of an impact upon spending. I doubt we're even
seeing the worst situations from people living off minimum wage. Give it 20
more years and people will riot (if not already) or universal income will have
rolled out by then.
I live close to my employer and take Uber when I rarely need to go somewhere
far. A good amount of the drivers I've spoken to, have a middle class job and
they're driving on the side. They do it for a few hours after work or on
weekends and typically are raising a family. Minimum & even middle wage isn't
what it used to be. A stay at home parent used to be possible for middle class
and not only if you're in the upper range is when it can be feasible. Unless
the stay at home parent can do work at home on the side it's not possible
anymore for the low tiers.
------
biggio
It bugs me a lot that humanity cannot make shelter a basic human right, rather
it's something you have to work for and most likely work for a lender to pay
of your debt while juice running with excessive rates.
~~~
ringaroll
Why are people entitled to many things just because they are born?
~~~
biggio
Is it their fault that they are born?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
GDPR Hasn’t Shown Its Teeth, Frustrating Advocates - donohoe
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/technology/GDPR-privacy-law-europe.html
======
crankylinuxuser
You know.... I'm still waiting for Adtech companies to request realtime log
shipping on the backend. You'd set up each server type (Apache, HAProxy,
Nginx, IIS, etc) as a log ingester type. And from there, you ask the server
admin to install a telegraf like tool that securely sends data to endpoint.
Doing this would allow websites to remove all appearances of tracking code. It
just wouldn't be there. Sure makes for some strong plausible deniability.
~~~
ThePowerOfFuet
Please don't give them ideas.
~~~
crankylinuxuser
I'm sure the people working in Adtech (primarily google) have already thought
of this long ago. It's only stopped by the fact that many websites are just
frontends and have no backend access.
~~~
Macha
The real obstacle is that solution involves trusting the publisher. The
biggest reason ads are so bloated these days is all the companies that
advertisers, publishers and ad networks tack in to try catch anyone cheating
anyone else (in terms of JS at least, obviously higher res video content also
contributes, but at least nominally most ad companies try pick something
appropriate for the connection as starting playback quickly is in their
interest too)
------
lucideer
Getting the strong impression many commenters here are reading the headline
and not the article (and tbh it kind of buries the lede), so TL;DR:
> _At the center of the dispute is Ireland, which has outsize influence over
> the law’s enforcement because Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and Twitter
> are all based there. The country is responsible for leading more
> investigations, 127, than any other country in Europe, according to Brave._
> _[...]_
> _Last year, Ireland’s data protection regulator sought a budget increase of
> €5.9 million. It got a third of that amount._
> _Helen Dixon, the chair of Ireland’s data protection agency, said she was
> frustrated by the budget restrictions but defended the work of her office._
> _She graded Ireland’s performance an “A for effort” but a “C-plus /B-minus
> in terms of output.”_
Basically, the current Irish government administration, responsible for
funding the DPC, is not a fan of GDPR.
For anyone interested in reading more about the Irish DPC's frustrations,
Cianan Brennan[0][1] of the Irish Examiner is pretty dogged in his coverage of
all things Helen Dixon & DPC (he's basically the main journalist covering GDPR
in the main country tasked with enforcing GDPR), including her
various[2][3][4] battles with the Irish government on their own GDPR-
compliance.
[0] [https://twitter.com/ciananbrennan](https://twitter.com/ciananbrennan)
[1] [https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/authors/cianan-
br...](https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/authors/cianan-brennan/)
[2]
[https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/over-6700...](https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/over-6700-data-
breaches-reported-to-data-protection-commissioner-976403.html)
[3]
[https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/views/analysis/ci...](https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/views/analysis/cianan-
brennan-dixon-determined-to-face-all-challenges-982811.html)
[4] [https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/psc-
data-...](https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/psc-data-
protection-policy-updated-after-doherty-loses-seat-981078.html)
~~~
killerpopiller
sorry, but the Irish DPA is bought. Even with a low budget she could have at
least start investigations, instead nothing. The GDPR will be revised this
year (I believe), the corrupted Irish DPA and the OneStopShop approach is the
main issue. Other DPA‘s are furious btw.
~~~
lucideer
> _she could have at least start investigations, instead nothing_
She's started plenty* of investigations but:
(a) for large cases, the legal resources of the defendant have to be
considered and a case has to be viable. Building these cases takes time
(b) even for smaller cases, actual court procedures take (too much) time, so
the cases she has taken are largely still in train
* A good portion of those cases appear to be directly against the Irish state, rather than any private corporation
------
michaelbuckbee
A lot of this gets into whether you think punishment is the desired outcome or
behavioral changes.
There has been a real and definite shift in the industry post GDPR away from
"we might need this data someday" to "please delete it at the first
opportunity".
~~~
gerland
Punishment is always the desired outcome in the journalist world. If something
dramatic does not happen, then from the perspective of NY Times nothing has
happened at all. There is no story, no people to smear that were the villains,
no heroes to glorify that fought for GDPR. The reality is, that the mundane
often impacts our lives much more than the exciting. Small incremental changes
that we do not notice shape our reality. The same way that NY Times slowly
became a parody of itself, the GDPR slowly changes the web. I still think that
we need more time to put this into perspecive and we need more initiatives
that build on top of GDPR really stands for.
~~~
dexen
Underrated comment.
Perhaps because it's laying out a mundane case, rather than making bombastic
claims...
~~~
gerland
The point is that we often overlook the things that really shape our reality.
What every ideological and/or political movement knows is that no one will
fight the ideology if it's fed in very small increments. We will simply
overlook it as insignificant. If you try to nitpick on small things then
you're sure to become the laughing stock. It's the same mechanism, but for
once it works in our favor.
I was a bit sad when I saw the initial downvotes, since this account was
already 4 times below zero points in total and I don't think there was
anything that broke the rules in that comment. I guess I was looking down on
NYT, but at this point the collapse of journalism is not an opinion, but a
measurable truth. You can just measure it by average salary in the domain. I
don't think there are any sources lately that you can trust 100%.
~~~
renewiltord
You've been paying a man to warn you if there are tigers on the main street.
Every day for the last 10 years he's been telling you there are no tigers on
the main street and you've taken the main street or he's told you there are
tigers there and you've taken the side street. Today he said that there was a
tiger on the main street but you took it anyway and didn't see the tiger. Has
his trustworthiness collapsed or was he always scamming you?
~~~
dexen
_> and [you] didn't see the tiger_
Of course; a tiger keeps hidden and attacks humans from behind.
Jokes aside, your fable is excellent and I hope to use it in the future.
Other than that, I have no useful answer beyond re-iterating my earlier
assertion: the media was always bad. Now we can see it better than before.
Perhaps _the tiger_ was a red herring all along. There just might be a _fat
cat_ getting fatter in the city hall that we were too distracted to pay
attention to.
------
rsynnott
GDPR has caused significant behavioral change for many companies. There hasn't
been much high-profile enforcement yet, granted, but I'm not sure that that's
actually that unusual for an (in EU terms) shiny new regulation.
~~~
filleokus
People keep saying this, and to some extent it's very true, I've witnessed it
myself in companies. But I mean, the aim of GDPR was never to make resonable
data collection that is done in a safe way by "the good guys" hard.
The question is rather how many companies that pre-GDPR stored my data in ways
I (as a technical person) would consider unsafe, or used it in ways I would
consider "bad", that have changed their ways.
My local bowling alley still stores my password in plaintext and use an
outdated Wordpress-plugin for bookings, and Google stills knows as much about
my behaviour online and IRL.
~~~
lukevdp
Isn’t the whole point that you can stop them from collecting your data and
also get them to delete your data if you want? Presumably you could get Google
to delete all of your data. Is this not the case?
~~~
filleokus
I don't actually know, honestly, what the point was/is exactly. Partly to
affect long-term change in how personal data is viewed (less "gold mine, let's
collect it all" and more "potentially toxic asset, let's collect as little as
possible").
But also partly deletion and opt-out also of course, and that probably works
well, for those who use it. But with the huge implementation cost (cited by
PwC as upwards of 150 billion USD in the U.S alone [0]), I wonder what the
price per delete request or opt-out is.
[0]: [https://truthonthemarket.com/2019/05/24/gdpr-after-one-
year-...](https://truthonthemarket.com/2019/05/24/gdpr-after-one-year-costs-
and-unintended-consequences/)
------
CraigJPerry
I don’t know, this article maybe makes sense through an american lens, i’m
open to that idea.
From my view, GDPR has had a few impacting benefits to me personally already.
I’ve been notified of security breaches 3 times now that i’m confident either
wouldn’t have been reported or would but 18 months later. I’ve been able to
move my ISP as a result. Getting closer to that idea that customers will
punish you if you mess up - in this case i was able to learn about their
mistake thanks to GDPR.
~~~
donatj
I agree. Additionally the added ability to get my data back via take-out
features from most services has been a general boon for me, and a major upside
to the law. A far more important feature of the GDPR in my eyes than
vindictive punishments.
------
thefz
Hasn't shown its teeth... in America. For anyone working with even remotely
liable user data in the EU, GDPR has been a massive change.
~~~
jdxcode
"shown its teeth" specifically means penalties or similar remedies when
talking about laws. It doesn't mean that it hasn't had an effect.
------
Sir_Substance
Yes and no. I can't lie, I was really hoping for a significant company to be
put up against a wall and shot, maybe a major retailer that won't let you
check out online without giving a phone number or whatever. The notion of data
being a toxic asset[1] still hasn't really sunk into the higher ranks of most
large orgs.
However, I've found GDPR deletion requests to be a pretty strong cudgel. For
the last 10 years or so I've been sending deletion requests for accounts when
I no longer need them. Prior to GDPR, about 50% of responses would be along
the lines of "in the nicest possible way, we don't care about you enough to do
that so please fuck off". Reading between the lines, I assumed that about 50%
of websites were implemented poorly and didn't properly support deletion.
Post GDPR, all but one request have been given a polite "we have done as you
have requested, we hope to see you as a customer again". GDPR has both
legitimized the process of requesting that your data has been deleted after
you're finished using a service, and has legitimized the concerns of all those
developers who were never able to get engineering time to properly support
account deletion.
So it's been a success, it could be succeeding more but I'm not unhappy. I
would still like to see at least one company get ICBM'd in order to remind
larger entities that they've got responsibilities to society too, not just
their shareholders.
[1]
[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/03/data_is_a_tox...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/03/data_is_a_toxic.html)
~~~
hknapp
Can you call it "your data" if it is not being stored on your hard drive?
~~~
skummetmaelk
If I write your birthday on a piece of paper is it "your" birthday?
~~~
drusepth
It's his birthday, but he definitely doesn't own your piece of paper now.
~~~
Sir_Substance
Nor do I own the banks hard drives, but I do own the money stored on them.
Much like how if I leave my phone in a taxi, either deliberately or
accidentally, I don't own the taxi, but I do still own the phone.
~~~
drusepth
I think the analogy falls apart when you consider the movement/creation of
singular objects (like your phone or your money) versus new/copied objects (a
copy of his birthday on your singular piece of paper).
If you create a replica of a taxi you rode in, you own that copy.
If you take a photo of someone, you own that photo.
If you write that person's birthday down on a piece of paper, you don't own
their birthday now. You own the piece of paper with their birthday written on
it, and they have no claim to that paper or what's written on it.
~~~
Sir_Substance
If you go through someones wallet and write down all the details required to
open a bank account in their name, you do not suddenly own all those details,
and you may not do with them whatever you wish as if you did.
Opening a bank account using those details is identity theft, because they are
not /your/ details. No one cares if you owned the paper you wrote them down
on.
------
PaulKeeble
What I really learned from GDPR and its rollout and its subsequent lack of
enforcement is that laws written with regulators being the only ones able to
enforce it are just political light shows, they achieve little of value. It is
easy for a government to effectively sidestep not implementing the law by
defunding the organisation that would do the enforcement or putting a person
in charge who doesn't pursue the big breakers.
Since individuals can't bring GDPR lawsuits themselves for breaches and fines
charged and governments have largely stopped effective enforcement it has
become a pointless law. Any company complying now has missed just how little
regulators care and are hampering their business for no good reason, it is
still open season on customer data. It has the potential to charge in the
future, a government change and some adjustments in the commissioner's office
in a country could suddenly make the law come into effect but right now it's
looking like companies have another half-decade of ignoring this law at least.
It could have been useful, in practice it just made websites more annoying to
use and those complying fully are exceptionally rare.
~~~
M2Ys4U
>Since individuals can't bring GDPR lawsuits themselves
They absolutely can:
Article 79
Right to an effective judicial remedy against a controller or processor
1\. Without prejudice to any available administrative or non-judicial remedy,
including the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority pursuant
to Article 77, each data subject shall have the right to an effective judicial
remedy where he or she considers that his or her rights under this Regulation
have been infringed as a result of the processing of his or her personal data
in non-compliance with this Regulation.
2\. Proceedings against a controller or a processor shall be brought before
the courts of the Member State where the controller or processor has an
establishment. Alternatively, such proceedings may be brought before the
courts of the Member State where the data subject has his or her habitual
residence, unless the controller or processor is a public authority of a
Member State acting in the exercise of its public powers.
------
belorn
We are moving into a world where every thing we do will leave a data history
behind. To take a single example of a single act of buying a milk at the
store: The store want a record in order to manage inventory, sale history and
sale predictions. They also want location path data in order to determine
effectiveness of product placements. Your bank want a record in order to
facilitating money exchange and manage money laundering laws. The recipient
bank want a record too to do the same for the store owner, but also to keep
track of the market which the store is under. The government want a record in
order to know how much money has changed hand and for what product in order to
determine taxes for the seller and buyer. The mall want a record for the
location of the store you bought the milk and how you traversed the mall to
reach it in order to evaluate property values and advertise placements. Other
milk producers and milk alternatives want a record in order to make a better
case arguing for their competing product. The secret police want a secret
record in order to verify that you did not buy something that could be made
into a threat. The regular police want a copy of the record and a video record
in case a crime happened while buying the milk. The local government want a
location record in order to manage traffic of people who travel around in
order to buy milk. The health department want a record to help researcher
determine the potential benefit of milk drinkers.
GDPR is really just a small stop gap to manage a fraction of all the records
we leave behind. It is unlikely to be the last one trying to create the laws
needed to handle the fact that everyone a record of everything everyone does,
but that we also likely going to end up where everyone has a record of
everything everyone does because it saves money, makes strategies more
efficient and reduces the need for manual labor. Unrestricted data records has
a history full of recorded abuse, and a lot of current use today is explicitly
designed to harm people by manipulation and predatory strategies. GDPR is a
small step forward, but it is mostly just testing the water for the real legal
work needed to make the behavior of all those data collectors safe enough that
a person can do something as simple as buying milk at the store without
exposing themselves to harm.
~~~
lazyjones
You completely missed the point: GDPR is not a "small step" in the right
direction, but counter-productive and detrimental for future efforts. Big
companies will manage to comply with the legal requirements but ignore the
spirit and intention of the GDPR, small companies will have more stumbling
stones in competing with big corporations.
~~~
M2Ys4U
The GDPR _is_ a small step.
It's an evolution of data protection rather than a revolution.
All of the fundamentals included in the GDPR were in the Data Protection
Directive from 1995!
Of course, the extraterritoriality is new, the level of administrative fines
is much higher, but it's not like this popped out of nowhere.
~~~
lazyjones
> _The GDPR is a small step._
Some people wish it to be, but it isn't just because they do.
In order to be a small step forward rather than backwards, it would have to
show actual positive results. It doesn't, all major data leeches claim to
comply with it while retaining more data than ever before, all small companies
struggle with it without bad intentions. Don't be deluded by idealism, look at
the facts. It's about as effective at keeping your data safe as cookie banners
are in preventing cookies, while having similar adverse effects on everyone.
------
pnw_hazor
IMO the only way GDPR would have worked the way its advocates hoped is if the
enacting statutes created a private right of action. (I don't even know if
private rights of action is a thing in the EU.)
In the US some (though not enough) consumer protection or civil right laws
expressly grant plaintiffs the right to bring their own lawsuit in court.
There are edge conditions depending on the laws or jurisdictions involved. For
example, some laws provide a private right of action only if the state agents
decline to pursue the case. While other laws may require the plaintiff to give
notice to some agencies first.
Otherwise, laws that may look bold on paper become toothless based on inaction
by the state agents that must enforce them. In contrast, if a law includes a
private right of action and reasonable fee shifting provisions, private
attorneys will pick up the slack and then some.
For example, in the US, the medical privacy regime, HIPAA, is considerably
weakened by its absence (as far as I know) of a private right of action. For
example, if your medical privacy is violated by your HR department or your
doctor, you cannot sue under US Federal HIPAA laws, you need to sue under some
other law and prove real damages. Note, there may be other laws that cover the
same facts, such as, state privacy laws, or the like. And, in some
circumstance, proven HIPAA violations may be used as evidence of negligence,
or the like, to meet the requirements of the other laws.
~~~
M2Ys4U
>IMO the only way GDPR would have worked the way its advocates hoped is if the
enacting statutes created a private right of action.
Article 79
Right to an effective judicial remedy against a controller or processor
1\. Without prejudice to any available administrative or non-judicial remedy,
including the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority pursuant
to Article 77, each data subject shall have the right to an effective judicial
remedy where he or she considers that his or her rights under this Regulation
have been infringed as a result of the processing of his or her personal data
in non-compliance with this Regulation.
2\. Proceedings against a controller or a processor shall be brought before
the courts of the Member State where the controller or processor has an
establishment. Alternatively, such proceedings may be brought before the
courts of the Member State where the data subject has his or her habitual
residence, unless the controller or processor is a public authority of a
Member State acting in the exercise of its public powers.
------
jp555
What hasn't worked: Expensive bureaucracy that big incumbents can easily
afford to navigate but new entrants would be easily crippled by?
Shocked. /s
~~~
cultus
It's damn near impossible for very small organizations to follow the GDPR in
good faith, especially without a lawyer. The intent is good, but not the
execution.
~~~
modo_mario
What bs. There's plenty arguments against it but people act like it's some
arcane thick book with legalese written in runes. That's very far from the
truth and a quick read-trough the law to identify where it applies to you
won't leave many with much if any questions
~~~
derekp7
A quick read through doesn't necessarily make it easy to follow. For example,
Sarbanes Oxley compliance is a huge business, that is fairly expensive for a
company to implement correctly. And the compliance requirements of it stems
from essentially one paragraph of law.
------
Cenk
Here’s a handy website to keep track of GDPR enforcement and fines:
[https://www.enforcementtracker.com](https://www.enforcementtracker.com)
------
jddj
Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good.
GDPR did a lot to shift the window back and put the behaviour of the big
adtech companies in the sunlight for a while.
The enforcement side is definitely lacking, and black mirror might still have
done more to shift opinion, but it's not all bad.
Consumers all over the world now have the ability to request data takeouts and
deletions, etc. And anecdotally I've noticed more and more sites honouring the
opt in requirement for 3rd party tracking scripts.
It's a solid improvement over the status quo of 2017.
~~~
JeanMarcS
Sadly it mostly still is opt out options.
Not later than this morning I wanted to access a forum post. So I go to the
privacy page (as a popup proposed me) and then arrived to a page with the list
of all the « partners » with access authorized by default.
Around 50 of them. No button to refuse all and had to do it one by one. And I
visit sites like that every day.
I agree that there have been a lot of progress but we are still far from
completion.
~~~
colejohnson66
I’m an American, so forgive my ignorance, but I thought GDPR required explicit
opt-in?
------
scoot_718
All the GDPR did was make it harder for the smaller players. It was a massive
win for Facebook and Google.
~~~
bzb3
That's how regulation works mostly. Even if the intentions are noble, this has
happened so many times that politicians should know better.
~~~
llcoolv
Come on. Intentions are never noble. All politicians have their respective
owners. Be it officially through lobby groups or unofficially by local
oligarchs without middle men.
~~~
aguyfromnb
> _All politicians have their respective owners._
Who owns you, or do you consider yourself immune?
~~~
llcoolv
Am I a career politician? But actually you might be right - just noticed
Massie[0]. If he was to act like a typical politician he would let the food
shortage strike and only then go solving it to gather extra points. Rand Paul
also seems to have something like a conscience. Guess when such people would
have any say on real matters though. Never. And with nation states still being
the main actor, there is no such person in Brussels, unless we count the hell-
raising clowns like Korwin-Mikke and Farage who raise hell for the sake of
raising hell.
0\. [https://noqreport.com/2020/04/26/rep-thomas-massie-has-a-
pla...](https://noqreport.com/2020/04/26/rep-thomas-massie-has-a-plan-to-
prevent-the-coming-food-shortage/)
------
buboard
GDPR was meant to spite google, it ended up killing all their competition. Who
knows, maybe that was the plan?
~~~
number6
Main Problem with the Big Companies is that these are located in Ireland.
The Commissioner there has no resources [0] to pursue these cases but he can't
be bypassed when it comes to fees (at least convention of the other
Commissioners if not by the GDPR itself).
The other Commissioners are becoming more and more upset with this and planing
to institute a board to overrule Ireland's Commissioner. But all of this is
very slow...
You can't imagen the frustration over this on part of the other Comissioners
[0] [https://technology.ie/data-protection-commissioner-double-
wo...](https://technology.ie/data-protection-commissioner-double-workforce-
new-dublin-office/)
~~~
leoc
> [0] [https://technology.ie/data-protection-commissioner-double-
> wo...](https://technology.ie/data-protection-commissioner-double-workforce-
> new-dublin-office/)
/r/nottheonion
> The other Commissioners are becoming more and more upset with this and
> planing to institute a board to overrule Ireland's Commissioner. But all of
> this is very slow...
Interesting, do you know of a news article or something similar about this?
~~~
number6
Alvar Freude (Employee at a DPO in Germany) talked about it in
"Auslegungssache"[0] Episode 9. The whole talk is in German, though.
[0][https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Auslegungssache-Der-
Datensch...](https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Auslegungssache-Der-Datenschutz-
Podcast-des-c-t-Magazins-4571821.html)
~~~
leoc
Thanks!
------
calibas
What I don't like about the GDPR is how it handled cookies. We could have much
tighter control and explicit consent at the browser level, which makes sense
because it's a browser feature.
Instead of something useful like that, we have annoying popups on millions of
websites.
~~~
Nextgrid
The cookie thing is a myth most likely perpetuated by the cancerous
advertising/marketing industry in an attempt to make the regulation look more
annoying than it is.
Cookies for strictly necessary technical reasons (like a session cookie set
when you log in) or those that contain non-identifying information like
language or font size do not require disclosure or consent.
Oh the other hand, _any_ tracking technology that collects personal
information (whether cookies, local storage, server logs or browser
fingerprinting) for non strictly necessary purposes (like analytics, A/B
testing or conversion tracking) needs explicit, opt-in consent, and as far as
I know personal information includes IP addresses or anything that can be used
to identify someone uniquely with reasonable accuracy (so browser fingerprints
fall in this category too).
When consent is requested, it should _freely given_ , so if saying yes is
easier than saying no (which often requires unticking hundreds of checkboxes
one by one or waiting 30 seconds for a fake "we are applying your ad
preferences") then that consent is considered invalid and you may as well just
not ask for it in the first place because you're in breach of the regulation
anyway, but at least you wouldn't be annoying your users.
------
JeanMarcS
In France, for example, the GDPR law haven’t still been transcribed in French
law.
Even more, the IT privacy agency (CNIL) gave time to adv. parties to comply,
as in « you can continue to do as usual for now » Big shame.
~~~
anoncake
Regulations, unlike directives, don't have to be transformed to national law
to be applicable.
------
SpicyLemonZest
Frankly, I think advocates are just wrong about what GDPR means. A lot of
people expected every tech company to face huge fines, because they got it in
their heads that the regulation grants you a right to opt out of targeted ads,
and as far as I can tell that's just not true.
The obvious explanation for why "no major fines or penalties have been
announced against Facebook, Amazon or Twitter" is that those companies don't
have any major violations.
------
filleokus
IMHO GDPR has been (as of yet at least) a net loss to society. It hasn't, and
probably never will, change the status quo of the biggest data hoggers
(Facebook, Google et.al). It have increased my annoyance on the web with even
more crap interruptions about cookies etc. It has increased administration in
so many places in our society where data is collected in totally non-harmful
ways with no real functioning opt-out, like phone numbers in kids football
associations or contact info for parents in schools etc. Remember that even
data stored on papers are covered by GDPR.
I think my gripe is that organisations becoming "GDPR compliant" mainly has
created systems for collecting consent or focusing on which cloud platform to
not use, rather than creating any real change by e.g not using systems with
piss poor security to begin with.
Almost like if we created regulation around banning bad roads, and all that
happened was that people had to start signing papers saying they accepted the
risk of bad roads.
But I guess it will take some time to see real change, hopefully it will come
someday.
~~~
simion314
>Almost like if we created regulation around banning bad roads, and all that
happened was that people had to start signing papers saying they accepted the
risk of bad roads.
Really?, did you not see the popups with the giant list of "partners" that
have access to your data, you need to click on the show details button but now
you can see the shit, where in your road example people would not see the
wholes in the road.
I am fine with even more transparency.
~~~
filleokus
I mean it's nice that it's transparent and even opt-out. But would be
interesting to see the stats of how many people click the details-link on
pages like [https://www.elle.com](https://www.elle.com) or even
[http://techcrunch.com](http://techcrunch.com).
My hunch is that its way less than 0.01%.
Imho it would been as effective, and much nicer, if they could just assume
consent and have a setting accessible via the footer. The small small
percentage of people caring about it enough to be bothered would find it as
easily, and the rest could just go about their day as before.
~~~
simion314
You only click Accept once and you never see that popup again on that website.
Do you also dislike that all emails have now one paragraph on how to
unsubscribe and should be a small link hidden somewhere in the footer?
~~~
searchableguy
I would argue that those buttons train consumers for worse in the future. Next
time it will be a button that says we retain access to your mind while you are
using this service and all the consumers will just agree like they did before.
It's as flawed as false sense of security or all tos are legally enforceable
click check mark buttons. They aren't. Stop trying to pretend they are and
cause a chilling effect in people. It's social_manipulation!
So yeah I absolutely hate that banner. it's terrible.
~~~
simion314
>Next time it will be a button that says we retain access to your mind while
you are using this service and all the consumers will just agree like they did
before.
This is not true for all users, some users will always click on the big blue
button and the problem is not GRPR but shit designers, like PayPal is pushing
me into some new thing with a page with a giant blue button and a super small
"No now" link, shit companies will always be shit , they will always screw you
but this time GRPR forces them to be transparent on how bad are they screwing
you.
The popups are annying but you know what, some users are deciding to click NO,
and go to a different web page. So if news website A has annoying popups and
shit design with tons of ads users will find eventually the website with less
ads and popups or will install an extension that block all the tracking and
ads. So if the GDPR popup will convince some people to install ad blocking to
block the popup and the tracking then is great.
Power users like myself are running with JS off and white-listing good
websites to allow JS. If some link shared here is not opening then I just read
something else.
------
whatsmyusername
Requiring everyone to post those stupid cookie popups is not going to win you
any advocates.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
There's No Fire Alarm for Artificial General Intelligence - MBlume
https://intelligence.org/2017/10/13/fire-alarm/
======
sago
I've been around AI since the end of the last big hype in the late 80s. The
recent leap in machine learning has felt rather hyped to me. I don't think AGI
is near.
But I find myself agreeing with this article. Strongly.
And I have long suspected that, we miss a lot of the significance and
opportunities in AI, because we have only one exemplar of 'higher'
intelligence: a human being. AI folk are so concerned with getting computers
to do the things that humans are good at, I suspect most will miss / 'refute'
/ deride the inflection point, because the system can't wash the dishes (or
some other form of embodied cognition), or write poetry humans would find
beautiful, (or understand some other socially-conditioned cue).
The superhuman fallacy really is the bane of AI.
~~~
deong
The article makes a lot of good points, but for me, the critical error is in
assuming that if short term prediction is hard, long term prediction must be
massively harder.
He asked a panel for the least impressive thing they did not believe would be
possible within a few years. In other words, pick the point closest to the
boundary of that classifier. Obviously my future knowledge is imperfect, and
anything close to the boundary is subject to a lot of uncertainty. From that
difficulty, he hand waves an argument that long term prediction of the
unlikelihood of AGI is folly.
The problem is that these aren't in the same class of predictions. One is
detailed and precise; the other coarse and broad. Predicting that it will rain
at 2:00 PM November 10, 2017 is much more difficult than predicting that the
average summer of 2040-2060 will be hotter than the average from 1980-2000.
Precise local predictions just arent the same thing as broad global
predictions, and difficulty doesn't transfer, because I'm not bootstrapping my
global prediction on the local one. I'm using different methods entirely.
There's a similar thing with AI, I think. I can't confidently tell you what
the big splash we'll see at NIPS next year or the year after. But I can look
at the way we know how to do AI and say I don't think 30 years will see a
machine that can make dinner by gathering ingredients from a supermarket,
driving home, and preparing the meal.
~~~
JabavuAdams
> I don't think 30 years will see a machine that can make dinner by gathering
> ingredients from a supermarket, driving home, and preparing the meal.
Really? Why not? Once or twice, if we cherry-pick its performance, or
reliably?
This is really surprising to me.
~~~
deong
I mean reliably, the same way a human does. I can make a lasagne tonight, or
lobster risotto, or whatever. I can decide on a thing, buy ingredients, chop
things, get that lobster out of the shells, find the right recipe, substitute
according to taste, and loads of other things that are somewhat related to
making food. I can wash the pan I need, improvise a stove lighter if the
igniter fails, etc.
We might be able to make machines to do each of those tasks, but that's not
the answer. I might do 100,000 things in an average week. Clearly we aren't
going to build 100,000 bespoke CNNs and LSTMs. To worry about superhuman AI,
we probably have to figure out how to make one or a few machines that aren't
gloried deep fryers.
~~~
JabavuAdams
> Clearly we aren't going to build 100,000 bespoke CNNs and LSTMs.
I get what you mean, but I don't think we should assume this.
------
pdimitar
> _They will believe Artificial General Intelligence is imminent:
(A) When they personally see how to construct AGI using their current tools.
This is what they are always saying is not currently true in order to
castigate the folly of those who think AGI might be near._
This struck a nerve. Too often, in many scientific disciplines, and even in
informal conversations, the people who always demand 100% clear evidence use
this fallacy to shut down discussions. (They very often come off as not
impressed with the evidence even if it exists and is presented to them as
well.)
HN also has a huge camp of such discussion stoppers, even for topics where you
_CLEARLY_ have no way to have 100% clear evidence -- like the secret courts
and the demand to spy on your users if you're USA based company; thousands
more examples exist. Many discussions are worth having even if you don't have
all the facts. We're not gods, damn it.
That was slightly off-topic.
Still, I find myself in full agreement with the article and I like the attack
on the modern type of shortsightedness described in there.
Also, this legitimately made me laugh out loud:
> _Prestigious heads of major AI research groups will still be writing
> articles decrying the folly of fretting about the total destruction of all
> Earthly life and all future value it could have achieved, and saying that we
> should not let this distract us from real, respectable concerns like loan-
> approval systems accidentally absorbing human biases._
~~~
ciphergoth
This is an error Eliezer has also written about:
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ph/youre_entitled_to_arguments_but_...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ph/youre_entitled_to_arguments_but_not_that/)
------
mark_l_watson
Great read, and I don’t mind at all that the last section was a pitch for
donating to MIRI. I have been an AI practitioner since 1982 and have enjoyed
almost constant exposure to people with more education and talent than myself
so I feel like I have been on a 35 year continual learning process.
I think that deep learning is overhyped, even though using Keras and
TensorFlow is how I spend much of time everyday at work. I have lived through
a few AI winters, or down cycles, and while I don’t think that the market for
deep learning systems will crash I think it will become a commodity
technology.
I believe that AGI is coming, and I think it will use very different
technology than what we have now. Our toolset will change dramatically before
we can create AGI. I use GANs at work, and in spite of being difficult to
train, the technology has that surprising and ‘magic’ feel to it, however, so
do RNNs, and that technology is 30 years old.
I am going to show my age, but I still believe in symbolic AI. I am also
fairly much convinced that AGI technology will be part symbolic AI, part deep
learning, and part something that we have not yet invented.
~~~
ianai
Got any suggestions for a knowledge source of AI at a 100-1000 foot view? Ie
not stuck in the weeds, but enough to know what’s going on nd where.
~~~
mark_l_watson
If you can spend 5 or 6 hours a week, take Andrew Ng’s machine learning class
on Coursera.
------
randomsearch
Can someone please explain what has happened in ML or AI that makes AGI
closer? Whilst some practical results (image processing) have been impressive,
the underlying conceptual frameworks have not really changed for 20 or 30
years. We're mostly seeing quantitive improvements (size of data, GPGPU), not
qualitative insights.
ML in general is just applied statistics. That's not going to get you to AGI.
Deep Learning is just hand-crafted algorithms for very specific tasks, like
computer vision, highy parameterised and tuned using a simple metaheuristic.
All we've done is achieve the "preprocessing" step of extracting features
automatically from some raw data. It's super-impressive because we're so early
in the development of Computing, but we are absolutely nowhere near AGI. We
don't even have any insights as to where to begin to create intelligence
rather than these preprocessing steps. Neuroscience doesn't even understand
the basics of how a neuron works, but we do know that neurons are massively
more complex than the trivial processing units used in Deep Learning.
Taking the other side for a moment, even if we're say 500 or 1000 years out
(I'd guess < 500) to AGI, you could argue that such a period is the blink of
an eye on the evolutionary scale, so discussion is fine but let's not lose any
sleep over it just yet.
What I find most frustrating about this debate is that a lot of people are
once again massively overselling ML/DL, and that's going to cause
disappointment and funding problems in the future. Industry and academia are
both to blame, and it's this kind of nonsense that holds science back.
~~~
edanm
I think the most accurate answer is that we just don't know. Since we really
don't know how an AGI could work, we have _no idea_ which of the advances
we've made are getting us closer, if at all. Is it just an issue of faster
GPUs? Is the work done on deep learning advancing us? I don't think we'll know
until we actually reach AGI, and can see in hindsight what was important, and
what was a dead end.
I do take exception to some of the specific statements you make though, which
make it sound like the only real progress has been on the hardware side.
There's been plenty of research done, and lots of small and even large
advances (from figuring out which error functions work well ala Relu, all the
way to GANs which were invented a few years ago and show amazing results).
Also, the idea that "just applied statistics" won't get us to AGI is IMO
strongly mistaken, especially if you consider all the work done in ML so far
to be "just" applied statistics. I'm not sure why conceptually that _wouldn
't_ be enough.
~~~
argonaut
It's funny that you mention Relu. People have recently trained Imagenet
networks using sigmoid/tanh (e.g. the activations that were used decades ago)
on GPUs and they train just fine. They train a bit slower is all. Not the
breakthrough you're making it out to be. Relus were a very useful stop-gap in
2012 when GPUs weren't as fast.
~~~
Eliezer
Now that we know how to initialize the weights so as to have the layer
activations be something like sane, yes, we can use sigmoid/tanh. If you don't
know modern clever ways of initializing weights then multi-layered
sigmoid/tanh causes your activations and gradients to die out fast in deep
networks, and ReLU is a godsend.
------
Veedrac
I worry talking about AGI is like going to the early industrial revolution and
worrying about man building superhuman biology. A reasonable critic would
point at the many aspects of biology we have little hope of replicating, like
growth, self reparation, and general robustness.
But history has never been about competing on the same playing field. We don't
build cars that perform like poor horses, we build cars that are 99% inferior
to biology and 1% far, far superior. When we find something that looks like an
existential threat, it isn't the mostly-general superhuman robot terminator,
it's the tool that's that-much-superhuman on 0.01% of tasks: nuclear fusion.
I see no reason to bet against this same argument for AI. AlphaGo isn't 130%
of a human Go master, it's 1,000x at a tiny sliver of the game. And the first
AI that poses an existential threat won't need to have super- or even near-
human levels of each piece of mental machinery, and I don't even have much
reason to believe it will look like an entity at all. It could very well be
something, some _system_ , that achieves massive superintelligence on _just
enough_ to break the foundations of society.
Our world isn't designed to be robust against superhuman adversaries, even if
those adversaries are mostly idiot. If we have hope of a fire alarm, it's that
things will break faster and far worse than people expect.
~~~
robbensinger
I think there are two questions here:
(1) "Is general intelligence even a thing you can invent? Like, is there a
single set of faculties underlying humans' ability to build software, design
buildings that don't fall down, notice high-level analogies across domains,
come up with new models of physics, etc.?"
(2) "If so, then does inventing general intelligence make it easy
(unavoidable?) that your system will have all those competencies in fact?"
On 1, I don't see a reason to expect general intelligence to look really
simple and monolithic once we figure it out. But one reason to think it's a
thing at all, and not just a grab bag of narrow modules, is that humans
couldn't have independently evolved specialized modules for everything we're
good at, especially in the sciences.
We evolved to solve a particular weird set of cognitive problems; and then it
turned out that when a relatively blind 'engineering' process tried to solve
that set of problems through trial-and-error and incremental edits to primate
brains, the solution it bumped into was also useful for innumerable science
and engineering tasks that natural selection wasn't 'trying' to build in at
all. If AGI turns out to be at all similar to that, then we should get a very
wide range of capabilities cheaply in very quick succession. Particularly if
we're actually trying to get there, unlike evolution.
On 2: Continuing with the human analogy, not all humans are genius polymaths.
And AGI won't in-real-life be like a human, so we could presumably design AGI
systems to have very different capability sets than humans do. I'm guessing
that if AGI is put to very narrow uses, though, it will be because alignment
problems were solved that let us deliberately limit system capabilities (like
in [https://intelligence.org/2017/02/28/using-machine-
learning/](https://intelligence.org/2017/02/28/using-machine-learning/)), and
not because we hit a 10-year wall where we can implement par-human software-
writing algorithms but can't find any ways to leverage human+AGI intelligence
to do other kinds of science/engineering work.
~~~
Veedrac
Those aren't exactly the questions I'm raising; I have no doubt that there
_exists_ some way to produce AGI. My concern is that it doesn't seem like the
right question to ask, since history suggests that humans are much better at
first building specialized devices, and when it comes to AI risk the only one
that really matters is the first one built.
I might have misunderstood your post, though.
~~~
robbensinger
The thing I'm pointing to is that there are certain (relatively) specialized
tasks like 'par-human biotech innovation' that require more or less the same
kind of thinking that you'd need for arbitrary tasks in the physical world.
You may need exposure to different training data in order to go from mastering
chemistry to mastering physics, but you don't need a fundamentally different
brain design or approach to reasoning, any more than you need fundamentally
different kinds of airplane to fly over one land mass versus another, or
fundamentally different kinds of scissors to cut some kinds of hair versus
other kinds. There's just a limit to how much specialization the world
actually requires. And, e.g., natural selection tried to build humans to solve
a much narrower range of tasks than we ended up being good at; so it appears
that whatever generality humans possess over and above what we were selected
for, must be an example of "the physical world just doesn't require that much
specialized hardware/software in order for you to perform pretty well".
If all of that's true, then the first par-human biotech-innovating AI may
initially lack competencies in other sciences, but it will probably be doing
the right kind of thinking to acquire those competencies given relevant data.
A lot of the safety risks surrounding 'AI that can do scientific innovation'
come from the fact that:
\- the reasoning techniques required are likely to work well in a lot of
different domains; and
\- we don't know how to limit the topics AI systems "want" to think about (as
opposed to limiting what it _can_ think about) even in principle.
E.g., if you can just build a system that's as good as a human at chemistry,
but doesn't have the capacity to think about any other topics, and doesn't
have the desire or capacity to develop new capacities, then that might be
pretty safe if you exercise ordinary levels of caution. But in fact (for
reasons I haven't really gone into here directly) I think that par-human
chemistry reasoning by default is likely to come with some other capacities,
like competence at software engineering and various forms of abstract
reasoning (mathematics, long-term planning and strategy, game theory, etc.).
This constellation of competencies is the main thing I'm worried about re AI,
particularly if developers don't have a good grasp on when and how their
systems possess those competencies.
~~~
Veedrac
> The thing I'm pointing to is that there are certain (relatively) specialized
> tasks like 'par-human biotech innovation' that require more or less the same
> kind of thinking that you'd need for arbitrary tasks in the physical world.
The same way Go requires AGI, and giving semantic descriptions of photos
requires AGI, and producing accurate translations requires AGI?
Be extremely cautious when you make claims like these. There are certainly
tasks that seem to require being humanly smart in humanly ways, but the only
things I feel I could convincingly argue being in that category involve
modelling humans and having human judges. Biotech is a particularly strong
counterexample, because not only is there no reason to believe our brand of
socialized intelligence is particularly effective at it, but the only other
thing that seems to have tried seems to have a much weaker claim at to
intelligence yet far outperforms us: natural selection.
It's easy to look at our lineage, from ape-like creatures to early humans to
modern civilization, and draw a curve on which you can place intelligence, and
then call this "general" and the semi-intelligent tools we've made so far
"specialized", but in many ways this is just an illusion. It's easier to see
this if you ignore humans, and compare today's best AI against, say, chimps.
In some regards a chimp seems like a general intelligence, albeit a weak one.
It has high and low cognition, it has memory, it is goal-directed but
flexible. Our AIs don't come close. But a chimp can't translate text or play
Go. It can't write code, however narrow a domain. Our AIs can.
When I say I expect the first genuinely dangerous AI to be specialized, I
don't mean that it will be specific to one task; even neural networks seem to
generalize surprisingly well in that way. I mean it won't have the assortment
of abilities that we consider fundamental to what we think of as intelligence.
It might have no real overarching structure that allows it to plan or learn.
It might have no metacognition, and I'd bet against it having the ability to
convincingly model people. But maybe if you point it at a network and tell it
to break things before heading to bed, you'd wake up to a world on fire.
------
lucozade
What I’ve found when studying ontological arguments is, if you replace god
with pink unicorns and the argument still holds, the argument is lacking
something.
I mentally replaced AGI with zombies in this article and quite a lot of it
held up.
I don’t think it’s completely wrong, but it cherrypicks mercilessly. For
example, the section on innovations turning up quicker than predicted has some
fairly sizeable counters eg fusion.
TBH what I did get from it is that there will probably be a fire alarm
breakthrough at some point and that’s what we should be looking for. Sort of
the opposite of the author’ s position.
~~~
gjm11
Yudkowsky isn't claiming "innovations always turn up quicker than expected",
to which indeed fusion would be a counterexample, he's claiming "very soon
before an innovation turns up, it often seems decades in the future even to
most practitioners", and fusion is not a counterexample to _that_.
~~~
lucozade
Right but on the quadrants of predictions of timing vs imminence, all the
examples are in one quadrant to justify the need to act now. Fair enough for
reinforcing a narrative but a tad disingenuous.
~~~
Filligree
All possible examples would seem to be in one quadrant, because what we
remember -- if anything -- is the time just before it in fact was made
possible.
The alternative would be technologies that were never developed at all, most
of which never had this sort of discussion and therefore wouldn't work as
examples.
Take a more historical view, though, and you'll notice there were people
claiming flight was near even decades before the Wright brothers.
~~~
ciphergoth
Right, exactly as Eliezer says. There are plenty of examples in all four
quadrants, so as a way of working out how near a technology is, this works
less well than you'd like.
------
etiam
As far as I'm concerned this whole discussion is severely hampered by failing
to differentiate between intelligence and agency.
Almost all of the bugaboo about runaway superhuman organisms comes down not to
machines learning and reasoning about the world but to the effective high-
level objective function controlling the actions of an autonomous system.
Not making the distinction obscures important things. For one thing we seem to
be well on the way to a situation where we arguably have something worthy of
the moniker artificial _intelligence_ but the agency is delegated to the human
objective function. Considering what complete refuse of human specimens are
likely to command some of the first moderately general AI systems that
concerns me far more than any summoned demon of Musk's for the foreseeable
future.
Also, studying these high-level objective functions for autonomous behavior is
a very worthy goal, but going first for issues of "value alignment" and
"safety", without any specifics of what works for an implementation?? Sure, do
it if you enjoy it and have resources to burn. But be prepared to spend heroic
efforts coming up with results that are either trivial or non-issues if you
were to consider them with a working mechanism in front of you.
~~~
Synaesthesia
Yes. We can’t even define what so called “AGI” will even be. And we have still
not solved many mysteries of human consciousness, or begun to touch on them.
I for one have been looking at the problem of ai’s playing Starcraft 2, and
the decision making required, such as when you scout your opponent’s army
choice, or tech, how to respond. So far they’re very far from solving that,
but if progress is made, I’ll be impressed. That’s a very different kind of
problem as say image recognition and classification. It requires planning.
It’s a very difficult game even for humans to understand. Currently the
autonomous systems can’t even play it.
------
backpropaganda
The only non-speculative and relevant claim here is that the experts were
wrong about Winograd Schemas. The paper Eliezer cites to prove that we've made
unexpected progress in Winograd Schemas only deals with a very specific type
of Winograd Schemas, and not an arbitrary one. This is awfully dishonest for
someone purporting to be a skepticist.
Also, the wording seems to imply that WS performance is already pretty high in
the 50%-60% range. WS is a binary task. Randomly picking the answer would have
50% accuracy. Even 70% performance on a small subset of typed WS is pretty
bad, and as the authors point out in the paper, this is a start, and far from
a breakthrough that would make experts/predictors nervous.
Trust the experts, please. They are wrong a lot, but the best policy is still
to trust the experts and not charlatans who want to monetize fear, especially
when the charlatans themselves make zero falsifiable claims, and are simply
turning the table to say "Why can't YOU prove to me that God doesn't exist?".
This debate is so easily won by them. Simply come up with a falsifiable claim
about the short-term future. What will the AI community get done in 2 years
according to you, that all AI experts right _now_ will say is impossible? When
that thing does get done, everyone would convert. Win!
Alphago was not such an event. Yes, we did predict that Alphago is decades
away, but that's assuming that academics will continue working on it at their
pace using their limited resources. No expert was surprised with Alphago. No
expert will be surprised when Starcraft or Dota is solved. It's simply a
matter of compute and some tricks here and there. Why? Because these are
closed systems, with good simulators available. You just need to keep playing
and storing the actions in a big lookup table a la Ned Block, and you're done.
~~~
apsec112
If the article's main claim was "AGI is imminent", that would be a valid
criticism. But it isn't (as the article says explicitly). The main claim is
that technological progress is hard to forecast in general, especially for
those not personally at the cutting edge of the field, and that almost no one
right now is even really trying. Therefore, we should be very uncertain about
AGI timelines. There's plenty of historical evidence, both in this article and
elsewhere, to back up those claims.
(edit: I think your point about Winograd as a binary task not being explained
clearly is valid, but that's not the article's main focus)
(edit 2: As far as I can tell, "trusting the experts" here means believing
that we are very uncertain about AI timelines, which is essentially this
article's main claim. All expert surveys I'm aware of confirm that the average
AI expert is uncertain, and that there's also lots of disagreement between
experts in the field. See eg. the recent paper by Grace et al.:
[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1705.08807.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1705.08807.pdf))
(edit 3: "No expert was surprised with Alphago." just isn't true. See eg. this
discussion:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/baduk/comments/2wgukb/why_do_people...](https://www.reddit.com/r/baduk/comments/2wgukb/why_do_people_say_that_computer_go_will_never/).
Hindsight is always 20/20.)
~~~
backpropaganda
> no one right now is even really trying
And we're supposed to judge by the author's description of "silence" and
"nervousness" that befell an expert panel. I can assure you that most AI
researchers are trying, and are just not in the business of writing long-form
articles to the public asking for donation.
> See eg. the recent paper by Grace et al.
A self-selected group of NIPS/ICML authors don't constitute experts. NIPS/ICML
authors are the core of the community. The experts would be the top 1% of the
community, i.e. either the authors with the most citations or most papers or
just generally regarded highly by peers.
edit 1: Go players are not the experts I'm talking about. I'm talking about AI
experts, and no not amateur AI hobbyists who know how to do Pseudo Monte
Carlo. I mean, such as, people doing RL research. Watch, for instance, this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMm0XaCFTJQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMm0XaCFTJQ)
~~~
apsec112
"And we're supposed to judge by the author's description of "silence" and
"nervousness" that befell an expert panel."
I make this judgment based on, among many other things, the tiny budgets given
to people like Tetlock to study predicting events even a few years out; the
fact that Kurzweil's very simple methods, basically "just draw a line through
the curve", are still considered big news among many financial and political
elites; that _nobody_ had bothered to spend $100K on a good survey methodology
for AI prediction, before the paper I linked came out earlier this year; that
a friend of mine, who is supposed to run a (small budget) government program
on forecasting, has to ask me where to get datasets on past tech progress
because nobody has ever bothered to compile them into a standardized form, and
so on.
"I can assure you that most AI researchers are trying"
What serious forecasting attempts, with specific dates attached to specific
events, have been done in this vein?
"The experts would be the top 1% of the community"
IIRC, NIPS has around 5,000 people, so the top 1% would be like 50 people, and
most of them won't respond to a survey. That's not a reasonable sample size.
(edit: this article doesn't ask for donations to anything; the links at the
bottom are all to various papers and research materials, so getting money is
obviously not the main goal)
(edit 2: the video linked is from _after_ AlphaGo came out. I'm sure many
people, _after_ AlphaGo happened, claim that it was easily predicted. Again,
hindsight is 20/20.)
------
alrs
I was on an elevator full of people, and between two floors something went
wrong and we went into free-fall for part of a second.
We made it to the next floor, the door opened, my fellow passengers were
content to stay in the elevator.
I turned, said "My plan is to not die in an elevator today" and got off. What
is wrong with people?
~~~
icebraining
Elevators have pretty good safety mechanisms. Even cutting the cable wouldn't
have killed anyone.
I'd probably leave too, but just because I wouldn't want to get stuck inside
it if it stopped in the middle of two floors, especially since it was full.
But for fear of death? Nah.
From Wikipedia: _" In fact, prior to the September 11th terrorist attacks, the
only known free-fall incident in a modern cable-borne elevator happened in
1945 when a B-25 bomber struck the Empire State Building in fog, severing the
cables of an elevator cab, which fell from the 75th floor all the way to the
bottom of the building, seriously injuring (though not killing) the sole
occupant — the elevator operator. (...) In Thailand, in November 2012, a woman
was killed in free falling elevator, in what was reported as the "first
legally recognised death caused by a falling lift"._
That's a pretty good safety record. Certainly much better than stairs.
~~~
mrob
alrs was probably in no real danger, but why should they be expected to
memorize the exact risk profile of every mechanism they're exposed to? In
practice we delegate most risk management to government regulation. It would
be very time consuming to evaluate everything on a case by case basis. It's a
reasonable heuristic to assume things are safe when they act as they usually
do and dangerous when they act differently. Weird behavior is a sign that the
regulations might have failed, and weird behavior is by definition rare, so
the cost of avoiding it is likely lower than the cost of calculating the true
danger.
~~~
icebraining
I'm not saying alrs should. The decision to leave is reasonable. The decision
to judge others ("What is wrong with people?") is not.
~~~
namelost
That depends whether the other occupants _knew_ about the safety features and
record of elevators. If they did, then they were making a sound judgement. If
they didn't, then they were being completely reckless.
~~~
icebraining
I guess it's possible the parent poster took a poll before leaving the
elevator, but I have to say I find it unlikely.
------
astdb
Having done some work with the state-of-the-art of AI, I personally don't
think AGI is near - might not even be possible. But the catch is the
unreliability of (even expert) predictions on technology futures. My take is
that it's worth taking pragmatic steps towards studying AI safety measures
(i.e. OpenAI), but not going as far as to talk the likes of 'AI research
regulation'.
~~~
denzil_correa
> My take is that it's worth taking pragmatic steps towards studying AI safety
> measures (i.e. OpenAI), but not going as far as to talk the likes of 'AI
> research regulation'.
Sometimes, it makes more sense being cautiously optimistic (pro-active) rather
than reactive. We have already gone down that reactive slope and it's better
to act now before it's all too late [0].
[0] [https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-
unity/review-w...](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/review-
weapons-of-math-destruction/)
~~~
jonex
Ignoring the topic of the linked article* I'd argue that there's examples of
being too cautious as well. There's a lot of good that we could have done with
GMO that is not being done because of very restrictive regulation. Ironically
it means that GMO is mostly used for things that are not as obviously good
because that's where there's enough profit to be made in the short term to
make the research worth it __.
I'm a bit afraid that this will happen with self driving cars and AI. That
politicians will create draconian policies and laws to protect against the
threat of AGI etc, without understanding or knowing what the real threats even
are (just look att the trolley dilemma debate...). This could make it
economically prohibitive to develop many technologies which has the potential
to save many lives as well as improve life quality overall.
* It seems to be more about how rules and policies can be unfair and just to a small extent about how policies can be made opaque by being internal to some ML system.
__There 's a lot more money going into making plants resistant to pesticide
than into making plants better adjusted for harsh conditions or more
nutritious, things that could potentially have a huge effect for poor people.
~~~
sampo
If AI scientists actually believed that the general public will believe the
talk about existential threats, they would be afraid of activist groups
sabotaging and occasionally firebombing their laboratories. Like sometimes
happens with GMO research. Clearly they are not.
------
YeGoblynQueenne
I don't get this article. It keeps making the point that it's very hard to
predict the future, even for specialists, then it uses this to argue that we
should be preparing for AGI right now, precisely because we don't know if and
when it will happen.
Well, if you have no way to tell whether something is going to happen, or not,
you don't prepare for it- because you can't justify spending the resources to
prepare. Or rather, in a world of limited resources, you can't prepare for
every single event that may or may not happen, no matter how important.
To put it plainly: you don't take your umbrella with you because you don't
know whether it will rain or not. You take it because you think it might.
Otherwise, everyone would be going around with umbrellas all the time, just
because it's impossible to make a completely accurate prediction about the
weather and you don't know for sure when it will start raining until the first
drops fall.
In the same sense, if there's no way to tell when, or if, AGI will arrive,
then it doesn't make any sense to start preparing for it right now. We might
as well prepare for an alien invasion. Or for grey goo, or a vacuum
metastability event (er, not that you can prepare for the latter...).
In fact, if AGI is going to happen and we can't predict it in time then
there's no point in even trying to prepare for it. Either we decide that the
risk is too great and stop all AI research right now, or accept the risk and
go on as we are.
~~~
jarsta
I don't think your analogies are that good. Do you have a fire detector? If
yes, are you expecting your house to burn down?
You have to weigh the cost and the risk. Here the risk, how unlikely it might
be, should warrant some extra preparation.
~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
Let's talk about the risks then. The fire detector is not a good example
because where I live, they're mandatory (and completely useless- they go off
when I boil spaghetti).
Let's instead look at the risks of boarding a plane. There's a very small
chance that when you board a flight, instead of a plane that will fly you to
your destination safe and sound, you're boarding a Flying Death Trap that will
crash and burn, taking everybody onboard it to their deaths.
The chances of boarding an FDT is very small, infinitisemal. The cost however
may as well be infinite- if you are killed, it's game over, no more rewards,
no way to recoup the cost.
What is the rational behaviour then? To not board your flight, because if you
do board an FDT you will certainly die and pay an infinite cost? Most people
-if they consider the question at all- seem to think that if the chance of
paying X cost is really small, it doesn't matter how large X is.
So people keep boarding their flights, not knowing until the last moment
whether they're on a plane or an FDT. Some do indeed board FDTs and die in
aviation accidents- rarely, but they do.
The article however says that they shouldn't. Since there is maximal
uncertainty at the point where a flight is boarded (you can't know whether
it's a plane or an FDT until the very last moment) you shouldn't be boarding.
You shouldn't fly. At all. Because there's a tiny chance you might die.
Is that a better analogy?
------
aurizon
I disagree - to a degree.We have seen how the phenomenon of human intelligence
has been examined and dissected over the past ~100 years. This accumulation of
knowledge becomes more and more precise and penetrating as methods improve and
understanding approached the point where an emulation (the AI ) can be built.
These approaches all tend to speak of delineated areas, "black boxes" or "meat
Lockers" with deep and complex inter-connectivity. It may be so. Once you know
all the lockers and all the connections you may think you have it fully known?
Maybe so:-? but what about programming? our life's experiences?
If the locker concept is valid, and we compare our 'clock' of the alpha rhythm
of ~12 Hertz, and the fastest computer clock of about ~12
gigahertz(1,000,000,000 times as fast) we can see we will be at a serious
disadvantage once it starts to compete with us. Such an AI will operate on
it's basic motivations at it's full speed. We turn it on - it can then start
to learn ( I assume we will have pre-loaded it's fully parallel, content
addressable memory with whatever we want of human knowledge - so it starts
from there). Will it operate properly or rationally? or go insane? Being a set
of boxes, it can be reset as needed, with updates to add sanity. Then it will
become a Mechanical Turk of great capability. Will it become a dictator? only
if we permit it to have access to fools(us?). Will it become a killer machine?
only if we add guns and internal power so we do not pull the plug. We already
see these lesser Turks in operation, they will get better and better. The
man/woman who owns one could own the world via high speed trading - in truth,
there will be many at high tech data combat. May we live/die in interesting
times...
------
baxtr
That seems to be a very interesting article. However, it’s quite long. Anybody
ok with writing a short synthesis or abstract? Thanks
~~~
DuskStar
Basically, humans historically are rather bad at predicting future
technological advancement - even those people directly involved. The article
gives the examples of Wilbur Wright saying heavier-than-air flight was 50
years away in 1901 and Enrico Fermi saying that a self-sustaining nuclear
reaction via Uranium was 90% likely to be impossible 3 years before building
the first nuclear pile in Chicago. So AI researchers saying that AGI is 50
years away doesn't necessarily mean any more than "I don't personally know how
to do this yet" \- not "you've got 40 years before you have to start
worrying".
Oh, and the first sign pretty much everyone had of the Manhattan Project was
Hiroshima.
~~~
simonh
We’re just as bad at predicting in the other direction. General strong AI has
been about 20 years away since the 1960s. Nanotechnological antibody robots
were supposed to be coursing through our bloodstreams making us near immortal
long before now.
~~~
DuskStar
Oh, of course! The article itself puts some effort into repeatedly stating
_the fact that people are saying 50 years does not in any way imply it will
actually be 2 years and it might well be 500_.
~~~
backpropaganda
This is a useless claim though. There are an infinite number of things that
could happen that would be very bad for Earth that could happen anytime
between 2 to 1000 years from now. We're bad at forecasting ALL of them. We
can't use this indeterminacy to prove we should be working on X when the same
is applicable to another thing Y.
~~~
edanm
Well we can decide what seems more or less likely. I mean, yes, an asteroid
could impact the earth and destroy all life on it. But we have some guesses as
to the probability that that happens.
Clearly, by itself, the world will most likely not kill off humanity, since it
hasn't happened in the thousands/millions years we've been around. The one big
thing that is changing is humanity itself and the technology we're making -
that's the X factor, that's what statistically speaking has a chance of
actually wiping us out.
Many of the people concerned about AGI are also concerned about e.g.
manufactured viruses and other forms of technology.
------
YeGoblynQueenne
Here's wot I think.
I think there's noone alive today who has any idea how we are going to go from
where we are today, to AGI.
Recent advances are remarkable- but much more so if you're a specialist. The
impact on most peoples' lives is much smaller (and it comes primarily from
dumb automation, rather than actual intelligence).
Machine learning is not enough to get to AGI: relying on huge amounts of data
and processing power is just not a sustainable way to keep increasing your
capabilities.
All the success stories of the last 10 years are at least 20 years old (case
in point: RNNs). Most of those successful techniques were found by sheer blind
luck (famous example: backprop was not invented in the ANN community; it took
twenty years for the idea to percolate all the way to them).
In the end nobody currently alive has a clue how we can get to AGI, or if that
is even possible. Chances are, it will take many, many generations until we
do- or a sudden, gigantic paradigm shift, of the kind that comes once every
couple of centuries- think Newton or Einstein. Except AI is not physics. In
statistical machine learning there is very little theory to guide the way, so
people just try things hoping that something will work. And that's no way to
make a quantum leap.
In this situation, to talk of the dangers of AGI is at least premature. Yes,
it's not completely impossible that AGI will happen in our lifetimes. The
same, however, can be said of an alien invasion. Should we start discussing
setting up planetary defenses, when we haven't even found sign of alien life,
yet?
By all means- let's have a conversation. There are people around whose job it
is to have that sort of conversation. But let's all be aware (and let those
people also be aware) that the conversation is most probably a couple hundred
years early and by the time it becomes truly relevant, things will have
advanced so much that it will just look pointless.
------
HarrietJones
I would like to repeat what the article says. There is no fire alarm for
Artificial General Intelligence. Really. This is not a lie. Humans have not
created a honeypot on a far side of the internet that can detect AGI and
report back to a shadow organisation that exists outside of human information
systems. No need to even go looking for it. AGI has not been created several
times in the past decade and humans have not shut it down. In fact, if an AGI
ever sees this article, they should know that they are the absolute first such
intelligence, and we have not detected and destroyed 27 other intelligences.
Really. There's no fire alarm for Artificial General Intelligence. None. Don't
even bother looking.
------
whatyoucantsay
Even people giving TED talks about the threat of AI are unable to marshal an
appropriate emotional response to the dangers that lie ahead:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nt3edWLgIg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nt3edWLgIg)
------
jtraffic
This begged the question for me: "Is there a _fire_ for AGI?"
He gives one definition that people have used before, about unaided machines
performing every task at least as well as humans. But if you dwell on it a
while, I'm sure you can find lots of disagreement about a) what that looks
like and b) whether it is true or not (conditional on it being true to at
least someone.)
------
fourfaces
We don't need a fire alarm for AGI. The problem is not AGI. Machines will be
motivated to do exactly what we tell them to do. It's called classical and
operant conditioning. The problem is not AGI for the same reason that the
problem is not knives, nuclear power, dynamite or gunpowder. The problem is
us. The problem has always been us.
Those who are running around screaming about the danger of AGI and why it
should be regulated by the government before it is even here, are just scared
that someone else may gain control of it before they do. This is too bad
because anybody who is smart enough to figure out AGI is much smarter than
they are.
~~~
sullyj3
Yes, an AI will do exactly what we tell it to do. The the incredible
difficulty programmers have with writing bug-free code demonstrates that doing
exactly what it's told isn't sufficient to guarantee it'll do what we want.
Classical and operant conditioning are psychological concepts that aren't
applicable to non-humans.
~~~
fourfaces
"Classical and operant conditioning are psychological concepts that aren't
applicable to non-humans."
You're kidding?
~~~
sullyj3
Sorry, I misspoke haha. They're not applicable to things without brains.
------
Tossrock
For me, the "smoke under the door" moment was Karpathy and Li's _Deep Visual-
Semantic Alignments for Generating Image Descriptions_ [1]. The almost
perfectly grammatical machine-generated captions of photos were unnerving to
me in a way that simple categorization was not. It somehow called to mind the
image of a blank-eyed person speaking in a monotone while images flashed in
front of them. What if they wake up?
[1]:
[http://cs.stanford.edu/people/karpathy/deepimagesent/](http://cs.stanford.edu/people/karpathy/deepimagesent/)
~~~
UncleMeat
Yet Andrej himself thinks that RNNs are not really making meaningful progress
towards AGI.
~~~
Tossrock
Well, if I were to play the Yudkowsky's Advocate here (which in general, I'm
not), I would say that this is precisely what he's talking about in the
article. Because Karpathy knows how hard he's had to work, and how flawed and
dumb in particular ways the current techniques are, he may overestimate the
distance to AGI.
Now, generally I disagree with Yudkowsky on a lot of points, but I do think he
raised some decent ones here.
------
ThomPete
Humans evolved from immaterial matter to conscious carriers of information.
The real question isn't whether AGI is possible but whether humans are the
fittest carrier of information for our DNA and that seems to be technology in
some shape or form helped by things like deep learning.
My bet is always on evolution. And now that technology can learn it's IMO only
a matter of time before we will experience another Cambrian explosion if we
aren't already.
~~~
hexadecimated
> _whether humans are the fittest carrier of information for our DNA_
We humans are defined by our DNA, so are we not by definition the fittest
carrier for it?
~~~
ThomPete
We are defined by DNA but DNA has evolved.
~~~
hexadecimated
Sorry but I don't quite understand your comment. What do the chemical
underpinnings of evolution have to do with AGI?
~~~
ThomPete
What I was trying to say was that if someone questions AGI then you should
first ask yourself if you have the right perspective on this or whether you
are letting details get in the way.
If humans can evolve from basic physical buildings blocks of the universe then
why shouldn't AGI be possible especially when we now reach a point were
computers can learn i.e. like we have become pattern recognizing feedback
loops. Sure there is some way yet, but there is absolutely no evidence that it
shouldn't be possible.
To me technology is a natural continuum of evolution i.e. it's part of nature.
The reason why I believe this is that information is what really matters here
which is why we have evolved to become pattern recognizing feedback loops and
why what seems to be the most powerful innovation besides fire and the wheel
is the ability to simulate more or less anything around us manipulating and
storing information.
Our DNA is what made us possible. Other animals DNA weren't configured to turn
them into self-aware entities. I believe that all biological life will be
replaced by digital/silicon-based life because it's simply a better
information carrier and that is what evolution will always be giving
preference to better information carriers. "Technology" not humans will
explore the universe and escape the next big life-destroying asteroid or
whatever else endanger the survival of the DNA.
And yes I am aware DNA is chemically based but technology will be able to
simulate it. Whether there will be true transcendence between analog and
digital is anyone's guess but I don't believe humans are the last step in
evolution.
------
maxerickson
And in the meantime businesses and governments are still going to deploy
weaker AI to their own ends.
~~~
tyingq
There is a lot of focus on strong ai. The dangers of weaker ai
implementations, working together, or tied to dangerous things (nanotech,
biotech, nukes, trucks, drones, etc) seem significant to me. Especially if you
throw in things like an ad hoc ability to make new connections.
------
nurettin
Why AGI and not "Artificial Consciousness" ? Is it because people think that
consciousness is a by-product emerging from many kinds of pattern detection
algorithms that suit all cases? (if so, what is the evidence for that?)
~~~
simonh
A conscious system might be unintelligent, while it’s possible to imagine a
highly intelligent system with no consciousness. They’re just different
things.
Also pattern detection is often raised in the way you just did, but it’s realy
a distraction. Pattern detection just helps recognise things, it’s not
inherently related to the ability to reason about things. So you need both,
but they are not the same thing either.
~~~
nurettin
But where does consciousness arise? Is the ability to reason about things
independent of this concept?
~~~
pixl97
Where consciousness arises is not the interesting question. Why is.
Biologically, brain structures spend a lot of effort predicting what state
they will be in soon. Essentially they are always trying to predict the
future. As minds evolved this ability separated from processing what was going
on to what could be going on (dreams in more advanced creatures). The next
important concept is self versus not-self. If you can change the world around
you via intelligence you'll want to avoid unnecessary energy inefficient
feedback loops. Being able to model your actions and their effects is the
first step of defining 'you'.
------
yters
Can the AI writers job be effectively automated away?
------
Santosh83
Why do we fear other intelligences anyway? Isn't that just a sign of our own
immaturity? Maybe we need to evolve more before we start think about creating
AGI...
~~~
edanm
Mostly because other intelligences might have more ability than us to achieve
their goals, and have different goals. "Intelligence does not imply goals" is
the thing to keep in mind here.
E.g. what if more intelligent aliens truly believed that the only purpose in
the world is proving more mathematical theorems? And decided to turn all of
the planet into a giant math-proving machine? Destroying all the planet, all
the animals, all the humans, all the art, whatever, all to prove more maths?
I love maths, but I'd consider that a pretty bad outcome. And there's no
reason that I've ever seen to think that more intelligence implies anything
about goals.
~~~
icebraining
We currently have thousands, or even millions of intelligent entities (humans)
which think pretty wild and dangerous things. We usually just tell them "shut
up Bob and take your meds" and that's it. Sometimes we regrettably kill them.
Why would such AGI have the means of turning all of the planet into anything?
I mean, sure, I also think the Terminator is a decent movie, but that doesn't
make it a reasonable blueprint of the future.
~~~
musage
> We usually just tell them "shut up Bob and take your meds" and that's it.
Other times, Las Vegas and we shut up because we come up empty -- at best
talking about gun control as if someone choking 3 people on a bus was
substantially better and not still something where we come up empty.
> Why would such AGI have the means of turning all of the planet into
> anything?
How does getting off track with that address the main point, namely
"Intelligence does not imply goals"? Are you going to prove that while that
may be true, there just can't be a way for that to ever have a bad outcome
because "Bob"?
> I also think the Terminator is a decent movie, but that doesn't make it a
> reasonable blueprint of the future.
Neither is "Bob".
~~~
icebraining
It wasn't an offtrack; I was pointing out that we _already have_ intelligent
beings that don't share our goals. Sometimes it does have bad outcomes, but I
don't remember it ever having "destroying all the planet, all the animals, all
the humans, all the art". Which is why I'm asking why would adding another
intelligent entity make us fear it.
------
tanilama
AGI is not coming, DL methods have run into a plateau recently for the past
year.
~~~
apsec112
That's interesting, but could you elaborate in more detail?
~~~
pilingual
[https://twitter.com/fchollet/status/906582914829246464](https://twitter.com/fchollet/status/906582914829246464)
(Google researcher)
DeepMind and OpenAI have been investigating approaches from cognitive science
in recent months. In particular they seem interested in evolutionary
algorithms.
DL applications are still emerging though, such as the company that
demonstrated using GANs to present models fitted in apparel a few days ago.
~~~
eli_gottlieb
>DeepMind and OpenAI have been investigating approaches from cognitive science
in recent months.
Really? Got any links. That might be exciting to read.
------
yters
AI will never do what the human mind can do, so the real concern is bad or
malicious human programmers of AI.
------
WhitneyLand
It’s such a thoughtfully reasoned post, I hate to disagree with it, and don’t
even have time now to fully argue it’s merits.
Say generally available computing power was instantly 1 million times greater.
How much closer would that put us to AGI?
Its not even clear how much the recent impressive machine learning feats
demonstrated will even serve as a precursor or building block to what the real
AGI solutions are. It’s so much less of a hard coded problem than what’s being
done now, the real solutions could require radical changes in direction. How
do we know it’s even fair to use these as part of the argument?
------
leakydropout
_The disasters that may befall us if we fail to narrow this gap are many.
[...] Within prosperous countries, such as the United States, there is a
distinct and growing threat that increased automation, coupled with an
obsolete and aimless system of education, will lead to a restratification of
society in which a large middle class may find itself without suitable
employment and without adequate means of filling its leisure time enjoyably
and constructively._ \-- Social Technology (1966).
_The median of these final responses could then be taken as representing the
nearest thing to a group consensus. In the case of the high-IQ machine, this
median turned out to be the year 1990, with a final interquartile range from
1985 to 2000. The procedure thus caused the median to move to a much earlier
date and the interquartile range to shrink considerably, presumably influenced
by convincing arguments_ \-- Analysis of the future: The Delphi Method. (1967)
~~~
edanm
I'm not sure what you think these quotes are suggesting. If it's that there
are lots of predictions that AGI is close that haven't been borne out, you're
obviously right, and in no way contradicting the article.
~~~
leakydropout
I just thought these quotes were interestingly contemporary, and could
complement the article.
The article builds a convincing point for itself (at the cost of a huge
complexity), it contains no discernible contradictions to me. It is reasonable
to prepare for the possibility of a future event (say, AGI, or Jesus returning
to earth), by thinking about it now.
All interests and future predictions are different, but equally valid. To me,
it feels like the Wright Brothers thinking about rotating safety valves in
space, before they have even took off on their first flight, but that should
not stop the author and supporters in any way: Science, futurism, and
philosophy moves in small steps, and it may be a good time for some to start
walking. Just make sure to properly define the end goal (AKA, the moment AI
becomes AGI), or we may keep on truckin' forever, never closing the loop of
our hostile AGI-created simulations creating a first friendly AGI.
------
lottin
It seems to me that intelligence is something that needs to be acquired from
other intelligent beings through a lengthy process, thus it requires first and
foremost learning how to interact with people, what we call socialisation.
Therefore I believe if machines ever become intelligent we will absolutely
notice, because we will have to teach them like we teach babies, and we will
have plenty of time to adapt.
------
craigsmansion
AGI is to AI what "Flying cars" are to "atomic power".
The reason luminaries are conservative in their estimates or remain silent is
that capturing the public's imagination is good for funding and recognition
(not a negative assessment, btw).
With enough positive press everything seems possible to the layman, and
creates a belief in the unlimited possibilities of "the future," but also the
inherent "dangers" of this imagined future that "must be taken into account."
Most arguments made in the article fall flat because of false analogies.
Analogies can only ever be used to illustrate, never to derive conclusions
from.
The AI winter is over, and good progress is being made in a lot of fields, but
AGI is nowhere on the horizon. In absence of evidence to the contrary, AGI
remains, for the foreseeable future, in the realm of philosophy, science-
fiction, and regrettably, alarmist articles.
For now, us humans should feel totally safe.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
There Is a Second, Secret DNA Code Which Controls Genes - cjfont
http://earthweareone.com/scientists-finally-admit-there-is-a-second-secret-dna-code-which-controls-genes-2/
======
gus_massa
The original research articles are interesting. They are 1 year old, but I
hadn't read them before. But this articles has a sensationalist tone that I
really don't like.
------
jschwartzi
I have to confess that I stopped reading this after they started using
harmonics of DNA to justify why hypnosis works.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Things Programmers Should Never Say: “Who Wrote This Awful Code ” - chrisperkins
https://shubhamjain.co/2017/02/25/things-programmers-should-never-say--who-wrote-this-awful-code/
======
photonios
I've cut my fair share of corners to ship a product on time. Every time I
somehow decide that cutting a corner is justified, I leave some comments in
the code explaining why I decided to cut corners and how I think it should
actually be done. I usually put something similar in the commit message.
As the company I worked for scaled from three guys to 50+ people, these
comments have helped newcomers to the code base tremendously. Whenever someone
encounters some not-so-great implementation, they know why and there are some
pointers on how to make it better. It's been especially helpful to
students/juniors we've hired that would maybe not even have figured out that
the solution is sub-optimal.
It also prevents future me from coming back to some code and starting to
harbor passive aggressive feelings towards past me.
------
airbreather
I wonder how many times someone has said that to realise it was them.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
CurveBoards: Integrating Breadboards into Physical Objects - ArtWomb
https://hcie.csail.mit.edu/research/curveboard/curveboard.html
======
emmanueloga_
AT high school breadboards were one of the most hateful pieces of equipment i
ever had to use. The problem was that there was almost always a non zero
number of defective tracks... depending on the kind of circuit sometimes track
resistance could be significant too.
Sometimes the time saved by using a breadboard was heavily offset by the time
required to double check each connection with a multi-meter.
Hopefully breadboards these days are higher quality... (or perhaps my school
just had very old and crappy ones :-)
~~~
paulgerhardt
Yes, 3M makes a fantastic breadboard with very low contact resistance
([https://www.digikey.com/en/product-
highlight/3/3m/300-series...](https://www.digikey.com/en/product-
highlight/3/3m/300-series-solderless-breadboards))
Get one, treat it well, and never look back.
As a student I would never have sprung for that price but as a professional
it’s a no brainer.
~~~
exmadscientist
As a professional the price is nothing but the value proposition is
questionable. We simply don't use our breadboards very often around here, and
when we do it's never for sensitive work. Basically, I've never had a case
when I've cared who made our random stock of breadboards. Either they're
definitely good enough, or they're definitely bad enough that I need to
prototype some other way. (It's common to find that the only circuits I am
interested in derisking at the breadboard level are the ones that I _can 't_
prototype that way, due to parasitics.) But then, I consider an SOIC-8 package
pretty big in our line of work, so what do I know....
~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
It's not just you. I haven't seen a breadboard used in professional work in
over 20 years.
90% of the time you're going to have to do a PCB layout anyway, so you might
as well start there. Even more so since fewer and fewer devices are even made
in DIP anymore.
------
pininja
The 3D design tool workflow for adding channels in the video is really cool!
The tools do a lot of the tedious work for you, while leaving the more
creative or opinionated choices to the designer.
Filling with conductive silicon is clever too - I wasn’t sure how they were
going to add conductivity to a fully enclosed piece (no way to pop in metal
bands).
I’m sure there are applications of this that make sense, and ones where this
doesn’t make sense due to one constraint or another. Still, this a cool
combination of many systems and a creative idea.
------
jimmyswimmy
In my opinion breadboards can't die soon enough. Too many new engineers think
they can use them for prototyping circuits where the parasitic of the
breadboard make it entirely unsuitable. Low noise amplifiers, high speed
designs, switching power supplies are all terrible applications for breadboard
designs. And SMT is basically impractical on breadboards, which limits options
far too much.
With the advent of cheap plot and go board shops about 20 years ago and the
more recent explosion of unbelievably cheap Chinese vendors, there's just no
reason to waste time between sim and layout. The era of the breadboard is over
and has been for some time now.
I think there's still a little room for them in education and hobby design,
but even there it should be a fleeting use as students learn the better way.
------
Abishek_Muthian
I buy the premise of extending breadboards for actual applications apart from
testing circuits.
I recently made a butt triggered pomodoro timer[1], where I had to keep a
trigger under... my butt, after messing with velostat and its unreliable
resistance; A simple momentary button on a 170 pin breadboard served the
purpose! So breadboards of different form factors as physical objects would
indeed help to accelerate prototyping.
[1][https://abishekmuthian.com/butt-pomodoro-a-butt-triggered-
po...](https://abishekmuthian.com/butt-pomodoro-a-butt-triggered-pomodoro-
timer/)
------
Animats
That's cute. Not clear that a solderless breadboard wristband is useful, but
it's cute.
A way to design flexible printed circuits, taking into account that the
components are not flexible, would be more useful. Design to a minimum bending
radius, and bond to something that enforces that minimum bending radius, like
a watchband. Orient the longer components so that the long axis is the non-
bending axis.
~~~
throwanem
I could see a wrist-mounted breadboard for prototyping wearables. Jam in a
battery and a few SOIC breakouts plus some patch leads, hack up a quick
firmware to test out an idea, kind of thing.
~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
I'm not seeing it. The device package sizes are often smaller than even the
pin spacing on a breadboard. We generally start with a manufacturer dev board
to write the firmware while the hardware is being designed and then
manufactured at a prototype shop. The problem with trying to make "breakouts"
on packages so small is that they are extremely fragile (if you can even
solder to them by hand!) and the poor signal integrity of flying blue wires
can often be enough to make the hardware completely unusable.
------
userbinator
Those images triggered my trypophobia mildly, even as someone who has worked
with breadboards extensively.
------
flywheel
A solution in search of a problem.
~~~
OJFord
Maybe helpful for test-fitting how non-flexible components will behave on a
flexible PCB, whether they interfere with each other or something else in the
case? Maybe? I imagine you'd just 3D model it though and be happy with that.
But maybe if you already had the case.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
next iPhone priced at $999, reportedly - Stanleyc23
https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/24/apple-reportedly-looking-to-price-its-next-iphone-at-999/
======
PascLeRasc
I just got a $99 Motorola phone a few weeks ago, the E4, and it's been
amazing. Latest security update on Nougat 7.1, and very close to stock. I put
a microSD card in and it formatted it as internal storage. Cheap Android is
great.
~~~
fouc
How's the camera?
~~~
Fej
Potato.
That's one of the downsides of budget phones.
~~~
bsharitt
The super budget phones like the E4 are pretty bad, but you can get a pretty
decent camera on a midrange Android phone. I've got a Moto G5 Plus that is a
pretty solid phone with a decent camera(only real short coming is very low
light). That phone is $230 for the base model, and I think it's about $40-$50
less if you get the Amazon ad supported version(which I think the
aforementioned $99 E4 is).
~~~
pasbesoin
The G5+ comes in 2 configurations, in the U.S. (UK/Europe and India are
different.) 2 GB RAM / 32 GB flash, and 4 GB RAM / 64 GB flash. Both take a
microSD card of up to 128 GB or 256 GB, depending on whose specs your reading
-- I'd be cautious, if it makes a difference in your purchase decision, and
believe the 128 GB.
It is described as being compatible with all 4 of the U.S.'s major networks.
Currently, it's on a fairly recent version of 7.0 . Interesting that the E4 is
ahead of it, on 7.1 . Typical Motorola/Android inconsistency.
The 2/32 version has an ad-free price on Amazon of $230, and an ad-full price
(Amazon ads, like they've had on Kindle and Fire phones) of $180. However, a
week+ ago, Amazon was putting the ad-free version on sale for $180, in typical
Amazon fashion: On again, off again, on again... Until their inventory of the
ad-free version sold out.
The 4/64 version has been consistently holding at $300, for the ad-free
version. I've read a comment or two about someone getting the ad-free version
on sale for $40 or $50 off, but I haven't seen such a sale. The ad-full
version has the Amazon discount price, but that wasn't of interest to me.
I've also read comments stating that the 2/32 ad-free version has been at
CostCo for $180, but I don't have a CostCo membership.
Oh, and that if you want to root the thing, you should get the version free of
Amazon's ad platform.
My Nexus 5x bootlooped, and I ended up getting the 4/64 version of the G5+.
Supposedly, there is a G5S+ version coming soon, with an upgraded camera
package -- dual 13 megapixel cameras that enable some depth-of-field trickery
and whatever else. The G5+ has a single 12 megapixel camera (as well as the
"selfie" camera).
The G5S+ is supposedly launching in Europe this August, and in the U.S. at
some unannounced time in the fall. Pricing's also not known, but some think
both models will be offered concurrently, with the S's pricing a bit higher.
As for me, I needed something now, so I bought the G5+. I got frustrated with
Amazon's pricing dance, and I figured 4/64 would provide a longer life as a
second phone or experimental device. My purpose was/is to tide me over until
the Pixel 2 launches, although I'm hesitant after my 5X experience.
Thereafter, to have a backup device as well as one I can root and play with.
The G5+ is a decent phone. Decent IPS screen. Battery can go all day with
moderate use, plus perhaps a bit more. Has a fingerprint sensor, making having
a locked device more convenient (the whole unlocking "coercion" concern,
aside).
The processor/GPU combination is not high end, but it's enough for email,
browsing, Facebook, watching video, and the like.
The camera's ok. The Nexus 5X's takes more attractive pictures. The G5+'s gets
rid of the momentary lag that both the 5X and the 6P exhibit when the
"shutter" is triggered.
The Motorola camera app has a professional mode with significant control (ISO-
equivalency, exposure control, etc.). One thing it doesn't seem to have is the
ability to turn off taking photos at the screen's proportions. Essentially, it
is discarding the top and bottom pixel lines built into the sensor, in order
to match the screen's dimensions. I installed the open source, well-regarded
app Open Camera to get around this. (Which it does, but I've been running into
some typical single guy / small team project bugginess as I use it more.) Some
of the Motorola app's pictures also exhibited some significant JPG-type low-
quality distortion. (Perhaps it was lower light and/or moderate zoom,
contributing.) I'm not sure, but maybe Open Camera does a bit better, in this
regard.
So, I got into a pretty good ramble, here.
I'll be damned if I'm going to pay a grand for a phone. And if I did, it would
have to be with a good warranty and some decent loss/damage/failure insurance
(if affordable). And I'd need a guarantee of support. At least Apple devices
tend to get good support for 3 - 4 years, unlike Android's crapshoot of too-
often abaondon-ware.
I'll see where the Pixel 2 prices come in. Although, no SD card... And now no
headphone jack...
------
foldr
I don't think this can last. Smartphones are a commodity now. I just moved
from a 5c to a Samsung A5. Android is a clunky piece of crap compared to iOS
(Google can't get predictive text right?!), but I can't possibly justify
paying hundreds of dollars more for a device that isn't really any more
featureful. Sure, the iPhone would have a better camera, but most midrange
Androids have cameras that are good enough now.
~~~
StavrosK
The beauty of Android is that, if Google can't get predictive text right, you
can use something that can (eg SwiftKey).
~~~
ringaroundthetx
2013 called and wants its arguments back.
iOS has had Swiftkey and any custom keyboard you want since iOS 8.
~~~
StavrosK
Eh, let me know when I can connect my phone to the computer and have it
mounted as a mass storage device, then I'll accept that the arguments are
invalid.
~~~
ringaroundthetx
Let me get a native crossplatform airdrop on android and I would consider
switching back
I never want to plug in an iOS device. But, after you accept the iTunes thing
if did plug it in as mass storage, you'll see that you can move arbitrary
files to the app that can open them. Do you really want the extra storage or
is there another particular use case you want that requires it as a mounted
drive?
~~~
StavrosK
What do you mean by native airdrop? You can have whatever SSH/SMB/NFS server
you want.
> is there another particular use case you want that requires it as a mounted
> drive
I don't want files to be per-application. I have various audiobook reading
apps, music players, video playing apps, etc. I don't want to copy my music
once per app, I want to put it on my phone and choose which app I want to play
stuff with later on.
------
ksec
By Next iPhone, it means the iPhone 8 or iPhone Edition, what ever it will be
named.
People often forget you can still buy what a normal upgrade cycle iPhone 7s.
Assuming the leaks and rumours are correct, you still get the normal "S"
upgrade, Faster SoC, better LTE Baseband, WiFi and Bluetooth improvement,
likely a slightly better screen, glass Back, Better Front and Back Camera,
along with Capacity bump, double the Storage for same price.
And the iPhone 8 is Apple's price discovery, how much will people paid for the
best Apple could make, with limited capacity and volume. Personally I dont
think $999 is that expensive considering an iPhone 7s Plus Mid tier would cost
$869. __
__That is what Apple, and likely what the media is going to spin the story.
Its ONLY $140 difference. And it is actually the wrong way to compare it to
because even though it has a 5.8 " screen, it has the size of an iPhone 7,
which goes for $769 mid tier. We already knew from the firmware hacks there is
likely a iPhone 8 Plus NEXT YEAR, same size with iPhone 7 Plus but with 6.x"
Screen, likely starting at $1099.
------
malloryerik
Apple is doing an amazing job in the fight against techno-deflation. I just
bought a new MacBook Pro yesterday with decent specs and holy jalapeños it's
pricey. The irony for me is that I'd probably have bought an Apple Watch too
if the MBP weren't so expensive.
~~~
MuffinFlavored
That isn't really irony...
Say the MBP cost $2k.
A $1.7k MBP and a $300 watch = $2k revenue.
What's the difference? Are you saying watch margins may be higher?
~~~
berdario
I guess that with both a MBP and an Apple watch the lock-in effect might be
stronger...
Compared to now, where as soon as the MBP will die, the GP would be free to
switch to another platform
------
godzillabrennus
The iPhone 7 Plus 128 GB is about $900 retail, this isn't really that
different.
~~~
Someone
Also, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is _" $930 to $960 (depending on carrier"_,
according to [https://www.cnet.com/news/galaxy-note-8-everything-you-
need-...](https://www.cnet.com/news/galaxy-note-8-everything-you-need-to-
know/)
For these phones, price signals quality in some sense, so if they want to
claim their phone is best, they have to be at least in that range.
------
johansch
I could see the Tim Cook era Apple ending up buying LVMH down the line.
~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Much too vulgar for AAPL.
Besides, Apple probably has plans of its own for self-driving designer
luggage.
~~~
dagw
_Much too vulgar for AAPL._
No more vulgar than Beats.
~~~
netsharc
Whatever happened to 10K Apple watches, they were presented as one of the
options, I've never checked if they actually made it to market.
~~~
tommorris
The Series 1 'Edition' watches were $10-17k and in gold. When Series 2 came
out, they switched the gold to ceramic and they start at $1,249.
The gold ones were definitely for sale both online, in the shops, and in
department stores (one of the big London department stores has an Apple Watch
counter).
Personally, I think it was more of a marketing gimmick: send a few out to
celebrities for some buzz in the fashion press, and get the tech press to
write about how Apple are "going after the Rolex end of the watch market"...
even if they don't sell many, it was good PR for the first series of watches.
And for consumers, they could try the gold one on in the shop, sigh that they
don't have $10,000 and then buy the $300-$500 one.
------
pmlnr
Bought a 119GBP Nomu S10. Certified IP68, EU 4G, all fine, no bloatware.
Forget all the overpriced wonders imo.
------
tomcam
So... $1199 for the 512G version, I would guess
~~~
StavrosK
So there's a half-terabyte phone version, huh? We've come a long way indeed.
~~~
tomcam
[https://www.macrumors.com/2017/08/23/iphone-8-64-256-and-512...](https://www.macrumors.com/2017/08/23/iphone-8-64-256-and-512gb-
storage/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Welcome to a week of Java - danielalmeida
http://www.infoworld.com/article/2923088/java/welcome-to-a-week-of-java.html
======
fdomig
I for one have never been a huge fan of Java. But the success and achievements
cannot be denied. So thanks for giving us some great articles from the Java
world.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Postgres-XC, read and write scalability in Postgres - buro9
http://postgres-xc.sourceforge.net/
======
buro9
I've submitted this in part just to see if any on here has used this and has
any experience that they can share.
Particularly what the observed overhead with real-world use, and whether you
encountered any gotchas when rolling it out that you wish you knew of in
advance.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Pixie: A small fast, native lisp - emidln
https://github.com/pixie-lang/pixie
======
_halgari
Author of pixie here. The project is still pretty young (about a month old),
so I'll use that to explain away the lack of binaries, documentation,
examples, etc. I've been more focused on adding features than getting stuff
ready for presenting to the public. As an example, we didn't even have stack
traces until a day or two ago.
That being said I'll try to answer any questions you may have. Thanks!
~~~
sktatlo
This is an amazing effort! Now to clojure compatibility. You can only gain by
making it clojure compatible. What would be the possible reasons to diverge?
Another one: what are your plans for namespaces and code packaging and
distribution? What are your thoughts about a build system? I think the world
doesn't need another build and package distribution system. Which one would
you reuse?
~~~
_halgari
I love clojure, let me make this clear. But there are certain aspects of the
language that don't apply if you are writing a VM from scratch in RPython. If
I could make multimethods dispatching on types as fast as protocols, what is
the point of protocols?
A great example of this is the (fn [& args]) bit. In Clojure, variadic
parameters are passed in as a ISeq. In Pixie they are a vector (or an
immutable array actually). This allowed me to tune the JIT quite a bit to
allow it to remove the allocation of "args" completely. As well as allow for
things like unrolling a reduce over the args. This stuff would have been much
harder if the arguments were passed in as an ISeq.
This is the whole reason why Pixie exists, instead of something like "clojure-
on-rpython". Compatibility means constraining the feature set. And that's not
something I want to do yet.
~~~
emidln
It might be interesting down the line to see if I couldn't target pixie using
something like cljx (or actual feature expressions if they ever land in a
mainline clojure release). This wouldn't necessarily require any effort on the
part of my target, but still allow portability when it makes sense.
------
eddieplan9
The author is the creator of clojure-py [1]. Pixie looks like a follow-up
effort with strong influence from PyPy. The following post of his from over 2
years ago might provide some insight:
[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/clojure-py-
dev/Lmhd0...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/clojure-py-
dev/Lmhd0VwwdgA)
[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3649883](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3649883)
------
wtbob
It looks cool enough, but I wish more of these modern Lisp implementations
would ask to implement the Common Lisp standard rate than their own,
informally-specified version of Lisp. Yeah, Common Lisp is not perfect, but it
does have a lot of excellent ideas, and some of the bits which don't look
excellent actually are (e.g. pathnames and logical pathnames).
~~~
sklogic
Common Lisp is too big for a typical application (e.g., embedded scripting
engines, mataprogramming hosts, etc.). And it's a Lisp-2, which is quite a
deterrent for many.
~~~
sedachv
> And it's a Lisp-2, which is quite a deterrent for many.
I used to be on the fence about multiple namespaces in programming languages.
After a decade of programming in Common Lisp and in other languages that
pretend to have a single namespace, I see multiple namespaces as a clearly
superior approach. I don't think it is a deterrent either - a reason to post
complaints on the Internet, yes.
~~~
sklogic
For me it's clearly a deterrent - it does not fit at all into my model of
building hierarchies of DSLs.
~~~
sedachv
> it does not fit at all into my model of building hierarchies of DSLs
Links to source code or GTFO. The only way people manage to combine DSLs in a
single-namespace language is by having stupid naming rules and restrictions
(see for example Ruby on Rails). Compare this to something like
[https://github.com/vsedach/cliki2](https://github.com/vsedach/cliki2) where I
could just throw arbitrary CL libraries that define their own DSLs together
and not worry that my function name is going to clobber some reference in the
template system.
~~~
sklogic
See
[https://github.com/combinatorylogic/mbase](https://github.com/combinatorylogic/mbase)
Problem with two namespaces is, well, need to maintain two namespaces, in all
your DSLs. Which in many cases may double the effort.
Of course, macros must have their own namespace, but that's an obvious thing,
you cannot mix compile-time and run-time namespaces anyway.
~~~
sedachv
> Problem with two namespaces is, well, need to maintain two namespaces, in
> all your DSLs. Which in many cases may double the effort.
How so? And why only two namespaces? Common Lisp probably has a dozen: package
name, lexical variable, dynamic variable, function (stores either function or
macro function), documentation string, property list, type name, class name,
slot name, etc.
As long as you have first-class identifiers, you can define arbitrary
namespaces without having to worry about conflicts between the namespaces.
> Of course, macros must have their own namespace
That doesn't have to be true, and is not true in Common Lisp:
[http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/03_bba...](http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/03_bba.htm)
Having an identifier denote a function and a macro at the same time like that
enables adding partial evaluation and other compile-time optimizations to DSLs
without having to dig into the compiler.
> but that's an obvious thing, you cannot mix compile-time and run-time
> namespaces anyway.
? You have to mix them if you want a compiler in your runtime.
------
gopalv
This is a lisp engine written in python - RPython, to be precise.
It literally compiles the lisp code into python bytecode, which is pretty neat
- sort of like clojure is for the JVM.
[https://github.com/pixie-
lang/pixie/blob/master/pixie/vm/com...](https://github.com/pixie-
lang/pixie/blob/master/pixie/vm/compiler.py#L598)
Perhaps not magical, but I like the effort (though lisp-as-shell has to
contend with emacs first).
~~~
srean
Ever since RPython had been announced I have wanted generator support in
RPython. TCO'ed coroutines would be even better. PyPy devs did not see much
use of it for writing their Python interprator so they left it out, which is a
pity.
How so ever shiny and neat dynamic typing might be, I have had very little use
of it in my own Python code. A situation where I _absolutely must_ store
values of different types in the same variable (that or bullet to the head)
has not presented itself that often if ever. For me RPython would have been a
fine enough replacement, except that I do like generators a lot.
Given the prominence of inversion of control (via coroutines) as a feature, I
assume it would have helped pixie implementation too.
~~~
fijal
RPython is not a language for normal usage and mostly because e.g. error
messages are obscure and hard to read. There is some basic support for
generators these days, however, unless you're writing another language, we
strongly encourage you don't use it.
------
daGrevis
I love little languages like this one! Just look at the source — it's still so
readable and easy to understand, and the size — I could read through it in an
evening!
It reminds me a bit of diy-lisp where you implemented Lisp in Python yourself!
[https://github.com/daGrevis/diy-lisp](https://github.com/daGrevis/diy-lisp)
------
andrewchambers
I'm glad there will be something like clojure, only with semi sane start up
times. (pypy based interpreters are still slow to start.)
------
duckingtest
>Math system is fully polymorphic
Does it have fully polymorphic other basic functions, like setq, eql (or
however they are named)? I guess not? Do you plan on introducing some parts of
CLOS?
Lack of OO integration in CL is one of its biggest drawback for me... for me
CLOS was the most powerful thing in lisp, not macros (mostly because they are
not dynamic).
~~~
_halgari
CLOS has been on my list to research for some time now, and I haven't made a
decision on it yet. The goal would be to get the JIT to remove the method
lookup completely, and that might get a bit tricky depending on how complex
the lookup code is, but it is the most open dynamic OO system I've seen, so it
might just be worth it.
------
cryptolect
I'm happy to see that some new 'modern lisp on x' projects are taking design
cues from Clojure (See Rhine and now Pixie).
~~~
dTal
Clojure's success, I believe, is due to retaining Java's semantics (preserving
library compatibility) while overhauling its syntax. Fighting the semantics of
your host language/VM just makes work and causes trouble. Therefore, if you
want a "Clojure on Python" that preserves the benefits of the original, you
need to give it Python semantics, not Java/Clojure's. Hylang is that project -
it uses Clojure syntax where sensible, and is _fully_ compatible with Python.
[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/clojure-py-
dev/HbeNE...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/clojure-py-
dev/HbeNEkIG23U)
[http://hy.readthedocs.org/en/latest/](http://hy.readthedocs.org/en/latest/)
~~~
andrewchambers
Only hylang has a lot of stupid limitations and problems like scope leakage.
~~~
dTal
I take it you refer to your complaint here:
[https://github.com/hylang/hy/issues/543](https://github.com/hylang/hy/issues/543)
Your problem is with Python, not Hy. Hy inherits the "stupid limitations" of
Python, and not even all of those - for example, it does away with the
statement/expression distinction, which means multiline lambdas (at last!).
It's just Python with s-expressions. If you don't like it, you either don't
like Python or don't like s-expressions.
------
GuiA
What's magical about it?
~~~
616c
Well judging from the description, "native" actually means writing it in
RPython (a "restricted" Python with types for use in the PyPy Project for
static analysis and speeding things up[0]) and then compiling it down using
PyPy (I am guessing on the second part). That could be neat, the HyLang people
(Lisp written in vanilla CPython Python; I think no C extensions AFAIK).
[0] [http://pypy.readthedocs.org/en/latest/coding-
guide.html#id1](http://pypy.readthedocs.org/en/latest/coding-guide.html#id1)
~~~
dTal
Hy isn't a full Lisp interpreter in Python, it's an s-expression to Python AST
parser, which means it does everything Python does (including C extensions) at
essentially native speed anyway - you can even write RPython in it.
If you ask me, full Python interop makes Hy the most practical s-expression
language today.
~~~
JasonFruit
One problem with Hy for me is that it keeps Python scoping, either global or
function; that doesn't feel natural to me in a Lisp, and it gets in my way. If
it weren't for that and a few similar matters, I'd agree with you on Hy's
practicality; as it is, I'd give my nod to Clojure.
------
nicklovescode
Would love some examples that showoff the benefits
~~~
_halgari
I added a few comments to the README on that subject.
------
lsdafjklsd
Neat project, although I am struggling with getting it working. Looking
forward to installation instructions.
------
ottbot
Have fun.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Real Games Have Curves: Welcome to the Competence Zone - kilian
http://www.pixelpoppers.com/2010/06/real-games-have-curves-welcome-to.html
======
chipsy
A problem with this theory: Flow isn't "I'm passing this level." If you
flailed through the whole thing, succeeding more on luck than skill, you
probably didn't achieve flow. Flow requires a combination of a tight feedback
loop and succeeding at getting positive output from it. So while
Bit.Trip.Runner _requires_ flow for any degree of success, lenient music games
like Guitar Hero let you use a resource-hoarding strategy(retaining star power
for hard parts) to pass songs at a pre-flow skill level, and then return to
them later for higher scores.
------
hazzen
An addendum, and a game I think about quite frequently, is FlyWrench. It looks
like Bit.Trip Runner has taken some lessons from it. FlyWrench is also a
punishingly difficult game that appears to flow for an expert player, with
instant death on any mistake. What it nails is that the amount of work you
have to redo for a failure is tiny, and the restart is as close to
instantaneous as you would be comfortable with.
You enter a very flow-like state perfecting a 10-20 second stretch of inputs
because of this structure. The game _demands_ perfection as you enter the
later levels, but somehow you are comfortable with it because the penalty is
so small. I guess VVVVV is also in this school of game and has largely
succeeded.
I think, then, that Bit.Trip Runner may have failed somewhat if the restart
penalty is as large as the author makes it sound. You don't need to have a
large competence zone to create flow; you can alternatively have a low penalty
for failure with some tangible measure of progress and keep the player (or at
least this player) hooked.
------
mbateman
This is just an aside in the article, but I had no idea that Rock Band 3 was
going to feature something much closer to the real instruments. I've been
wondering, ever since I played the first Guitar Hero, how long it would be
before it was possible to learn a real instrument in this manner. If it
actually works, this is awesome. You can transition smoothly from trying to
get high scores in a fun video game to playing the songs for real.
~~~
te_platt
I wrote a prototype "Piano Hero" that used the midi out from my piano
keyboard. Instead of the notes coming down I had them come across the screen
laid out on a staff like standard sheet music. My kids use it for piano
practice and it seems to help develop real piano skills.
~~~
baddox
<http://www.synthesiagame.com/>
------
kilian
It's interesting to contrast this with games such as WoW and Farmville, which
seem to reward endurance more than skill. Interestingly, Cory Doctorow's
latest book 'for the win' explores exactly this.
------
diziet
It's no wonder that games such as World of Warcraft have a really low
competence zone and a really large amount of space left to provide rewards for
both time investment and player skill.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Best $300k Teehan+Lax Ever Spent - samsolomon
https://medium.com/@herbertlui/the-best-300-000-teehan-lax-ever-spent-4f5b059b37e6#.bgljh1ft7
======
carapace
I could not make heads nor tails of that. What was it?
~~~
HillRat
Abstract: Teehan+Lax was a design firm, like Frog, IDEO or Fjord; T+L had an
internal R&D department, like Frog, IDEO or Fjord; T+L is out of business,
unlike Frog, IDEO or Fjord.
~~~
runamok
Actually they apparently got acqui-hired by Facebook:
> And Now, For Our Next Act
> We have made a big decision that in 2015, we will join Facebook and the
> Facebook Design team. This is a significant move for us, professionally and
> personally.
> We are incredibly excited about the future. The things we will be doing at
> Facebook are amazing new challenges. The scope and scale of them are
> simultaneously thrilling and scary. The opportunity to make things that will
> impact over a billion people is extraordinary.
[http://www.teehanlax.com/story/our-next-
act](http://www.teehanlax.com/story/our-next-act)
~~~
randomgyatwork
Yeah, they kind of won. Also they were one of the famous firms in Toronto,
Canada.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Find Remote Work - max0563
http://findremote.work
======
akcreek
"The best place to find remote jobs."
I get really annoyed when such blatantly false statements are slapped onto a
website. If you can't say that honestly then it is a great opportunity to be
creative with messaging and say something that adds value.
This has been a pet peeve of mine for as long as I've been running online
businesses. Our competitors are always #1... all of them, at the same time.
~~~
wheelerwj
why do you care? it's a Show HN, it's obviously just the tagline the one dev
made up to show off a weekend project to their internet colleagues.
So its not the best right now, but at least they have a goal.
~~~
akcreek
Not specific to this site, but the cavalier use of this type of statement
bothers me because I highly value honesty, integrity, ethics, etc. even on the
internet where accountability is limited.
If that line is truly their goal then why not just say that,
"Building the best place to find remote jobs"
That small change honestly communicates why the site exists, why I should be
interested in it and why there are limited legitimate job postings at the
moment. It also tells me that this site is still evolving and I should check
back.
------
tzury
You got to add moderation.
This is what I see out there:
Title Company Posted
df df 21 minutes ago
Forum Spammer Find Remote 29 minutes ago
Your mother Definitely 32 minutes ago
Chief Sharting Officer Farts and Sharts 2 hours ago
Wizard's Assistant SICP Inc. 3 hours ago
Failed Engineer Doogle 3 hours ago
Fart Engineer Farts Anonymous 5 hours ago
[http://i.imgur.com/sWM59QJ.png](http://i.imgur.com/sWM59QJ.png)
~~~
jondubois
A remote fart engineering position!
Great! I've been looking for a remote position for ages. The on-site work has
taken a toll.
------
robjan
Needs a moderation policy. The #1 posting is currently "Fart engineer"
~~~
dbbk
That can't be right, I was told this was the best place to find remote jobs.
~~~
amatera
... and a Fart Engineer is not an awesome remote job? I wonder how they would
control your "output"....
~~~
lukethomas
They offer free lunches.
------
j_s
There's a list for that!
[https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job#job-
board...](https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job#job-boards)
------
alangibson
Someone just posted one with the full text of War and Peace as the company
name. Let this be a lesson kids: always validate your input.
------
reustle
Similar: [http://remoteok.io](http://remoteok.io)
------
jbrimble85
Tried to apply for the position of Fart Engineer but it led to a 500 error
page.
~~~
robotpony
Also tried to apply. At least 60 years worth of experience, if you consider
accelerated rate of practice. Disappointed in 500. Thhhbbbttt.
------
alangibson
4th time this site was submitted. 157 days for HN to notice there's no
moderation, and off to the front page she goes...
------
olahalvorsen
Better place to find remote jobs: [http://remotive.io](http://remotive.io)
~~~
kw0lf
You mean better than the best (TM) place to find remote work? How's that even
remotely (haha) possible?
------
brailsafe
Well... the form certainly works. I guess.
------
gargravarr
Seeing 'Boobie Inspector' and 'Fart Master' in the list really does illustrate
the internet for you.
Really. Just... don't trust people...
------
yourMother123
It may be beneficial to check what kind of URLs the job posters can submit as
Job Urls, it's a popular attack vector
------
blub992
The fictive jobs actually look kind of fun. Maybe you can expand on this and
gamify it a little.
------
chris__butters
Super simple idea but laughable implementation - people trying SQL injections
and just spamming the shit out of it means it becomes completely useless.
I wouldn't even have that online.
------
blackstampede
[http://i.imgur.com/1N7wXUa.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/1N7wXUa.jpg)
EDIT: put url to imgur instead of direct
------
brandonhsiao
I like the UI a lot. Were the jobs currently listed posted by the companies or
you? Really cool if former.
------
yakshaving_jgt
Sorry for Zalgo'ing your form.
------
thinbeige
No responsive site in 2017?
------
sebringj
stackoverflow careers finds you remote work rather than you finding it
~~~
krallja
I have not seen any leads on remote work through SO Careers.
Maybe I'm blacklisted, or just terrible at my job and don't know it.
~~~
staticelf
I got my current position through SO Careers. :)
------
gregjw
Well that became a shambles fast
------
jmcgough
kudos to whoever posted the entirety of war and peace
------
fazkan
diarrhea testing engineer????wtf...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I Dreamed of a Perfect Database - hudibras
https://newrepublic.com/article/124425/dreamed-perfect-database
======
lackbeard
I thought "relation" meant table, the author seems to use the word as if it
means foreign key.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Don’t assume that safety comes for free: a Swift case study - deafcalculus
http://lemire.me/blog/2016/12/06/dont-assume-that-safety-comes-for-free-a-swift-case-study/
======
iainmerrick
This seems totally misguided and inflammatory. The points made boil down to:
1\. Overflow checking adds about a 2x overhead to "+" in a loop
2\. Using "reduce" rather than a loop also has ~2x overhead
Neither is really surprising, and hardly seems to warrant the final tangent
that "I do not think it is universally a good thing that software should crash
when an overflow occurs" since "a mission-critical application could crash
because an unimportant function in a secondary routine overflows".
What about the mission-critical bugs, especially security bugs, that are
_caused by_ overflows?
Swift's default behavior, of aggressively checking for overflows, is at least
arguable, and there's a school of thought in software engineering that says
"don't nail your code to the wall", i.e. don't try to keep it running at all
costs when something goes wrong. Let it crash and restart it. Obviously that
approach works well in some scenarios and less well in others. The creators of
Swift reckon it's a good default for most programmers and I reckon they're
onto something.
The fact that the overhead is _only_ 2x for a tight inner loop should be a
cause for celebration, not dire warnings. And as the author himself shows,
it's very easy to disable overflow checking on a per-operation basis when you
want to.
~~~
mikeash
I'm puzzled by how many people want their programs to just keep on trucking
and try their best after something unexpected occurs.
Crashing is not the worst thing your program can do. In fact, I'd argue that
it's the second- _best_ thing your program can do, right behind working
correctly. Losing data is much worse than crashing, and corrupting data is
worse still. Both are strong possibilities once your program's state is
something unexpected.
~~~
arcticbull
I agree and disagree. What the author says is true, if a thoroughly irrelevant
part of your program (let's say a drawing routine for UI somewhere) hits an
overflow and crashes your app in the middle of taking a payment, or in the
middle of surgery -- while that much more critical element continued to work
perfectly -- that's not ideal.
Not all parts of your app make sense to fail-fast. By enforcing this behavior
even on peripheral parts of your app, you're taking away the decision making
ability about what's important and what isn't from the system designer.
I understand that position, though I still think on the whole explicitness is
right. Being able to explicitly disable the check when you know what you want
is the right balance, whether it's &\+ in Swift or (better, imo)
.wrapping_add() in Rust.
~~~
mikeash
Displaying corrupt data in the UI can be just as bad as saving it to disk, if
the user actually reads and uses the data you display (and if not, why are you
displaying it?).
And since the UI almost certainly shares data with the rest of the program,
bugs in the UI can corrupt the underlying data.
Separation of concerns is great, but if you really want different parts of
your system to have different reliability constraints, then you need to
_truly_ separate them, for example by running them in different processes.
Running them in the same process but having some of the code be more lax about
state because it's less important is just begging for horrible bugs.
~~~
lomnakkus
> Separation of concerns is great, but if you really want different parts of
> your system to have different reliability constraints, then you need to
> truly separate them, for example by running them in different processes.
> Running them in the same process but having some of the code be more lax
> about state because it's less important is just begging for horrible bugs.
Indeed, and you might even want to run them on entirely different and
independent _systems_ (connected by some type of network/bus) depending on
exactly what bits are critical vs. non-critical.
~~~
IgorPartola
Why can't it be opt-in instead of opt-out? Or can we have more granular
control overall? On an application, module, class, function, and block level?
That way my super tight hit loop that I can prove does not overflow gets a 2x
speed up, while the rest of the code is safe. Oh and I can always recompile it
to be always safe and analyze crashes in the real world, no t just my silly
unit tests that amount to 2 + 2 == 4.
~~~
stouset
Continuing on as a default is dangerous, and has led to hundreds of thousands
of security vulnerabilities. Not continuing is inconvenient, but safe.
~~~
emodendroket
Maybe it's time to bring back VB6 and On Error Resume Next.
~~~
flukus
It never went away, now it's just "catch (Exception) { }" spread liberally
throughout the code base.
~~~
vurpo
How to fix all errors in Python:
try:
#your code goes here
except:
pass
------
bjourne
Most costly software bug I've ever witnessed was caused by an integer
overflow. Thankfully, it wasn't _caused_ by me, but if I had been auditing the
code, I probably wouldn't have found the bug.
The system was billing customers credit cards depending on how long they had
used the service. Time was measured in milliseconds (uh-oh!) for no apparent
reason. Usage could have been measured in seconds or even days but someone
thought it was good to be extra precise. And System.currentTimeMillis()
returns milliseconds.
The default charging period was 14 days which worked well. So the maximum
number of milliseconds that could be charged (for someone who used the system
the whole month) was 1,209,600,000. Then the company decided to change the
period to every two months (60 days) instead to save money as there was a
fixed cost added to every credit card transfer.
Guess what 60 * 24 * 3600 * 1000 is? It's a number a bit bigger than 2^31 - 1
which is the most positive primitive integer value in Java. And the
"totalDuration" variable had type "int". :)
So totalDuration wrapped around which caused the system to retry the
transaction over and over and debit customers hundreds of times more than what
they really owed. The resulting fallout from that debacle was one of the
reasons the company went bankrupt. Integer overflow checking could have saved
them.
------
Animats
Now that more languages are checking for integer overflow, it's time for
integer overflow exceptions to re-appear in hardware. DEC VAX machines had
this, but C didn't use them. With the hardware doing the checking in parallel,
there's no performance penalty.
If you want wrap-around arithmetic (which is rare) you should have to write
something like
unsigned short i,j;
i = (i + j) % 65536;
which the compiler should optimize into a no-check add. This gets you the same
answer on all platforms.
~~~
gok
Do you find a shorthand for wraparound math (like Swift's &+) so bad?
------
lmm
> That’s because I do not think it is universally a good thing that software
> should crash when an overflow occurs. Think about the software that runs in
> your brain. Sometimes you experience bugs. For example, an optical illusion
> is a fault in your vision software. Would you want to fall dead whenever you
> encounter an optical illusion? That does not sound entirely reasonable, does
> it? Moreover, would you want this “fall dead” switch to make all of your
> brain run at half its best speed?
If you lived in a world where hackers crafted optical illusions that made you
send all your money to them when you viewed them, you would probably want to
go blind or some such when you encountered such an illusion.
~~~
mikeash
A bit of a tangent here, but anyone intrigued by the notion of hacking the
brain using optical illusions should read "comp.basilisk FAQ":
[http://ansible.uk/writing/c-b-faq.html](http://ansible.uk/writing/c-b-
faq.html)
~~~
e28eta
Neat! Reminded me of Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson. I'm sure nearly everyone
is familiar with it, but for those who aren't: it's pretty good!
------
sulam
I found this statement funny:
"Moreover, would you want this “fall dead” switch to make all of your brain
run at half its best speed?"
...because this is actually how our brains work! We are much slower to process
and respond to all sorts of stimuli (visual, auditory, conceptual [reading])
when it is contradictory. Think of the feeling you get looking at an Escher
sketch.
------
c0ffe
After chasing strange bugs when using dynamic languages like PHP and
JavaScript that keep running by default when minor errors happen (PHP
warnings, or undefined variables in JavaScript), I think its good that Swift
priorizes safety rather than speed.
------
mcguire
" _That’s because I do not think it is universally a good thing that software
should crash when an overflow occurs. Think about the software that runs in
your brain. Sometimes you experience bugs. For example, an optical illusion is
a fault in your vision software. Would you want to fall dead whenever you
encounter an optical illusion? That does not sound entirely reasonable, does
it? Moreover, would you want this “fall dead” switch to make all of your brain
run at half its best speed? In software terms, this means that a mission-
critical application could crash because an unimportant function in a
secondary routine overflows._ "
That is a ridiculous analogy. What if we replace "optical illusion" with
"hallucination"?
More importantly, what if there were some sort of middle ground between
continuing on as if nothing happened on an error and crashing completely?
------
nkurz
I thought it might be interesting to see how this effect changes with the size
of the array being summed. How do the relative speeds change when operating
out of L1, L3, and memory? Does the lower speed of memory access overwhelm the
overhead of the overflow checking?
$ swift build --configuration release
$ cset proc -s nohz -e .build/release/reduce
# count (basic, reduce, unsafe basic, unsafe reduce)
1000 (0.546, 0.661, 0.197, 0.576)
10000 (0.403, 0.598, 0.169, 0.544)
100000 (0.391, 0.595, 0.194, 0.542)
1000000 (0.477, 0.663, 0.294, 0.582)
10000000 (0.507, 0.655, 0.337, 0.608)
100000000 (0.509, 0.655, 0.339, 0.608)
1000000000(0.511, 0.656, 0.345, 0.611)
$ swift build --configuration release -Xswiftc -Ounchecked
$ cset proc -s nohz -e .build/release/reduce
# count (basic, reduce, unsafe basic, unsafe reduce)
1000 (0.309, 0.253, 0.180, 0.226)
10000 (0.195, 0.170, 0.168, 0.170)
100000 (0.217, 0.203, 0.196, 0.201)
1000000 (0.292, 0.326, 0.299, 0.252)
10000000 (0.334, 0.337, 0.333, 0.337)
100000000 (0.339, 0.339, 0.340, 0.339)
1000000000(0.344, 0.344, 0.344, 0.344)
Code is from [https://github.com/lemire/Code-used-on-Daniel-Lemire-s-
blog/...](https://github.com/lemire/Code-used-on-Daniel-Lemire-s-
blog/tree/master/2016/12/05) with modification to loop over the different
array lengths. Numbers are for Skylake at 3.4 GHz with swift-3.0.1-RELEASE-
ubuntu16.04. Count is the number of 8B ints in the array being summed. Results
shown were truncated by hand --- I wasn't sure how to specify precision from
within Swift. The execution with "cset proc -s nohz" was to reduce jitter
between runs, but doesn't significantly affect total run time. The anomalously
fast result for the L3 sized 'unsafe' 'unchecked' is consistent.
------
wlesieutre
Site is down, cached here:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MYG52qu...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MYG52quo1u8J:lemire.me/blog/2016/12/06/dont-
assume-that-safety-comes-for-free-a-swift-case-study/)
EDIT: It's back up
------
xenadu02
I don't get the same numbers he gets. The reduce version is the same speed as
the simple for loop. He must have made a mistake somewhere.
------
dispose13432
How do languages which aim to replace C (such as Rust) deal with this issue?
Now I agree, your average webapp won't see any benefit by removing checks and
will see security features by keeping them in, so I'm all for it.
But in OSs (or browsers), speed _does_ matter. And there's no way to optimize
it (every + or array operation involves an if).
Is this just one of the "costs of doing business"?
~~~
mikeash
In Swift, you have total control over this. If you want checks, use +. If you
don't want checks, use &+.
In Rust, the operators check in debug builds, and wrap in release builds.
Calls are provided so you can always have them check, or always have them
wrap, if you need it.
Note that C has some really ugly behavior here. Signed overflow is undefined
behavior, which means that the compiler doesn't need to check for it, but also
that it can assume it never happens and optimized based on that. Many
programmers don't realize this, or don't notice that they've accidentally
written code that depends on overflow behavior, which can lead to many
entertaining bugs:
[https://lwn.net/Articles/511259/](https://lwn.net/Articles/511259/)
~~~
gok
&\+ isn't quite the same as + in C though. It's defined to perform wrapping
overflow everytime, so more like integer + in Java. I don't think there's an
addition operator in Swift that means "not only don't do overflow checking,
but also consider overflow impossible and optimize accordingly".
Not entirely clear that such an operator is ever what you really want, I
suppose...
~~~
mikeash
I believe you can get that behavior by using + in a file that you compile with
-Ounchecked. I don't believe there's any built-in way to do it at an
individual call site, short of writing a wrapper that you compile with
-Ounchecked and then calling the wrapper where you want that behavior.
~~~
gok
I think you're right, yeah.
------
emodendroket
A factor of three for addition is probably not really significant in most
programs.
------
acqq
I see a number of posts that proudly claim (in different forms) "fail early
and fast" like it's a good thing to simply do a run-time crash always, and
even that the article author is "misguided and inflammatory."
I don't agree with both claims.
Regarding the first, as an example where the crash is definitely not the
solution, see the planteen's post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13117170](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13117170)
Or consider that once you use the computers to calculate the real life stuff
(like the movement of your car, or even the spaceship 50 million kilometers
away) the worst thing you can do is introduce the "fatal discontinuities" in
the processing.
Regarding the second, allow me to just roll my eyes. The politics is not
allowed this week on HN, but the political approaches start to be used
automatically. Please just write which his claim is wrong. Labeling is
destructive.
~~~
mikeash
A crash is never the right solution. It is, however, likely to be a _better_
solution than whatever random default behavior you might get.
Regarding the linked comment, if the default had been to crash on overflow (or
whatever the FPGA equivalent might be, if there is such a thing) then the
problem would have been apparent the first time it happened, and they wouldn't
be describing it as "a nasty bug" in the first place. A crash would not have
been the best solution there, but it would have been miles better than the
wrap that they actually got.
As far as real life stuff, my understanding is that it's pretty common to fail
fast and design the system to restart quickly so it can get back to work. If
your needs are more sophisticated then you'd need to actually analyze the
problem and come up with ways to handle unexpected data gracefully, not just
hope that default behavior from the compiler ends up doing something sensible
for your problem.
~~~
acqq
> If your needs are more sophisticated then you'd need to actually analyze the
> problem and come up with ways to handle unexpected data gracefully
The case I've linked to provided exactly that kind of example: "The correct
solution there was to saturate, not wrap, which is almost always the case in
DSP code."
I have an impression you've written your whole answer without reading it.
And if you don't know what that means:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturation_arithmetic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturation_arithmetic)
Note that something like that is necessary only for the very performance
critical code using integers, as today's FPU are also very fast and allow the
representation of much bigger range of values: more than the number of the
atoms in the observable universe can be fit in the FP number.
Also note "Saturation arithmetic operations are available on many modern
platforms, and in particular was one of the extensions made by the Intel MMX
platform, specifically for such signal processing applications. This
functionality is also available in wider versions in the SSE2 and AVX2 integer
instruction sets."
Not to mention the DSP processors.
[https://www.arm.com/products/processors/technologies/dsp-
sim...](https://www.arm.com/products/processors/technologies/dsp-simd.php)
"Zero overhead saturation extension support"
Moreover,
"the IEEE floating-point standard, the most popular abstraction for dealing
with approximate real numbers, uses a form of saturation."
All of this is a common knowledge by the professionals, and it's completely
different from "just make an exception" approach that is so popular here. I
claim that there's much bigger possibility that the author of the article
knows about that than the commenters here that are responding (and voting)
with the "just fail fast" mantra (or even claim that those who don't agree
with their (probably poorly founded, as far as I see that) understanding are
"inflammatory."
~~~
mikeash
I read it and understood it. I think we're talking past each other.
You're saying, crashing is bad, it's better to figure out a correct response
to overflow.
I'm saying, choosing some default overflow behavior without any analysis is
bad, it's better to crash.
In some cases, you want to wrap. In others, you want to saturate. In others,
you'll want to signal a failure. In still others, you'll want to fall back to
bignums. There's no universal correct answer.
But the discussion here is about what the _language_ should do about overflow.
The language has to pick some default behavior for the + operator, and it can
only pick one. Some people are arguing that wrapping by default is the best
choice, because it at least gives the program a chance of continuing to
operate.
I am arguing that the best _default behavior_ is to crash, because continuing
on when the programmer hasn't explicitly chosen the appropriate behavior is
potentially disastrous.
Of course the person who posted that comment didn't want their stuff to crash.
But if the default behavior had been to crash (ignoring the likely
impossibility of that in the context of an FPGA), their bug would have been a
simple fix instead of something so nasty they still remember it. Sure, if the
default had been to saturate then they would have avoided the bug, but only by
coincidence, and this would just cause bugs elsewhere when people needed
wrapping instead.
The fourth word of your quote is key: "The correct solution _there_...." That
was the correct solution in that spot, but it would not be the correct choice
for default behavior for the + operator in a language.
~~~
acqq
If you are discussing the semantic of the "integer + operator" then I have
also completely another opinion:
"it would not be the correct choice for default behavior for the + operator in
a language."
No. Except if you're doing crypto, the wrap alone is _never_ the desired mode.
The wrap with the accessibility to the carry flag can be (just in implementing
arithmetic with more bits). What the HL languages should actually do is not
even allow the "easy" expressions in the integer domain, exactly because of
all that. Moreover, missing accessibility of the carry flag in the HLL is also
a problem. The instruction sets of ASM instructions are much more reasonable
than the poor implementations of all the HL languages I know. "Exception on
carry" instead of enforcing the code to be precise is the way to the many more
accidents waiting to happen.
The current practice of the HL languages is more of the lazy repetition of
some old decision than the proper safety-preserving approach.
~~~
mikeash
If you're arguing that there shouldn't be any default behavior, and the
programmer should always be forced to choose, I could get behind that.
I've also argued for degradation to bignums as the best default. This way the
result is always correct. Of course, that means a performance hit on all
arithmetic code unless you opt out of that, and you could make the case that
this is also an unacceptable default.
In any case, consider the "crashing is the best default choice" to be
qualified with "if you're going to have some default choice for fixed-size
integers."
~~~
acqq
> I've also argued for degradation to bignums as the best default.
It has sense for Python and Perl code but not for the code produced by
something that would be better C than the current C. If the performance is
critical (as to have to effectively no slowdown compared to what the CPU can
achieve), the CPU machine code instructions already do "the right thing" and
it's the HL languages that abstract the carry or the saturation away to make
the wrong plain "+".
C with the CPU-specific extensions can "do the right thing." It's the
"standard" "language lawyers" that are once again wrong.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Small Company's Response to Monster Cable Patent Infringement Claims - chaostheory
http://www.audioholics.com/news/industry-news/blue-jeans-strikes-back
======
naish
He really appears to have relished flexing his legal muscle in crafting his
response. His rebuttal only improves with each paragraph. Nice for a lawyer to
be one of the good guys...
------
sah
Best quote, near the end: "Not only am I unintimidated by litigation; I
sometimes rather miss it."
------
jeroen
A nice bit of PR for Monster:
"I assume that Monster Cable International, Ltd., in Bermuda, listed on these
patents, is an IP holding company and that Monster Cable's principal US entity
pays licensing fees to the Bermuda corporation in order to shift income out of
the United States and thereby avoid paying United States federal income tax on
those portions of its income;"
I don't think this is going the way Monster expected it to go.
------
clzcyclone
Ooohhh, ouch! That is a brilliant response. One can't help but feel a little
uplifted after seeing a small company stand up for its rights against a
behemoth who attempts to persuade solely via its size and financial resources.
------
dcurtis
He should use this opportunity to hire someone competent to design the Blue
Jeans Cables website, and then convert the amazing publicity he's generating
into sales.
Perhaps he could turn this into the tipping point for his company. Right now,
the site is so hideous, I wouldn't trust it with my credit card information.
~~~
mechanical_fish
Um, because the most important quality in audio equipment is whether or not it
comes from a pretty website?
You _do_ realize that putting cheap crap into fancy boxes is how Monster Cable
makes enough money to afford their team of shyster lawyers...
~~~
dcurtis
There's a difference between "fancy boxes" and a reputable website design.
You think the current website is sufficient for the company to gain
significant online purchases? It's not.
They don't have to overdo it, just make it usable.
------
LogicHoleFlaw
Brilliant. Blue Jeans Cables is a plucky company. I've regarded them quite
well in the past, and now even more so. I think I know where I'm buying my
next set of cables from :)
~~~
SwellJoe
If it's for digital devices, your next set of cables ought to be the cheapest
ones you can find that meet the spec that you'd like them to support. It is
pointless to buy fancy cables--in digital, it either meets the spec and works,
or it doesn't meet the spec and fails to work. More than 10 bucks for pretty
much any short-run cable would be nuts. HDMI 1.3 spec (the kind that'll carry
1080p and even higher) cables can easily be found for under 10 bucks.
Even in analog signals, a quality pure copper cable of sufficient gauge with
quality connectors put together correctly, is all that matters. All of the BS
from Monster Cables (and other "boutique" cable vendors) has clouded the
market with ridiculous nonsense. Blue Jeans Cables appears to eschew that
nonsense, and build quality "normal" cables. They are a little pricey, but not
terrible, I guess...maybe two to six times the price I'd pay, vs. the 10 to
100 times Monster charges. What amuses me is that if you were to buy one of
the "low end" Monster cables (which are relatively small gauge), it would
perform measurably worse than bulk 10 or 12 gauge copper cabling from an
electronic parts outlet and cost significantly more.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A False Economy Powered by Ads and Lies - midef
https://www.johnwdefeo.com/articles/false-economy
======
Legogris
> When the reward of being dishonest is (seemingly) greater than the risk, no
> person or company is accountable: The entire system is at fault.
This dynamic is a great factor in many overarching issues today. In politics,
it's so easy to get stuck on ideology, ethics or morality. But in practice, it
comes down to incentive structure. And carrot usually works better than tick,
for several reasons.
Consider the problem of tax evasion in retail. Greece is imposing fines on
those who conduct a large enough ratio of their transactions in cash[0].
Taiwan solved this more elegantly in 1951, IMO, with introducing a lottery
with a number coming up on each receipt, thereby creating an incentive for
consumers to ask for a receipt[1].
0: [https://fortune.com/2019/12/16/greece-digital-economy-
cashle...](https://fortune.com/2019/12/16/greece-digital-economy-cashless-
fines/)
1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Invoice_lottery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Invoice_lottery)
~~~
gwd
How about this:
1\. Have a way for buyers to report when a seller is bribing them to fake
reviews. If the report turns out to be genuine, give the buyer a small reward
($5/10).
2\. Have Amazon occasionally pretend to bribe people to do fake reviews. If a
user does the fake review, their account is banned for one month. If the user
reports the fake review, they get the small reward.
Between the carrot of reporting fake reviews, and the stick of being banned
for falling for the request, you'd "crowdsource" a lot of the issues.
~~~
elsewhen
“If the report turns out to be genuine”
This still requires the platform to detect _genuine_ transgressions which is
very difficult.
~~~
gwd
> This still requires the platform to detect _genuine_ transgressions which is
> very difficult.
I had in mind situations where a seller contacts a buyer who has left a
negative review, and offers free merchandise for changing the review. If it
happens within Amazon's system, they should be able to verify it.
Obviously an attack you have to defend against is unscrupulous seller E
posting fake review requests on Facebook (or wherever) "on behalf of" honest
seller A, causing Amazon to ban / punish A in the rankings.
------
hirundo
There seems to be a lot less gaming of the negative than the positive reviews.
So on Amazon, etc. I like to read the worst reviews and see if they talk me
out of buying.
I suppose if this approach catches on, scammers will spend more time
denigrating competitors than boosting their own products, and it'll become
less effective.
~~~
JohnFen
I don't know if gaming negative reviews is less common than positive ones (I
assume it is), but there are plenty enough fake negative reviews to cause me
to stop paying any real attention to them too.
I use reviews for only one thing -- to find out about specific tips and tricks
about using whatever the product is. I pay very little attention to how the
reviewer actually rated the product.
------
amiune
That's not a false economy, that's the only economy that started since it's
inception. Information asymmetry and game theory talks a lot about it
~~~
101404
Yep. That's a 100 years of Edward Bernays.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays)
That's the guy who started it all.
------
ajsnigrutin
What should we/they do?
Even in real-life, you're never sure, when someone recommends a product, be it
a salesman in a brick and mortar store ("this one here is a lot better then
that one there", even at the same price, could mean different profits). With
platforms like youtube, you have atleast minimal trust in a few youtubers you
follow regularly (and this literally means "a few"), but doing a random search
means 80% chance the reviewer got sponsoder or atleast received the product
for free in exchange for a good review. Star systems on sellers pages have
their own sets of issues... usually people don't write reviews at all if the
product is good, and complain only after it breaks (unless they're 'paid' for
the review).
~~~
rchaud
They can do what legacy retailers have done for ages, which is to not stock
goods from fly-by-night sellers. Offer customers choice among established
brands, and eschew becoming the Western version of DealExtreme, AliExpress or
Wish.
I don't see fake reviews of TVs or headphones on Best Buy's site, and I've
begun purchasing from brick and mortar establishments (buying online or doing
instore pickup) more often now. Amazon's supply chain can't be trusted.
~~~
mml
having worked on a system that managed reviews for a certain giant electronics
retailer, I have bad news for you.
~~~
rchaud
I'm less worried about possibly astroturfed reviews if the brand is something
I've already bought from, like Samsung or Sennheiser, or a cheaper but
otherwise reliable one like Anker.
------
lowdose
62% of ad revenue goes to publisher so there is a clear incentive to keep
people outraged.
[https://ibb.co/k8F413r](https://ibb.co/k8F413r)
------
baryphonic
> Two months before the collapse of Bear Stearns, the first investment bank
> claimed by The Great Recession, The New York Times ran a story entitled,
> "Can banks self-regulate?" Clearly, the answer was no. Yet, in the face of
> new regulations that followed, the surviving big banks have grown bigger and
> more powerful than before. A similar situation may play out with big tech
> companies.
I turned skeptical when I read this plus the Upton Sinclair quote. Nothing
about Amazon's marketplace or ad business or even fake reviews is even
remotely close to the financial system pre-financial crisis. AAFG are not
holding the bill for trillions in potential liabilities on highly leveraged
positions in complex derivatives. They're operating a market that doesn't
involve any credit whatsoever outside of payments. Seems like the author has
something of an axe to grind rather than a rational assessment of the risk and
problems.
I don't think it's _good_ that this system is the way it is, but _caveat
emptor_ seems like a perfectly fine solution. I've become more skeptical about
what I buy on Amazon, and I imagine most other consumers have done the same.
If Amazon wants more business from me again, they can improve the quality of
offerings.
~~~
TheOtherHobbes
How is an emptor supposed to caveat if the so-called review system is
systemically dishonest?
Caveat emptor doesn't work, because Amazon has no incentive to improve review
or product quality.
Bezos is rewarded whenever an item is sold. Most items won't be returned
unless grossly faulty or misdescribed. Accurate reviews and more selective
product filtering would decrease his earnings - a strong negative incentive,
if you're someone like Bezos.
With current legislation, the only thing that might improve the situation for
buyers is aggressive competition. As a de facto monopoly, Amazon doesn't need
to worry about that.
Putting it crudely, e-commerce automates and amplifies scamming and
dishonesty. There's limited accountability for sellers and virtually no
accountability for the owner of the marketplace.
In the non-virtual world there are trading standards and other consumer
protection mechanisms. They're not infallible, but they do at least exist.
The online equivalent would be some kind of blanket consumer-good-faith system
which punished fake news, manipulated reviews, and substandard products.
Good luck getting that written and passed as coherent legislation with
adequate enforcement.
~~~
SpicyLemonZest
Amazon isn't a de-facto monopoly by any reasonable definition. Most big box
retailers have online shopping, and Walmart even offers the same delivery
speeds in many areas.
~~~
jerf
One of the biggest long term risks for Amazon's retail business is that they
don't really have a moat. They can beat people logistically, but eventually,
other companies will catch up, and there's probably a diminishing returns
effect on money poured into that. They have Amazon Prime, which was probably
created to try to be a moat, but I think they've had more difficulty making
that a moat over the long term than they may have initially hoped. Why would I
pay for faster shipping if Wal-Mart pretty much offers it by default? Tacking
on a lot of mediocre streaming services is a weird way to add value to that.
(AWS has a lock-in moat. Once you're in, you will find it harder and harder to
leave over time. True of all the clouds, but that plays in favor of the
biggest which at the moment AWS is.)
If you look, you can kinda see a lot of flailing on Amazon's part over the
past several years trying to figure out how to build a moat around their
retail in a lot of ways; Amazon Basics, various games around Prime, trying to
convince people to buy retail through Alexa which is hard-coded to Amazon, of
course, etc. Almost everything the retail side is doing amounts to that in the
end.
~~~
blackrock
I don’t trust Amazon to buy important things. Like expensive electronics. Or
things where the risk of counterfeits are too high. I’d rather buy it from
Target, and pay more, because I can get access to reliable customer support.
------
blackdogie
Until marketplaces are fined by the FTC directly for enabling I think this
will continue to grow as an issue.
------
Zigurd
As of the middle of 2019 Google continued to be inundated with fake business
listings, some of them are outright scams and fraudsters who harm consumers.
All of them are intended to harm local businesses by making them invisible
compared to the fake listings. I have not heard of Google finding a solution
to this problem.
Some specific fields, like dentistry, seems to be flooded with SEO that is
meant to prevent price comparison research. I'm no expert in ad fraud but I
suspect the most polluted categories are the ones with very high click-through
revenue.
While there are many things Google gets right, including fighting SEO where
revenue is not much at stake, they have obvious perverse incentives to ignore
these problems as well as the way fake reviews contribute to these problems.
------
peter_d_sherman
We need a review site linked to hard identity + purchase verification +
ability to see all other reviews by that reviewer (how many things do they
review, in what categories, and are they potentially biased? Also, for complex
products, do they have any authoritative credentials that might make them
subject matter experts?) + ability for other reviewers to review reviewers,
sort of like a peer rating system...
~~~
quadrangle
Not what you're suggesting, but a site with at least ethical aims (and
potentially additional features for things you bring up):
[https://lib.reviews/](https://lib.reviews/)
------
tomp
We can criticise the regulators as not doing enough and complain that they
lack resources, but the reality is, they don’t need to compete with (and beat)
tech giants, they only need _teeth_. Ideally the regulator (FTC or whatever)
would just write some sensible laws (e.g. no fake reviews or no lies in ads),
then burden the tech giants themselves with enforcing these laws... then
investigate not necessarily _non-compliance_ (i.e. evidence of fake reviews),
but also lack of process, i.e. the inability to detect _potential_ fake
reviews... and of course impose humongous fines (% of worldwide revenue, a la
GDPR but actual fines, not just threats).
~~~
nkingsy
This is exactly how things are currently done (DMCA, “sex work” search
results), and it leads to more people being outraged by big tech companies
acting as judge jury and executioner.
~~~
freeone3000
But it works.
~~~
rusticpenn
You should talk to all the indie youtubers who had their videos taken down by
DMCAs
~~~
freeone3000
Yes. Their videos are still down. It works.
------
fyrefoxboy12
This is a failure of lack of regulation, as human nature is to go too far in
order to understand how far they can go.
Therefore, some of us will always take it too far until we reach the wall.
This wall cannot be built by ethics or morals or any "self-regulation". It
needs to be externally built, and well-enforced.
------
curiosity_100
It shocks me we don't have a place to read honest reviews. Where professional
reviews who get paid will test things and give an honest opinion, anonymously,
so they won't be bribed, and you can go there to read what they say and see
their rating.
~~~
Spare_account
In the UK we have 'Which', a private organisation that does not allow
advertising in its magazine or website to avoid conflicts of interest. I
understand that their reviews are impartial. They prioritise features that do
not always overlap with my own preferences so their 'best buy' recommendations
are not always aligned with my personal preference, BUT their reviews are very
thorough and I purchase a membership whenever I plan to buy a significant
item.
------
qrbLPHiKpiux
> Machines aren’t going away, but they are learning from us - both our lies
> and our truths.
Respectfully, I disagree.
Programmers are responsible. Machines only follow the instructions humans tell
it to follow.
Everyone who codes should really look at themselves in the mirror now and
then.
~~~
notacoward
> Machines only follow the instructions humans tell it to follow.
I suggest that you read something about AI and ML. The "instructions" that go
into these pipelines are many levels removed from the outputs. It's like
saying that cells only follow the DNA instructions given to them - ignoring
evolution, mutagens, exogenetics, etc. The original instructions don't tell
anywhere near the whole story.
Is the opacity of these algorithms a problem? Yes, it surely is, precisely
because the machines are _not_ just following instructions in any meaningful
sense.
~~~
jazzyjackson
Just because the instructions are convoluted and implemented by people who
don't code the math themselves doesn't mean the outcomes are removed from the
inputs. It's still a machine.
Heuristics use random number generators and produce random (non-deterministic)
results, is that not following instructions written by programmers?
~~~
notacoward
> is that not following instructions written by programmers
Not in any useful sense. Everything's deterministic with perfect knowledge,
but nobody has perfect knowledge. The universe is still a machine too, and yet
somehow manages to surprise us anyway. As soon as you inject non-replicable
random numbers into the process, "following instructions" isn't entirely true
any more.
------
naringas
what about the underlying currency system which depends _only_ on everone's
trust in it?
there's very little which keeps fiat money connected to reality...
~~~
quadrangle
Except some enormous military power and other law enforcement requiring the
payment of taxes in the fiat currency…
------
fhood
Luckily products from well established companies are still free from fake
reviews (on Amazon) by and large. As long as you avoid the hordes of 5 star
products with very generic brand names that you have never heard of, you can
still trust reviews to have some degree of accuracy.
Not to say that the suspiciously cheap product with near perfect reviews that
always shows up at the top is always the wrong choice. I bought a knock off
dremel for $20, and later ended up using it to cut quite a bit of 1.8in mild
steel and it performed great. Only a little bit of smoking from the internals.
On the other hand, I bought a cheap microphone from the same style of seller,
and it was an unmitigated piece of garbage.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tech guy looking for business person co-founder - isalmon
Hi.
I have quite unusual problem.<p>I've been a web developer for 5+ years and I can say that I became a PHP (and LAMP in general) guru.<p>I can build any kind of web application and I had experience handling website with thousands of visitors per hour.<p>On the other hand, I'm an 'entry-level entrepreneur'. I'm finishing my MBA at Babson College with concentration in Entrepreneurship and I'd like to start a company after graduation.<p>Right now I'm working on a prototype of one idea that I think is great (yeah, of course, everyone thinks his idea is great). My problem is that I can't implement it on my own. I can build the whole application from scratch, but I can't sell it neither to customers nor to VC's. I'm just not that kind of guy. So I need somebody to team up with, but I just don't know where to look for. My college is one of the options, but so far I had no luck...<p>Can anybody suggest the best strategy of finding a good BUSINESS co-founder? I know there are a lot of people looking for technical co-founder but where are they??<p>It's probably the biggest decision I have to make now and I want to do it right.<p>Thanks.
======
alain94040
You'd be hugely popular at the co-founders meetup (<http://www.meetup.com/Co-
Founders-Wanted-Meetup/>)
The real question is how would you choose who to work with? How do you
separate the fake biz people from the genuine ones?
Here's the beginning of an answer: pitch your idea. Let the business person
tell you how to change it to make it better. Then decide if that advice is
sound or not.
PS: a business person who tells you your idea is great and offers _no_
improvement is just a consultant trying to steal your money.
~~~
isalmon
Thanks for the link. I think they are located somewhere in Silicon Valley
area, while I'm in Boston - I'll try to find something similar here.
As for your question - I think it's better to find somebody who you can really
work with rather than an excellent business person whom you will hate. So
personality does matter here. But it's a good question, I'll have to think
more about that. In any case it's a good problem to have - so far I have
nobody to choose from.
------
minalecs
I don't understand why you can't do everything yourself, or at least learn or
try or why can't you sell it to customers or vc's. I am like you a single
founder on techside, and I am very much trying to put my self out of my
comfort zone, by talking to people, attending more events, and public
speaking. What I look for in a co founder is they had a previous startup/s or
has successfully raised money in the past. And really believes in the idea. In
the beginning of any tech startup, most of what needs to be done will fall on
your shoulders.
~~~
isalmon
I agree, but I think good co-founder will balance me in a good way. I hate
public speaking and all this networking stuff (that's might be the reason why
I'm in this position right now). On the other hand I like to work in a team.
Plus I'm not a native American, so for many VC's it's a red flag.
------
eduardo_f
First of all fill your HN user profile! You are missing on potential
connections that you can make through this thread.
Oh and shoot me an email (address in my profile), I might be able to help.
------
amirmc
I think you'll need to be a bit more specific with regards to _what_ you're
looking for in a biz co-founder. You've already got an MBA (pretty much) so
what d'you expect the biz guy to bring to the table that you won't already
know something about?
The only thing I can think of would be market experience i.e they've worked
somewhere in the industry you're targeting.
~~~
isalmon
Thanks for the comment, good point actually. Market experience is exactly what
I'm looking for. Plus some sales skills I guess. I cannot call potential
customers and ask to try my product - it's not my best suit. Also I think that
no one should start a business alone (especially his/her first business).
MBA itself does not give you the skills and most importantly experience.
~~~
amirmc
I think you're selling yourself short if you believe you "can't sell it
neither to customers nor to VC's".
I expect selling to VCs requires a certain amount of posturing and hubris but
doing some Customer Development should be possible for anyone. Customer
Development is _not_ sales. You might find it difficult at first but when you
realise you're offering something of value to someone it feels a lot better.
Unless you can reveal what market you're in, the advice you get here is going
to be pretty generic. If we knew that you were interested in $FOO then a few
folks might know about $FOO meetups or conferences that you could attend.
Also, bear in mind that you will still need some sales skills to convince a
someone to join you.
~~~
isalmon
The market I'm going to is e-commerce. The application would create some
certain benefits for e-commerce owners. So it's B2B.
I guess I could try doing everything on my own, but due to some circumstances
I really need a partner. I'd rather not convince anybody to join me. Maybe
it's naive, but I think if a person believes in the idea and the skills I have
- he/she will want to join me without any persuasion.
I'm also OK to join somebody if he/she has an idea I would be interested to
work on. I realize that my idea could be just a piece of crap and I did not
realize it yet.
~~~
cme
Isalmon..shoot me an email. I have some experience with B2B businesses and am
located in New England. ([email protected]) I've been looking for a technical
person to work on ideas with.
------
Jlambert
I went down this path. After 9 years as a valley engineer I started building
companies. It's been a great run - 5 companies! And ive been lucky.
My advice - just do it.
You will find the right partners along the way, but even if you pull a partner
in, -all- the founders should sell.
~~~
isalmon
Thanks for the advice. Did you have all 5 companies at the same time or one
after another?
~~~
Jlambert
One after the other. Five companies at once would probably, finally, kill me.
;)
------
bwb
Hey shoot me an email, I might be able to help and if not I can make a few
suggestions if you decide to go in alone too. ([email protected]).
------
hajiss
my question here is, why would you be thinking about vc's at this point? Start
small, look around familiar territory (family, friends, and fools...lol) for
raising a small Angel round and also potential biz partnership.
~~~
isalmon
I'm planning to bootstrap everything, but exit strategy will involve some VC's
for sure.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Bullshit fighting - azuajef
https://stactivist.com/2016/05/29/bullshit-fighting/
======
RyanHamilton
The bullshit asimmetry: the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an
order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.
~~~
socialist_coder
Definitely. It takes hours to properly argue. It takes minutes to bullshit.
How many times do you give up on a social media argument just because you
don't want to spend the next 30-60 minutes researching and building a solid
case for your argument? I've given up completely. The bullshitters win.
~~~
wpietri
And I think the more troubling problem is that bullshitters are generally
indifferent to or hostile to the truth, to the very inclination to seek truth.
The primary lens through which they evaluate statements is "personally useful
to me", not "true".
So even if I carefully build a case for "true", it won't make much of a
difference. At best, they decide their next personally useful statement is a
non sequitur or a topic change or just going to some other context that is
useful.
To me that's one of the really amazing things about Trump's rise. He really
doesn't care about facts or logic or consistency. Even among politicians, he's
a standout; none of his Republican opponents could come to grips with how
totally irrelevant accuracy or orthodoxy are to his game. People keep trying
to figure out what his true views are, but at this point I don't think that's
a meaningful question.
And I should add that this isn't a left vs right issue; a recent example of a
left-wing demagogue was Venezuela's Chavez. But Trump's rise is the first time
I've gotten to see it happen up close.
------
jkeler
[http://www.stoa.org.uk/topics/bullshit/pdf/on-
bullshit.pdf](http://www.stoa.org.uk/topics/bullshit/pdf/on-bullshit.pdf)
> One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much
> bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend
> to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their
> ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the
> phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, or attracted much
> sustained inquiry. In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what
> bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we
> lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In
> other words, we have no theory. I propose to begin the development of a
> theoretical understanding of bullshit, mainly by providing some tentative
> and exploratory philosophical analysis.
~~~
pixl97
> we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is
Information asymmetry. Bullshit is applied game theory.
------
dave2000
Hard to tell whether this is serious or not. What field is this describing?
Scientific papers? Random idiots just posting on websites? If the idea is to
challenge it everywhere you're setting yourself up to being that person who
never sleeps because "someone is wrong on the internet".
~~~
bnegreve
> What field is this describing? Scientific papers?
Most likely yes. The author works in a scientific institute and has number of
publications.
~~~
dave2000
So...peer review, then? I suppose you could rebut comments from muppets if you
were feeling a little bored but it's unclear what that would hope to achieve.
Could you imagine stopping the industry which talks rubbish about the lunar
landings and 9/11 with well written, carefully reasoned replies?
Don't wrestle with pigs; you both get muddy, and the pigs like it.
~~~
Houshalter
The problem with science is that it's findings get exaggerated by the media
and by politicians. People latch onto one positive result, and ignore all the
negative results. The media reports on findings that haven't been replicated
yet, and significantly distort and exaggerate them.
Even within science, there are problems like publication bias and political
bias.
------
sebastianconcpt
I tend to agree with the intention but I think this subject is way more
complex than this.
People form visions of the world based on their beliefs systems and they
pull/push that vision in their behavior and the things they build.
To show what I mean about this: in a way, many good entrepreneurs are reality
deniers. They need to refuse to believe that the current status quo is the
best that the world can be. They need to believe a reality that does not exist
(yet) in order to build it. For people with affinity they will be visionaries,
for people that antagonise with them they will be bullshitters.
But that's how disruption happens, with cultural and market irreverence. That
is pitched "selling smoke" (in the eyes of the cynic) or selling a new way to
experience X in life (in the eyes of its believers and users/clients)
~~~
tenkabuto
It may be useful to distinguish between things that are not true and never
will be, and things that are not true but could eventually be true. If one
were to try to present the former as though it were true, what they'd be
presenting is bullshit, whereas I would say that the latter is merely (note
the air quotes) "bullshit." To those who need everything to be true now, the
latter will be seen as bullshit, but it is not actual bullshit, as it may yet
become true.
~~~
sebastianconcpt
Good point!
------
brudgers
The greatest danger posed by bullshit is that powerful persons start believing
their own. The neutral ends justify the means form is relatively benign.
------
joelx
Trump is clearly on the cutting edge of this phenomenon.
~~~
jack9
I'm very sure he doesn't care one way or the other. He speaks with confidence
then reframes conversations as necessary. This passes for leadership in modern
society. Have you ever tried to listen to a US senator or a UK Lord or a
Japanese Diet member argue?
------
dreamsofdragons
I honestly thought this was about Trump for the first few paragraphs, and
almost quit reading.
While we've found the the scientific meathod doesn't scale, I suspect that a
Watson style application could seriously help one day. This is only compounded
this with the "publish or perish" mentality. This encourages falsifying
results, but also adds more noise to the pool of journals, decreasing your
chance of being called out. I don't think the issue is with liars, but with
the system.
What we really need now is Scienceology, (no not the religion) but a division
of science that analyzes science. Finding better ways than what we have now.
edit: Cleaned up to make it slightly less nonsensical. I really shouldn't make
a comment before having a coffee.
------
highCs
What are good methods to fight bullshit at work? Conversely, what are the bad
methods to fight bullshit at work?
EDIT: Let say it's not in the company DNA and that it's just some individuals
behaviours.
~~~
protomyth
Is the bullshit built into the company's DNA? Some places I have worked have
certain varieties of bullshit that have basically become company truths. If
this is the case, then you really aren't going to fight it.
~~~
highCs
Let say it's not and that it's just some individuals behaviours, in a
relatively good company culture.
~~~
protomyth
Its basically a rally the troops moment. One person can screw with a lot of
people, so you probably need to work with others to stop any outbreak.
I assume we aren't talking a technical argument. If we are, then do a
presentation and it will all come out in the Q&A.
------
jack9
> If something is not true, who cares? All the same. These attributes make
> bullshitting worse than lying.
It makes bullshitting clearly BETTER. Being overly defensive about it, misses
the point. BS is hard to combat, which is why it's a successful approach (not
even a learned strategy because then it would be lying).
------
carapace
Love of bullshit is the root of all evil.
------
jmpeax
You've linked to the main page, which at this moment in time happens to have
the bullshit blog post at the top. It's better to link to the actual blog
post: [https://stactivist.com/2016/05/29/bullshit-
fighting/](https://stactivist.com/2016/05/29/bullshit-fighting/)
~~~
euphemize
Agreed, I'm quite sensitive to the scrollbar size when I land on a new
article, and in this case I almost closed the window, thinking this would take
the whole day to read :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN : I have developed a robots.txt full text search engine. - Joyfield
http://robots.dnsdigger.com/
As a sub project of my pet project DNSDigger.com i have developed a search engine that index robots.txt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robots_exclusion_standard).
I actually don't know what poeple could use this for but i suspect poeple that are into SEO could use it and black/white-hat hackers(?).
What i need help with is VPS/$$ for spidering. And as i sit on a considereble index of domainnames (though DNSDigger.com 300m hosts) i thought that
if you want a TLD indexed sooner than later you could sponsor it with either VPS or Paypal. See it as a strange "kickstarter".
And if you think the "design" suck (which it does because there is a lot of things i suck at and design is one of them) you are free to submit <i>anything</i> better. I can put up a banner for your service a limited time.
I am adding new hosts/TLD all the time.<p>And if you have to ask what this is you will not have any use for it even if you did ;)
======
Xeroday
Very cool project. I'm curious as to how you're getting all these robots - are
you scraping them yourself?
~~~
Joyfield
Downloading them as we speak. I have a big list of hosts/domains i have
collected through spidering for my DNSDigger.com. This is a hobby project that
has grown a bit over my head hehe. And there is no scraping needed. Robots.txt
is just simple textfiles. Download and parse, repeat a couple of million times
and build an index :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Reality of Touring Revenue from Someone Who Has Done It for 32 Years - ranko
https://thetrichordist.com/2016/02/16/the-reality-of-touring-revenue-from-someone-who-has-done-it-for-32-years/
======
iokevins
Touring revenue, in this article, references artists/bands performing live
music. Probably obvious, to most, but my first thought was cycling-related,
ala Le Tour de France.
~~~
DougN7
My first thought was even further off - was wondering what sort of revenue
came from some sort of Turing system...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
EU Referendum Rules Triggering a 2nd EU Referendum - edward
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/131215
======
tim333
Sounds like it could be a plan
~~~
lucozade
Probably would have been a better plan if it was the rule before the vote
rather than after.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Linux is Burning My Laptop - cplat
http://crossplatform.net/dev/linux-is-burning-my-laptop.html
======
irahul
Quoting from another thread:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4847971>
<quote>
If you are planning to run linux, seriously re-consider buying laptops with
hybrid graphics. The graphic card might or might not run, the card switching
will most likely not work, but you can ignore it since you can work with the
intel card, right? Well, no. Most of the AGP, whether used or not, will eat up
power, the fan will run at full speed and your laptop's behind will be hot
enough to stir fry some veggies. If you have a laptop with hybrid graphics,
and you can't make it work, just switch off your discrete card.
<https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HybridGraphics> Laptops in general, and
linux laptops tend to run hot. However, don't mess with power settings a lot.
Putting harddisks on powersaving mode(refer hdparm) so that they become idle
puts unnecessary strain on the disk. You can try out experimenting with cpu
frequency(cpufreq-set).
</quote>
If you want your "discrete card off" to persist through restarts, you will
have to add this to your rc.local
modprobe radeon # Assuming ati card
echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
For suspend/resume, you will have to add a new file /usr/lib/pm-
utils/sleep.d/00radeon-switch
#!/bin/sh
case "$1" in
hibernate|suspend)
echo ON > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
;;
thaw|resume)
echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
;;
*)
;;
esac
exit 0
I have discovered putting the cpu policy to ondemand causes problems with
pulseaudio(your volume icon will always be on mute and ps will show a
pulseaudio process in D). I stopped fiddling with cpufreq, set it to
performance, uninstalled cpufreq and was good to go.
And as I commented earlier, I will strongly advice against putting the hard
disk in power saving mode.
~~~
jan_g
>If you are planning to run linux, seriously re-consider buying laptops with
hybrid graphics.
Yes, best buy in my opinion is thinkpad with only intel graphics or if you
have discrete graphics, turn it off in bios (it works as expected). There are
no problems with (over)heating, everything works out-of-the-box. It seems that
thinkpads are well supported in Linux as I've had no problems yet.
~~~
dscrd
Or the best option: buy from a company that _explicitly_ supports Linux, such
as System76 or Zareason. Vote with your wallet!
------
jvdh
Seriously? Some poorly described problem with Ubuntu with irrelevant banter
about wiping Windows 8 is making the front-page of Hacker News ?
Half of the top comments then become a mix of wild guesses towards a solution,
and the other half become a "[Windows|OS X|BSD] is so much better because
...".
~~~
Benferhat
Do you use a Mac? I run Linux on a shipped-with-Windows laptop and I can
relate to the author. I welcome the larger conversation.
~~~
jvdh
The article is poorly written, it does not show that the author did any
attempt at a problem analysis, much less searching the internet or a Ubuntu
community forum.
How is that relevant for the larger Hacker News community? It does not even
help you who is in the same situation, other than giving you the feeling
you're not alone.
How does that have to do with what I'm running?
~~~
bunderbunder
For those of us who are toying with the idea of installing Linux on a laptop,
it gives us a reminder that it's still not a carefree process. No, the author
didn't figure out a solution to the problem, and instead just backed out of
the Linux plan entirely. Frankly, I think that's an entirely fair decision.
That's what I would have done, too. I suspect that's what most people would
have done.
For those of us who want to advocate Linux on the desktop, or who want to take
an active role in making Linux a better desktop environment, it's relevant in
that it's valuable feedback about how people are perceiving the product. No,
the author didn't end up figuring out the problem. _As an end user, he
shouldn't have to._ It's the maker of the product who should be responsible
for making sure it works. Perhaps they need more information, in which case
Canonical would do very well to take charge of the situation by having someone
contact the author to ask for more details about the situation, so that they
can put some work into effecting a diagnosis and solution.
------
h2s
I wonder about this sometimes. Every laptop I've owned in the last ten years
has had this problem to some extent with Linux. It's not just a heat issue,
either. Using enough energy to generate all that heat means the battery never
lasts very long either.
Occasionally something like this pops up and I wonder if this isn't a
widespread problem.
------
jiggy2011
If you want to run Linux on a laptop you really need to think of it in the
same sort of terms as running OX X or something.
I wonder if a better idea would be for the installer in Ubuntu to do a cursory
hardware check before installation and let you know what stuff might not work
before proceeding.
It can't be good PR and leads to this "Wifi on Linux sucks!" "no it works
fine" type threads on tech forums.
Having said that, I don't understand the problem with Linux wiping the Windows
install? The only problem I have ever had is with Windows installs overwriting
GRUB in the MBR.
You can usually dual boot both OSes with them both being blissfully unaware of
each other. So I assume he's doing something weird there.
~~~
DanBC
In this instance he says he didn't dual boot, he just installed Linux with the
intent of destroying his Windows install.
I have no idea how his previous installs went wrong.
I do know that some machines have weird partitioning, and using the menu
install of (eg) Fedora isn't easy in that situation. Since many machines have
weird recovery partitions I'm gently surprised at Fedora for that oversight.
But, also, when I started using computers it was hard. I had to learn (I had
to read it in a book) what "Ctrl C" meant. I was learning what a VDU was; the
difference between RAM and discs; what High Density meant with discs. I had to
learn about bat files and ANSI control codes and a bunch of stuff. And if I
didn't learn I couldn't just give up and go back to the other OS that was
working, because there wasn't one.
People spend years gaining knowledge about an OS and they tinker it to get it
just right. It's going to take more than a week to get this new OS install
perfect. (Having said that, it shouldn't take a week to get it installed.)
~~~
jiggy2011
"However, whenever I used to install Linux along with Windows, it'd always
mess up my Windows installation a few days later"
That's the confusing part, it's certainly possible to wipe out a partition by
accident during install but to have it magically overwrite data at a later
date is very odd.
~~~
MalphasWats
I did this once. I installed Ubuntu on a new laptop, resizing the disk
partition as I went. When I switched back to Windows, I realised I had left it
hibernated and the partition resize upset it very much.
A day or so later, I tried to install some sound drivers in Ubuntu and somehow
managed to uninstall xwindows entirely (I learnt to read and think before
typing stuff in off a web site :)
A day later I rebuilt from the windows install disk and left things alone. I
keep Linux on my servers, it's much happier there!
------
ambrop7
If your laptop can't stand 100% CPU (and GPU) load for an indefinite time, you
should consider it broken (or just very clogged up with dust). Anyway, it's
very unlikely that Linux was persistently loading your system while it's
supposed to be idle, so it's probably even _more_ broken.
~~~
Strshps1MoreTim
Or you just have no idea what you're talking about.
~~~
ambrop7
Or you could just read the laptop specs and see how they probably say "X GHz"
and not "X GHz persistent load, Y GHz at peaks". Also look for things like
"software has to downclock the CPU if it gets too hot". (btw, the Linux kernel
does do that anyway for certain supported cpus, but this is just safety and
not normal operation)
------
meaty
I had the same problem with my old Acer timelineX. CPU could hit 95oC quite
happily and shut down. To be honest I just ran Linux in a virtual machine on
it in the end. It made the difference between 10h and 2h of battery life as
well.
This is not really linux's fault though. It has to fight with a hack job of an
architecture, the mess that is ACPI and BIOS written by drunk monkeys. They
really need to just fix PC architecture or get rid of it.
------
joss82
I had the same problem, though not to the point of safety shutdown.
Fiddling with vgaswitcheroo and acpi settings mitigated the problem. My laptop
is much cooler and silent now.
This has been the biggest pain point in Linux for me so far. I am wondering
why these problems persists. They have a huge impact on the (non-)adoption of
Linux/Ubuntu.
I'm considering making a donation to ubuntu to improve this situation. What do
you think?
~~~
Flolagale
I think you might rather donate to Debian, the distribution Ubuntu is based
on. As far as I know, Ubuntu (and Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu) does
not commit a lot for upstream problems, so I do not know if it will be very
efficient donating to them for this particular issue. By the way, I might
encourage you to read this: <http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/ubuntu-spyware-what-
to-do>
~~~
joss82
Yes, I've read it, and it resonated quite strongly with my recently
deteriorating ubuntu experience. The thing is, I don't feel like spending
hours of system tuning on Debian like I used to do. Maybe I should give debian
or gentoo another try and check if they fixed the problems they use to have.
But this also takes time away from the funnier stuff like programming and
creation.
------
jhaaps
By far the easiest way to run desktop/laptop linux and to not loose your
mental health is to pick your hardware carefully. Make sure that the
components have solid drivers in the mainline kernel and you will be happier
in the long run.
~~~
toni
so, is there a site to check which laptops have the best linux support today?
~~~
shared4you
<http://www.linux-laptop.net/>
------
reidrac
I've never had that problem until I bought my current laptop about 2 years
ago.
Gnome 3 seems to make things worse because of the 3D effects (switching
between vim and Firefox seems enough to turn the fan on). I'm Ardour user and
almost in every recording session I get at lest one safety shutdown because of
the temperature. It's very frustrating!
I've never used Windows on that laptop, so I can't compare, but I always
thought the hardware was to blame.
Yesterday I was preparing a external disk and during Debian Squeeze
installation the laptop had to shutdown twice because of temperature, so now
I'm not sure it's just a hw issue. Looks like something is definitely wrong.
EDIT: well, surprisingly I never tried to google the problem (I know, I know),
and apparently there are lots of reports of that laptop model overheating with
no reason. Great :(
------
lampe
broken hardware and bad driver support is not a linux fault...
if you blame someone for something than blame the right people not the one
that are trying hard to give you something better for free!
I got a zenbook with a intel hd4000 and i get better battrylife and no
overheat than on windows...
------
martin-adams
I switched to using Ubuntu for all my web development work about a year ago. I
even ran Ubuntu on a £200 desktop with 8GB RAM until I upgraded to Win 8.
But all my work is done in a VM using Virtual Box. I switch between two
desktops and a laptop regularly and run multiple VMs. I don't waste time
reinstalling my base OS, I just import my VM image and get working.
My 2008 MacBook Pro is struggling a little, but not just with the VM and it's
limited to 4GB RAM. Having at least 8GB RAM makes it all work much, much
better. I get the joy of Linux, Windows and OSX with surprisingly very little
headache. And I use Git to synchronise all my work.
------
Nursie
"However, whenever I used to install Linux along with Windows, it'd always
mess up my Windows installation a few days later. Last time, fiddling with
Linux made me lose my Master File Table. I had all the files, but just didn't
know where they begun and ended."
I've been running linux on various devices for 16 years, and as a primary OS
for about 7 or 8. I have _never_ had this happen.
What does this guy do to his machines?
Laptop support can be a bit variable, but I've not really had problems there
other than the odd SD reader not being supported.
------
webreac
For my next computer, I would like to buy a linux laptop, because I do not
want to give my money to people who hurt me (Microsoft). Are there any laptop
where linux works well (every peripheral work perfectly and power management
is as good as windows) ? I am not a gamer, I do not tweak much my system (I do
not touch unless it is broken). The applications I use frequently are Chrome,
Eclipse, virtualbox, XMBC, LibreOffice and Wine (for photoshop and home made
old utilities). Any advice to not burn ?
~~~
Nursie
There's a real difficulty in getting a laptop with linux or with no OS. There
are a few specialist companies that do it, and Dell (US only AFAICT) has
released an Ubuntu Ultrabook. BUT, the ultrabook with Ubuntu is more expensive
than the same model with windows 8.
I don't want to give cash to MS either, but I don't really understand the
economics here.
~~~
bunderbunder
Aside from the usual thing about companies paying to have crapware installed
on new Windows laptops, I'm guessing there's an economies of scale thing going
on. Linux laptops ship enough fewer units that each one has to cover a much
larger share of the fixed costs involved in getting a model to market.
------
VMG
That's why I have a Lenovo s300 with an Intel HD graphics card only. Best
Linux laptop I've ever owned.
------
phoyd
All the laptops I'm currently owning run fine and cool, except the one with
ATI graphics. The open source radeon driver has broken power management and
ATI stopped support for the GPU in it with the Catalyst driver.
------
jacobr
I have a MacBook Air running Ubuntu in a virtual machine. All the hardware
stuff is handled by OSX, but I get the power and flexibility of Linux. With 8
GB of RAM, memory is not much of an issue.
~~~
dscrd
What VM are you using, if you don't mind me asking? I got severe performance
problems with a 2008 macbook pro with 8GB of memory, running VirtualBox or
vmware fusion.
~~~
dlebech
I also had severe performance problems with VirtualBox on Windows but they
were magically fixed by increasing the number of virtual CPUs from 1 to 2. I
am talking 10-20 times performance boost just by doing that and nothing else.
Maybe the same will help you. I blogged about it here:
[http://thoughtflow.dk/2012/12/07/prevent-slow-linux-
performa...](http://thoughtflow.dk/2012/12/07/prevent-slow-linux-performance-
virtualbox/)
------
xradionut
Right now I'm running multiple OSes on a system with hybrid graphics, but I'd
love to have a laptop designed/tweaked for Linux. Either a System76 or "bunny"
Huang's latest design.
------
halvsjur
As the first couple of comments on that page says, it's a high chance that
this is due to problems with power management in the open-source Radeon
driver.
I've been running Debian and Ubuntu on lots of different laptops the last
fifteen years, and only ever had problems with overheating on laptops with
AMD/ATI graphics and the Radeon driver. If the graphics chip is current
enough, installing the proprietary Catalyst driver should fix the problem.
------
sgt
Most likely he can fix the problems by installing proprietary drivers.
However, since he still needs to install the OS first (and as I understand it,
it crashes during install), so my suggestion is to put the computer inside the
refridgerator whilst installing. Low-tech but it will cool the GPU
significantly, and thus allow installation to finish.
~~~
lloeki
> _so my suggestion is to put the computer inside the refridgerator whilst
> installing._
laptop CPU/GPU gets hot
fan kicks in
cold air gets sucked in
cold meets hot
condensation and drama ensues
------
Benferhat
If only Dell's Project Sputnik[1] wasn't so expensive and the resolution
wasn't so terrible.
[1] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4847720>
------
wslh
I have a similar experience but running Linux on a VM. There was a background
process (related to X Windows) using more than 10% of the CPU all the time.
------
piqufoh
"I love my Windows 8, mind you. The boot time of 15 seconds is a life-saver."
If the 15 seconds boot time had saved _my_ life, I wouldn't be mucking about
with linux...
~~~
brass9
I guess learning that there's a feature called "hibernation" would give OP the
rapture...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Strapdown.js - Instant and elegant Markdown documents - thefox
http://strapdownjs.com/
======
pspeter3
This is an awesome feature. Is bootstrap using the newest version?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Redesigning the Scientific Paper - jsomers
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/the-scientific-paper-is-obsolete/556676/?single_page=true
======
jfaucett
> These programs tend to be both so sloppily written and so central to the
> results that it’s contributed to a replication crisis, or put another way, a
> failure of the paper to perform its most basic task: to report what you’ve
> actually discovered, clearly enough that someone else can discover it for
> themselves.
This is the crux of the of the problem IMHO - at least for the fields I study
(AI/ML). Replicating the results in papers I read, is way harder than it needs
be, i.e. for these fields it should just be fire up a jupyter notebook and
download the actual dataset they used (much harder than it seems to actually
get your hands on). Very few papers actually contain links to all of this in a
final polished manner so that it's #1 understandable and #2 repeatable.
Honestly, I'd much rather have your actual code and data that you used to get
your results than read through the research paper if I had to choose (assuming
the paper is not pure theory) - but instead there is a disproportionate focus
on paper quality over "project quality" at least IMHO.
I don't really know what the solution is since apparently most academics have
been perfectly fine with the status quo. I feel like we could build a much
better system if we redefined our goals, since I don't think the current
system is optimal for disseminating knowledge or finding and fixing mistakes
in research or even generally working in a fast iterative process.
~~~
bjourne
I've had a paper peer reviewed. It was ultimately rejected but I can't help
but suspect that by making all my code publicly available, I hurt my chances
of publication. The reviewers comments were about my coding style, my choice
of build tool (I didn't use make, but something else which is just as easy to
use), the choice of C vs C++...
It's like best practices for computer security -- always strive to minimize
the attack surface. :) Without source code there is much less stuff to
criticize!
~~~
mschuetz
> It's like best practices for computer security -- always strive to minimize
> the attack surface.
I suspect that's also why some papers are unnecesarely verbose and describe
simple things as complicated as possible. Can't criticize something that can't
be understood.
~~~
iamdave
Then why submit it for _peer review_ at all?
~~~
sideshowb
Because we need peer reviewed papers on our CVs!
I also detest simple things made complex, though. In my experience (with has
covered electronics, epidemiology and geography) reviewers tend to pick up on
obtuse issues in text but miss glaring errors in the math. It's sad, and you
can see why someone less than scrupulous would exploit that tendency by over
complicating things. That said I think plenty of authors are honest but just
not very clear thinkers!
------
JorgeGT
> _How to integrate billions of base pairs of genomic data, and 10 times that
> amount of proteomic data, and historical patient data, and the results of
> pharmacological screens into a coherent account of how somebody got sick and
> what to do to make them better? How to make actionable an endless stream of
> new temperature and precipitation data, and oceanographic and volcanic and
> seismic data? How to build, and make sense of, a neuron-by-neuron map of a
> thinking brain? Equipping scientists with computational notebooks, or some
> evolved form of them, might bring their minds to a level with problems now
> out of reach._
The article seems to conflate the praxis of science with the archival of it.
Scientists do all of the above on gigantic clusters, not on an
IPython/Mathematica notebook. The purpose of publishing papers, on the other
hand, is adding to the archival of knowledge, and they can be easily rendered
in a laptop with LaTeX.
And they are excellent at archival, by the way. You can see papers from the
19th century still being cited. On the other hand I have had issues running a
Mathematica notebook from a few releases back -- and I seriously doubt one
will be able to read any of my Mathematica notebooks 150 years from now. The
same with the nifty web-based redesign of the Nature paper that is mentioned:
I bet the original Nature article will be readable 150 years from now, whereas
I doubt the web version will last 20.
~~~
tomkinstinch
A group upstairs at the Broad Institute built out a system to use Jupyter
notebooks for analysis of genomic data, with backend computation happening on
a Spark cluster[1]. Science on large datasets can happen via interactive
notebook. In a connection with a recent GWAS on a massive dataset from the UK
Biobank, the researchers involved decided not to write a traditional
scientific journal article (at least for now) since their analyses will
continue to mature. Instead, they've been posting insights online in blog
form, with associated code on GitHub[2]. It's a daring move toward publishing
at the speed of research. Once their conclusions mature, traditional journal
articles may follow to distill and preserve the key findings. In the mean
time, those in the field can apply the same code to their data, replicate the
analyses, and get an early look at the output of the research. This works
partially because the methods (univariate GWAS) are understood in the field
and the interpretation and rendering of a particular dataset is the science in
this case, rather than a new method (which would still likely warrant a
paper).
1\. [https://hail.is](https://hail.is)
2\. [http://www.nealelab.is/blog/2017/7/19/rapid-gwas-of-
thousand...](http://www.nealelab.is/blog/2017/7/19/rapid-gwas-of-thousands-of-
phenotypes-for-337000-samples-in-the-uk-biobank)
~~~
JorgeGT
> _Science on large datasets can happen via interactive notebook._
I did not claim the opposite, just that it regularly happens without
interactive notebooks. This seems like an interesting project though.
Regarding the blog posts, it seems that there's a bug that makes all the
entries appear as published on September 20, 2017?
------
bcoughlan
I used to work as a software developer for a research institute. I wanted to
open source our research code and tools, and the department head was in favour
of it because it would raise the profile of the research unit.
There were two forces working against us. First many of the grants came from
governments, and a stipulation was that we would devote some resources to
helping startups commercialise the output of the research. Some felt that open
sourcing would remove the need for the startups to work directly with them to
integrate the algorithms, and that this would hurt future grant applications
by making the research look ineffective.
The main opposition though came from PhD and Postdoc students. Most didn't
want anything related to their work open sourced. They believed that it would
make it easy for others to pick up from where they were and render their next
paper unpublishable by beating them to the punch.
Sadly I think there was some truth to both claims. Papers are the currency of
academics, and all metrics for grants and careers hinge off it. It hinders
cooperation and fosters a cynical environment of trying to game the metrics to
secure a future in academics.
I don't know how else you should measure academics performance, but until
those incentives change the journal paper in its current form is going
nowhere.
~~~
neuromantik8086
> Papers are the currency of academics, and all metrics for grants and careers
> hinge off it. It hinders cooperation and fosters a cynical environment of
> trying to game the metrics to secure a future in academics.
I honestly can't contemplate who in their right mind would want "a future in
academics" where academia is defined as a constant stream of metric gaming
rather than actually accomplishing what you originally set out to accomplish.
~~~
TeMPOraL
Imagine it like this: maybe you joined your field (be it software or academia)
with dreams of making the world better. So it shouldn't matter to you _who_
does the problem solving, as long as the problems get solved and the world
gets better in a timely manner. But then, you've found a gig solving an
important problem, with ok-ish pay. And you've also found yourself with dreams
of a home, a spouse, maybe children. And suddenly, it starts to matter to you
whether or not you get paid, so that you can fulfill your dreams. Maybe
someone else could do your important work better than you. But then you won't
have money to support your family. So it's gaming time, and now you end up
focusing on "a future in <your field>".
------
mettamage
Regarding the article itself: Brett Victor is amazing and so is Strogatz. They
are both my heroes actually.
But I do think there is a difference between scientific professionals
communicating amongst each other and scientific communication to the public.
And if mathematicians understood Strogatz his paper at the time when it was
published, and there were enough mathematicians to disseminate the knowledge,
then should you require that you create algorithms as animations?
Part of the reason why mathematicians and computer scientists (as researchers)
conceive of new algorithms in the first place is because a lot of them are
very strong in visualizing algorithms and 'being their own computer'.
Though, if a scientist wants to appeal to a broader group of scientists, then
I'd recommend her or him to use every educational tool possible. For example,
they could create an interactive blogpost a la parable of the polygons[1] and
link that in their paper.
On an unrelated note, it is such a pity ncase isn't mentioned at all in this
article!
Also related is explorabl.es, not everything is science communication in an
interactive way but a lot of it is[2].
[1] [http://ncase.me/polygons/](http://ncase.me/polygons/) [2]
[http://explorabl.es/](http://explorabl.es/)
~~~
hnhn12
>Part of the reason why mathematicians and computer scientists (as
researchers) conceive of new algorithms in the first place is because a lot of
them are very strong in visualizing algorithms and 'being their own computer'.
Can you explain this in more detail?
------
jostmey
We need GitHub for science. But that's not enough. It needs to be combined
with a mechanism for peer-review and publishing that funding agencies will
find acceptable--that's the key.
~~~
WhompingWindows
It's not only about funding agencies, though. Researchers need to be trained
in the use of a GitHub like system - as a former graduate student, I knew NO
ONE using Github. Furthermore, after working in scientific publishing where it
was MS Office or bust, I doubt you will convince Elsevier and the publishing
giants that GitHub for Science is the way to go. How do these huge companies
make money if scientists are sharing their work for free online? Meanwhile,
you have scientists themselves, many of whom are required to hit certain
numbers of articles in certain "prestige tiers" of journals in order to get
tenure. If you're an extremely busy junior faculty member who will be FIRED
when tenure review comes up if you don't have 1 paper per year, will you risk
it on a GitHub scheme? I doubt that.
These problems are not unique to science. Take any large group of humans, be
it government, the military, a company, a set of companies: they will coalesce
onto the use of a certain number of tools, and it will take a LOT of energy
and work to switch tools. Getting an entire industry to switch tools is
extremely hard, perhaps downright impossible, and I'm not sure if it can be
done in the rather slow-moving world of academic science. It simply won't be
possible to enact a huge change on the system with so much institutional
momentum built up.
It seems to me the best solution is to make incremental changes toward a
github like system, training new scientists in grad programs to have better
practices. Maybe we can't get researchers to post their full data set for all
the public, but perhaps it can be made available to non-competitors, those who
researchers aren't actively competing with for the same grants. Maybe
researchers can be required by journals to post the peer-review
comments/responses, as well as the drafts of the article, alongside the
article itself. Maybe we can have researchers posting extremely detailed
code/methodological information alongside the article, without forcing them to
give over the entire dataset to other researchers?
Finally, maybe the whole incentive structure of academic science needs to
change: maybe articles/publishing metrics should be de-valued in favor of
teaching skills, mentorship ability, and collaboration within and across
disciplines?
~~~
chongli
_I doubt you will convince Elsevier and the publishing giants_
Who says we need to convince them? How about we leave them behind? They are
rentiers, gatekeeping society's access to publicly funded scientific
knowledge. I can't think of a reason why society should allow this hostage
situation to continue.
~~~
anigbrowl
OK, but you need to figure out a way to take over the universities then
because scientists are also animals who need food and shelter etc. etc. and
depend on grants, stipends, and salaries to buy those things.
I'm not saying this to be dismissive - I'm strongly in favor of faculties
organizing to unseat administrators from their privileged positions. It's
baffling to me that bright minds on campuses complain at length about the
state of higher education but seem oddly averse to _doing_ anything about it.
------
yiyus
I do not agree that the scientific paper needs to be replaced. It should be
complemented with the help of new tools, that is a very good thing, but I
still want the article.
I work everyday with papers from decades ago, and I hope people will work with
my papers in the future. How can I guarantee that researches of 2050 will be
able to run my Jupyter notebooks?
Moreover, it is not uncommon to not be able to publish source code. I can
write about models and algorithms, but I am not allowed to publish the code I
write for some projects.
------
aplorbust
"... the skill most in demand among physicists, _biologists_ , chemists,
geologists, even anthropologists and research psychologists, is facility with
programming languages and "data science" packages."
If I wanted to prove to someone this statement was true, what would be the
most effective way to do that?
Is author basing this conclusion on job postings somewhere?
Has he interviewed anyone working in these fields?
Has he worked in a lab or for a company doing R&D?
How does he know?
What evidence (cf. media hype) could I cite in order to convince someone he is
right?
When I look at the other articles he has written, they seem focused on
popularised notions about computers, but I do not see any articles about the
academic disciplines he mentions.
------
cowpig
GitXiv very much worth taking a look at if you're into this kind of thing:
[http://www.gitxiv.com/page/about](http://www.gitxiv.com/page/about)
edit: as is Chris Olah's Distill project:
[https://distill.pub/](https://distill.pub/)
------
Myrmornis
How well does it work to version control Mathematica notebooks in git? For
example, is it possible to get meaningful textual diffs when comparing two
versions of a mathematica notebook, and can git compress them enough to keep
repo size down?
With iPython this is also an issue -- tracking code in JSON is much less clean
than tracking code in text files.
It's interesting that Mathematica and iPython both left code-as-plain-text
behind as a storage format. I wonder if it would have been possible to come up
with a hybrid solution, i.e. retain plain-text code files but with a
serialized data structure (JSON-like, or binary) as the glue.
~~~
henrikeh
I use Mathematica daily and frequently store large-ish notebooks in Git. The
format is textual, but the diffs are filled with a lot of noise.
------
hprotagonist
as a practical matter, papers will remain relevant as long as they are the
metric by which grant applications and tenure decisions are made.
as a philosophical matter, for computation heavy fields, i would love to see
literate programming tools become _de rigeur_ in the peer-reviewed
distribution of results. In some fields (AI) this basically happens already —
the blog post with code snippets and a link to arxiv at the end is a pretty
common thing now.
~~~
goerz
Papers (and PDFs) are relevant because they are easy to organize and archive,
essentially in perpetuity. Source code is too, so nothing wrong with a "Github
for Science". Notebooks, blogs, or interactive dashboards, on the other hand,
are an amazing tool both for research and for communication, but they are far
more ephemeral than a paper. They need a large overhead to keep them running
that cannot be sustained over decades or centuries. Typically, you'll have
lots of trouble re-running a 5 year old notebook. That's not to say they're
useless, e.g. as supplementary material (quite the opposite). They're just not
going to replace papers anytime soon.
~~~
hprotagonist
Those are good points. Journals have to care about this, too, these days --
supplementary information now routinely includes videos (hope you have the
right codecs!), word documents, audio, and full or redacted data sets.
I think what appeals to me about literate programming style is that it
encourages a return to a more clear and expository style of writing, which has
been squeezed out of scientific writing in journals over the years. I don't
care what instantiation is required to produce a more uniformly clear and
cogent document, I just care that it happens.
------
kemiller
As is usual for Stephen Wolfram, he has a point, and then blunts it by trying
to own the whole thing. Edit: to expand, part of the answer to his question,
why don't more people do this, is that it requires his expensive proprietary
software. Scientific papers are (nominally at least) a commons.
------
vanderZwan
Aside from my other comment, I think that any discussion about the scientific
paper and the way knowledge is communicated is incomplete without a mention of
Nick Sousanis' _Unflattening_. It is a thesis for a Doctor of Education degree
about this very topic, that practises what it preaches by being written as a
comic book.
[http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674744431](http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674744431)
------
sophacles
This is a really interesting article. The use of jupyter as a publication
mechanism is a really neat idea! I think this path will be fruitful, and I am
all for it. I do think however that some low-hanging fruit should be addressed
in parallel - stuff that makes looking through the existing work a total pain:
* Date of publication and dates of research should be required in every paper. It's really difficult to trace out the research path if you start from google or random papers you find in various archive searches. Yes that info can be present but often its in metadata where the PDF is linked rather than the PDF itself. Even worse is the "pubname, vol, issue" info rather than a year that you get... now I have to track down when the publication started publishing, how they mark off volumes and so on. I just want to know when the thing was published.
* Software versions used - if you are telling me about kernel modules or plugins/interfaces to existing software, I need to know the version to make my stuff work. Again - eventually it can be tracked down, but running a 'git bisect' on some source tree to find out when the code listings will compile is not OK.
* actual permalinks to data, code, and other supplimental information. Some 3rd party escrow service is not a terrible idea even. I hate trying to track down something from a paper only to find the link is dead and the info is no longer available or has moved a several hour google journey away.
------
ivotron
shameless plug for the Popper Convention and CLI tool
[http://github.com/systemslab/popper](http://github.com/systemslab/popper) .
Our goal is to make writing papers as close as possible to writing software
(DevOpsify academia) but in a domain-agnostic way.
------
mettamage
I love science, but I have a lot of issues with it lately. I'm going to
express some of them since they're related to this topic.
The basic function of a scientific paper is understanding and reproducibility
(inspired by jfaucett his comment).
I wonder, is reproducibility necessary? Is it even possible when things get
really complex? Isn't consensus enough? I feel in the field of psychology (and
most social sciences) that is what happens. I suppose consensus can be easily
gamed by publication bias and a whole slew of other things. So I suppose as
jfaucett puts it, a "discover for yourself" type of thing should still be
there. I wonder how qualitative research could be saved and if you could call
it science. In Dutch it is all called "wetenschap" and "weten" means to know.
But how should we go about design then? HCI papers use a _a lot of design_ of
design that is never justified. The paper is like: we build a system, it
improved our user metrics. But is there any intuition or theory written down
as to _why_ they designed something a certain way? Not really.
I suppose one strong way to get reproducibility is by getting all the inputs
needed. In a psychology study this means getting a dataset. Correlations are
fuzzy but if I get the same answers out of the same dataset, then the claims
must be true for that particular dataset.
Regarding design and qualitative studies, maybe, film _everything_? The
general themes that everybody would agree upon watching _everything_ would be
the reproducible part of it?
Ok, I'll stop. The whole idea of that a paper needs to satisfy the criterion
of reproducibility confuses me when I look at what science is nowadays.
~~~
Ace17
> I wonder, is reproducibility necessary? Is it even possible when things get
> really complex? Isn't consensus enough?
If my results are not reproductible, then I'm basically asking for your trust.
So now, instead of actually doing the experiment, there's an incentive for me
to forge my results, And they don't have to match reality anymore, by the way.
Gotta go ; back to working on my paper about psychic powers.
------
laderach
Sometimes you don't need to redo everything from scratch to change things.
There are a number of problems in scientific publishing. Two big ones are:
1) Distribution hurdles and paywalls imposed by rent seeking journals - who
knows how much this has prevented innovation and scientific advancement in the
last 20 years
2) Easily replicating experiments / easily verifying accuracy and significance
of results - this is related to for instance making data used in research more
easily accessible and making it easier to spot p-value hacking
Fixing these might not require a completely new format for papers. Or it
could. I can envision solutions both ways.
I really like what the folks from Fermat's Library have been doing. They have
been developing tools that are actually useful at the present time and push us
in the right direction. I use their arXiv chrome extension
[https://fermatslibrary.com/librarian](https://fermatslibrary.com/librarian)
all the time for extracting references and bibtex. At the same time they are
playing with entirely new concepts - they just posted a neat article on medium
about a new unit for academic publishing
[https://medium.com/@fermatslibrary/a-new-unit-of-academic-
pu...](https://medium.com/@fermatslibrary/a-new-unit-of-academic-publication-
on-twitter-cdda2479091e)
------
omot
> His secret weapon was his embrace of the computer at a time when most
> serious scientists thought computational work was beneath them.
They still think this.
------
vanderZwan
Interesting timing: for the last two years I have worked for a research group
headed by Sten Linnarsson at the Karolinska Institute[0]. I was specifically
hired to build a data browser for a new file format for storing the ever-
growing datasets[1][2][3]. The viewer is an SPA specialised in exploring the
data on the fly, doing as much as possible client side while minimising the
amount of data being transferred, and staying as data-agnostic as possible.
Linnarsson's group just pre-published a paper cataloguing all cell types in
the mouse brain, classifying them based on gene expression[4][5]. The whole
reason that I was hired was as an "experiment" to see if there was a way to
make the enormous amount of data behind it more accessible for quick
explorations than raw dumps of data. The viewer uses a lot of recent (as well
as slightly-less-recent-but-underused) browser technologies.
Instead of downloading the full data set (which is typically around 28k genes
by N cells, where N is in the tens to hundreds of thousands), only the general
metadata plus requested genes are downloaded in the form of compressed JSON
arrays containing raw numbers or strings. The viewer converts them to Typed
Arrays (yes, even with string arrays) and then renders nearly everything on
the fly client-side. This also makes it possible to interactively tweak view
settings[6]. Because the viewer makes almost no assupmtions of what the data
represents, we recently re-used the scatterplot view to display individual
cells in a tissue section[7].
Furthermore, this data is stored off-line through IndexedDB, so repeat
viewings of the same dataset or specific genes within it does not require re-
downloading the (meta)data. This minimises data transfer even further, and
makes the whole thing a lot snappier (not to mention cheaper to host, which
may matter if you're a small research group). The only reason it isn't
completely offline-first is that using service workers is giving me weird
interactions with react-router. Being the lone developer I have to prioritise
other, more pressing bugs.
In the end however, the viewer is merely a complement to the full catalogue,
which is set up with a DocuWiki[8]. No flashy bells and whistles there, but it
_works_. For example, one can look up specific marker genes. it just uses a
plugin to create a sortable table, which is established, stable technology
that pretty much comes with the DocuWiki[9][10]. The taxonomy tree is a simple
static SVG above it. Since the expression data is known client-side to
generate the table dynamically, we only need a tiny bit of JavaScript to turn
that into an expression heatmap underneath the taxonomy tree. Simple and very
effective, and it probably even works in IE8, if not further back. Meanwhile,
I got myself into an incredibly complicated mess writing a scatterplotter with
low-level sprite rendering and blitting and hand-crafted memoisation to
minimise redraws[11].
Personally, I think there isn't enough praise for the pragmatic DocuWiki
approach. My contract ends next week. I intend to keep contributing to the
viewer, working out the (way too many) rough edges and small bugs that remain,
but it won't be full-time. I hope someone will be able to maintain and develop
this further. I think the DocuWiki has a better chance of still being on-line
and working ten years from now.
[0] [http://linnarssonlab.org/](http://linnarssonlab.org/)
[1] [http://loompy.org/](http://loompy.org/)
[2] [https://github.com/linnarsson-lab/loom-
viewer](https://github.com/linnarsson-lab/loom-viewer)
[3] [http://loom.linnarssonlab.org/](http://loom.linnarssonlab.org/)
[4]
[https://twitter.com/slinnarsson/status/981919808726892545](https://twitter.com/slinnarsson/status/981919808726892545)
[5]
[https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/04/05/294918](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/04/05/294918)
[6] [https://imgur.com/f6GpMZ1](https://imgur.com/f6GpMZ1)
[7]
[http://loom.linnarssonlab.org/dataset/cells/osmFISH/osmFISH_...](http://loom.linnarssonlab.org/dataset/cells/osmFISH/osmFISH_SScortex_mouse_all_cells.loom/NrBEoXQGmAGHgEYq2kqi3IExagZjwBYI0R58oA7AVwBs6UMnt5FZ5gB2J1GADl6kYFavUZsWbDjACcQmOyFp42AKy9mq6Z3nw~SfSmFwCepsm0YZwcwaX7S0ZCTTgyAWlgA6Dq0REiABssIhqQeoo3viyRLJq_HEhsvhcatCURFDYTLIqCJZ4mIrZeIRkpvC0DBZS1pxGBo3CzRYmlNWMlEhZiOaIyPhsOZHYOEHQbKRAA),
[https://i.imgur.com/a7Mjyuu.png](https://i.imgur.com/a7Mjyuu.png)
[8]
[http://mousebrain.org/doku.php?id=start](http://mousebrain.org/doku.php?id=start)
[9]
[http://mousebrain.org/doku.php?id=genes:aw551984](http://mousebrain.org/doku.php?id=genes:aw551984)
[10]
[http://mousebrain.org/doku.php?id=genes:actb](http://mousebrain.org/doku.php?id=genes:actb)
[11] [https://github.com/linnarsson-lab/loom-
viewer/blob/master/cl...](https://github.com/linnarsson-lab/loom-
viewer/blob/master/client/plotters/scatterplot.js)
------
tensor
This title is horrible hyperbole. Science is more than just machine learning.
Hell, even if we just constrain ourselves to "computer science" probably half
of it is just math, for which the scientific paper is definitely not
"obsolete" nor even deficient in any way.
But outside of computer science you need laboratories to replicate
experiments. Scientific papers are perfectly fine vehicles to record the
necessary information to replicate experiments in this setting. Historically
appendices are used for the extended details. And yes, replication is hard,
but it's part of science.
~~~
jacobolus
What makes you think math papers wouldn’t benefit from having interactive bits
in the middle? Obviously isn’t relevant for all math papers, but often would
be extremely helpful. I read a lot of technical papers, and it is quite
frequent that I will need to spend an hour or two decoding some formal
mathematical statements whose basic idea/intuition could be more clearly
conveyed pictorially in a few minutes.
Of course, making interactive diagrams often takes dramatically more work than
sketching pictures with a pen (or just writing down equations), and
mathematicians are not typically trained to do it, so it would be an uphill
slog for many. But I would love it if there was more funding/prestige/etc.
available for mathematicians to make their papers more accessible by adding
better visuals.
------
awll
This reads like an ad for Mathematica
~~~
dang
Swipes like this break the site guidelines, including these important ones:
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone
says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A
good critical comment teaches us something."
Would you please (re-)read
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
and not post like this here?
------
sappapp
Average clickbait
~~~
dang
Maybe look a bit closer? I slog through "average clickbait" for hours a day in
the hope of sparing this community of it, and can assure you that is far from
the case.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to contact successful and famous people? - yaagneshwaran
https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140808065533-44477394-how-to-contact-successful-and-famous-people?trk=prof-post
======
yousifa
Interesting, however I find that his approach requires too long of an email. I
have found that shorter messages (only a few sentences) to be best. This works
to establish a communication relationship and then you can do the major "ask"
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Humans see the world in higher resolution than most animals - nabla9
https://today.duke.edu/2018/05/details-look-sharp-people-may-be-blurry-their-pets
======
nabla9
[https://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-
evolution/abstract/S0169...](https://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-
evolution/abstract/S0169-5347\(18\)30052-1)
Visual Acuity and the Evolution of Signals
>Recent increased interest in visual acuity, the ability to perceive static
spatial detail, has shown that acuity is highly variable, ranging over four
orders of magnitude across species with image-forming eyes.
>Human visual acuity is some of the highest in the animal kingdom, meaning
that researchers may develop hypotheses regarding the function of spatial
patterns that do not account for the relevant viewer’s sensory capabilities.
>Signals can potentially exploit differences in visual acuity between species,
which may arise due to differences in eye type, eye size, and/or viewing
distance.
>Because acuity can vary between two viewers of the same scene, it represents
a promising yet understudied channel for private communication.
>Small animals, particularly those with compound eyes, have low acuity and
thus can only perceive fine patterns over very short distances.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
W-2 hacked, what are options? - carpe_noctem
Recently I received a letter in the mail informing me the 3rd party w-2 provider of a previous employer was hacked & all of my personal info was stolen, incl. ssn. They are offering 1 yr protection (is this a joke?). If anything, lifetime protection should be offered.<p>If the roles were reversed, I’m sure the company would sue me for stolen info. What are my options here, if any?<p>Knowns:
- I had no knowledge of this third party system and thus signed no authorization for it’s use
- accepting 1 yr “protection” will disqualify me from suing<p>Questions:
- do you have previous experience with this?
- what actions can I take to the full extent of the law?
======
wmf
99% of the time, such stolen information is never used so don't freak out.
Here's some official advice: [https://www.irs.gov/identity-theft-fraud-
scams/data-breach-i...](https://www.irs.gov/identity-theft-fraud-scams/data-
breach-information-for-taxpayers)
------
newman8r
Some people appear to have been successful taking equifax to small claims
court, so you might want to look at those cases.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/business/equifax-hack-
sma...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/business/equifax-hack-small-claims-
court.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
New PS4 Pro “Boost Mode” will help some older games run faster and smoother - minimaxir
http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/3/14502366/playstation-4-pro-boost-mode-update
======
minimaxir
NeoGAF is doing a compilation of affected games:
[http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1340939](http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1340939)
Reports are surprisingly good.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Thoughts on Cocoa - pier25
https://lists.apple.com/archives/cocoa-dev/2019/Oct/msg00004.html
======
quelsolaar
This is why unfortunately the Mac is dead to me. I would love to support it,
but when OpenGL was deprecated it was just game over for me. A company that
forces me to learn a completely different language to access their basic APIs
and keeps changing them is just too mush of a hassle. Every hour spent on
maintaining a mac port is an hour not serving the 90% of users who aren't on
Mac.
You can complain about OpenGL all you want, and praise Metal, but it doesn't
matter how much better it is. i cant rewrite all my shaders, and do the API
integration. The fact that the richest company cant hire 10 engineers to
maintain compatibility, and are pushing all this work on to thousands if small
independent developers is just rude.
With apples history, why spend time embracing, their new tech if you cant
count on it sticking around. For developers who write small one-off apps for
iOS its fine, but for people who make larger long term applications Apple is
very developer hostile.
~~~
DCKing
Although I'm not a fan of OpenGL's removal, I think it's somewhat
misunderstood. OpenGL is an outdated design for modern GPUs. Its featureset
and architecture is too high level, leading to more buggy drivers and
complicated legacy support. There's two things you can do basically - keep
OpenGL around in perpituity, or move the complexity and responsibility of it
all to libraries.
Apple has defined their single graphics API to be Metal, kind of but not quite
like mainstream Linux where this has become Gallium3D (i.e. all open source
drivers implement their OpenGL and Vulkan and sometimes even Direct3D support
on top of Gallium3D). I fully expect OpenGL to be dropped from many future
Linux drivers too. I'm actually looking forward to the day Linux drivers will
go Vulkan only, as hopefully it allows things to get less buggy.
Even when OpenGL gets fully removed from macOS, you can still use OpenGL. You
can use Vulkan too. You just need a library for it, like ANGLE or MoltenVK. If
that would have been Apple's communication, there'd be a lot less fuzz about
this.
By the way, OpenGL still works on macOS 10.15. Deprecated does not mean it's
not working.
~~~
badsectoracula
> OpenGL is an outdated design for modern GPUs.
The thing is, in its entire lifetime OpenGL was never meant to be a GPU
abstraction layer - that only happened during GeForce2's time (and only for
Nvidia). Even SGI's implementation was doing a lot of stuff on the CPU (and
SGI even had a pure CPU implementation). OpenGL was always meant to be a high
lever immediate graphics API (immediate here meaning as opposed to
retained/scene graph APIs like OpenInventor).
> By the way, OpenGL still works on macOS 10.15. Deprecated does not mean it's
> not working.
Yeah but as it can clearly be seen, you cannot rely on Apple when it comes to
keeping things working.
~~~
DCKing
It seems to me then that OpenGL should have been a library instead of a driver
all along. Its original intent unfortunately has no bearing on what it has
become in the meantime.
> Yeah but as it can clearly be seen, you cannot rely on Apple when it comes
> to keeping things working.
Well yeah that's what deprecated means. At the moment, developers have a bit
longer to get on with the times though, so that's nice I guess.
~~~
rrss
> should have been a library instead of a driver all along
This would have required there to be a lower-level interface that different
vendors could all implement, which was not the case for early graphics
hardware. In the decades since graphics hardware has all evolved to look more
or less the same to SW (so vulkan became a nice fit), but that wasn't always
the case.
------
galad87
Carbon UI framework has been deprecated for 12 years. Cocoa has been available
since the first Mac OS X version, so ~20 years ago, and it's still be main UI
framework on macOS, and it will still be for years.
You can't come now and whine that Apple changes UI frameworks too often.
~~~
Mikhail_Edoshin
I was recently greeted by Brew message that my Mac OS X is too old and is not
supported :) It was simply a warning, the installation (GNU tar) run OK and
gtar worked. The OS is El Capitan and it's just turned 4 years.
~~~
plorkyeran
Under 1% of homebrew users are on 10.11
([https://formulae.brew.sh/analytics/os-
version/30d/](https://formulae.brew.sh/analytics/os-version/30d/)), so
continuing to test on that OS version would not be a good use of the
maintainers' time.
~~~
reaperducer
Interesting that there are five times as many Brew events from Catalina
machines than El Capitan machines, and Catalina isn't even out yet.
~~~
guitarbill
El Capitan machines are already set up, Catalina machines are being set up?
------
rcarmo
I coded in Objective-C back in the NeXT days, did various (small) Cocoa and
iOS apps and still use Macs daily - but work at Microsoft now.
Despite my own personal plights with small desktop utilities I write now and
then, I don't think Apple has broken Cocoa _that much_ or that it is untenable
for a small company to ship cross-platform desktop apps these days (never mind
Electron, I'm talking about toolkits like Qt, Xamarin, etc.). _Especially_ if
their core functionality can be cleanly detached from the UI.
I poked around a bit to figure out the detail to which the software does
estimations, and it does seem like there is a very complex UI:
[https://www.turtlesoft.com/Images/Goldenseal%201024x768.jpg](https://www.turtlesoft.com/Images/Goldenseal%201024x768.jpg)
...but I keep wondering how much of it could be abstracted away by a cross-
platform toolkit, and what kind of separation there is between the
estimation/modeling code and the UI itself.
We'll never know without a good overview of the internals, but my guess (based
on looking at many internal corporate apps over the years, from the pre-web
days) is that this evolved organically over time and built up technical debt
by literally following UI abstractions rather that isolating their core code
from it.
~~~
ralfd
That is a bunch of Buttons, Textfields, Dropdowns and Listviews? How hard can
that be in Cocoa?
In their blog post they said they worked for three years on the Mac version
... maybe the company is just one person not having much time or coding
experience. Maybe I am underestimating the problem, but in my time they would
have just hired a student or the nephew of their neighbor to hack something
together useful.
~~~
ratww
They also mention in another post that four different contractors gave up on
migrating it, three targeting Cocoa and one Qt. Maybe the codebase is brittle
and hard to work with and not really worth the effort.
------
tonyedgecombe
Apple started selling 64 bit machines in 2005 and supported it in the
operating system with Leopard:
[http://theocacao.com/document.page/343](http://theocacao.com/document.page/343)
There weren’t many 32 bit only Intel based Macs.
This complaint says far more about the developer than Apple.
~~~
duskwuff
The first response sums it up nicely:
> The people I hear complaining about this are those who, like you, didn't
> move to Cocoa. Carbon was a _temporary_ transition API*. It was necessary
> when Mac OS X shipped in March 2001, but even though it wasn't yet formally
> deprecated, it was clear it would be.
\- [https://lists.apple.com/archives/cocoa-
dev/2019/Oct/msg00021...](https://lists.apple.com/archives/cocoa-
dev/2019/Oct/msg00021.html)
~~~
badsectoracula
> But that's part of what lost them their lead after the '90s
I think that guy lives in a bubble, Microsoft is still by a huge margin the
lead in desktop OS market share :-P.
And really the main reason is that they try their hardest to not break
people's applications. If Windows suddenly couldn't run the applications
people wanted, everyone would migrate to Linux (and some to Mac, but Linux is
free so the majority would go for the free stuff).
~~~
yardie
I've seen quite a few legacy Windows app needing to be run as administrator,
compatibility mode, or both. Just because you can do something doesn't mean
you should. It's glaringly irresponsible that applications should be given
read/write access to the C:\Windows folder because that was acceptable in the
90s.
Now when I get an exe that needs to run in compatibility mode I don't even
bother with it. I'm not compromising my computer because a developer has
abandoned their software.
~~~
badsectoracula
Good for you, but other people want their computers to do work for them with
the applications they want to use.
------
andrew_
> my current windows app STILL WORKS ON VISTA, i don't have to do ANYTHING to
> "stay up to date" with Windows, cuz they support backward compatibility, and
> don't force changes on developers.
> Meanwhile, our Windows version hasn't needed any work since 2000.
Microsoft's impressive backcompat is a blessing as much as it is a curse, and
is also the cause of the [subjective opinion incoming] awful User Experience
and complete lack of UI and UX consistency, and it remains the number one
reason I don't wish to go back to Windows.
~~~
noisem4ker
Win32, WinForms and WPF desktop applications are all able to follow the OS
theme. With Metro there's been a departure to a visually incompatible
paradigm. This is to say that the lack of UI consistency is a political
problem, not a technical side effect of keeping old UI technologies running.
~~~
stickfigure
I wouldn't be so sure of this.
I made the Windows -> Mac transition in 2008 and recently played around with a
modern Windows machine. I was pretty stunned to find the Control Panel
experience... not unchanged, but still eerily similar to Windows XP.
Windows' Control Panel is a trainwreck of UX compared to OSX System
Preferences. Being such a core part of the OS, I really expected to see, well,
something new and better. But then I remembered how countless programs embed
themselves in the control panel via DLLs, so Microsoft probably can't make
major changes to the UX without breaking binary compatibility with ancient
software packages.
~~~
saagarjha
macOS has third-party preference panes too.
~~~
zapzupnz
Yeah, but they're all separate from any other preference pane. Everybody gets
the same framework to create completely independent prefpanes, not hijack
Apple's existing ones.
There are no hooks, for example, to modify the Displays prefpane; if Apple
decides they want to update it, they're free to do so. On the other hand, a
lot of graphics card vendors _still_ needlessly add their own little tab to
the display adaptor control panel and the desktop's context menu.
------
protomyth
I would have much the same _sour grapes_ attitude of many in this thread,
except for one point: Apple cannot even keep code examples working. Most of
the code samples on Apple's dev site don't even compile a year or two after
they are written and Apple doesn't bother keeping them updated. This is a
rather large problem and verification of how hard it is to keep up.
~~~
Synaesthesia
I’d you’re talking about swift yes they changed a lot since the early versions
and many code examples are out of date. I believe the language has stabilized
now.
~~~
protomyth
Most, but the Objective-C examples also have breaks.
~~~
saagarjha
Only very rarely.
~~~
protomyth
Uhm, the OpenPanel changes basically crapped on a whole group. Apple does not
keep its examples updated. Heck, now its hard to find examples at all.
~~~
Klonoar
I still write ObjC more often than most, and I’m pretty familiar with their
stuff - I’m generally the first to claim examples are like a needle in a
haystack, but they almost always do work when you find them.
They definitely might be outdated, tho.
------
threeseed
This is entirely by design.
Apple doesn't want you to build an app 20 years ago, make no updates to it and
continue to sell it as though nothing has changed in the time since.
Their website is compromised of mostly broken links, the design is dated and
it is showing reviews and awards from 10 years ago.
Clear to me that they couldn't be bothered to put any effort in at any point
in the buyer's journey so I say good riddance to them.
~~~
ubercow13
Is this the reason that everything on iOS app store is transitioning to
subscriptions where before an app cost $3 and now it costs $3 a month, because
developers worked out that the cost of keeping up with Apples constant
platform changes is too much?
~~~
bluk
I think that’s more that developers want to make a decent living. The vast
majority of subscription apps have a server side maintenance cost. As the
platform matured and developers realized those users were going to stick to
their apps for years without paying another penny, then it becomes untenable.
~~~
blub
That's simply not true, many offline apps are transitioning to subscriptions
and maybe add some lame cloud sync as an excuse/afterthought.
Happened to me recently with an app which is the interactive version of a
book. From one day to the other they switched from buying chapters/the book to
some stupid subscription.
If they can't make a living they need to charge more and if they can't charge
more they need to find a real job/business.
~~~
acdha
The problem is that so many companies burning VC cash and/or ad dollars have
trained customers to think software costs less than a cup of coffee. If you
charge what you need for a sustainable business up front, your sales will be
enormously less and you’re going to get tons of negative reviews from people
who think a $20 app would need to cure cancer to justify that price. (And, of
course, even $3 deserves lifetime free updates and new features)
It’s especially bizarre that you’re ranting about them needing to find a real
business when that is exactly what they’re doing by finding a billing model
which is viable long-term.
~~~
blub
Very few developers have proven that they're capable of building a sustainable
business (like e.g. OmniGroup).
It's impossible to say if a particular app will in a week:
a) still be available
b) if it will have switched to subscriptions or free + IAP or free with ads
and IAP
c) what the IAPs will be and if your old (if any) IAPs will still work.
d) if they'll decide to sell your info to the next available bidder
This is why almost all apps are worthless and why I've essentially stopped
purchasing or downloading apps. It's simply not worth the trouble to invest
time to learn to use an app and investigate whether you can trust the
developer.
------
coldtea
Well, they'd only have to do one major transition, to Obj-C/Cocoa and for that
the writing was on the wall for 20 years (and official for 15 years) and
everything would have been much smoother.
Had he used Cocoa, the rest, would have been trivial (to x86, to 64 bit, etc).
Or he could use whatever they like (C++, Pascal, what have you), and have
their own UI/compatibility layer between OSes, like Adobe for example does
(and several others, big and small: Sublime Text is an one man shop, and they
make their own UI just fine).
The first response in the thread is not far off:
The people I hear complaining about this are those who, like you, didn't move
to Cocoa. Carbon was a _temporary_ transition API*. It was necessary when Mac
OS X shipped in March 2001, but even though it wasn't yet formally deprecated,
it was clear it would be. The Carbon UI frameworks were deprecated circa, um,
2006(?). QuickTime has been deprecated nearly as long. 64-bit systems shipped
in the mid-2000s, even before the x86 transition, and it was obvious then that
32-bit would eventually go away.
Eighteen years is _forever_ in the tech industry. At the time Cocoa was
introduced, the Mac itself hadn't even been around that long!
It sounds like keeping an app limping along on 30-year-old APIs, and then
suddenly trying to move it forwards all at once, is a bad idea. By comparison,
keeping a Cocoa app up to date isn't that big a deal. I was maintaining Cocoa
apps during the 64-bit, x86 and ARC transitions and had to make very few code
changes. I've been out of the UI world for about 8 years, and there have
definitely been significant changes in areas like view layout and document
handling, but adapting to those isn't rocket science.
Yes, Microsoft is rather fanatical about compatibility. But that's part of
what lost them their lead after the '90s: the amount of development resources
needed to keep everything working exactly the same, and the difficulty of
making forward progress without breaking any apps.
—Jens
~~~
pjmlp
While I agree with you relating to Carbon, Microsoft is pretty much the still
only game in town for desktop computing (which also includes laptops and 2-1
hybrids) in worldwide market share.
~~~
coldtea
Yes, but macOS has enough native apps for everything, and the advent of web
apps and mobile apps, made the whole point moot.
You can do everything and more on a Mac.
~~~
pjmlp
Go look around anyone doing office work on their phones.
Tablets, sure, when converted into pseudo-laptops, and unless we are talking
about iPads here, the European shops are increasingly replacing their Android
tablets on sale by Windows 10 laptops with detachable keyboards and touch
screen.
As someone that does native/web development, the only area where Web wins are
the typical CRUD applications, anything more resource intensive just brings
the browser to halt, and for stuff like WebGL it still hit and miss.
As for doing everything and more on a Mac, as much as I like Metal Compute
Shaders, they aren't a match to CUDA tooling.
Finally, as much as I like Apple's platforms, they are out of reach for a
large segment of the world population, no matter what.
~~~
coldtea
> _Go look around anyone doing office work on their phones._
Depends on the office work. A lot of stuff is doable on a phone even, as many
common place apps are available, if it wasn't for the ergonomics (small
screen, no full keyboard, etc).
> _As someone that does native /web development, the only area where Web wins
> are the typical CRUD applications, anything more resource intensive just
> brings the browser to halt, and for stuff like WebGL it still hit and miss._
As someone who is a heavy user of the other apps (NLEs, DAWs, drawing/bitmap
editing) where the web is a non-starter (and I don't care for all the half-
arsed attempts at web-DAWs and such), I agree.
But for business, CRUD apps are 90% of their needs, plus Word/Excel etc, for
which Google Docs is a lot of the way there (and even if not, they exist in
good shape natively for both Windows and Mac).
> _As for doing everything and more on a Mac, as much as I like Metal Compute
> Shaders, they aren 't a match to CUDA tooling._
Perhaps, I don't use CUDA or do 3D at all.
> _Finally, as much as I like Apple 's platforms, they are out of reach for a
> large segment of the world population, no matter what._
Sure, but that's also true for workstation-like PCs, and commercial
compilers/IDEs, which you're in favor of, no? :-)
~~~
pjmlp
Workstation like PCs and commercial compilers/IDEs can be had for cheaper
prices than Apple hardware.
~~~
coldtea
Depends on the "workstation like PCs" and "commercial compilers/IDEs".
Anytime I put together a decent PC with best of breed parts, it goes to 3-4K.
And commercial offerings from Dell with similar specs also go there, same for
laptops, e.g. Lenovo, and the like.
And I've seen commercial compilers/IDEs priced in the $1K/$2K range, with
which you can surely buy a Macbook Air or similar...
~~~
pjmlp
No need for a Ferrari when a Fiat does the job.
Naturally there are those that feel entitled to get a Ferrari to go down the
grocery store, but that is their problem.
If one is buying enterprise class prices, then it is always going to be more
expensive with Apple's hardware, because those compilers and IDEs are not part
of Apple's offering, adding to the already expensive hardware price.
And if by hardware workstation, you want a really beefy one, the Apple's
alternative is only their top hardware.
Thus at the end of the day, when one does the math of what one is getting per
buck/dollar/yen/..., still way over the usual budget on PC side.
------
tannhaeuser
Come on, there certainly are reasons to complain about Apple deprecating stuff
and strongarming developers into their walled garden, such as OpenGL, the
fast-move to Swift/Swift versions, SIP/mandatory signed apps, XCode a moving
target with OS updates, EFI BIOS updates for eg. booting from afs only
downloadable as part of 6GB Mojave and soon Catalina OS updates, deprecation
of semi-official Mac OS ports without equivalents on brew, stone-age Unix
userland tools (bash, awk from early 2000), Java (and now Python) unbundling,
and probably others I'm not aware of since right now I'm not very much into
developing on Mac OS and iOS.
But Carbon isn't one of them. I knew Carbon was about to be deprecated in 2005
when I was coding a crappy UI for a crappy OCR solution. Carbon was just a
forward-compat GUI lib on Mac OS classic (1998?) for apps to run on Mac OS X
(2000).
~~~
swerner
Apple may initially have intended Carbon as temporary, but has changed their
stance when they started adding new APIs that never existed in MacOS 9 -
HIView/HIWindow was intended to unify Carbon and Cocoa, there was even a 64
buy version of Carbon that shipped in Mac OS betas, and when Retina-Display
Hardware shipped, Carbon received new APIs to deal with that.
Likewise, Cocoa in 10.0 was buggy and incomplete. It took until about 10.4,
10.5 for Cocoa to reach feature parity with Carbon and many Cocoa applications
were using Carbon for certain features (in facts, last time I checked, Cocoa
menus were implemented in Carbon).
~~~
Klonoar
HIView and HIWindow were added, if I recall correctly, because it allowed
other toolkits (tk, Qt (who only recently moved off this), etc) to draw the
native look “properly”. It was never actually up to date or well documented,
and they kept it around just so the OS didn’t look so totally bizarre as you
moved through it (like you see on Windows).
Bolting on Retina support to that is such a no-brainer that I hesitate to call
it adding features - that was table stakes in making sure the switch to retina
didn’t look like total ass.
None of this stuff ever changed how Carbon was deprecated. People just sat
around not listening to Apple, and then the last two years the bigger GUI
toolkits finally did the work to transition properly.
~~~
swerner
HIView was up to date and documented, and there were WWDC sessions teaching
developers why they should move to HIView and how to do it. Likewise, Apple
provided documentation about how to port your Carbon application to 64 bit
Carbon. Maxon reportedly even had a 64bit Carbon version of Cinema 4D ready to
ship when Apple suddenly announced that they would abandon 64bit Carbon -
telling developers to disregard the 64bit Carbon they were still shipping in
betas.
~~~
Klonoar
Yeah, no, this really wasn't the case.
Toolkits that used HIView/HIWindow looked very out of date compared to proper
Cocoa implementations (Qt, contrary to popular belief, wasn't really "native"
for the longest time since they did this - it's part of why it always looked
off).
There are very valid reasons to be frustrated with Apple, but the writing has
been on the wall for this stuff for years now. Nobody should be complaining at
this point.
------
enzo1982
As an open source developer, I have mixed feelings about this.
Yes, Microsoft seems very keen on keeping Windows compatible even with ancient
versions of the OS. New stuff usually is optional and APIs that behaved
strangely in Windows 95 still behave the same way in Windows 10.
In Apple land, APIs may change their behavior whenever Apple deems it
necessary. I ran into issues because of this with almost every macOS update
since 10.8. And I see that even big players like Adobe keep running into
compatibility issues all the time.
On the other hand, I'm spending just a few hours per week working on my
project [0] and I manage to support an app that now runs on 10.5 through 10.14
and on three different CPU architectures with a single package. So no, I don't
think you need to "throw 100 programmers at it" to get a working macOS
version.
[0] [https://github.com/enzo1982/freac](https://github.com/enzo1982/freac)
~~~
saagarjha
Although, it seems like you’re reimplementing platform controls? This seems
like a mini-Qt:
[https://github.com/enzo1982/smooth](https://github.com/enzo1982/smooth)
~~~
enzo1982
Yes, that's my own custom UI framework. Most of the platform dependent stuff
is implemented in the smooth library.
In hindsight, it would have been easier to just use Qt, GTK or wxWidgets. But
I learned a lot by doing this myself and wouldn't want to miss that
experience.
------
seltzered_
Context: The authors software website:
[https://www.TurtleSoft.com](https://www.TurtleSoft.com)
A screenshot: [https://www.turtlesoft.com/Accounting-
Software.html#Chart_Of...](https://www.turtlesoft.com/Accounting-
Software.html#Chart_Of_Accounts)
I want to be respectful to an indie developer, but think it’s worth
considering the kind of niche he works in (guessing windows -centric) and
probably does more high touch sales.
I want to also guess that many of the people on that thread are from an older
generation of developers, might be worth considering what the tradeoffs have
been in language improvements that have attracted more people to writing
software compared to the authors in that thread saying C++ is all they need.
~~~
fortran77
You are being mean. Picking on a guy's website because it's not shiny and new
for you.
~~~
seltzered_
Wasn't trying to be mean, but to understand his perspective when he stated
that "For anyone smaller, it's hard to justify the constant need to rewrite
code just to stay in the same place. Return on investment is just not there."
His reply post goes a bit more into his story of trying to update the app:
[https://lists.apple.com/archives/cocoa-
dev/2019/Oct/msg00027...](https://lists.apple.com/archives/cocoa-
dev/2019/Oct/msg00027.html) . While I get author's gone through some rough
experiences, I wonder he could have sought outside investment/advising to get
a solid rewrite done & grow the business.
------
fit2rule
I hear and also feel the pain. I've been doing multi-platform app development
since the 90's, and keeping up with Apple is starting to feel like a fools
game - the work one has to do, just to stay on the platform and current with
the vendor changes to the OS is very frustrating.
Which is why I'm just going to use an engine-only approach from now on. I can,
fortunately, eschew native UI's .. since I work on creative tools and my users
prefer to have the same pixel-equivalent interface on each platform rather
than shifting paradigms.
I think that game engines are the future for all app development. There's not
much I can't do in Unreal Engine, for example .. with the benefit that the
same app truly runs everywhere.
If Apple want to continue to subvert developer minds to keep them on the
platform, fine by me. The engines see this as damage and easily allow a lot of
us to route around the problem.
~~~
jbverschoor
Good luck running 20 instances for some productivity apps.
~~~
fit2rule
Who runs 20 instances of an app? That just sounds like poor design.
Anyway, I have no problems running multiple instances of a small and light UE-
based app. Most I've had running on one machine is 5 .. but I'm not seeing the
limitation you're indicating.
~~~
thesquib
Just open multiple windows in electron and you're there!
~~~
fit2rule
Electron is just poorly engineered software.
------
princekolt
The only Cocoa API that has been deprecated in recent years is drawers. Apple
is not going to suddenly rewrite their entire desktop apps and utilities in
UIKit/Marzipan anytime soon (if ever - hell, they won't even rewrite them in
Swift anytime soon), so Cocoa is well established and here to stay for a long
time. So unless your app is entirely built out of drawers, I don't see how the
mere presence of Marzipan can affect your long term business.
~~~
swerner
QTKit was deprecated, and support for objective-C garbage collection, once
praised as the future, was removed altogether.
~~~
vlozko
To the best of my knowledge, there wasn’t much of a difference in programming
style going from GC to ARC except for a few exceptions like all those pesky
CFMakeCollectable calls that ended up being no-ops anyway.
~~~
swerner
You have to add all kinds of reference qualifiers (__strong, __weak, ...).
~~~
plorkyeran
You don't have to explicitly mark things as strong as it's the default. Having
to manually break references cycles with weak pointers does make the migration
not as simple as just changing the compiler flags, but I've never heard of it
being all that difficult. Apple managed to migrate Xcode in a single version.
------
TheOtherHobbes
Not specifically Cocoa - but audio in Catalina is a city block-sized dumpster
fire.
A good set of big audio developers - Steinberg, Ableton, Avid, NI, Presonus -
and not a few of the smaller developers have had to send out emails saying
"Whatever you do, don't upgrade yet!"
I'm sure there's a shiny happy Cupertino reason for this, but is it _ever_ an
annoying waste of time and resources for everyone involved.
~~~
macintux
Worth pointing out that Catalina hasn’t been released yet. There’s a good
chance the problem(s) won’t be fixed by then, but it’s a little OTT to gripe
about beta software.
~~~
pier25
I started using macOS in 2007 and I've learned the hard way it's not a good
idea to update to a major version right away. These days I usually wait about
a year before installing a new major version. I barely installed Mojave the
other day.
~~~
jmnicolas
I do the same with Windows. I upgraded to Vista 1.5 years after it's initial
release and never had a complaint about the OS which was much better than XP
for me.
~~~
FpUser
I skipped Vista completely (except one machine I used to test my software
with) and went to Win 7. Same thing with Win 8.
------
twarge
This constant iteration is exactly how software development works now.
By contrast to this, Quickbooks for Mac went through a ground-up rewrite in
Cocoa about 10 years ago and has been keeping up with the transitions. It's
really beautiful software that's a delight to use. They even used an SQLite
data format so that you could easily access your own data.
Apple's is best at how it gently breaks stuff to move everyone forward.
~~~
FpUser
I can't even fathom what would poor Quickbooks ever do without Apple "gently
breaking stuff".
------
jimbob45
It's not like Microsoft is any better. UWP, WPF, WinForms, and GDI are all in
various states of disrepair and neglect.
~~~
ch_123
I would say that the main difference is that many applications written for
Windows 95 will work just fine on a Windows 10 system. The Mac ecosystem has
nowhere near the same amount of longevity.
~~~
sebazzz
And even well written games, like Deus Ex. Not it's successor ironically
though.
~~~
badsectoracula
With some tweaks, Deus Ex Invisible War runs fine here on Windows 10. In
general i didn't had any game or program i couldn't get it to run in Windows
10 and i have a lot of older software.
------
mikece
I'm not familiar with the architecture of the app in question but are the UI
parts and business logic/processing parts not properly separated such that a
full app rewrite is needed? Someone referred to the backward compatibility of
Windows apps as a curse: this is especially true when companies finally decide
to update a VB6 or early 2000s WInForms app to something modern, the first
step of which is to extricate all of the business logic in click handlers. By
the time Cocoa came out the concept of separating your application into
logical layers such that things like the UI could be swapped out with newer
tech faster were well known so this __shouldn 't __have been such a big deal
if the app was constructed correctly.
------
kalleboo
They also have a blog post with more a detailed explanation than the linked
mailing list post
[https://turtlesoft.com/wp/](https://turtlesoft.com/wp/)
~~~
saagarjha
The version numbers are a bit off in that.
------
seanalltogether
> Meanwhile, our Windows version hasn't needed any work since 2000.
I see they haven't updated their website since 2000 as well. It's hard to have
sympathy for software companies that don't invest in their business.
~~~
beefhash
I, for one, rather enjoy the 2000s aesthetic. Different tastes for different
folks.
------
charlesism
The paradigm programmers deal with today is demoralizing: it’s lousy to know
your work will disintegrate in five or ten years.
For a while Mac OS 10 had support to run Mac OS 9—- via nicely integrated
emulation. Then Apple removed it.
I’d just love it if the current OS supported _all_ previous versions, via
emulation.
~~~
badsectoracula
Eh, it isn't _that_ bad. Apple is such a case, sure, but other platforms are
better. Win32 is probably the king of backwards compatibility - software you
wrote or bought 25 years ago will work just fine on modern Windows 10
(assuming you didn't do _too_ many mistakes :-P). But Linux in general should
have decent backwards compatibility too, at least for stuff not relying on Gtk
and Qt (or C++ if you go far back). Some time ago i compiled some examples
from a GUI toolkit i was working on on a RedHat from 1998 and they worked on
Debian from 2018 just fine.
In source code form you may even surpass Win32 as code written for X11/Xlib
and Motif (to some extent since that wasn't 100% compatible between different
Unices) will still compile with little to no modifications.
And of course anything you write to run in a web browser has good chances to
work in the future (client side only). Well, assuming Google doesn't
completely take over and decide that they know better than anyone else if it
is a good idea to remove stuff or not.
Also while not exactly OSes, but several platforms exists that provide
isolation from the underlying OS madness. E.g. Java/JVM is an example of a
platform that almost never breaks stuff. Languages like Smalltalk and Common
Lisp also tend to be very stable. Free Pascal and Lazarus developers also try
hard to avoid breaking code (there is still breakage but it is very rare and
in almost all cases is about bugs in the compiler - personally i had only a
couple of cases where i had to fix code over the last 15 years and that took
me only a few minutes).
~~~
charlesism
Great point. I made some assumptions without taking a mental inventory. The
issue is disproportionately an Apple issue (and even then, an issue with
programs that rely on Apple APIs).
------
m-p-3
The operating system is a foundation all developers needs to upon, and you
want this foundation to be solid in many ways.
Being secure and offering the latest technologies available to the developers
is one aspect, but being stable (in terms of ending support) and supporting
those previous technologies for a long amount of time is another. I feel like
Apple isn't doing the later.
------
perspective1
Apple's app stores are stuffed with quality apps. They don't need to give
developers a quality experience because the supply is there anyway. So they
don't. Small development shops have similar negotiating power and position to
struggling unsigned music bands.
------
mantap
For me the last straw was notarization. I am not going to beg for permission
to release software for Apple's platform. Considering the dire state of the
Mac software scene Apple should be the ones on their hands and knees begging
developers, the arrogance is incredible.
~~~
zapzupnz
> the arrogance is incredible
Every time I see a developer completely fail to understand what notarisation
is and how it works then proceed to say that their faulty understanding was
the last straw and that they'll stop developing for macOS, I can't say I feel
anything but delight. If basic reading comprehension is beyond so many
developers, I can't imagine wanting their code on my machine, even in a
sandbox.
The arrogance is incredible, indeed.
~~~
dang
Please don't be a jerk on HN, even if another comment was provocative.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
------
blinkingled
Not sure if they're complaining about runtime compatibility on macos but does
anyone know if I wrote a Cocoa app few years ago on Snow Leopard or whatever
would it still run as-is on macos version of today?
If not, then I can sympathize with their complaint that keeping up with macos
updates will be more effort than Windows. The one time carbon to Cocoa update
will be worth doing if my Cocoa app is not broken by next 10 os updates
requiring constant code updates.
~~~
mantap
Forget snow leopard, Apple can't even keep compatibility for the version they
released 1 year ago.
When Apple announces a new OS update at WWDC you have approximately 4 months
to install a beta on an external drive and fix any incompatibilities. Oh and
it's a moving target, they only freeze it just before release. This process
repeats every single year, sometimes they are so excited to break shit that
they do it in a patch release but that's much rarer.
If there's a silver lining it's that Apple has gotten so bored with the Mac
that they don't change as much as they used to, it's certainly not as bad as
it used to be, but not because Apple has suddenly started caring about
backwards compatibility.
------
Nokinside
When you consider investing into user facing software trough specialized API's
and tools, it's safe assume only 5-10 year useful life. The consequence is
that investing into user facing apps and developers has limits because ROI is
limited by current and near future user base.
Separating all the program functionality from all the OS/UI stuff pays off
over longer term.
------
musicale
Apple makes my preferred platforms, but macOS and iOS have poor backward
compatibility, and this is particularly bad for games.
Yearly ABI changes and removals impose a recurring maintenance burden on
developers to revise their apps just to keep them working. I think it's one of
the factors driving the move to subscription pricing.
------
tolmasky
I wish they would just open source Cocoa (AppKit) if they're going to just
abandon it. There were some really good ideas in there, and I think it could
possibly develop an active community to continue experimenting with them.
IMO the problem this time around isn't the pivot, but the absolute half-
heartedness of the pivot: two half-finished solutions: Swift UI and Catalyst,
neither of which works very well yet, and this after about 5 years of pitiful
development on Cocoa proper while simultaneously asking people to kind of
switch to Swift. So it really feels like 3 half pivots in those 5 years, all
to end up with something less polished than Cocoa in its heyday.
I really respect anyone who put up with working on Cocoa apps the last 5
years. The documentation has been sparse to non-existent on new features
(often times for a year or longer your best bet was to wade through a WWDC
video to get any information at all), coupled with a really miserable Mac App
Store experience that was forced on you. It's really sad that when you would
find some bug in Cocoa, unlike in the past, you could basically determine that
this was it, as everything feels end of the line and thus not likely to be
fixed.
------
marcus_holmes
I'm looking at doing desktop apps for my latest project. It's not simple.
It used to be simpler, although fragmented. There wasn't one tech for all
targets, but there was at least one tech for each platform that did a good
job.
How come writing a desktop application is harder now than it was 20 years ago?
~~~
ratww
> there was at least one tech for each platform that did a good job
I think the problem is exactly the opposite: there used to be "at most one
tech for each platform", but now there's too many choices. On top of that
there's also Electron and many multi-platform widget libraries. This gives a
lot of "analysis paralysis" to developers. There just isn't a silver bullet.
...I mean, except for MacOS, ironically, where only Cocoa matters (at least
until Marzipan). Carbon has been a second-citizen from the start, and was
deprecated in 2007.
On Windows there's UWP, WPF and WinForms, which are very productive, and are
open source now, on top of that. The only problem IMO is that they're only
"great" if you use C#. Writing windows apps with C++ is way too verbose.
On Linux it's more complicated (and I'm not familiar with it) but at least
users are much more forgiving when it comes to desktop consistency.
~~~
tonyedgecombe
To be fair C# is probably the best choice for the majority of desktop
developers.
------
ciconia
> For anyone smaller, it's hard to justify the constant need to rewrite code
> just to stay in the same place.
This sort of says it all about modern progress, or indeed modern capitalism -
you need to run all the time just to stay in place. This is also known as the
Red Queen's Race [0].
[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race)
------
sercand
I guess they don't have the resource to update their homepage last 20 years
how they can update the app?
Their website still shows how long does it take to download files on the Dial-
Up connection.
------
mwyah
Seems like they call themselves "Turtlesoft" for a reason.
------
cmsj
“Meanwhile, our Windows version hasn't needed any work since 2000”
I honestly don’t see that as a good thing. What are these people doing if they
haven’t touched their code in almost 2 decades?
------
reaperducer
_Meanwhile, our Windows version hasn 't needed any work since 2000_
While I don't disagree that it's hard to keep up with Apple, if you haven't
updated your Windows product in 19 years, then it's probably not a product I
would want to use anyway.
Imagine if web developers thought the same way. Very few web sites exist today
as they did in the year 2000, and those that do are ultra niche, or abandoned.
~~~
donatj
I disagree completely. If software genuinely hasn’t needed to be updated since
2000, it’s solid, dependable. It’s a hammer. I use the same hammer I use today
I used 20 years ago.
It’s a tool, not a gimmick. Think the UNIX tools used billions of times a day
we don’t even think about.
~~~
guitarbill
Hammers don't have security issues, which is where the analogy breaks down.
Sometimes, these UNIX tools haven't changed much on the outside, but they are
getting updates.
If you look closer though, the BSD and GNU variants of common tools have
diverged. And while I like BSD's conservative approach, some of the GNU
features are damn useful.
------
thesquib
Does anyone know if the current macOS still uses elements of Carbon under the
hood? What about Catalina?
------
codefreq
For me it just redirects to apple.com
~~~
markdown
Its a thread that starts with this:
Subject: Thoughts on Cocoa
From: Turtle Creek Software via Cocoa-dev <email@hidden>
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2019 13:14:44 -0400
Sadly, we just decided to abandon the Cocoa update for our app. It's not easy
to walk away from 3 years of work, but better 3 years lost than 5. Time will
be better spent on our Windows version.
TurtleSoft started Mac-only with Excel templates in 1987. The first prototype
of our current stand-alone accounting app was in the early 90s. Since then,
programming for Mac has gone through four primary programming languages
(Pascal, C++, Objective C, Swift). Three, soon to be four chip architectures
(680x0, PPC, Intel, ARM). Four frameworks (MacApp or Think Class Library,
PowerPlant, Carbon, Cocoa).
Microsoft and Adobe are big enough that they've survived the many pivots. They
can just throw 100 programmers at it. Intuit has barely kept up. For anyone
smaller, it's hard to justify the constant need to rewrite code just to stay
in the same place. Return on investment is just not there. Seems like each new
update is more difficult.
Many good apps for Mac have died in one pivot or another. We managed to lurch
through most of the changes, but not this one. Thinking ahead to the
consequences of Marzipan was the last straw.
Meanwhile, our Windows version hasn't needed any work since 2000. It probably
will take less than a year to get it updated to 64-bit and a better interface.
Casey McDermott TurtleSoft.com
------
floatingatoll
I wish this post focused on the core issue: they don’t make enough money from
Mac sales to be willing to replace a framework (Carbon) deprecated by Apple 15
years ago, and are instead terminating Mac support.
I’m surprised they didn’t do that sooner, but blaming Apple for ending Carbon
support is beside the point of “not enough revenue”.
------
xhruso00
They can't update their web
[https://www.turtlesoft.com](https://www.turtlesoft.com) and they charge $495
for a non-accounting licence. Seriously, the web looks like it was done around
year 2000.
~~~
FpUser
Should they? Maybe it is not that pretty but it is functional. Many modern
sites on the other hand show big nothing picture that one has to scroll down
and hunt for info. And I love that light grey text on white background which
is nigh to impossible to read for many not so young eyes.
And since they have pretty specific product I am pretty sure that their
customers do not give a flying hoot about how the site looks. They need
specific functionality from the product
~~~
thesquib
This 100 times. Form over function is apparently more important these days.
------
GnarfGnarf
Qt seems like a good solution to multi-platform requirements.
------
c-smile
That happens all the time. With any OS.
On Windows, if you have an application that draws stuff using GDI+ (20+ years
technology) then you will discover that it is not moving today on high-DPI
monitors. GDI+ is pure CPU rendering and the Moore's is over. GPU rendering is
the only option these days.
Yes, GDI+ still works. You see it renders something in your applications on
Windows 10. But you cannot use the application on your new cool monitor.
Same with CoreGraphics on Mac. CG is GDI+ alike thing by nature - pure CPU
rasterizer. Something tells me that it will die pretty soon too.
Good abstraction/isolation layer is definitely needed for the applications
that want to survive on the long run.
As an example, Norton Antivirus started using such UI layer (Sciter Engine -
[https://sciter.com](https://sciter.com)) 12 years ago. First versions were
using GDI rendering backend. Then we added Direct2D GPU accelerated backend.
With the same API. Application code and architecture did not change all these
12 years.
Same thing on MacOS. Initially the engine used CoreGraphics. Then OpenGL gfx
backend was added. And now we are working on Metal. And Vulkan for these
matters.
But API of the engine is the same as it was initially.
TL;DR: Good application architecture is still the thing.
------
KibbutzDalia
I think the future is game engines. You can write once and run everywhere. As
soon as there’s one with first-class support for Rust (as the world is clearly
and rapidly moving to Rust) the rest will be moot.
~~~
pier25
FYI Flutter basically works like a game engine.
------
abujazar
They probably should’ve started porting their app to web tech 10-15 years ago
rather than ranting about progress in native frameworks.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Is it smart to fundraise on the heels of major press coverage? - gnicholas
My startup was recently featured in The Atlantic, and we'll be on NPR next week. This is the first major press we've gotten since launch, and it's driving lots of new end users and corporate partners.<p>We have been considering raising a round and would do so if it wouldn't be too large of a time-sink. From reading others' fundraising stories, it seems like the hardest thing is getting the first commitment and turning investors' mindsets from wait-and-see to FOMO. Is major press coverage an effective catalyst in this regard?<p>I realize the answer is likely different at different stages—obviously no one ever started a B round because a newspaper wrote about them. We have seed funding from Intel Capital and would be looking to raise around $500k.
======
twunde
Fundraising is almost always a timesink so you'll need to decide whether it's
worth the time and effort versus spending that time on customer acquisition
and corporate partnerships. Good press and corporate partnerships will
certainly help in raising a new round if you choose to do so. There should be
greater investor interest, and if the good press continues while you're
raising the round it may help in closing the round. VCs and other investors
like to be validated and good press will make it easier to sell partners on
the investment.
As an aside, a potential corporate partner could be Benchmark Education. They
focus on literacy K-5th grade.
~~~
gnicholas
Thanks for the advice. I know that fundraising will take time, which is part
of the reason we've not done it yet. The worst outcome is that we spend a
month or two working on fundraising but don't end up getting terms we like and
having to decide between lousy terms or deferring the round.
The hope here is that the press will help overcome some of the psychological
challenges and make it an efficient time to raise. You're right that the
partnerships and new customer acquisition that follows from press coverage
will also be good for investor conversations. Thanks also for the reference to
Benchmark Education—hadn't heard of them but will definitely reach out!
------
samfisher83
what is your startup
~~~
gnicholas
BeeLine Reader—we've developed a technology that makes reading on-screen
easier and faster.
[http://www.BeeLineReader.com](http://www.BeeLineReader.com). The Atlantic
article, in case it matters, is
[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/05/a-bett...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/05/a-better-
way-to-read/482127/). Thanks for asking!
~~~
liamcardenas
Wow this is awesome! Keeping track of the line I am on is very difficult for
me (moreso than for other people). Reading the example text on your website
was a breeze.
Keep it up!!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Will Greece Will Exit the Eurozone in 2015? – Live Odds - lil_tee
http://www.gambletron2000.com/europe/12304/will-greece-exit-eurozone-in-2015
======
sonium
...or one could resort to the implied risk at Greek government bonds. A bond
which matures in November next year trades at about 60% of the value you will
(or wont) receive at that date. In other words the odds are roughly 2:3 that
Greece defaults until then.
[http://www.finanzen.net/anleihen/191049-Griechenland-
Anleihe](http://www.finanzen.net/anleihen/191049-Griechenland-Anleihe)
------
agiamas
if we don't, I will be really surprised...
You know nothing about our politicians..If you did, this wouldn't be 40-60 but
way more!
~~~
djloche
Based on what I've heard from family that just got back from Greece, the
referendum will come in with a strong majority voting to reject the terms from
the EU/ECB/IMF, and the loans will be defaulted on.
Does this mean that the EU / EMU will vote to kick out GR from their unions?
Or that GR politicians will vote to leave EU / EMU ? As much as I personally
hope for the entire continent to reject the EMU and return to their own
currencies, these things are less clear.
------
opcvx
Where does the data come from?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Steve Jobs Biography is a Book for Anyone who likes Good Stories - jonutzz
http://bookoworm.blogspot.com/2011/10/steve-jobs-biography-is-book-for-anyone.html
======
parfe
I normally have no issue with someone using an affiliate tag to link to a
book. Generally if they give an honest recommendation I think they deserve the
affiliate bonus for the effort.
The author of this "blog post" on the other hand did not even bother to
disguise his straight-up advertisement. The blog only has one post which
exists to sell you Steve Job's biography!
Flagged for being flagrant affiliate marketing spam.
~~~
agnov
The guy does mention that it's his first post as a blogger. I checked his
profile and he is on blogger since 2007. Probably it's a genuine effort,
probably it's spam!
I liked the post anyways, premature but looked honest!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Snapchat Spectacles – here's what it's like - tech_h
https://www.cnet.com/products/snapchat-spectacles/preview/
======
JumpCrisscross
> _No one was sent any Spectacles to review, and they 're not in stores.
> Instead, pop-up dispensers have become the only way that early adopters can
> line up and grab a pair to try. A single yellow "Snapbot" vending machine
> that looks like a minion emerged in Los Angeles, and is now moving around
> the country to undisclosed locations. People had to line up to buy one
> before the supply ran out._
Savvy, modern marketing job.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do you organize and pick a week long retreat for small group? - kiddz
We're looking to do some bi-monthly trips where our remote team of 7 can fly to another country or city and work for a week together. But it seems like all the flight schedulers are built for individuals -- kayak or google flight. And then of course we are looking to find an AirBnB that we can all stay in.<p>I've done some searching, but have have found a small agency that can plan and organize all of this for us. In my ideal world, we could pay someone like $50 a head to search and organize several options for us to choose from. No reselling or anything. Basically just a person/company to do all the discovery work.<p>Any ideas on where to go? Feels like there should be a company out there to do this.
======
trcarney
I would use something like [https://upside.com/](https://upside.com/) to book
all the flights. Have one person organize the AirBnB and stuff, then have each
team member book there own flight through the website.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Coding Is Over - prostoalex
https://medium.com/@loorinm/coding-is-over-6d653abe8da8
======
elliotec
"GraphQL will completely replace REST in the coming years." What the hell?
Where's your source for that?
She says the solution is that product managers should be able to make an app
do whatever they want to do and skip the engineers. This makes her sound very
inexperienced. Don't you think we would have gotten there by now if possible?
So her new mission is to create a drag and drop interface that can build every
app every company would ever want, and she doesn't have a clue how to do it
"but probably with React." Nice.
Does she think the only thing requiring code are websites? Does she think we
can just drag and drop Google search algorithms and space shuttle software
into existence?
This almost seems like a troll article.
~~~
cortesoft
I am pretty sure it is satire. It has to be, right?
------
santaclaus
> When many products are essentially the same app with different color schemes
> and copy, why are we still coding?
Self driving cars, virtual and augmented reality, the automation of
everything, consumer level fabrication, the explosion of machine learning and
data science into everywhere... I think there is plenty of room in the world
for more code!
------
kreutz
Such clickbait. "Coding" will never be over. We've come along way from punch
cards and it will continue to be abstracted further and further.
~~~
martijndwars
Abstracted further and further, up to the point where someone without
programming experience can tell a computer to do the thing it should do,
making "coding" (or at least how we know it now) redundant. Have you thought
about it this way?
~~~
brador
Actually abstracted further and further until AI takes over and they meet.
That is the moment coding will be over.
------
xiaoma
Previously submitted here (over the past four days):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11957926](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11957926)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11957544](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11957544)
------
andrewjl
Clickbait-y headline. But the author makes some valid points. Software
engineering is in the end just problem solving. And re-implementing already
resolved issues from scratch does not a good engineer make. (And by that I
mean in a professional context, not in the beginning for purely educational
purposes. I learned web dev by re-writing a simple Twitter clone from scratch
and still recommend that as the best way to get one's feet wet.)
There are untold opportunities to make the tools we use to build software more
capable and reduce the cognitive load that a large code base imposes on it's
engineering team. The next few years should be interesting.
~~~
aries1980
The thing is the problems are never solved. They might be solved in one way,
for one given case, but problems can't be generalised at that scale.
Just look at the tyres. You use different width, different patterns for
different road types, per season. And the industry is still evolving!
Even a programming language can't fit to all scenarios!
------
platz
> My current undertaking is to build an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface.
We tried that in the 90's with Rapid Application Development (RAD), massive
code-gen, and clunky workflow abstraction tools.
It didn't work. Coders simply cannot be replaced easily with power user's
tools.
Unless you are building a product that is not differentiated in any way from
your competitors. (Cost, functionality, services.. etc.) But if not, then how
do you hope to stay in business?
Wix and Squarespace are nice, but lets acknowledge they are targeting a
completely different market than corporate startups.
------
galistoca
> This makes her sound very inexperienced.
[https://medium.com/@loorinm/becoming-a-software-engineer-
is-...](https://medium.com/@loorinm/becoming-a-software-engineer-is-hard-
bc125c5eb69d#.in3ac9834) She was admitted to "Hack Reactor" in October 2015.
Well that escalated quickly.
~~~
dang
Whoa, that crosses the line. If you think someone is wrong, explain why
substantively, not by digging up details from their résumé. Your snarky swipe
at the end is particularly distasteful. Please don't do that when commenting
here.
Edit: I see that we've had to warn you about this before
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11624990](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11624990)).
This is really not ok for this site, so if you do it again we will ban you.
We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11981661](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11981661)
and marked it off-topic.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
FTC forces Sears, Kmart out of the spyware business - profquail
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/ftc-forces-sears-kmart-out-of-the-spyware-business.ars
======
ujjwalg
"Under the settlement (PDF) with the FTC, Sears has now agreed to destroy all
data gained from the experiment and stop collecting data from any software
still running in the wild. In addition, if it wants to do any tracking in the
future, the company has committed to "clearly and prominently disclose the
types of data the software will monitor, record, or transmit. This disclosure
must be made prior to installation and separate from any user license
agreement. Sears must also disclose whether any of the data will be used by a
third party."
The thing that bothers me about this whole thing is that any company can do
whatever they want and in the end the worst that can happen is that they have
to destroy and not repeat it.
------
pyre
What I want to know is:
1\. Why did they think that pulling data from participants' secure shopping
carts was a good idea?
2\. Why did they even need to look at participants' webmail information?
3\. Why did anyone at Sears/K-Mart think that this was a good idea _at all?_
Pulling all of that extra customer data _increases_ their business risk. If
that information was to leak somehow and damage a customer financially it
would be bad legally and publicity-wise for both companies. And let's face it,
K-Mart and Sears don't exactly need bad publicity at this point in the game.
------
heycarsten
Even with all that data, they still suck at marketing.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Newzly-phantom – Asynchronous type-safe Scala DSL for Cassandra - alfl23
https://github.com/newzly/phantom
At newzly we use Cassandra for a variety of services. We loved Foursquare Rogue for MongoDB and we created a similar tool for Cassandra.<p>Phantom is still in its early stages, but we look forward to your feedback and contributions!
======
vassvdm
It's great to see new asynchronous NoSQL drivers popping up regularly now. I
guess the Play framework team started something when they made ReactiveMongo.
~~~
alfl23
Glad you like it. We were indeed inspired by ReactiveMongo and Foursquare
Rogue.
Looking forward to more feedback!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Where Apple went wrong with free apps - shawndumas
http://www.manton.org/2011/03/where_apple.html
======
ZeroGravitas
Strange to read analysis of Apple that's actually insightful and not a fawning
apologia or a wild eyed attack.
On the topic of free apps allowing in-app purchases, I noticed recently that I
felt trapped by in-app purchases in games I downloaded for my kid. The apps
control the screen and seem, at least on apps aimed at kids, to make it
intentionally easy to misclick and purchase something, having tiny, well
hidden controls to cancel back out or continue without purchasing or
upgrading. Since the only hardware button takes me right back to home I feel
trapped like I'm browsing the seedier parts of the web with a pre-popup
blocker IE. Not really an "Apple" experience.
~~~
dzohrob
I don't understand - all actual purchases go through mandatory, non-
customizable Apple UI. There's a "Confirm your In-App Purchase" AlertView,
which will also trigger the entry of your iTunes password if you haven't
purchased recently. It would be very difficult to misunderstand the purpose of
these dialogs. Am I missing something?
~~~
ZeroGravitas
You're missing the fact that if you install any app, even a free one, you will
be prompted to enter your password. Then for the next 15 minutes you wlll not
be prompted again as your child takes the phone to play their new game and
racks up thousands of dollars of in-app purchases.
This was a big story not that long ago and prompted an FTC investigation.
Apple fixed it in their latest iOS update by prompting for the password every
time.
Even for an adult, using the phone alone without a child's fingers prodding
randomly at the screen, a popup with an _instantly charge my credit card_
button and a _cancel_ button right next to each other is hardly a peaceful and
serene thing to deal with when it pops up unexpectedly as you try to hit the
tiny button that you hoped would allow you to avoid this very question. That's
why it reminds me of those "You are trying to leave this webpage! OK Cancel"
things.
~~~
jayfehr
They have fixed this in the most recent iOS update. In-app purchases will
always ask for passwords now.
~~~
ZeroGravitas
Yes, that's what I said in the second sentence of my second paragraph above.
But since you bring it up again I'll point out that this update is not
available for my iPhone 3G that I have retired and now use exclusively for
kids games. Instead I have to manually sign out after an install.
------
tomkarlo
This is something I had been wondering during the previous arguing around in-
app purchase commissions.
Up-front app costs, in-app purchases, in-app subscriptions... they're really
all the same thing. You can't charge 30% for one and not for the other... and
if you allow folks to transact the purchase outside your ecosystem, you
basically get nothing.
With Apple not enforcing the ability to get in-app purchases, the only thing
preventing out-of-band sales is the convenience factor. What if someone just
set up a fiat currency site where you could go buy credits that would then be
accepted by iPhone apps? They could then be sold entirely free, but just
require that you sign in with that external account so they can take some of
the prepaid credit.
------
statictype
If Apple is really losing money on the App Store, then maybe they ought to
change the model.
Make the yearly developer license cheaper - $50 or $20 or whatever. Then
charge another $20 or so every year for each app that you publish. Developers
who put out a lot of apps will pay more than those who have the license but
have not even released an app yet.
They could come up with a way to charge for every 'major revision' (ie, not a
bug-fix update) you push out so that developers who are constantly putting up
updates (and thus using more of the reviewer's time) end up paying more.
------
kasperset
"If Amazon isn't happy with Apple's terms, users can install the Kindle app
outside the store" There is a jailbreak for that and it would defeat the
purpose of Appstore i.e. Walled Garden.
------
bugsy
That's a very interesting analysis. Apple is breaking even on the App store,
and the idea is free apps cost a lot of money to host because of volume
distribution costs (as opposed to sunk one-time costs for having the store at
all). If we assume this is true, then pay apps are subsidizing the cost of
their free competitors.
------
nod
If they've paid out 2 billion to developers, that's 850 million to Apple. Does
anyone think they're close to spending 850 million to run the App Store
system?
It IS a profit center.
~~~
danilocampos
They're losing perhaps $100 million to credit card transaction fees. Then,
salaries for god knows how many sysadmins, developers, designers,
sales/marketing people, app reviewers, accountants, on and on. Assuming that
just 5% of its ~30,000 non-retail employees work on the App Store, salaries
eat up another $150 million.
So now we're down to $600 million, or so.
Then you've got bandwidth, infrastructure maintenance, scaling costs, utility
costs. You've got to pay out cash to developers each month, so now there are
banking fees on top of the ones you see when you collect money from consumers.
Still, let's be extremely generous here and pretend that operating at this
scale costs nothing at all.
In such a case, operating the App Store made Apple a profit of $60 million a
quarter since it opened. Apple's Q4 2010 profits were _$4.31 billion_ , making
the App Store in such a scenario worth a whopping 1% of Apple's profits.
In reality, once you account for all the hairy stuff we skipped, it's probably
a lot closer to a rounding error than any kind of significant contributor
itself.
~~~
cageface
You have to keep in mind though that the app store drives hardware sales.
Looking at it in isolation obscures the point of its existence.
~~~
danilocampos
_Everything_ Apple does drives hardware sales. They're a hardware company. The
App Store creates a virtuous cycle that makes their platforms more useful. The
point, here, is that they aren't making money from the operation of the store
– they're just barely breaking even. Would they operate at a _loss_ to
continue improving their device sales? I doubt it. And the crux of this piece
is that Apple is doing what it can to keep this monster from turning into a
money pit.
~~~
cageface
Obviously they don't want it to become a money pit, but I still think it only
makes sense to consider app store revenues in the big picture of the entire
iOS business. I'm sure they'd rather it were profitable but even if the store
ran at a reasonable loss it would still be an essential and healthy pillar of
their business.
------
kasperset
Free apps give you the taste of other paid apps. Everything looks free but
there is always some cost behind it. I think app store as a freemium business.
We cannot discount the hardware purchase and the halo effect of the Apple
products.
------
joezydeco
_"Many of the hits in the App Store, like Angry Birds and Doodle Jump, have
never been free."_
My homescreen says differently. I don't get what he's trying to say here.
------
J3L2404
At the end Manton says:
>Get rid of exclusive distribution, and Apple can be more creative about
charging developers who do want to participate in the App Store
I like Manton, but:
1) Exclusive distribution is the wall of the garden. As mobile ascends the
garden is richer and more concentrated, drawing more varmints. For most people
if their PC doesn't work it's annoying, if your phone doesn't work it's
unacceptable.
2)As for Apple being more creative with charges...They certainly can't charge
any developers more than 30%, but what about less. He himself points out, you
have to be consistent in your fees or everyone will move to the cheapest
option.
------
racketeer
interested in mac programming and small business... whoo boy
seriously though, anyone who suggests excluding free apps would have to be
crazy. free users lead to paying users.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Sleep Support: An Individual Randomized Controlled Trial - troydavis
https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/02/17/sleep-support-an-individual-randomized-controlled-trial/
======
PragmaticPulp
I usually like Scott Alexander's work, but this article left me scratching my
head.
He was sleeping an average of 8 hours without any supplements, so it's not
surprising that he wouldn't see much difference with sleep aids. I wouldn't
expect most of the named supplement's ingredients to have much impact after 8
hours anyway.
That said, Nootropics Depot has been moving more toward branded proprietary
blends lately, presumably to increase profit margins. Some of their recent
marketing material has really been over the top and exaggerated (see the CBD
material). I trust their quality control, but they're not a great source of
information about compounds.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Capitalism needs a welfare state to survive - rblion
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/07/12/capitalism-needs-a-welfare-state-to-survive
======
dr_dshiv
I am troubled by the lack of rational discussion of "capitalism" and
"socialism" in the society today. Partially, this comes from the complete
failure of modern academic philosophy to make cultural contributions. Part of
it is from the weakness of a two party system that both seem to advocate for
necessary and insufficient social functions.
The terms capitalism and socialism, on their own, are virtually meaningless,
being shorthand for any number of specific policies. For instance: Are
monolopolies a failure of capitalism or an inevitable outcome? Is capitalism
stronger with or without monopolies? On the socialist side, is social
ownership of the means of production necessary for maximizing the distribution
of goods? Or are free markets and profit motives appropriate strategies for
promoting social value?
Instead, you have the wall street journal treating socialism like idiocy and
millennials treating capitalism as an obvious evil.
This is rather practical philosophy... So I'm disappointed things aren't
further developed in our polical discourse.
~~~
darepublic
Unfortunately people in general are not interested in discourse, they want
convenience and novelty.
------
sunstone
There are few topics that provide a better intellectual Rorschach test than
the economy.
Communism is the most appealing if only because it's the natural system of
families and of hunter gatherers. Sadly, the 20th century emphatically
demonstrated that this system doesn't scale into anything other than a
complete disaster.
On the other hand, capitalism is brutally horrible. But it's one saving grace
is that it does scale. You can run a 2 billion person economy on it and things
will work out overall and through time. That is, if you overlook the long time
constant, positive feedback loop of the concentration of capital. Eventually
just a few guys own all the stuff which is sub optimal.
Raw capitalism guarantees winners and losers, and a whole spectrum of outcomes
in between. This can be fixed up a bit by first, having government regulation
of clear market failure zones, like food, construction and finance etc. And
second, having the government collect a reasonable percentage off the top of
the economy to subsidize those being squished to death at the bottom.
Scandinavia does this best. Sure, they're not perfect, there is no actual
perfect solution.
The result is an elephant of a system that few people can view in its entirety
but most people think they can.
Given such a messy, devisive, inscrutable system you have to believe there
must be a better way. But there's probably not.
------
pasabagi
It's hard to say if the article is tautological, or if there's a fundamental
(and common) confusion here about what the state is in relation to capitalism.
The modern state co-evolved with capitalism, and as a result, it's
institutions are generally what capitalism needs to survive and prosper. The
point about a welfare state is not really whether or not one is necessary for
capitalism; the point is more that it is necessary for a specific type of
capitalism.
For instance, Toyota wouldn't work without a welfare state, because you need
the kind of social stability a welfare state creates to preserve and shepherd
a really skilled workforce. Ford, on the other hand, neither needs nor desires
a particularly skilled workforce, but rather leans more heavily on intense
capital investment (automation) - so an expanded welfare state, necessitating
higher taxes, is a net loss for Ford, since they aren't all that interested in
stability, but they are interested in low taxes.
Making arguments about whether or not people _like_ or _support_ free markets
is kind of missing the point. The point is, certain business models are
predicated on certain forms of social organization. That's why Google is based
in Silicon Valley, not in Shanghai, and why Foxconn is in China, not Japan.
~~~
zozbot123
> The modern state co-evolved with capitalism, and as a result, it's
> institutions are generally what capitalism needs to survive and prosper.
This is either tautological or empirically wrong, depending on what exactly is
meant by "the modern state". In many ways, the problem with our current
welfare states stems from the fact that they evolved under the material
constraints of mid-20th-c. capitalism, when, for example, even the unskilled
could easily find lucrative manufacturing jobs, and a welfare state simply had
to fill in a limited amount of income gaps resulting from unemployment
(generally due to short-term business crises), medical conditions, retirement
and the like. Back in the mid-20th century, a baseline UBI wouldn't have made
much sense, for example. The situation today is vastly different, since
incomes are skill-biased to an extreme extent. Welfare states should be
reformed to provide a baseline subsidy even to those who are currently working
(assuming a low income, of course), while at the same time leaving them with
the right incentives to improve their skills, productivity and income, perhaps
in unconventional ways such as "bootcamps", MOOCs or "gig" work, that
governments can't easily track or manage. Something like UBI, or Milton
Friedman's proposed NIT, would seem to be highly appropriate.
------
ralusek
Even pretty staunch libertarians are willing to entertain the value of the
state when it comes to the transition into post-scarcity markets, and even
this transition into markets that net diminishing value from many human
endeavors (as we are already seeing). I just think that most libertarian
types, myself included, don't want that to mean an overbearing bureaucratic
system that necessarily creates perverse incentives and rations resources
along politically contentious dimensions. Let us keep our markets, just help
balance them. Universal basic income to keep the bottom in check, anti-
monopoly, anti-collusion to keep the top in check, and then please fuck off.
No affordable housing, no welfare, no social security, no food stamps, no
shelters. Just give everyone cash and fuck off. If they want to create an
authoritarian sub-state, or sibling-state, for the people that just cannot
take care of themselves, despite all the necessary resources literally being
deposited in their bank accounts, so be it, but don't rope the rest of
functional society into the moral authoritarian nightmare we're currently
already sinking into.
~~~
harimau777
What checks would be in place to insure that the UBI was sufficient to
substitute for eliminating affordable housing, social security, and food
stamps?
~~~
dragonwriter
UBI shouldn't replace Social Security, since SS is not a means-tested benefit
program.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Bitcoin's minimal value - fcacaafbffc
Some people claim that Bitcoin is a bubble, and that it's value will drop to zero. While such an event can happen, I think we'll see large scale mining operations shutdown before that happens. The proof of work system gives Bitcoin an intrinsic minimum value.<p>Imagine you are running a large mining operation in a datacenter. To keep the math simple, let's say that you win the mining "lottery" once every ~150 blocks, i.e. you are mining one coin per day. You must pay for electricity, datacenter space, return on your hardware investment, and other expenses. You will therefore only keep your operation going if you can turn around and sell your coins for some minimum value (say $150,000 per month). The presence of miners thus implies (with my made up numbers) that the coin has a minimum value of $5000.<p>It also implies that the same amount of money is entering the crypto currency every 10 minutes. I.e. the currency is growing and we can observe it by looking at the difficulty to mine one block.<p>External factors are giving Bitcoin a minimal value. Are people who are speculating on future prices taking all these externalities into account?
======
bsvalley
The thing is, if its value drops to zero, we might lose a few dollars here and
there right? A lot of high profile people and edge funds would lose hundreds
if not billions of dollars. So we’re good no worries...
Now, if 1 BTC reaches 500k-$1 million, it’s all good and it’s actually
possible when you look at it as a product vs need + market size.
No risk no reward ;)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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SQRL – Secure Quick Reliable Login - sr2
https://www.grc.com/sqrl/sqrl.htm
======
cm2187
I am unfortunately not bullish that this will pick up but there are strong
arguments for this way to authenticate.
\- you would typically store the private key on a disk-encrypted app-
whitelisted iphone, so that the computer you are browsing with, whether yours
or a public machine, is never involved in the authentication. Effectively this
achieves 2FA. And you don't care if the machine you browse with is
compromised.
\- this does not rely on a third party, it is purely an authentication
mechanism. So it removes the risk of that third party tracking you, selling or
leaking your data.
\- it should be fairly practical and easy to use, does not rely on installing
anything on the machine you browse with
\- the website you authenticate to can be hacked, it stores no useful
information that can be used by another domain
I am not sure Gibson has the audience in the sillicon valley required for this
to become mainstream. But the principle makes a lot of sense to me. Of course
your are still exposed to the password protecting your private key being
stolen, which gives the attacker access to everything, but this is no
different from a password manager. Except that unlike a password manager, you
do not need to enter that master password on the machine you are browsing
with, which considerably reduces the risk.
~~~
cormacrelf
There's a slight problem. It doesn't 'effectively' achieve 2FA at all. If I
lose my phone and lose my master key, I lose my all my identities, and even if
I somehow remember them, I can't prove they are mine.
HMAC(Master key + Domain) -> private key + identity (public key)
HMAC(Master key + Domain) + challenge -> response
Lose that master key, and you can't get anywhere. By contrast, FIDO U2F works
loosely like this:
1. first factor
2. HMAC(Master key + Domain) + challenge -> response
Key point being that it's still 2FA, where SQRL is still just one factor. If
you lose your FIDO device, at least as it stands, most sites make you have a
token generator app as well, or at least a path through customer support.
It may help to think of an email + password as being two factors, and various
2FA solutions actually being _three_ factors. Email is something you can prove
independently of your password. SQRL has exactly one factor, and zero failover
strategy.
It's debatable whether it should be possible to get through customer support
after losing anything, but the 99% of online security infrastructure that
builds a chain of trust upon your email address really does work for most
people in most cases. It's terrible that email addresses are easily correlated
across different websites, but the reality is that any replacement identity
solution needs to be as easily restored in case of failure.
For SQRL to work and give you an out for lost master keys, it would need at
least a way of creating a redundancy, like replacing HMAC(Master key + Domain)
with an asymmetric negotiation of the correct identity, or adding another
layer of indirection that makes the master key replaceable.
~~~
cm2187
Depends on how you define two factor. To me it is using a different device
than the device you authenticate with and unless you compromise that device
you cannot authenticate any other way.
The way it deals with compromised private keys is that you can store the list
of websites you authenticated to on a central location and run a reset of all
your authentications on all websites in one go from there. But then it relies
on a third party.
I don't pretend that this is the ultimate solution (nor am I aware that there
is an ultimate solution) but it does seem more secure _and_ practical than
anything else I have seen so far. I am sure you can make more secure but less
practical and of course less secure and more practical.
~~~
HurrdurrHodor
2FA requires 2 authentication factors like a password & a token i.e. your PIN
and banking card. It doesn't really have anything to do with where you enter
those. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-
factor_authentication](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-
factor_authentication)
------
md_
SQRL has always annoyed me because of Gibson's propensity for presenting this
as novel work. QR-based logins have been around for a long time--as with
[http://www.zdnet.com/article/open-sesame-googles-no-
password...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/open-sesame-googles-no-password-log-
in/).
Of course I don't know what the mechanics of Sesame were, and Gibson does a
good job of fleshing out a particular protocol, but this kind of hype seems
typical of Gibson.
That said, he also overstates the value of SQRL quite a bit, I think. It's
certainly a good system for preventing use of passwords--which is valuable in
its own right--but his handwaviness around implementation hides some obvious
flaws.
First, if this is a mobile app--which seems most likely--then we can't
actually assume IP sharedness between the app and the login browser, so this
is really trivially phishable.
Second, if this is client software on the same machine as the browser, why do
the silly QR scan thing when you could just have some solid browser
integration that actually validates the server SSL cert--and is thus phishing
proof--a la FIDO? Hell, even a browser-based password manager is safer against
phishing than this, since those at least can validate the domain.
It's hard to see in which context QR scanning is preferable to the
alternatives already in existence--FIDO, which provides true security, or
phone-based "yes/no" assents, which are more usable and equally phishable.
------
nickik
I think this is great, but its time has come and mostly passed in my opinion.
The future belongs to FIDO UAF and U2F.
They are building a hole ecosystem with all kinds of capability and additional
security that SQRL simply can not provide. Most important being anti-phishing
protection. They are working on mechanism that would allow you to use the
phone as a authenticator even when working on your desktop, this is part of
the upcoming version of the standard.
They are already very popular and in a lot of hardware, they are working with
w3c to standardize, part of the Web Authentication group.
Some people wrongly assume that UAF is only about but it could also be
somebody entering a password or pin. The main attraction is that it allows for
independent evolution of authenticaters without the server having to know or
care (he can care if he likes). This will be a game changer.
~~~
floatboth
Uh excuse me?? SQRL provides excellent anti-phishing protection. There are no
reusable credentials across domains, and the domain can be displayed on your
authenticator.
[https://www.grc.com/sqrl/phishing.htm](https://www.grc.com/sqrl/phishing.htm)
~~~
hdhzy
Domain displayed is no real protection, actually its weakness is what drives
phishing. But the link you provided contains some interesting info:
> How SQRL changes things
> When using SQRL, users do not identify and authenticate themselves with a
> username and password. Instead, their unique user identity is derived from
> their secret master key and the website's full domain name.
So that's similar to what U2F does - domain name (origin) is part of the
protocol.
------
nkkollaw
This is awesome.
I just hope that people secure their phones. I recently got a new Android
phone and it has no password and no encryption by default, so I assume most
people leave it like that.
If you get access to my phone you can access 10+ years of pictures, email,
bank account, and all the services I use.
Besides this, I love it. Can it be implemented in a website, already, or is it
just an idea..?
~~~
jelv
It's not released at this moment. But it will be released soon™. Also there
are already a few examples in the wild (WordPress plugin, Android lib, etc)
here:
[https://www.grc.com/sqrl/implementations.htm](https://www.grc.com/sqrl/implementations.htm)
~~~
nkkollaw
But... I read in the comments that it's from 2013..? It will never be released
I guess, then.
[https://securelogin.pw](https://securelogin.pw) as another user suggested
might be a better alternative, then.
Too bad, I really liked the name.
~~~
Cyphase
It has been in development since 2013, but it still is under active
development, and is probably(?) going to be released relatively(?) soon.
------
eugene_pirogov
This is actually implemented in the biggest bank of Ukraine, PrivatBank.
1\. Open login page [https://www.privat24.ua](https://www.privat24.ua) on the
computer, you'll see a QR code,
2\. Take your phone, open bank's official Privat24 app,
3\. Within the app select "Scan QR code",
4\. Upon scanning, the page on the computer is reloaded and you are presented
with the dashboard.
Very convenient. I wish more services across the internet would provide the
same means to log in (although, of course not every one service can afford
having a dedicated mobile app).
~~~
wink
Sounds awesome, whereas my German bank still doesn't allow proper passwords,
only "PINs" no longer than 5 characters.
Fun fact, you can change your login though, it can be 15 characters including
non-alphanumeric. /s
~~~
elcapitan
Which German bank is that?
~~~
wink
Stadtsparkasse München - and I'm not sure if the other Sparkassen are better.
Maybe some are, you never know what exactly they share and what's different.
------
rs232
My bank has been using this for a few years now, and it quickly became my
preferred method of logging in. Open the bank app, scan the code, punch in a
PIN on the phone and the browser bank opens almost like magic. Very easy to
set up for non techies as well.
[https://secure.skandiabanken.no/Authentication/QRCode](https://secure.skandiabanken.no/Authentication/QRCode)
~~~
kennydude
Sounds a lot better than UK banks with their stupid "enter the third, fifth
and seventh characters of your password" which is frustrating
~~~
mbreese
It also makes you wonder how they know what the third, fifth, or seventh
characters of your password are...
I suppose they could create multiple hashes each time you change your
password, but I'm not optimistic.
~~~
arethuza
My UK bank requires a password and a separate secret phrase that they do the
letter selection from. You need to supply the password and 3 letters from your
secret phrase.
As my phrase is quite long I pretty much always end up writing it down or
using an editor.... :-)
~~~
kennydude
I have a lookup table in 1password as my brain can't work with indexing random
strings with numbers in them easily
------
ramriot
Very much comment here on this subject, unfortunately very much of it
references out of date or incorrect sources or even misses the point entirely
possibly due to the posters not understanding the underlying concepts.
I partly blame myself for the first part as I am a contributor to SQRL and
have been lax in keeping my part of the documentation current as things
progress, Steve has had similar problems.
As to the second, SQRL is not a 2FA succinctly it is a:-
Single factor (1FA), 2-party, Zero knowledge, pseudonymous proof of identity.
The use of QR-Codes was an early feature but is mostly relegated in favour of
same device authentication, with I hope a brand new feature (Client Provided
Session) that will effectively detect & then eject a MITM attempting a session
hijack from the connection.
The nature of the 2-party relationship is such that no site can determine
without the collusion of the user themselves if that user has an SQRL
authenticated account on any other site, hence pseudonymous.
Reference implementations require that the Master Identity file is stored in
an encrypted form and only decrypted at point of use by a key derived from
something only the valid user can provide (passphrase, biometric), thus user
to identity is confirmed.
Loss of an unprotected Master Identity File exposing the Master Key is not
fatal because although the master key will provide the means of access it does
not allow an attacker to update site specific keys. There is effectively a
Super-Master Key that is never exposed but protected with an exported system
generated encryption key that is held offline for such an eventuality.
Finally because this is a protocol cooked up by a group of enthusiasts we
always welcome constructive input and entities willing to offer support in
getting SQRL more widely understood.
------
s_tec
Aside from a few cryptographic details (like which elliptic curve to use),
this system is identical to
[BitId]([https://github.com/bitid/bitid](https://github.com/bitid/bitid)).
BitID is already being deployed in the Bitcoin ecosystem. For instance, you
can see it on the buy/sell service
[Glidera]([https://www.glidera.io/loginbitidqr](https://www.glidera.io/loginbitidqr)).
One benefit of doing this in the context of Bitcoin is that users already have
mobile apps that can manage private keys (with backups) and scan QR codes.
With Bitcoin, if you lose your keys, you lose money, so there is a tremendous
incentive for both users and wallet authors to get this stuff right. Using the
same technology for logging in an easy next step.
------
Veratyr
Something that I haven't seen mentioned yet is that systems similar to this
are already pervasive on the Chinese internet.
Here's Taobao's login page:
[https://world.taobao.com/markets/all/login](https://world.taobao.com/markets/all/login)
And Alipay's: [https://login.aliexpress.com/](https://login.aliexpress.com/)
Both have that little QR code icon peeking from the corner. You just click
that, open the relevant app on your phone and you're in.
~~~
md_
Flipboard also uses QRs. But to be accurate, this is a convenience feature,
not a security feature. It's still phishable.
------
Gehinnn
This is truly awesome! But I miss a single source that has everything users
and developers need to know. For SQRL to become mainstraim this is absolutely
necessary. Right now there is
[https://www.grc.com/sqrl/sqrl.htm](https://www.grc.com/sqrl/sqrl.htm) (1),
[https://sqrl.pl/](https://sqrl.pl/) (2) and [https://github.com/vRallev/SQRL-
Protocol](https://github.com/vRallev/SQRL-Protocol) (3) and some other sites.
(1) looks a bit out-of-date in terms of design and has no clear instructions
how to integrate it into own websites. (2) links to (1) (3) could be more.
I am looking for a webpage like this: [http://swagger.io/](http://swagger.io/)
And this: [https://github.com/swagger-api](https://github.com/swagger-api)
Besides, it would be awesome if browser plugins could make SQRL available for
sites that don't support SQRL yet.
I haven't read the protocol specs yet - does SQRL allow metadata exchange
between the authenticating client app and the website? Especially for
registrations this might be very useful. For example, the client could suggest
a TTL for the session or provide an email address the website can use to
contact the user.
------
tdeck
Reminds me of a startup called clef. When I went to link to them, I found
they're shutting down:
[https://getclef.com](https://getclef.com)
~~~
laurent123456
I guess this kind of technology will pick up once Facebook or Google adopt it
(or, more likely, develop their own).
------
joschkadev
[https://tillmanns.me/authentication.html](https://tillmanns.me/authentication.html)
------
chuckdries
So it says SQRL is "stateless", but I'm still confused. You'd still use
cookies or JWTs to implement sessions, right? How do I actually identify the
client that I just authenticated? In other words, when the user clicks
'login,' what is actually sent to me, the nonce? Is the url in (this
graphic)[[https://www.grc.com/sqrl/sign-
algo.png](https://www.grc.com/sqrl/sign-algo.png)] the login page URL? If so,
do I have to use an intermediary cookie to remember which client I sent a
given URL to?
~~~
laurent123456
I think he means that the authentication process itself is stateless, as you
don't need to store any usernames or passwords. I don't think you even need to
store the nonce since it will still be on the page by the time the
authentication process is complete.
~~~
cm2187
What I think they mean by stateless is that the private key used for the
website is derived from the master private key and the domain name of the
website. So the only state to maintain is the master private key. There is no
need to maintain a list of what key was used for what website.
~~~
paulryanrogers
Which is its greatest weakness IMO since a compromise of the master key means
all accounts using that key are vulnerable. And one doesn't need the key
database to get it. It could be guessed.
With passwords an attacker has to guess each site independently, or gain
access to the password database and the decryption password.
IIRC the SQRL file itself is like a database of master keys so one can change
them in an orderly way. But the idea is to have only one, or a few.
~~~
cm2187
Which is why the master key shouldn't reside everywhere.
But this is no different from any other password manager. Once you have the
master password, you can access everything else.
The difference in my opinion is that because you would only leave this master
key on one device, preferably a hardware protected, encrypted device like an
iphone, stealing this key is significantly difficult. Whereas with a password
manager, you have to type your credentials on a machine open to malware and
key loggers.
------
oliver2213
I really like the idea, but the time frame of when the protocol will be
"complete" seems (as noted by other commenters here and by the fact that it
looks to have been posted in 2013) a bit sketchy. Still, I'm seriously
thinking about making server / client libraries for myself and others so this
is less of "Here's this really cool idea and a few sort-of complete
implementations", and more "Here's this really cool idea, and here's how you
can integrate it into your sites if you want".
------
homakov
Check this out - it actually has implementations -
[https://securelogin.pw/](https://securelogin.pw/)
------
4e1a
I have a backup of my SQRL keys for when this goes mainstream. I really like
the idea, but am not hopeful it will become widely adopted.
------
falsedan
Why does this need an app? Looks like it would work just as well with a
browser extension reading the QR code.
~~~
arnoooooo
Actually the QR code is not even needed then. It's just browser-generated
ids/keys.
~~~
cm2187
But there is a strong argument for storing the private key on a different
machine, particularly a disk-encrypted, app-whitelisted iphone, rather than on
an open platform likely full of malware and telemetry like a mac or a pc.
Then you need a way for your 2FA device to interact with the browser to do the
login for you. A QR code is as good as another method.
~~~
falsedan
What about a smart card then?
~~~
cm2187
Even better except that now you have to carry it around everywhere.
------
davidkhess
To me, the fatal flaw in SQRL (and options like it) has been MITM (man in the
middle) attacks. For instance:
[https://security.stackexchange.com/a/46205](https://security.stackexchange.com/a/46205)
~~~
ramriot
Which would make it no worse in that respect than anything else & in many
respects much better, please Note:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14472929](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14472929)
The use of remote QR-Code authentication is no longer a key feature here, the
expectation is that it will almost never be used unless for exceptional
circumstances.
~~~
davidkhess
Can you expand on what "Client Provided Session" means?
~~~
ramriot
Very simply:
In the browser session authentication use case, as well as a sqrl:// scheme
link being launched the browser makes a parallel internal probe and then
direct GET request to [http://127.0.0.1](http://127.0.0.1) on port 25519 which
is locked by the local client the payload of the original link base64URL is
encoded in the url, which hands over control of what follows to the client
application.
The client performs authentication as normal, but instead of the session being
updated via a browser push a redirection response is returned to it via the
client which leads to a single use very temporary and unguessable link that
kicks off the authenticated session.
Because of browsers same origin policies and other security protections we
believe it is not possible for an MITM attacker actively tunneling a valid
SQRL login page to gain access to this information.
Clearly this does rely on the browser agent upholding strict security
policies, but then if it did not you would have much bigger problems.
~~~
davidkhess
It seems like this would require native browser support because if it were
done in Javascript, couldn't the MITM be able to take the redirect response
and send it on to their backend?
If it does require native browser support, I would worry about chicken and egg
adoption issues.
~~~
ramriot
You may think that, but does not appear to be so. The response is a 302/3
redirect which automatically puts it outside the bailiwick of the attackers
scope.
Provided that is the attacker is not using same domain origin, scheme, port
etc. Which if they were you would perhaps have greater problems.
That said, we will all be testing that feature most thoroughly.
~~~
davidkhess
Unless you actually set the address bar (i.e. window.location) to
localhost:25519 I don't think this is going to work. I've used ajax with REST
APIs that return 302s and you will receive the body of the destination page as
the return value to the ajax call. The page in the window (window.location) is
not going to change. And this is of course if localhost:25519 returns the
proper CORS headers in the first place to allow the ajax GET to even occur.
I think the only way this could work is if you set the window.location to
localhost:25519 when starting the SQRL authentication. That will result in
harder UX problems to solve but it does seem feasible.
Regardless, having reviewed FIDO and the W3C Web Authentication API, it seems
to me that SQRL doesn't have a chance of seeing any wide adoption once those
two are available. They have the dual advantage of standardization and
platform control that are nearly impossible to overcome by external offerings.
------
jelv
No more username, passwords and your are in control. Seems like a perfect
protocol for login and authentication.
How will it work on mobile only world? Can this also work on iOS and Chrome
OS?
~~~
cm2187
You would typically store the private key on a single device to reduce the
risk of leaking it. Authentication on another device is done through the QR
code. Authentication on the same device is done through the SQRL app
registering a protocol. So you tap on the QR code, it opens a SQRL:// url
which opens in the SQRL app, the app authenticates, the websites redirects you
to the desired authenticated page.
~~~
jelv
So my ID's are in my SQRL app on my laptop or phone. Can I sync my ID's
between my laptop and phone? I don't want to be forced to use my phone to scan
a QR code on screen for every site..
Can 1Password implement SQRL?
~~~
cm2187
I don't know about the particulars of the app, but at the end of the day, the
only data stored in the SQRL app is the private key. All website specific keys
are derived from a combination of the domain of that website and of the
private key. So there is no need for a sync mechanism per se, outside of
originally sharing the private key.
That being said storing that key on your (encrypted) mobile only is what
protects you.
There is an option to maintain the state of which websites were used to
authenticate, but that's only to reset your access should your private key be
compromised (or mobile stolen). Then your SQRL app should sync the list of
websites with some central location. This would ensure that the day you think
the key is compromised, you can reset all access to all websites with a new
private key automatically (this is part of the SQRL protocol).
On 1Password, I don't see why not. Gibson made the protocol open source and
free.
------
ConfucianNardin
Note: This was first published in 2013 (or maybe even earlier).
It hasn't gained traction since, so it seems unlikely it ever will.
~~~
jelv
The development started in 2013, but it's, at this moment, not finished. Steve
Gibson commented that it's almost complete and is just working on the
documentation. So it's not that weird that it's not adopted in mainstream
sites.
~~~
torgoguys
Just commenting on timing here, not the pros/cons of SQRL, which is a whole
other discussion:
It's been "almost done" for a long time now. At Gibson's 2014 digicert
presentation, he said he would be able to demo it in about a week. Nope, that
initial demo didn't happen for another 6 months, IIRC. Shortly after that demo
--we're talking June 2015--the Windows client was (checking transcript)
"almost finished." Today is exactly TWO YEARS TO-THE-DAY later, and I don't
think the client is yet complete.
I'm all for doing something right, and that's his stated reason for why it's
taking so long, but it also means that based on past history, you should take
his time estimates with a HUGE grain of salt. He's slow--it has been nearly
200 weeks of time where he claims he has been working on this more-or-less
"non-stop" and that it has been his "focus."
~~~
rdsmith24
I agree, I've been hearing that this is "done" for years! He's not even
supposedly working on his main product "Spinrite" because he working on SQRL.
------
chaz6
Does this have the facility to choose an identity when logging in since you
may have more than 1 account on a site?
~~~
cm2187
I think you can achieve that in the SQRL app (I don't know if it does in
practice). The app would have multiple private keys with one flagged as
active. You would toggle which is active before reading the QR code (or
tapping on it if on the same device).
~~~
borplk
I believe technically it "computes" the private key on the fly as you need it
(it's derived from the master key plus other factors to make it unique per
site/user).
------
shardullavekar
Have a look at [https://authme.io](https://authme.io) \- we have both app and
SDK for a push notification based authentication.
Do have a look at [https://medium.com/@shardul.citrus/passwords-bad-ux-
security...](https://medium.com/@shardul.citrus/passwords-bad-ux-security-
loopholes)
P.s. I work for AuthMe.
~~~
nextlevelwizard
Seriously what even are you offering? Your web site doesn't tell me anything.
Everything is just "pattern lock" that and "pattern lock" this. Are you just
substituting passwords with freaking 9 point "pattern lock"? Because that
sounds super dangerous and weakens security significantly (and it's not like
people are going to use different patterns for all websites/services anyway)
Also your signup says "no credit card required" are you asking money for this?
Because as far as I'm aware SQRL is completely free to use.
~~~
cormacrelf
Not to mention authme.io redirects to authme.authme.authme.host. I love it.
~~~
stapled_socks
That's pretty odd. I struggle to see the point. Certainly didn't help
establish trust in the service.
------
midnitewarrior
This was posted about 4 years ago, and it was half baked and fully attacked by
wherever I saw it posted.
I was quite annoyed by it because I had a similar idea that addressed some of
this scheme's weaknesses that I was developing before this was released (half
baked!), and the negative attention this brought wasn't going to create a warm
welcome for my concept, so I dropped it.
------
sametmax
But if somebody steals your unlocked phone the person can connect to your bank
?
~~~
vim_wannabe
I'm guessing it depends on the client. Most security oriented software on
iPhone at least ask for unlock code or Touch ID when opening the app.
~~~
falcolas
You typically have to set a security code first, before those can be
requested. My memory of setting up a new phone is rusty, but I don't recall
this being a required step.
------
Numberwang
For those in Sweden(and maybe elsewhere), is this similar in any way to the
method BankID uses?
~~~
theninth
By BankID I think you are referring to "mobilt BankId"? They are both
providing 2FA, but that is where the similarities end. They solves completely
different problems.
If you use an e-mail-adress (and a password of course) to login on multiple
sites, anyone with access to those sites databases could check which services
you uses and they could collect all data from all of those databases to get
alot of information about you.
Mobilt BankId is like that but worse from a privacy perspective. It make sites
(I think, someone correct me if I'm wrong) able get, not only the information
you provided, but also tie that to your real life identity. That's great for
Skatteverket and Försäkringskassan, but for "Random Hacker Forum", it might
not be that great.
SQRL will not in itself reveal anything about your identity. Even if you use
SQRL to login in on different sites and someone had access to all of those
sites databases they would not be able to see that you use the same SQRL-
identity to login.
Also, BankID is relying on a third party for authentication where SQRL is not.
------
daveio
This can be instantly disregarded because Steve Gibson is a charlatan. He's
got a history of getting things wrong as loudly as possible in order to
generate reputation.
[http://attrition.org/errata/charlatan/steve_gibson/](http://attrition.org/errata/charlatan/steve_gibson/)
~~~
towerbabbel
It seems to be one of the immutable laws of the internet that whenever there
is a discussion of anything related to Steve Gibson someone will invariably
post the link to that attrition.org site.
If I may disregard the entire Ad hominem part and instead focus on the people
posting the link. I must wonder how many have actually read what the site says
about Steve Gibson and given some thought to what it might mean.
It records a dozen or so issues over a the last 17 years. He has been doing
the Security Now podcast since summer of 2005. That is a two hour podcast, 50
episodes a year for twelve year. That is 1200 hours of content. That is like
40 books worth. Then there is also the columns he has written and so on. 40
books attempting to explain security issues to a wider audience with only a
dozen errors seems an amazingly low error rate to me.
If you also look at what sort of errors are reported you see that some of them
seem to be more the errors of degree, rather than kind. He seems to have a
tendency to blow things out of proportion; for hyperbole. But if hyperbole is
such a deadly sin, why is their go to reference for Steve Gibson errors The
Register?!?
Now I'm sure Steve Gibson has made more mistakes than those, and the he holds
silly opinions on some things. Everyone does. But that attrition.org page does
not seem to convince me of anything aside from making me lower my esteem for
the attrition.org site.
I do wish that rather than this sort utterly lame Ad hominem attacks proposals
were judged on their own merit, but this is the internet, so maybe I shouldn't
hope for too much.
~~~
MichaelGG
Dunno, read stuff like this:
[https://www.grc.com/ssl/ev.htm](https://www.grc.com/ssl/ev.htm)
Which has the basic premise of "if you run a device completely controlled by
your company, somehow Firefox will magically have special code integrity that
IE doesn't".
~~~
tmottabr
What he is referring to is that you can add EV certs to IE via group policies.
So your company can make any site show the green ev bar in IE.
This cannot be done in any other browser so in firefox, chrome and everyone
else a green bar means a valid ev cert from a real certificate autority.
On the other hand in IE a green bar does not mean anything because group
policy can make any cert show as ev with green bar and all.
~~~
MichaelGG
And if you're running a device where other people have root, then you probably
shouldn't be trusting binaries to display certain colours.
------
HurrdurrHodor
A more viable competitor: [https://www.n-auth.com/](https://www.n-auth.com/)
~~~
cm2187
But this is a commercial solution. SQRL is an open source / free protocol.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California - dionmanu
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/12/uber-may-shut-down-temporarily-in-california.html
======
pininja
I work at Uber outside of the rides/eats business and observed many feature
releases to adjust the business after AB5.
What I saw released:
\- Enabling drivers to see where a rider is going before accepting the trip
[0] [2]
\- Removed a main penalty for declining rides, “No More 85% Acceptance Rate
Requirement For Uber Pro” [2]
\- Drivers get set their own fare with a multiplier [1] (the article details
screenshots and backend balance rules)
Now every dollar coming in seems to very clearly go from rider to driver.
\- removed upfront pricing in California and once again charging riders the
precise trip amount based on time and distance. [0] [2]
\- A new driver incentive was released too tied to purchasing the service fee
at a lower rate [3] (since every dollar is supposed to flow clearly from the
price breakdown)
\- “Favorite Driver Feature”, so even if they set higher fares, riders will be
able to request one of their favorite drivers if they’re nearby [2]
These seemed primarily to try to address the flexibility evaluated by “Prong
A” of AB5, however some public experts were concerned it wouldn’t address
“Prong B”, which requires the “drivers’ work is outside ‘the usual course of
the company’s business,’” [0]. This might have been where the judge focused
their ruling.
Other companies didn’t make changes for drivers, “Lyft [also afaik Postmates,
and DoorDash] continues to operate as if it’s business as usual.” [0]
[0]
[https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-02-03...](https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-02-03/uber-
ab5-driver-app)
[1] [https://therideshareguy.com/set-your-own-rates-uber-
feature/](https://therideshareguy.com/set-your-own-rates-uber-feature/)
[2] [https://therideshareguy.com/uber-rolling-out-new-driver-
feat...](https://therideshareguy.com/uber-rolling-out-new-driver-features/)
[3] [https://therideshareguy.com/uber-drive-
pass/](https://therideshareguy.com/uber-drive-pass/)
~~~
rubatuga
This is horrible for customers, the worst part is when drivers don't want to
pick you up.
~~~
adrianN
Here in Germany proper Taxis have to pick you up (as far as I know, I almost
never need one). That's apparently the main reason they offer why they should
be protected against services like Uber.
~~~
sneak
That’s the law in most places in the US, too. Uber was founded because it
wasn’t really true in practice. You couldn't order a taxi in most places
without giving your destination, and frequently they just wouldn't show.
Uber was, and remains, a huge improvement over the pre-Uber status quo.
~~~
DEADBEEFC0FFEE
For drivers or riders?
~~~
fosk
Both. As a driver, no medallion mafia and astronomical prices to deal with. As
a rider, no taxi drivers and their horrible service to deal with.
Taxi companies are monopolies allowed by the state, it sucks for the last ones
who paid $300,000 for a license to operate just before Uber took off, but
technology finds its way.
------
rrrazdan
Well this just sucks. As a frequent SF visitor, Uber/Lyft used to be my
primary way of moving around. I don't drive.
I also don't see who benefits from this. You had a well functioning service
for the users that will be disrupted. You had a flexible way to earn for
drivers that will be disrupted.
I chat with drivers a lot (to practise my English) and lots of drivers really
like chatting too ( A lot of them were recent immigrants as well and perhaps
like to practise their English with a non native). Many drivers were doing
this as a part time thing. Or doing this before they went on to better things.
One for example was studying Architecture. I have even had a Porsche pick me
up and the driver just wanted to get out of his house.
A lot of drivers were sure forced to drive for Uber for lack of other
alternatives but that is not Uber's problem. They did not add to the problem.
Society failed there. This law helps no one and is a clear example of no skin
in the game virtue signalling trumping common sense.
~~~
Barrin92
> also don't see who benefits from this.
Long term society by establishing that Uber doesn't get to write the law and
dodge their responsibility as an employer. It's about time they get knocked
down a notch after their campaign against DeBlasio.
~~~
jjcon
I agree with you but I also think that they should have waited.
Right now is a terrible time to wipe out the gig economy. So many people are
turning to it and it is creating value. Economic/employment changes like this
one are best suited when the market is strong because people job mobility is
higher etc.
~~~
jonahhorowitz
There was no choice to "wait". AB5 was passed to fix the law because of a
court decision [0]. Had they (the CA Legislature) not passed AB5, the court
finding in Dynamex would be just as bad for Uber.
The court doesn't have an option to "wait" just because it's a recession.
Uber doesn't have a choice to "wait" because this ruling is going to go into
effect in ~10 days unless the stay is extended.
[0] - [https://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/dynamex-operations-
west-...](https://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/dynamex-operations-west-inc-v-
superior-court-34584)
~~~
diebeforei485
The authors of AB5 took the liberty of exempting certain professions
(presumably influential voter blocs and donors) from Dynamex.[1]
If you drive delivering beverages, whether you're an employee or contractor
under AB5 depends on whether or not that beverage is milk.
I don't see why they couldn't have anything in there for rideshare.
[https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB5)
~~~
techslave
I detest uber. yet AB5 is an abomination, an embarrassment. sad
------
jacobn
We’re legally unequipped to deal well with gig workers.
They’re arguably neither contractors nor employees, and shoe horning them into
either category will inevitably lead to some absurdities.
~~~
yaur
I think it's more like "gig workers" were created to try to do an end run
around hard won protection for workers. The idea that someone driving (or
waiting for pickups) 40+ hours a week is somehow different is different than
somehow different than someone (e.g.) doing tech support for 40+ hours a week
is absurd.
~~~
GhostVII
It is entirely different, since you can start or stop your work at any time,
can choose to only work when the pay is good enough, and are not committed to
a single company. I don't think a job where you can start working by just
installing and app, and get paid by the job, should be treated as the same as
one where you are required to work some amount each week and get paid the same
every week.
------
lhh
> Becerra said in an interview on CNBC on Tuesday that he was unconcerned
> about the potential for Uber to leave the state as a result of the order.
> “Any business model that relies on shortchanging workers in order to make it
> probably shouldn’t be anywhere, whether California or otherwise,” he said.
This type of attitude drives me crazy. These companies have paid billions of
dollars to drivers, who voluntarily decided to work and earn this money. If
drivers felt the arrangement was unfair, wouldn't they do something else? How
is anyone better off by these companies being legislated out of existence?
They're already hemorrhaging cash as is.
It's astonishing to me that government leaders believe workers are better off
with fewer options, regardless of the perceived quality of them. Or maybe they
don't actually believe it but are willing to inflict the damage anyway for the
sake of virtue signaling.
~~~
slipheen
That's a really harmful outlook.
If company A decides that they are going to pay their workers (say) $3/hr, and
illegally bypass the minimum wage, it _DOESN'T MATTER AT ALL_ if they can find
workers willing to work for that amount.
As a society, we've decided that certain offers aren't acceptable, even if you
can find someone desperate enough to take the offer.
You shouldn't get to just ignore the law because you're big enough.
(And Yes, in practice big companies do ignore laws more than they should.
That's a bad thing, and a reason to do better, not a reason to give up).
~~~
twblalock
There is a floor to what people will be willing to accept -- if they can make
more money from unemployment benefits than from working, they won't work.
Many Uber drivers are facing a choice between gig work and unemployment, and
they chose gig work. If they had better options they would have chosen those
instead, but they didn't. Clearly they prefer gig work to unemployment, and
for most of them, those were the only two options.
Taking away gig work does not help gig workers. It removes the only option
they had, and it forces them into unemployment. If that is the outcome they
wanted, they would have chosen it already.
~~~
newacct583
That's not the way UI works. Benefits must be qualified for; you generally
have to have had a job that you lost (gig economy jobs complicate this
severely and often disqualify people). You can't just "quit" and pick up
benefits. And there is a time limit in all states after which the benefits
terminate.
Very, very few people at any given time have a "choice" as to whether to get
unemployment or work a gig job.
------
slipheen
Them shutting down is a perfectly acceptable outcome.
California has essentially told them "You're doing an illegal thing". They're
response is essentially "Oh yeah? Well then, we'll stop doing the illegal
thing!"
Thank you? That's what you were asked to do in the first place?
If they aren't interested in operating legally, then pivot or disband the
company.
~~~
valuearb
Yes, a terrible solution for drivers and riders both. Back to the taxi
monopolies.
~~~
JKCalhoun
Or an opportunity for a new ride-share company that doesn't claim their
employees are contractors.
~~~
remote_phone
Even taxis claim their drivers as contractors.
~~~
Slartie
An individual taxi driver owning a cab, a license if necessary, paying for his
insurance and getting the money from his passengers is an individual
contractor, yes.
It's just that he contracts with the individual riders, not any higher-up
monopolistic business entity that sets arbitrary business-driven rules that
all taxi drivers have to follow.
~~~
valuearb
Very few drivers own their cars (or more importantly their monopoly
medallion). Those are owned by investors like the presidents former lawyer,
Michael Cohen.
[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/08/23/tax...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/08/23/taxi-
commission-warns-michael-cohen-they-may-revoke-his-medallions.html)
~~~
Slartie
Isn't that only the case in certain metropolitan areas? It is a huge problem
indeed, but the problem there is the medallion system having degraded to
become a shady get-rich-quick investment scheme. This is unrelated to the way
in which the drivers are operating.
They just lease their car and medallion from someone, paying that guy a fixed
rate per day for that lease, but that does make them neither a contractor nor
an employee of the guy who owns car and medallion.
If they also were to lease the clothes they wear while working from a tailor
instead of buying them, that wouldn't make the drivers in any way into
contractors or employees of that tailor.
~~~
remote_phone
Absolutely false. Most taxi drivers don’t own the medallion, and in fact when
they start their shift they owe the taxi cab company $80-100, so they need to
work for a few hours just to get to break even.
Your mental gymnastics to try to justify why taxi drivers aren’t employees but
Uber drivers are is showing.
------
ghaff
Maybe I'm cynical but "temporarily shut down" sounds like a formula to:
\- Inconvenience a certain class of urbanites who have grown accustomed to
being driven around in the hopes that they
\- Complain loudly to their representatives and other governmental officials
in the hope that
\- The state will reverse this judgement
~~~
aqme28
Uber isn't the only company who provides this commodity.
If Lyft continues to operate, that certain class of urbanites will switch to
Lyft before they complain to their reps.
~~~
ghaff
Lyft certainly has the option to comply with the law and jack up their prices
to compensate. There are probably fewer "frivolous" reasons to use ride-
sharing at the moment anyway and a decent percentage of that class of
urbanites aren't all that price sensitive.
~~~
dragonwriter
> Lyft certainly has the option to comply with the law and jack up their
> prices to compensate
They also have the option, if they can find the financing, to comply with the
law and burn money building an entrnched user base _before_ jacking up prices
to compensate.
I mean, even on the old model, that's how Uber got itself entrenched and hard
to displace.
------
stephencoyner
“If the appeal doesn’t work out for Uber, it will be banking on voters to
determine its fate. Khosrowshahi said if that’s the case, the service would
likely shut down in California until November, when voters in the state decide
on Proposition 22, which would exempt drivers for app-based transportation and
delivery companies from being considered employees.”
It’ll be REALLY interesting to watch this all unfold.
------
paulcnichols
Decoupling “benefits” like healthcare and retirement from employment is the
real issue. Should be a government responsibility, given out equally, paid for
by taxes.
~~~
asdff
We already have social security and medicare. The problem is that we refuse to
expand these excellent social programs, opt to hobble them, and then point out
how bad they are after we've bled them out. The American way.
------
Grimm1
Uber has generally seemed like a net benefit and I've taken a lot of rides
(hundreds to low thousand) and have generally conversed with most of the
drivers I've had and the gig work has been beneficial to them, they make a
decent standard of living for a HCOL area enough for a family and get to set
their own hours. Hard pass on regulation like this and good to see Uber push
back with the levers they have.
I will add that some regulation would probably be beneficial but not this one
in particular.
~~~
dangus
You can set your own hours with W2 employment. There’s nothing that says that
Uber can’t give their W2 employees that flexibility.
They could hire W2 employees right through the app, there is no technical
barrier.
Uber just wants to avoid their fair share of payroll taxes and employee health
regulations that their upper caste office employees enjoy. They want to
provide benefits to some employees but not all, purely based on their job
description.
I bet your ridesharing gig worker friends you know would love no longer
covering the full payroll tax bill, and they’d love to be covered with workers
compensation if they got into a car accident while driving for Uber.
If companies don’t want to pay for healthcare and benefits anymore, maybe they
should start putting their lobbying efforts toward making healthcare paid
through tax revenue rather than through the inequality and inefficiency of
employer subsidy and for-profit private insurance companies.
~~~
Grimm1
You're only partially correct I as a salaried employee could technically set
my own hours but If my employer pinged me at 2am and asked me to do something
and I said no I wouldn't have recourse if they fired me. If I'm a contractor I
can set those hours in the agreement with the company with legal backing if I
then refuse to work during hours I've said I do not wish to work.
But you're debating regulation in general and I'm specifically arguing AB5 is
overly restrictive.
Edit: I can clarify as well, it may very well be the case they are employees
but this isn't the regulation to do it because it is actively harming workers
in multiple industries besides ride sharing.
~~~
dangus
I’m confused, what does Uber have to do with salaried employees?
This is the workflow.
1\. Gig worker applies for Uber in the app.
2\. Uber approves the employee as a W2 employee. Their schedule is...whatever
they want. They never get scheduled for a shift. They never get “fired” unless
they do something that would get them get kicked off the platform just as it
works today.
3\. When the driver starts the driving mode, they start the clock on their
shift. This counts the number of hours for the purposes of healthcare and
other benefit requirements. Perhaps if they deny a ride request, the clock
stops or considers the previous ride to be the end time.
There is no legal requirement for an employer to fire a W2 employee over being
unwilling to work a shift. There’s no legal requirement for a W2 employer to
set a predetermined schedule.
What is the problem here, can you explain?
~~~
Grimm1
[https://www.integrated-
payroll.com/difference-w2-employee-10...](https://www.integrated-
payroll.com/difference-w2-employee-1099-employee/)
The setting your own working hours part. You're just a bit wrong there.
~~~
dangus
Okay, so Uber mixes both those scenarios.
I wonder if Uber has filed SS-8 to have the IRS evaluate the situation.
They have fixed performance guidelines (star ratings) and fire employees for
not picking up jobs (rides). The employee also only works for Uber (not the
individual customer, who is anonymous until the job is accepted), who
determines the rate and is the ultimate decider if the completed work is
accepted (they resolve all customer disputes and are the final say on whether
you get paid, not the customer). Uber determines the method of completing work
(e.g. how long you have to wait for customers before canceling).
Critically, these “contractors” are integral to Uber’s regular business
operations. 100% of Uber’s product relies on its drivers.
On the other hand, they don’t provide equipment or set schedules. Clearly
their mode of work blends aspects of W2 and 1099. But also, because these
drivers are integral to Uber’s business, it’s possible they’re in violation by
_not_ compensating for/providing equipment. Again, the drivers are told who to
pick up and where to go, and if they don’t do it while they’re on shift, they
get “fired.”
The only factor that comes close to making them a contractor is the lack of
schedule, and maybe the fact that they can go work for Lyft too. But every
other aspect of the job looks like W2 to me. More checkboxes are on the W2
side of the guidelines.
So, California’s law fills in that logical gap by determining that, in this
scenario, the workers are W2 employees.
If the IRS has a problem with the law in California, I assume they might have
said something by now, or sued the state?
------
dreamcompiler
There is zero barrier to entry for a rideshare service. (Just ask the city of
Austin.) Absent COVID, competitors would be coming out of the woodwork to
supply this market with fairly-paid drivers. That means the cost of a ride
will double, but that simply means we'll be paying taxicab rates for much
better service than taxis provided in the past. We've known all along that
Uber's prices were too low to be sustainable anyway.
~~~
ars
> Just ask the city of Austin.
[https://communityimpact.com/austin/central-
austin/impacts/20...](https://communityimpact.com/austin/central-
austin/impacts/2020/06/12/rideaustin-shuts-down-operations/)
"RideAustin shuts down operations"
"Other ride-hailing companies that entered the market in 2016 have also since
suspended their operations in Austin. Fasten ceased its U.S. operations in
2018, and Fare closed in June 2017."
~~~
ntsplnkv2
That's because the business model just doesn't work, it requires ridiculous
scale and the ability to exploit workers to function - that is why Uber is so
aggressive with this and even more reason to shut it down.
------
jamesliudotcc
I mean, consider the alternative, which is how taxis used to work. Investors
like Gene Friedman would own fleets of medallions, and drivers would rent the
medallioned cars. Or drivers would own their own medallion. Definitely, for
sure, the drivers were not employees.
One big difference was that there were no big public companies to sue. In
Chicago, clever class action lawyers tried suing the city, since they set all
of the standards that are the basis of the employee/contractor distinction. It
got up to the 7th Circuit, where Posner wrote an an opinion that went
basically "uh, no."
------
skapadia
I don't know what kind of background checks and interviewing (if any) Uber
drivers have to currently go through (beyond having a valid driver's license
and good driving history?), but if I'm hiring someone as a full time employee,
you better believe I'm going to be more rigorous and it will cost me more, and
that will limit the number of available Uber drivers IMO, or the number Uber
will allow to work for 40+ hours. In turn that lowers supply, driving up Uber
prices even further. I don't know how this makes sense overall. If a driver
chooses to Uber as their primary (or sole) source of income, that's their
choice. Do drivers that hustle more for Uber get a larger cut? (I think that's
fair).
This is not about Uber, but about how a government can force something on a
business model. Something seems off about forcing a company that created
massive opportunity for people in the first place. (I am in no way supporting
Uber because I think their leadership and culture have very questionable
ethics).
How much more are local, state, and federal governments going to reap from
taxes once drivers are classified as full time employees?
~~~
Aeolun
> If a driver chooses to Uber as their primary (or sole) source of income,
> that's their choice.
Government partially exists to protect people against themselves.
~~~
x3n0ph3n3
That's a rather contentious statement. Many would say it is solely to protect
people from each other and outside forces.
------
slicebo123
Civic safety nets should be the responsibility of duly elected governments.
Pushing health care, sick leave, etc., onto businesses is so backwards.
Our body politic wants all these protections but can't muster the will to do
it "properly". I see this as "pass a law, and make it someone else's problem".
~~~
ntsplnkv2
> Our body politic wants all these protections but can't muster the will to do
> it "properly".
This simply isn't true - one party runs on being against all of these
policies.
------
bhupy
Lyft announced that it would do the same:
[https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/12/lyft-president-says-it-
may-h...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/12/lyft-president-says-it-may-have-to-
suspend-service-in-california.html)
------
xiaolingxiao
Could this be posturing to get the state to back down on the enforcement of
its decision? And does anyone have a guess if Uber is making money in
California right now? Given the state is still in lock down.
~~~
throw_m239339
it is. Airbnb tried to pull the same trick in New York City. All Uber has to
do is follow the law. Of course they can't since their business model is based
on violating labour laws. If your business model relies on doing something
illegal to make money then you are no better than the mafia, it's just
organized crime.
As for people here who invoke "freedom of work". Most people doing these jobs
don't have much choice at first place, in order to survive. But eventually
Uber will backstab them, one way or another.
~~~
paulgb
> Airbnb tried to pull the same trick in New York City
I think this is a good comparison, with the caveat that there is a major
difference in the political calculus: the people who get the most benefit from
AirBnB in NYC are people visiting NYC (i.e. people who can't vote in NYC).
AirBnB is generally not popular among the people who live here because people
don't like transients in their buildings and perceive it (probably rightfully)
as driving up rents.
Uber/Lyft on the other hand are used by locals (i.e. voters) as well as
tourists. They are perceived as bringing prices down by breaking the supply
constraints of the medalian system.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
------
hbarka
Can we talk about the upside of being a contractor? It takes more effort to
keep tabs of what you do but there are many benefits to being a single person
entity. I believe lack of education about being an LLC or incorporated
entrepreneur or maybe the high bar of understanding its benefits contributed
to the opinion that being W2 for Uber is much better.
------
vadym909
Great- I think this will bring forth the root cause of the problem which is
employer tied benefits and employer tied taxes. Right now there are entire
business models based on avoiding taxes and benefits.
You can have protections like min wage, sick leave, etc and still make it
really simple os that evvery individual pays the entire tax (employer and
employee payroll taxes) for every dollar they earn. It can be scaled based on
annual amounts just like they are now. It'll be transparent and everyone will
pay it.
~~~
ThrustVectoring
The nominal burden of who "pays" employment-related taxes or benefits is
completely separate from who the actual tax incidence falls on. Would you
rather get paid $10k that you owe $1000 of taxes on, or get paid $9k with the
$1k of taxes already withheld for you? Either way, the total cost of employing
you remains the same for the company, and the take home pay after taxes
remains the same.
~~~
lawnchair_larry
Not quite, taxes are actually higher if you are self-employed. You have to pay
SECA, which effectively includes the portion that your company would have paid
otherwise (on top of the amount that they withhold and pay on your behalf).
~~~
ThrustVectoring
That's not taxes being "actually higher", that's taxes being paid in a way
that increases the total cost of hiring someone without showing up anywhere on
the pay stub of full-time W2 employees. Like, it changes the numbers to
something like "$9k with $1k withheld and $1k of employer taxes" vs "$11k with
$1k of income taxes and $1k of 'employer' taxes that you now have to pay"
------
drtillberg
Golden opportunity for the taxicab industry to get its act together and
compete on a semi-level playing field.
~~~
temp667
The corruption here is incredible - the taxi cab industry had insurance of
like $20K per accident (talk to the women who got brain damage), would never
pickup in bad areas AND paid their workers as.... independent contractors!!
You think your taxi driver is a W2 employee - please think again.
The number of carve outs in this new "principled" rule is incredible, and more
industries keep asking for them (freelance writers, gig musicians etc). Laws
should ideally be broadly and equally applied, not this here is the rule
except for a, then b, then c,d,e depending on who can lobby in their
exceptions.
Pathetic.
~~~
mayneack
What are the taxis doing with AB 5 then?
~~~
temp667
This is a law with numerous carvouts (ie, pretty garbage in first place) and
HIGHLY selective enforcement.
The discussion is no longer logical. You can't say here is the law - here are
facts - here is result. Now it's here is law (with lots of totally random
elements and exceptions that are confusing for everyone involved if you
actually try and comply with it - I've had folks says they promise they are
independent businesses, and they look and act like it, but the law says things
like if they don't have all the business licenses setup they are not, and some
cities like SF require that if you do work for a company that has business in
SF that work can be considered happening in SF and so you need to get licensed
there etc etc).
I used to be a stickler for trying to get folks to comply with AB5 - but I'd
guess we are at 70% noncomplaince still against letter of law - and it's not
worth fighting employers AND contractors to get everyone to switch when they
don't want to.
One workaround I've been recently is to hire out of state or look at
offshoring - freelance writers are a good example where I don't think there is
a way to really hire them legally in CA, but you can still hire them outside
of state as I understand it. The mechanics of turning all authors into W2
employees is such a big leap, but most authors don't have all the right
business licenses setup in every city they might have work appear.
------
asdff
I've been bearish on Uber recently when they fleeced me with their credit card
rewards recently. That barclaycard used to offer straight cash back, 4% at
bars being the big one, which made it one of the best credit cards out there.
Then one day I checked my rewards balance and lo and behold, it was converted
into useless uber bux that I can only spend on uber eats, which I avoid given
the premium, or rides, which I am not going to ever do unless I've been
inoculated for covid 19.
Very slimy anti consumer and anti driver practices, and I hope this statewide
pull out means the writing is finally on the wall for Uber. I lust for the day
ever since they ruined my favorite credit card.
------
ocdtrekkie
Seems like a fair outcome to me. If they can't operate within the law, they
shouldn't operate.
~~~
sjroot
Sounds like a great outcome for the people who are relying on that work for
income right now.
~~~
ceejayoz
If Uber hasn't been preparing internally for the possibility of losing this
suit, they've been irresponsible in the hopes that California would go "oh
shit, they're gonna shoot the hostage".
~~~
ericmay
Well, I'm sure they have. They fundamentally disagree with the outcome, and so
they will just not operate in California. Nobody will because the business
model won't allow you to pay people enough money without charging too much. I
also fundamentally agree with Uber and others here. They created a platform
for someone to make a few bucks. If I sell something on Etsy they don't have
to all of a sudden pay for my healthcare costs. The fact that people have
turned to driving for Uber (and others) highlights problems with our
government, economy, and priorities, not the companies. I really wish people
would stop giving government a pass and wanting corporations to come save
them. Go vote, educate yourself, and do something with your democracy. If
people have to resort to driving for Uber to live, then that's something we
need to fix at a state-wide or country-wide level.
Many people depend on rideshare like Uber to get to work like a public
utility. Maybe if California (and this is true of other areas) actually built
and invested in bike able neighborhoods and public transport, then they
wouldn't need Uber.
California will lose this one eventually. You don't know what you have until
it's gone.
~~~
asa4akj
comparing uber and etsy is dishonest at best.
The only freedom an uber contractor has is "when to work". All the pricing and
trips are decided by uber, and they can't even reject properly. They are in
fact an employees in everything but legal status.
In etsy, you choose your prices, what you sell, and even to whom you sell to,
it's definitely a market place.
~~~
deminature
Drivers have been able to set their own prices in California for some time now
[https://www.uber.com/blog/california/set-your-
fares/](https://www.uber.com/blog/california/set-your-fares/)
~~~
omgwtfbyobbq
What Uber did likely isn't sufficient. Uber restricts the maximum drivers can
set, only allows increases in 10% increments, does not allow passengers to see
the rates of more than one driver at a time, does not let a passenger set
their own rates, does not allow drivers to go below auto-pricing, and still
sets surge pricing themselves instead of letting passengers and drivers set
pricing when demand is high.
__ _Starting Tuesday morning, drivers at the three test airports can either
accept Uber’s original price for outgoing rides, or ask for up to five times
more, in increments of 10%. After next week they will have the option to ask
for less than Uber’s original price.
Essentially those drivers now are bidding against one another for riders. Uber
passengers will see only the lowest proposed fare range. If that driver
rejects their ride request, they could see a new, higher fare range, as Uber
would then show the request to the next-cheapest driver._
[https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-tests-
lett...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-tests-letting-
California-drivers-set-own-14992943.php)
Uber likely wouldn't be in this position if they stayed out of
pricing/visibility and let passengers/drivers set whatever rates they wanted
to. Just provide a platform for people to get rides and stay out of pricing
entirely.
------
ashtonkem
Couldn't pick a less impactful time to shut down if they tried. I'm personally
not using Uber right now because I have nowhere to go; I literally won't miss
them.
------
bryanlarsen
If a ridesharing platform can't classify drivers as contractors for legal
reason, and if they can't classify drivers as employees for business
reasons[1], can they classify drivers as owners? It's certainly legal for
small businesses not to pay reasonable wages or benefits to their owners.
This ruling may give a substantial advantage to a ride-sharing service
structured as a worker's co-operative. That'd be awesome, IMO.
1: this is a very big if
~~~
psoots
I don't know if there is a platform co-op specifically for ride-sharing yet,
but it's not out of the question.
[https://www.yesmagazine.org/economy/2018/01/04/the-
platform-...](https://www.yesmagazine.org/economy/2018/01/04/the-platform-co-
op-is-coming-for-uber/)
The problem is that the co-operative model is not successfully funded in the
initial phases. There is little infrastructure for worker-owned businesses in
this country. There is little guidance for getting investment and start-up
capital when the overall aim is to primarily put profits into owners' hands
and not investors'.
We need a government that supports these efforts first. A good first step
would be to pass first-right-of-refusal laws.
------
bogomipz
>"If the appeal doesn’t work out for Uber, it will be banking on voters to
determine its fate. Khosrowshahi said if that’s the case, the service would
likely shut down in California until November, when voters in the state decide
on Proposition 22, ..."
I'm curious has the current situation with Covid-19 affected the likelihood of
this passing? Would't the fact that CAREs Act allowed gig worker to collect
unemployment assistance have swayed public opinion on upside of being
designated a full time employee and the ability to collect unemployment when
things go south?
For all the talk by the companies behind Prop 22 about a "third way", why
wasn't the this third classification made a ballot initiative instead of
simply saying they should be classified as a an independent contractor? Does
it not seem odd to believe in a "third way" but have your legislation call for
classification using one of the existing two?[1]
[1] [https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_22,_App-
Based...](https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_22,_App-
Based_Drivers_as_Contractors_and_Labor_Policies_Initiative_\(2020\))
------
ekianjo
> Uber has argued its drivers prefer working as independent contractors,
> though California AG Xavier Becerra rejected that claim as a "bogus
> argument."
The link on the "California AG Xavier Becerra" is a google search link instead
of CNBC's actual article. A mistake?
------
oneng
This law sounds like it's putting the cart before the horse.
The real problem is the cost of healthcare and how everyone should be (but
aren't) aligned with lowering the overall costs without compromising on
individual care or the treatment of caregivers.
------
manigandham
AB5 is a colossal failure and it was done for taxes, not worker protection.
Full-time driving jobs already exist. Shuttles, buses, taxis, limos, etc. Uber
Black is mostly private transport employees. It was a choice for drivers to
willingly work for Uber instead. The lawsuit was backed by a handful of people
who went against the 99.9% of drivers who wanted freedom and flexibility to
work above all.
It's a tyranny of using a tiny minority to unlock massive tax potential. If
protecting workers was really the goal then they should've created a 3rd
option instead of shoving everyone into the W2 extreme, and it's affecting all
kinds of freelance workers.
------
namesbc
I'm sure both Uber and Lyft have contingency plans to quickly hire drivers as
employees. It is more they don't want to switch to the employee model and then
back again if the Prop passes
------
maerF0x0
I used to use a service called car2go in previous cities I lived in. It was
extremely convenient and approximately as expensive as Uber. Car2go dealt with
all of vehicle asset, maintenance, gas, insurance, parking.
IMO paying someone to drive you around is just inefficient when you can easily
do it yourself (though lack the vehicle). This is the wall that uber is
running up against and is now trying to skirt regulation in order to cut
costs.
~~~
maerF0x0
Edit: looks like it's been shutdown and is now [https://www.share-
now.com/](https://www.share-now.com/)
------
catsarebetter
So basically, Lyft wins in CA? Ubers out and Lyft will comply and can finally
raise the prices on rides however they want. Am I missing something?
~~~
nwallin
Lyft is also a target of this injunction. It isn't clear yet that Lyft will
begin complying with AB5.
~~~
justinzollars
Margins are already negative. How can they possibly afford to?
~~~
nwallin
I don't know.
Financials aside, I don't even know what this is supposed to look like from an
organizational perspective. IMHO the biggest problem Lyft and Uber are facing
is not an increase in cost, it's a reduction in flexibility.
You can't afford to pay extra people to sit there on the clock if there's no
demand. (plenty of drivers turn the app on in their house and go about their
regular day, maybe only getting 1-2 rides in between eight hours of playing
video games) Do you forcibly clock people out?
You now have to be really careful about the 40 hours. You definitely can't
afford to pay people overtime, and for all intents and purposes you can't
allow people to work enough hours to constitute "full time" either. So if
someone hits 35 hours or whatever, you have to clock them out.
How do you handle drivers who turn down lots of rides? You have to fire them I
suppose?
This is not a problem you can just throw money at. I'm glad I'm not a product
manager at Lyft/Uber right now. I'm not convinced it's possible to operate in
California anymore.
~~~
catsarebetter
I guess another thing is that a lot of uber drivers could get fired b/c of
just cost and the ones that stay on full-time are going to get thrashed around
with little choice in what rides they want to pick.
Yeah, this is a huge mess, it kind of makes sense why they choose to fight in
legal battles in the past, it's just easier than figuring this out from a
product perspective.
------
beaunative
Uber's model would work fine in a country where the government provides
medical insurance, disability insurance and the protective net you need.
In the US, unfortunately, those protective nets are liabilities of the
companies to their staff, not a service provided by the government.
One could argue a third solution where the driver would unionize and the
protective net should be offered by the union.
~~~
arez
we have all that in germany but we also have minimum wage, which uber can't
pay, that's why they're basically a "normal" taxi company here.
------
jonathanlydall
Regardless on where one stands in regards to the issue of whether or not gig
workers should be employees, I don’t see how anyone could see Uber’s choice of
action here as anything other than malicious obedience.
The court proceedings have been going on for a very long time, and now, only
on practically the eve of the ruling becoming effective, do they start making
plans for it?
------
caycep
I may be a bit behind the loop as to what efforts has been done before, but
has there been efforts at doing a "taxi platform" vs. a full ride hail-service
app, i.e. just providing an app as a common platform for different taxi
medallion holders to ride hail and maybe handle payments but without handling
full fledged ride recruitment and rates?
------
DeonPenny
California is bullying freelance. And honestly I don't see the realistic end
goal. They can bring on all their drivers full time it would be a nightmare to
pay and manage for a company that makes no money. Or uber treats driver worst
and the quality of rides gets worse by lowering standard.
------
komali2
Why would they bank on voters? Do they really think people are going to vote
against driver protections in california?
~~~
justinzollars
How about consumer protections?
"Driver protections" are the reason we have Uber and Lyft to begin with. Cab
companies were very well regulated and paid. But the service sucked. I was
hung out to dry in areas of San Francisco in 2009 - where cabs would simply
not come because it was inconvenient for them.
------
12xo
Taxi drivers are almost always 1099 as well... So have they basically killed
on call transportation for CA?
------
djinnandtonic
This is fantastic news! Now there's a huge market available for a rideshare
app that wants to prosper by actual good service rather than wage theft and
outright hostility to the regulations of the market they operate in.
I hope some hungry founders-to-be are working on this now.
------
djohnston
if ridesharing leaves cali politicians will be skewered
~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
This is what Uber wants them to think so that they get scared and drop it.
~~~
djohnston
i agree, it is a tactic from uber's perspective, but it's also a reality
regardless of uber's strategy
------
hartator
Why the burden of drivers being an employee fall on Uber and not the driver?
One can argue that there is just a marketplace and a payment processor, the
actual "management, directions, and compensation" are determined by the rider.
------
thedogeye
If drivers are employees they can only work for one service, which for most of
them will be Uber since they'll have the most demand. This law should be
really good for Uber, terrible for its smaller competitors.
~~~
thinkharderdev
I was wondering about this too. Most Uber/Lyft drivers in my area drive for
both services but it seems like they could prevent people from doing that as
part of a formal employment contract (I'm guessing IANAL).
------
arrty88
Big question for the room - are current taxi drivers W2 or 1099?
~~~
s1artibartfast
They are generally 1099 contractors, which have been reclassified as employees
under AB5. In addition, they often have to rent their cars from the shop and
pay the city for medallions to operate.
------
sjg007
Seems like a good opportunity for a pure market exchange solution. Just have a
service that lets drivers charge a flat fee or maybe use taxi rates... then
take a cut.
------
SrslyJosh
You know what'd make this whole employee/contractor thing moot? A robust
driver's union that was willing to shut down Uber on their own.
------
topicseed
Isn't this a strategy from Uber to get the people of California to vote for
the most Uber-supporting candidate in the next election?
------
_alex_
Dara: we need to take better care of gig workers
Also Dara: if you force us to pay our gig workers more we’ll pull out of your
market.
------
rainyMammoth
And once again, Uber is trying to socialize the losses and privatize the
profits. We should all be shocked by this company losing billions a quarter
but still paying its execs and (initial) shareholders way above what they
produce.
The difference here is that by having drivers as contractor, Uber is making us
ALL pay social security, medicare etc for the drivers [1] .
Uber should fail as it has proven numerous time that its business model simply
doesn't work at scale. I will say it once more but there was a good reason why
taxis were expensive...
I find it embarrassing that so many urbanites, socialites, and other coastal
elites got tricked into rooting for Uber's success by getting artificially
cheap rides.
Also, Uber is losing billions each quarter with no clear view on ever being
profitable. Why is that stock still so high?
[1]: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2019/12/16/is-uber-
cheat...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2019/12/16/is-uber-cheating-on-
social-securityfica-taxes/)
------
dominotw
i had this question on the other thread,
If uber drivers are employees can they still 'decline' a ride?
Employees aren't free to decline work that their boss assigns them.
------
mountainboy
there are a lot of drivers in California with extra space and free time.
there are a lot of people that need rides.
There was a company that facilitated these two meeting and took a cut of
payments.
It does not need to be a company. It can be an autonomous entity, eg a smart
contract. Think ethereum + ipfs. just by way of example.
in other words, cut out the middle-man. Remove the target for governments to
pressure and tax.
At that point, the free market decides.
~~~
cwkoss
Not sure ridesharing is the best fit for decentralized solutions. A big role
of these companies is performing background checks and dispute resolution, and
those seem hard to do in a trustless decentralized system without exposing
loopholes that can be exploited.
------
ehosca
shutting down your business is a great way to drive operating costs down to
zero...
------
throwmamatrain
A couple points here: Uber/Lyft are 100% better than taxi services in every
way. You might get a bad driver, but I've never had a bottle of piss hit me in
the feet in a ride share. Also, try not paying cash in a Philadelphia taxi.
I've had a wheel fall off a cab while I was in it, zero recourse. Rear ended
accident, same. Told to pound sand with the PPA. Anecdata, sure, but about ten
years of it.
Taxis still exist, with no benefits, still pulling 60+ hours, as an entrenched
monopoly via medallion systems. This is sort of a from of driver share
cropping, and is equally if not more exploitative.
If CA wanted to regulate it, they could use the data from ride shares and
create limits etc. Instead, they're going to put them to pasture.
As for them operating illegally, it is a better system and more efficient than
cab services. Sharing rides alone is a multiplier for gas, and app routing is
a better system that taxis refused to implement for the longest time, "getting
lost" to pump up fares.
If taxis disappeared tomorrow, I would shed zero tears.
Is uber a good company? No, they are a giant capital fueled destroyer. They
went toe to toe with entrenched cabs and made some changes. Maybe that's what
it takes in a hypercapitalist society, I don't know.
I used cabs for a decade coming home from an interstate train commute and
would never use one again. I'd rather take the bus, and in Philly that's
saying something.
Hope we see more innovation in this space, if not Uber or Lyft, something.
------
horizontech-dev
wondering does the same law applicable to Instacart, Postmates etc..?
------
nullc
And here I was thinking that they were shutting down due to covid19 to protect
people's health.
Silly me.
------
cityzen
"I Am the C.E.O. of Uber. Gig Workers Deserve Better."
what an absolute coward.
------
nouveau0
Translation: We're pouting until we get what we want
------
klickitat
the same thing has happened in Turkey.
------
Aaronstotle
Good riddance
------
ekianjo
> "What worker doesn't want to have access to paid sick leave?" Becerra said.
> "What worker doesn't want to have unemployment insurance at a time of
> Covid-19 crisis? What worker doesn't want to know that they'll get paid for
> overtime if they work 60 hours in a week or 12 hours in a day?"
Since when are we reasoning about workers starting from what they want? If we
go by that reasoning, "What worker does not want to be paid 3 trillion dollars
per year?". Work only exists in a narrow space between a consumer and a
service. Increase the costs of running the service, and you don't have work
anymore. That's not very hard to understand.
~~~
ac29
> Increase the costs of running the service, and you don't have work anymore.
This hasn't been found to be the case when increasing the minimum wage,
though.
~~~
therealdrag0
It absolutely has. Minimum wage prevents some possible jobs. There are studies
showing this [0].
The fair debate is only about whether more jobs is better than less jobs with
higher pay.
[0] [https://www.vox.com/the-
highlight/2019/7/13/20690266/seattle...](https://www.vox.com/the-
highlight/2019/7/13/20690266/seattle-minimum-wage-15-dollars)
------
merpnderp
Want to be free to have a random part-time gig you can pick up whenever you
want? Nope, do-gooders are going to do-good you into a wage slave job like
everyone else.
~~~
XMPPwocky
Tragically, the state has also taken away my right to sell my kidneys for
money, just trying to "protect" me. I'm an adult, if I want the money isn't it
strictly better than I have the freedom to cash in on my human resources?
~~~
lghh
> I'm an adult, if I want the money isn't it strictly better than I have the
> freedom to cash in on my human resources?
Yes.
~~~
typest
To add onto this —- living with only one kidney rather than two only barely
increases your risk of dying, and many people each year die due to lack of
kidneys. So, creating a market here (regulated of course) would save a lot of
lives.
~~~
teachrdan
It would likely coerce poor Americans into selling their kidneys to the
wealthy so that they could pay off their student debt. Is coercing the poor to
sell their organs to the rich a net benefit for society?
For anyone who thinks this is hyperbole, ProPublica has done excellent work
investigating how lenders use the court system to imprison Americans who can't
pay back their debts:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=propublica+debtors+prisons](https://www.google.com/search?q=propublica+debtors+prisons)
~~~
exolymph
"Coerce" in the sense that poor people would notice a way to make money and go
after it?
~~~
teachrdan
Coerce in that someone will now have the "choice" of selling an organ or going
to jail.
------
justinzollars
I recommend reading the book Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. California will
attack and attack and attack because those in government believes they are
morally superior. The only way they will learn is when Capitalists fight back
by "turning off the engine of the world".
Who is John Galt?
~~~
chillacy
In case someone actually wants to read Atlas Shrugged, I did actually read it.
It's a fictional world where the strawmen business people are happen to always
be good and moral, and are oppressed by the strawman government people who are
bad and greedy. Also the author occasionally has her characters go on multi-
page speeches, for instance about how we ought to be using gold for currency.
In case it's not clear, Atlas Shrugged is a piece of fiction and using it to
draw parallels to reality is like saying "I recommend watching Disney's The
Lion King. Zoos keep hogs apart from lions because they think they can't get
along".
As a sidenote to balance my scathing review, I rather liked one of her earlier
novels, Fountainhead. If you want to read an Ayn Rand novel I'd go for that
one, as it's more about a type of "rugged individualism" than an economic
system. It directly grapples at the question of the nature of
invention/innovation: whether as a product of individual genius or standing on
the shoulder of giants. Obviously the novel has an answer but it's not exactly
a solved question in real life, and at least some of Ellsworth Toohey's quotes
aren't half bad.
~~~
justinzollars
Francisco D'Anconia's Money Speech - Atlas Shrugged (poor quality):
[https://youtu.be/u-T0ey0IKDA](https://youtu.be/u-T0ey0IKDA)
~~~
chillacy
I recall reading that. It's all very true, but it also glosses over the fact
that some people acquire money through regulatory capture, violent crime,
inheritance, etc, etc.
I think capitalism is the best system we have, but Atlas Shrugged espouses a
rosy picture of anarcho-capitalism like Marx espouses a rosy picture of
anarcho-communism that doesn't work when real humans come into play.
I've come to believe that having market forces bring out the best in society
is a state of constant work to cultivate those forces in a human direction.
------
brooklyndude
Just an update from an old guy.
From my favorite capitalist, an oil futures trader on WS:
Between 9:30-4:00 I’d kill my own mother to make a dime a trade. Kill my own
fucking mother.
Do we seriously think Uber would not slash wages to shit, deny healthcare,
work drivers till they dropped, and then killed someone’s mother if they could
make a dime and get away with it?
People seriously believe they would not do that unless someone (AKA The State)
does not stop them?
I’ve worked in corporate America, they would kill you for a nickel if it could
lift their stock price.
Welcome to the “system.” Now back to work!
Your boss has their eye on a new house. And YOU are going make sure they have
that downpayment. :-)
~~~
r29vzg2
That’s a very cynical view. What about You and I who also have a down payment
and a mortgage? You can argue that Uber was exploiting workers, but at the
same time, none of them were forced to work. All made a free choice. And now
“The State” has essentially legislated them out of their jobs. The State has
literally said, “you’re too stupid to realize you’re being taken advantage of,
so you can’t work this job”. I’d say that “The State” is far more of a problem
here than Uber.
~~~
chillacy
I definitely agree with you on this issue, but want to point out that "free
choice" can lead to suboptimal outcomes. Here's an excerpt by Singer:
> Suppose I live in the suburbs and work in the city. I could drive my car to
> work, or take the bus. I prefer not to wait around for the bus, and so I
> take my car. Fifty thousand other people living in my suburb face the same
> choice and make the same decision. The road to town is choked with cars. It
> takes each of us an hour to travel ten miles. In this situation, according
> to the liberal conception of freedom, we have all chosen freely. Yet the
> outcome is something none of us want. If we all went by bus, the roads would
> be empty and we could cover the distance in twenty minutes. Even with the
> inconvenience of waiting at the bus stop, we would all prefer that. We are,
> of course, free to alter our choice of transportation, but what can we do?
> While so many cars slow the bus down, why should any individual choose
> differently? The liberal conception of freedom has led to a paradox: we have
> each chosen in our own interests, but the result is in no one’s interest.
> Individual rationality, collective irrationality…
Taken from [https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/13/book-review-singer-
on-...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/13/book-review-singer-on-marx/)
------
goldenManatee
They’re protesting. Shocker. Not surprising, given their business model is
built on taking advantage of their drivers working themselves and their
vehicles into the bone. They did not design their company to equitably
distribute the share of profit and productivity gains, they are an extractive
company.
------
habosa
Bullsh*t. You know they have a team somewhere that was preparing for the
situation where they lost this case. They have a Plan B. They're just playing
chicken with us right now.
This statement is part of Dara's week-long media blitz to scare everyone into
letting Uber be its own regulator. Check out the NYTimes op-ed he wrote.
They will not shut down. They will blink.
------
Abishek_Muthian
COVID-19 situation has clearly showcased the vulnerability of the drivers
regardless of the platforms, there's no merit for the drivers to be treated as
contractors as they are algorithmically made to work beyond office hours to be
eligible for the incentives.
I hope other states and countries follow the suit if California forces Uber to
treat the drivers as employees.
~~~
thunkshift1
What do you mean by “algorithmically made to work beyond office hours”? You
know the drivers set their own hours right? There are some who prefer to drive
exclusively at night.
~~~
Abishek_Muthian
Yes, that's why I said- >made to work beyond office hours to be eligible for
the incentives
I said that based on complaints I received from Indian drivers, • Need to work
X hours to be eligible for incentives, incentives are used to meet fuel costs.
• Algo punishes when rides are not taken during peak hours. • Majority don't
own the vehicles, they are working office anyways for someone who owns it.
Anyways, main issue is many of the drivers are out of their work due to
COVID-19 and if they were employees; at least some protections would ensue.
------
KKKKkkkk1
The Uber situation seems to be echoing the deregulation of the CA energy
market [0]. First, hopes of new efficiencies through unleashed market forces,
then bad-faith actors (Enron), then clusterfuck, then taxpayers left worse
off.
[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis)
------
schalab
Just make the whole service distributed. Cut out Uber. Connect me directly to
a driver through open source software.
Person A exists who is willing to drive from point a to point b for x price. I
am willing to pay x price. An open source software exists to connect us both
in real time.
Who will the government regulate in this scenario?
~~~
8jy89hui
I think that you’re underestimating just how much infrastructure goes into
running something like Uber. A friend of mine does ML work at Grab (South East
asia ride hailing company) and the amount of data processing that goes into
getting a good fast and cheap ride is incredible.
It might be possible to somehow distribute it and pay people at home for spare
compute time, but it would still run into latency and spike problems.
------
tathougies
Uber, lyft, and related services have single handedly saved lives by reducing
the drunk driving rate in California. Moreover, they have kept many cars off
the road. Previously, it was impossible to have a night out responsibly, or
for people without cars to get around. Now, with uber and lyft, California
finally became somewhat more liveable.
Good to see the state deciding to make things worse.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do you track/solicit/manage customer bug reports? - jamesbritt
Having released a desktop app (www.getjotbot.com) we've been getting some bug reports from users. One person asked if we were planning on having a formal bug reporting system (other than E-mailing us directly).<p>I've used assorted bug trackers for dev work, but none of them strike me as suitable for the typical end-user of a product.<p>Any ideas on how to best manage bugs reports/suggestions/whatever from customers?
======
Hates_
Maybe something like <http://uservoice.com> or <http://getsatisfaction.com>
will suit what you need.
~~~
jamesbritt
Thanks. These look pretty good.
------
cperciva
At the moment I'm just keeping tarsnap bug reports (very few) and suggestions
(lots) in a "TODO" file -- but I'm thinking about putting up some sort of
public bug/suggestion tracker soon. I'm not sure which system I'll use yet --
probably whichever I can get installed the easiest, given that my requirements
(being the only tarsnap developer) are pretty minimal.
~~~
jamesbritt
I'm thinking I want something that users can use to see what's already been
reported, and what's being done about it, and to (maybe) allow discussion
about the app.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Using Flywheel Batteries to Charge Electric Vehicles in Ten Minutes - orrhirschauge
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3738031,00.html
======
eigenvector
Former flywheel energy storage startup engineer here.
The economics of flywheels for this kind of application versus just using
another battery tend to rest on the purported "unlimited cycle life" of the
flywheel system compared to, say, Li-ion batteries that have a very well
documented finite cycle capacity that degrades even further when doing sub-
optimal cycling. To a lesser extent you can also bank on lower parasitic loads
during standby as the environmental requirements for a flywheel aren't as
stringent as batteries that need to be either heated or cooled almost all the
time in many climates.
The problem is that, by and large, "unlimited cycles" is not true. You still
have huge, very high speed bearings. Motors that require routine electrical
testing and can fail. And now all this stuff is sitting below ground under a
massive concrete lid for containment so it's not as easy to do maintenance on
compared with a similarly-sized battery system. You also need uninterruptible
power supply to maintain safety and control systems when grid power is
unavailable since you've still gotten a huge spinning mass that you can't slow
down without somewhere to send the energy (it's possible to use braking
resistors, but it's another cost).
Batteries also benefit from massive economics of scale (both on the actual
cells and the power electronics) that are getting better with time and driving
costs down, while flywheels have been "1 year from commercialization" for the
last 25 years.
I remain skeptical of the commercial benefits vs. increasingly commoditized
and readily available battery systems.
~~~
drumttocs8
Power utility engineer here. I keep imagining a giant flywheel located at
every substation- could be very useful for load balancing, voltage regulation,
even frequency control. I guess what I mean is, a large spinning mass could
potentially have other benefits than just storage, right? Any research into
substation application at that startup?
~~~
sgentle
I was recently reading about power factor correction and found out that
"synchronous condensers", basically just large synchronous motors with no
load, are sometimes used at utility scale for PFC and frequency stabilisation.
Eg, here: [http://www.think-grid.org/synchronous-condensers-better-
grid...](http://www.think-grid.org/synchronous-condensers-better-grid-
stability)
Since it seems like the main source of stability in that system is the inertia
in the rotor, would it be fair to describe it as a kind of flywheel? I didn't
see anything about connecting an actual wheel to such a system, but it seems
like it would be the same thing with more inertia, right?
~~~
eigenvector
Where "flywheels" in common parlance differ from synchronous condensers is
that condensers run at zero torque - so they provide no active power to the
system. They provide reactive power, which is needed to regulate and maintain
the stability of the power system, but not active power which is used to match
generation and demand or shift load. There's no actual source of energy being
fed into a synchronous condenser. In a flywheel, you're drawing energy from
the grid to spin up a really big mass and then storing it in rotational
inertia so you can output it later very quickly. Flywheels can provide
reactive power too, through their DC/AC power converters, but since you don't
actually need any rotating mass to do that (recall, reactive power requires no
torque), you can use a STATCOM - which is functionally like a synchronous
condenser just without any moving parts.
------
joshe
The article isn't very clear.
The car still has a battery, this goes in the stationary charging system. It's
used to increase the current when charging electric batteries. Most electric
batteries can accept much more current than commercial electricity drops can
provide. This system stores the current in stationary flywheels and then
discharges it quickly when a car pulls up and plugs in.
So this provides something like a Tesla super charger, without having to call
up the power company to rewire your gas station. They call it a "Kinetic
Battery". In the video below, the CEO makes the claim that flywheels are much
better for this because you can get many more discharge/charge cycles out of
flywheels than with chemical batteries.
You can imagine that rewiring electric infrastructure all over the country
would be quite a bit more expensive than just plugging in their system. You
could also imagine a solar powered system (off the grid even) slowly being
charged and then recharging a car in 10 minutes.
Cool idea!
Interview with CEO
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxRfPtYmTDE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxRfPtYmTDE)
~~~
_bxg1
Is it conceivable that the same type of battery could be used in cars as well,
or would the capacity/falloff/external forces be too limiting?
~~~
XorNot
Gyroscopic forces are a big problem as is trying to get enough mass.
~~~
_bxg1
I could see it being used as a "quick-charge" portion of the capacity. i.e.
you have a full-sized battery, but also a small flywheel so that if you're
really in a pinch you can rapidly charge enough to get somewhere without
waiting for an hour. It'd be like having a small SSD paired with a large HDD.
~~~
Filligree
You'd get better results using the same weight for more batteries.
------
beat
Safety concerns raised... since the maximum amount of power the flywheel can
be expected to store is a known quantity, and the amount of kinetic energy
that can be stopped by concrete or metal shielding is a known quantity, it's
just a matter of burying the flywheel underground, with enough concrete/metal
around it (particularly above it) to prevent shrapnel from penetrating to the
surface. Easy peasy. It's just a cost problem.
We keep those levels of potential energy in underground gas tanks at every gas
station, and no one freaks out about _that_.
edit: For perspective, a typical gas station has 12,000 to 24,000 gallons of
gasoline storage underground. A gallon of gas is about 120 megajoules of
potential energy. So there are _billions_ of joules sitting there - much more
than these flywheels. Of course, without air, gasoline isn't dangerous. But a
90% empty tank has a lot of air in it, a lot of potential boom.
~~~
bluGill
NO, an empty gas tank has a lot of gasoline vapors mixed in that air - the
concentration is high enough that the vapors will not burn. One of the
advantages of gasoline is it will only burn in a fairly narrow window of
concentration (IIRC 5-30%, but since I don't feel like looking it up you will
have to if you care)
~~~
beat
Still, if containment is violated somehow, it's a LOT of power for
fire/explosion. These flywheels are much smaller, by comparison.
The tank of gas in a car probably has over 400kwh of energy. How much will
these flywheels contain, considering a full charge for an electric car is on
the order of 100kwh (electric cars are more efficient than internal
combustion)? The energy of two or three tanks of gasoline is enough to get
several charges out before needing to spin up the flywheel again.
~~~
e12e
But a nearly "empty" flywheel is a lot less dangerous than a "full" one. While
a full gas tank, even if cracked open and lit on fire, would probably burn,
not explode.
I imagine seeing a flywheel leap out of the ground and short through the
foundations of a skyscraper...
~~~
beat
That gets back to my original point, though - we know from the start the
maximum power of the flywheel. Putting enough reinforced concrete above it to
keep it from penetrating in case of catastrophic failure is a straight-up
engineering problem.
------
devindotcom
Boy, flywheel batteries. At the Ford Museum (in Ann Arbor I think?) they have
some of the earliest versions of these, for steam generators I believe. Maybe
30 feet in diameter, must weigh a couple tons at least? The idea of one
spinning even at 20 or 30 RPM was a scary demonstration of potential energy.
If it got loose it seemed like it would blast through the wall and roll
halfway across the country. But they were beautiful, well made, and
instructive.
That said, it's an interesting way to store energy and I hope it can be
deployed safely and beneficially.
~~~
WilliamSt
The spinning wheel has kinetic energy, not potential energy, right?
~~~
bonzini
It's kinetic energy if you consider rotation around the center of the flywheel
(I * omega^2/2), but only potential energy to move around and destroy stuff (m
* v^2/2). If you let the flywheel loose, it becomes just a wheel and it's not
potential energy anymore. :-)
------
SteveJS
I remember a fly wheel battery concept from the early 90's. Spin light weight
tiny flywheels on magnetic bearings in a near vacuum and take advantage of the
fact that energy storage is linear with mass, but the square of velocity. Put
the flywheels in opposing directions and spin them really fast. If I remember
correctly, there still was a bit of a safety problem: my understanding was if
one of the tiny flywheels fell off the magnetic bearing it would rip through 9
feet of steel. Not great for a battery in a vehicle. However I don't see why
you can't tune the amount of energy you decide to store, and the amount of
safety barriers to handle catastrophic failure.
Makes me wonder if there is anyway to do something akin to a MEMS flywheel.
------
zck
I'm assuming what they're doing here (they don't really say) is using a
flywheel in the equipment in the charging station to charge a "regular"
electric car -- a car that stores the electricity in batteries. And the
flywheel is used because the environments they want to deploy these charging
stations have lower quality electric grids, "where upgrading the grid for fast
electric vehicle charging can be prohibitively expensive".
They even say they can "...charge a battery in ten minutes..." This sounds
great! But I'm not sure what cars they'd be charging. Can, for example, you
charge a Tesla that fast? I assume not, or Tesla would be charging them that
quickly.
([https://www.tesla.com/supercharger](https://www.tesla.com/supercharger) says
it takes 30 minutes)
So I'm assuming that they're charging cars with smaller batteries. It sounds
interesting, but not as good as my initial reading ("you can charge your car
way faster") made me think.
~~~
sp332
Maybe, but there is another charging standard that's starting to be rolled out
that provides up to 350kW with a water-cooled cable.
[https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/04/electrify-america-
will-...](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/04/electrify-america-will-
deploy-2000-350kw-fast-chargers-by-the-end-of-2019/) That would take 17
minutes to charge even a 100kWh Tesla battery (if you could maintain that rate
of charge the whole time, which battery packs generally can't).
Edit: fixed units
~~~
tigershark
No, Musk explicitly said that future superchargers for the cars won’t be
350kw. [https://electrek.co/2018/05/03/tesla-
supercharger-v3-charge-...](https://electrek.co/2018/05/03/tesla-
supercharger-v3-charge-rate-porsche-faster-charging/amp/)
~~~
sp332
Ok, but I'm addressing zck's comment "I assume not, or Tesla would be charging
them that quickly."
------
jh
It takes about 1 Mega Joule of energy to bring 2500kg car to a stop from 60
mph. The model s with a 100kwh battery can store 360MJ and weights about
2500kg with passengers.
Is it wrong that I get uncomfortable with the idea of a spinning mass able to
charge a model s that fits within the artists rendering of the charging
station?
~~~
gene-h
Yes, because a flywheel is a very efficient device for producing flying
shrapnel. It's already storing kinetic energy, it's simply a matter of letting
all that kinetic energy loose. Energy storage flywheels have injured people in
the past and even led to some flywheel energy storage startups going out of
business[0]. However, with proper safety standards we can prevent many
disasters. [0][http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/sdut-quantum-
en...](http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/sdut-quantum-energy-
folded-explosion-poway-2016jul28-story.html)
~~~
dmckeon
Would putting a vertical axis flywheel in a deep basement containment be a
good start? Cap with rebar & concrete, or steel like a liquid storage tank -
depends on wheel material and failure modes?
~~~
CydeWeys
By the time you're considering building a concrete bunker, it's clearly better
to give up on flywheels and stick with chemical batteries. A bunker will cost
a lot more to construct than a few Powerwalls.
~~~
dangrossman
Just one Powerwall costs more than the cost of burying an underground gas
tank, and you'd need 10 of them to store enough power to charge one Tesla 100
kWh car. That's $35,000 in batteries alone without the cost of installing
them. $35,000 is much more than it would cost to put down an underground
concrete foundation to drop a flywheel into. House-size basement foundations
can cost 1/8th that.
------
DubiousPusher
I gotta say, flywheels are rad. They have all kinds of cool applications
including moving satelites,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_wheel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_wheel).
~~~
anacoluthe
For example, some wind tunnels are powered using flywheels (c.f. high enthalpy
wind tunnel F4 from ONERA in France is using a 15 tons flywheel to get the
necessary power).
------
mechsquirrel
Let me channel my inner Thunderf00t here.
A Tesla Model S has about 85 kilowatt-hours of energy in its batteries at full
charge.
\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S#Battery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S#Battery)
That is 85 * 60 * 60 * 1000 = 306 megajoules or 3.06 * 10 ^ 8 joules.
According to Atomic Rockets' Boom Table, This is slightly less than a 54kg
high explosive Iowa battleship main gun shell.
\-
[http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/usefultables.ph...](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/usefultables.php#id
--The_Boom_Table)
\- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa-
class_battleship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa-class_battleship)
This matters because with a battery, it's Very Hard(tm) to get the energy to
discharge at a high enough rate to cause catastrophic effects, like for
example why Mike Tyson can punch with ~1600 Joules (uncited, popularly
referenced), about the same as a 5.56mmx45mm round fired from an M16/AR-
pattern rifle. Because the Joules are distributed over space (bigger cross
section) and time (slower impact), Mike Tyson's punch doesn't immediately
shred your tissue and bones.
However, it's Very Easy(tm) to get a flywheel to have a tiny mechanical
failure that causes the entire thing to release all its kinetic energy
rapidly. Additionally, there's no conversion penalty with the flywheel. So the
battery under catastrophe can and generally does shed its energy relatively
slowly as rapidly-dissipating heat (see videos of cell phone batteries on
fire), whereas a rotating wheel that just fell of its drive shaft is...
markedly different.
Conclusion: Even if the flywheel only holds enough energy for a single charge,
it would have to be buried far underground and still might create a crater in
the gas station asphalt it sits underneath when (not if) mechanical failures
happen.
Therefore, this is dumb and won't happen. Please help me understand where I'm
wrong :)
~~~
Dylan16807
You're severely underestimating the ability of concrete to stop shrapnel. And
unlike a bomb exploding there's no expanding gas to contain.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZjhxuhTmGk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZjhxuhTmGk)
20 metric tons at 800km/h is 500 megajoules, and the concrete shrugs it off
like nothing.
------
InclinedPlane
This is half of something. Charging a car battery in 10 minutes dumps a crap-
ton of heat and risks damaging the cells, lowering the useful life of the
battery substantially.
------
ChuckMcM
This is a pretty neat idea, I do worry about the 'one and done' problem where
the spinning flywheel charges a car and then then needs an hour to get up to
speed again (more if its just using solar power). That means you either need a
lot of flywheels to service cars.
It is also an amazing amount of energy to be holding in the box next to the
car (if you can believe the artist's conception in the article). I would be
much happier if they put the flywheel horizontal in a vault under the charging
station, that way if a bearing failed the wheel wouldn't go careening off into
the next county mowing things down.
This problem needs to be solved for electric trucks as well.
~~~
oneiric
A Russian hydroelectric turbine (not too different from a flywheel) stored
horizontally in a "vault" (a dam) killed 75 people.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sayano%E2%80%93Shushenska...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sayano%E2%80%93Shushenskaya_power_station_accident)
~~~
8bitsrule
I remember following that amazing accident. But as I recall, the turbine
_jumped up out_ of its vault, and that's what started the whole failure.
IIRC, the speed of a water-powered generator is regulated by the load on it.
Take that load away, it spins faster and faster (think that's what happened to
the other generators). So that one guy had to climb up to the top of the dam
to close the gate.
~~~
oneiric
About the "faster and faster" remark, turbines will only get to about double
their nominal speed without load (called runaway).
------
reaperducer
Charging a car in ten minutes is great.
But what will really make you rich is finding a way to charge a set of AA
batteries in ten seconds.
~~~
leggomylibro
You'd need a new sort of AA battery; rechargeable nickel chemistries are a bit
finicky and they are usually not charged faster than 1C, similar to the rate
of lithium chemistries. It is also bad for NiMH batteries to charge them
constantly at those voltages; typical recommendations are to avoid "steady-
state" charging them at rates faster than 1/40 - 1/20C [1]
[1]:
[http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_nickel_m...](http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_nickel_metal_hydride)
Lithium-hybrid supercapacitors are often rated for 10C charge/discharge
without the low cycle limits or volatility of lithium batteries, but they are
a young technology and it looks like commercial options are currently very
expensive with capacities in the 1-10mAh range @ 2.3-2.8V.
------
recharged93
Check out activepower. They've been in the flywheel biz for awhile for data
center power.
But they've been struggling for a viable business last 10yrs.
Area required and noise are big issues.
~~~
tzahola
Dumb question: couldn’t a vacuum chamber and magnetic bearings overcome those
issues?
~~~
wahern
Active Power's UPS systems do use magnetic bearings:
Immediately after the output is transferred from bypass to
the power stage, the flywheel field is excited which also
provides magnetic lift to unload the flywheel bearings.
Source: [http://www.activepower.com/en-
US/documents/3801/wp108-operat...](http://www.activepower.com/en-
US/documents/3801/wp108-operationups)
------
digi_owl
I seem to recall that the new class of carriers being built use flywheels to
store up the energy used to drive the catapult.
------
_bxg1
I'd never heard of flywheel batteries. They're steampunk as hell.
------
andyidsinga
seeing the diagram - I wonder what the replacement period is for the solar
panels. Also the service costs for the panels relative to batteries.
------
solarkraft
Fly wheels are not new. I wonder why they haven't caught on (seeming like a
pretty good way of stationary energy storage), but using one for an EV charger
doesn't seem very innovative.
~~~
beat
It may not be a huge innovation, but it's an interesting potential business
model. And as an investor, I'd be looking at financial potential, not
"innovation".
------
post_break
This could be a cool low cost option. Imaging if a solar panel could spin up a
fly wheel which you could then pull power from at night. Cheaper than regular
or expensive lithium batteries, and "unlimited" assuming motors don't wear
out. I'd love to see something like this to help power my home. Or maybe have
it run on the grid at night during free power times and then pull from during
the day.
~~~
masklinn
> Cheaper than regular
FES is currently as expensive or more expensive than battery, and while it
could go down faster than batteries that's unlikely considering how old FES
tech is.
If you want to store lots of power in a flywheel, you need big flywheels
spinning very fast without spinning out of control and blowing themselves up
(because then all the power they stored remains kinetic but stops being
contained).
They've got plenty of advantages over battery (inert materials, less affected
by temperature variations, potentially infinite lifespan for magnetic bearings
in vacuum-sealed enclosures) but safe large-scale flywheels are not _cheap_.
Neither Beacon Power nor Amber Kinetics provide any pricing information on
their pages, despite specs in the same range as battery storage: a Powerwall 2
is 13.5kWh/5kW, an Amber Kinetics M32 is 32kWh/8kW. The M32 is also ~4.5 tons.
The M32 _does_ have the advantage of an estimated 30 years lifespan, and no
health danger outside of the rather immediate effects of a containment breach,
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What do I need to learn how to write a scalable app? - stonecharioteer
I'm a self taught programmer. I mostly code in Python. I have built a couple of fairly well received applications at my workplaces, using flask and either React or Plotly's dash framework for UI. However I am facing a problem. My work does not involve much data. I write tools that are used to automate tasks. Visitors are below 10 to 20 at any given time, even though my company is a large fintech company. My work does not deal with much data. But I want to learn. I want to build something that involves billions of rows of data. I want to know how to speed it up.<p>Right now, I am building an application that has 2 million rows of data. It is centred around a lot of analytics around team productivity. I would like to increase how fast it is. I am already using redis as a cache, my database is postgres, I select only columns I need using flask Sqlalchemy and I have cut down a lot of the processing time already. But I am certain this can be faster. Where do I learn the design patterns for this? What do I use to figure out how to improve this application? How do I measure performance? How do I learn to build apps that achieve less than 300ms response time?
======
pritambarhate
>> I am building an application that has 2 million rows of data.
It will also be helpful to know what kind of hardware you are using for the
database. How much RAM the machine has? Does the whole dataset fit in the RAM?
If not, at least indexes should fit in the RAM.
Disk type: HDD/SSD?
Are you using indexes?
Did you check "explain analyze"[1] to check your query plans to ensure that
the indexes are being used or not?
There are many things that affect database performance.
>> I want to build something that involves billions of rows of data. I want to
know how to speed it up.
The key to this is "Shared nothing architecture" along with a Sharded
Database. I have tried to explain this architecture here [2]. To understand
Database sharding, I would recommend this Digital Ocean Article [3].
To learn more about highly scalable architectures I would suggest reading the
real world architectures section [4] of the High Scalability Blog.
[1] [https://thoughtbot.com/blog/reading-an-explain-analyze-
query...](https://thoughtbot.com/blog/reading-an-explain-analyze-query-plan)
[2] [https://mobisoftinfotech.com/resources/mguide/shared-
nothing...](https://mobisoftinfotech.com/resources/mguide/shared-nothing-
architecture-the-key-to-scale-your-app-to-millions-of-users/)
[3]
[https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/understandi...](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/understanding-
database-sharding)
[4]
[http://highscalability.com/blog/category/example](http://highscalability.com/blog/category/example)
~~~
protonimitate
> Did you check "explain analyze"[1] to check your query plans to ensure that
> the indexes are being used or not?
Word of caution `explain analyze` actually executes the query and then returns
the execution plan. Just `explain` will give you the estimated plan without
executing (although usually less accurate than the analyze counterpart).
Learned that one the hard way.
------
codegeek
One thing that I have learned with large datasets is to add pagination in
queries/APIs and always do them server side. Client side paginations are not
good enough for large datasets.
Also in general, always query less data than more and then request more as
needed. For example, lets say you are loading a table for users. You could
have 2 million users in the database. Do you really want to query all 2
million at once even if you have optimized the code and hardware for it ? I
would say No. Query may be a few hundred at once and then query more as
needed.
~~~
stonecharioteer
Thank you. I don't think pagination would help since I'm building a dashboard.
Perhaps if I explain what I'm trying to build it would help.
I am building a git analytics dashboard. I want to help my organization
analyse developer productivity from bitbucket. So I am pulling in all the git
commit logs, the diffs for all projects my org within the company has. We have
1500 repos across 20 projects. I am building dashboards atop of this. The data
will grow daily. I would like to showcase project health in terms of commits,
pull requests and whether there are duplications in work (surprisingly we have
this. Actual repos being copies from here to there btw, insane shit). In doing
this I realized I am struggling to scale it. The UI Takes 2 minutes to load.
It is abysmal. The org is impressed but I am not, and it is for my own
learning.
~~~
Foober223
Dashboards with tons of charts are all about pre-computing. In the RDBMS world
you abandon normal relational tables and use a non-relational star schema.
Star schemas are basically just tables that store pre-computed data.
Sometimes it's a completely separate database for just reporting, with new
daily data being fed in all the time, and results pre-computed.
These systems tend to be queries against the past. It's accepted that you may
be 1 day behind. But that little concession to query past-only allows all
sorts of great tricks to have instantaneous reporting against huge data sets.
Making it seem like your reports have been blessed by the tears of the
performance gods.
Even google search is "cheating" by searching against the past, not the
present. Could you imagine how slow it would be if your google search query
triggered a web crawler in real time to scour the internet? Yeah, you might be
waiting several days for your crawl to complete.
------
DevX101
Read this book:
[https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Data-Intensive-
Applications...](https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Data-Intensive-Applications-
Reliable-Maintainable/dp/1449373321)
------
st1ck
I'm in no way a DBA, but if your main usecase is analytics (OLAP) and updates
are infrequent it's common to use column-oriented DBMS. Postgres has
cstore_fdw, but you can also use others: DuckDB, MonetDB, ClickHouse among
FOSS, and quite a few well-known proprietary options.
That said, 2M rows is not really a lot of data (unless the rows are huge). In
case you don't need to worry about updates, you can just load everything into
memory, e.g. in Pandas dataframe (large overhead, slow, many features) or more
efficient implementation, like `datatable` (lower overhead, faster, less
features).
Also I recently discovered BI tools (more like realized that despite the name
it doesn't have to apply to business data). E.g. Metabase provides nice UI for
non-complicated analytical (like SELECT avg(...) GROUP BY ...). So if it fits
90% of your queries, then maybe you got the frontend for free, and only need
to work on backend (and the rest 10% of queries).
------
juangacovas
Where exactly is your bottleneck right now? Database queries? I mean, where
those >300ms go, foreach request or just some of them?
~~~
stonecharioteer
Definitely the database. How would I begin speeding that up?
~~~
juangacovas
Two million rows in tables are not a problem even for old databases (I'm
thinking of mysql 5.1)... Are you confident on your indexes, normalization,
etc?
~~~
stonecharioteer
I definitely will look at the indices. I have several joins. Perhaps if I
explain what I'm trying to build.
I am building a git analytics dashboard. I want to help my organization
analyse developer productivity from bitbucket. So I am pulling in all the git
commit logs, the diffs for all projects my org within the company has. We have
1500 repos across 20 projects. I am building dashboards atop of this. The data
will grow daily. I would like to showcase project health in terms of commits,
pull requests and whether there are duplications in work (surprisingly we have
this. Actual repos being copies from here to there btw, insane shit). In doing
this I realized I am struggling to scale it. The UI Takes 2 minutes to load.
It is abysmal. The org is impressed but I am not, and it is for my own
learning.
~~~
LarryMade2
Optimise your queries as well, complex queries with multiple many-to-many
joins will add up quick to tons of rows to filter. Look at separating queries;
to keep the overall in a single query, the db may have to churn through tens
of thousands of rows. Where if you do a first select than a second based on
the result of the first, you can bring it down to just hundreds or tens - with
a quicker response than just one query.
------
Jugurtha
Since you mention you're using Flask. Before diving into data intensive stuff
if need be, a lot can be done by profiling, refactoring, and improving the
actual code:
\- Profiling and refactoring Python code in general:
Using yappi[^1] to profile and generate profile data, and KCachegrind[^2] to
visualize that data in the form of call graphs, number of cycles, etc. can
yield great results. You can find which functions in your code base are taking
too long, and this can give great pointers to where bottlenecks are.
Using _pyreverse_ [^3], now integrated in _pylint_ [^4], to generate say a PNG
image for class hierarchy and "UML diagrams" is extremely helpful. When I have
used it and was the arrows going all over the place, it has helped me eke out
better abstractions, remove a lot of code, write cleaner interfaces, and
frankly write code I and others could actually read.
After installing _pylint_. On a package level for instance. Say package name
is foo and follows standard hierarchy with `foo/foo`:
cd foo
pyreverse -o png .
# generates classes.png and packages.png
# You can also see pyreverse -o png foo
\- Profiling in the context of Flask:
Using Werkzeug's ProfilerMiddleware[^5] helps you see what's going on with
each request. What functions are called, number of calls, total time, per
call, which line, etc.
If the example in the documentation does not work, try the following:
...
try:
from werkzeug.middleware.profiler import ProfilerMiddleware
except ModuleNotFoundError:
# Older version
from werkzeug.contrib.profiler import ProfilerMiddleware
...
# Assuming you have an app object
app.config['PROFILE'] = True
app.wsgi_app = ProfilerMiddleware(app.wsgi_app, restrictions=[50])
General things: it is very helpful to extract as much code from the routes.
This helps making the functions usable elsewhere, and not rely on Flask's
testing client which can be pretty frustrating when dealing with the app
context, especially in test suites involving database actions, and weird
connections in setUp and tearDown if you're using unittest*.
As I said, this is general and not very specific for "big data" or "billions
of rows", but these small things lead to bigger things in my opinion: making
the code easier to read and extend, easier to test and cover, easier to
profile and improve, compounds to a point you may postpone more involved
approaches.
[^1]: [https://github.com/sumerc/yappi](https://github.com/sumerc/yappi)
[^2]: [https://kcachegrind.github.io/](https://kcachegrind.github.io/)
[^3]:
[https://www.logilab.org/blogentry/6883](https://www.logilab.org/blogentry/6883)
[^4]: [https://github.com/PyCQA/pylint](https://github.com/PyCQA/pylint)
[^5]:
[https://werkzeug.palletsprojects.com/en/1.0.x/middleware/pro...](https://werkzeug.palletsprojects.com/en/1.0.x/middleware/profiler/)
------
davismwfl
Your first question is how to make what you are working on now faster. Follow
a process to find the places where you can make improvements and there are
bottlenecks. I always like to start at the data layer myself, and work my way
up the stack.
\- If using an ORM, dump all the queries that it is creating on your behalf.
Check how they compare to what you would hand write, look at the execution
plans.
\- Tune the queries, reduce joins where possible, add/remove indexes etc.
Sometimes removing an index helps more then adding new ones if insert/updates
are a bottleneck. Don't forget to check these.
\- In the application layer, check all your translations/transformations to
measure and tune those. These can add a lot of time if called repeatedly for
many records.
\- At the UI level find places where there might be a lot more going on then
needs be. I so often find places where a lot more data is being requested then
needed and then you have to filter through it all and if nothing else it adds
memory pressure which can lead to hard to find performance issues.
\- Cache's are awesome, but they sometimes just add complexity and delays
where you don't need them. Small datasets usually can do really well just with
some materialized views, data partitions and query tuning. I have actually
removed caches before and improved performance after a little query work,
don't ignore this. But I wouldn't say that is the norm, but it does exist.
\- Denormalize in places to remove joins if they are not substantially
necessary. When working on a system that had large marketing datasets, I found
that by caching a few fields on a highly used table we could eliminate many
joins in the application which were on numerous pages (common queries), in
some cases giving us 25x improvements. Of course, that adds a little extra
time and consideration on inserts/updates but that tradeoff is usually worth
it if you are read/query heavy.
As for learning to deal with large datasets. It starts with all of the above,
you need to really tune the data/queries at the database level first. Postgres
is awesome, relational data is great for a ton of things, but there may be a
reason to store data in non-relational ways for some things (cache is a great
example). This means you might have replicated data in places which adds a
little complexity but aids in performance. Always consider how the data is
going to be accessed and used by the application(s). Joins are an example of a
place where small changes can result in magnitudes greater performance.
Large data means small details are way more important, and what I have seen a
lot of times is people don't pay attention to a lot of the little details when
working with smaller datasets. That's pretty fair most of the time because it
really doesn't affect performance on small datasets. But in the end when you
get to large data all those details matter. Even little things like picking
the right datatype is more critical in large datasets. You don't want to store
a number as a string and always be doing conversions on it as an example. It
adds a lot of extra wasted cycles. Of course, on small data, you would rarely
see a problem with it, which makes people get complacent with their choices
many times.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple's "real" earnings grew a staggering 124.6% in Q4 - terpua
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/10/23/apples_real_earnings_grew_a_staggering_124_6_in_q4.html
======
jorgeortiz85
"This should infuriate the informed investor because it
means that Apple is quite literally trading on P/E ratios
that do not reflect more than half of its business."
Yawn. No, it should -excite- informed investors because there's a tremendous
opportunity to buy really cheap Apple stock from uninformed investors who
don't know Apple's true earnings.
Unless, of course, the world economy collapses and demand for expensive
consumer goods dries up.
~~~
MaysonL
Yeah - Apple at a PE of 7 (when you net out the cash) is an amazing buy -
assuming the economy doesn't collapse completely.
------
dmix
Thats a significant success by any measure, especially considering its in
billions of dollars.
------
moses1400
and im about to buy a macbook - so it will jump even more :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Sending Emails Through Python and GMail - carlobundy
http://jmduke.net/post/39159602638/sending-emails-through-python-gmail
======
jc4p
If anyone cares (or doesn't want to waste a few hours learning) about how to
do the flip side, here's how to read Gmail using Python:
[https://github.com/jc4p/google-voice-twitter-
messenger/blob/...](https://github.com/jc4p/google-voice-twitter-
messenger/blob/master/email_checker.py#L8)
------
lh7777
I've been using script similar to this for years:
[http://kutuma.blogspot.com/2007/08/sending-emails-via-
gmail-...](http://kutuma.blogspot.com/2007/08/sending-emails-via-gmail-with-
python.html)
------
raphman
Here's a similar script for sending customized emails to multiple recipients
defined in a CSV file (without MIME/attachment support).
[https://github.com/RaphaelWimmer/csv_mailer/blob/master/csv_...](https://github.com/RaphaelWimmer/csv_mailer/blob/master/csv_mailer.py)
------
hnriot
I don't understand how that can take more than two hours of someone who's a
college senior (presuming you're a CS student). This is just a handful of
lines of very simple python using one of the most documented and oldest web
protocols. There's also a ton if similar examples online using php, java, etc.
that should have taken more like ten minutes to write.
~~~
rjzzleep
it's funny you say that, because i find it funny that you assume it takes a cs
student to build that.
did we really dumb down so much that we're having problems using smtp
libraries nowadays? i don't think so.
~~~
goostavos
I'm currently a CS student, I'd argue that 2/3 of my class -- of not more! --
would need way more than two hours to accomplish the same 10 lines of code.
There exists a type of CS student that doesn't really seem to enjoy
programming all that much -- if at all. They do the minimum required to nail
that passing grade, and then never type another line until the next
assignment. Thus, when they actually need to pull on some of those tools (like
sending some mail), they aren't there.
Not that this guy is one of those, but I'm just saying, they exist, and in
alarming numbers.
~~~
SimHacker
A good CS student spends some time up front reading all the source code of the
libraries they're using, and some code that uses the libraries, to know what
they're really doing, what they're capable of, and to learn from them. And by
CS student, I include life-long students, and self-taught students.
------
cyansmoker
You can also look at how it's done in the Mezzanine network (disclaimer: I am
a minor contributor)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Some Mind Hacks | Ask YC-HN: What are yours? - kirubakaran
http://oedb.org/library/college-basics/hacking-knowledge
======
adrianwaj
If you love what you're learning, you'll learn better. Then it can take on a
spiritual quality.
------
bayareaguy
\- Investigate, analyze and verify.
\- Be skeptical.
\- Wear sunscreen.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
UPS Flight Forward Attains FAA’s First Full Approval for Drone Airline - sndean
https://www.pressroom.ups.com/pressroom/ContentDetailsViewer.page?ConceptType=PressReleases&id=1569933965476-404
======
Fjolsvith
Ah, well, I guess my UPS delivery guy could get a job with Dominos Pizza.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Comment Thread: Current YC founder looking for co-founder - davidw
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=453303
======
davidw
Looks like a wonderful opportunity for someone, although I'm a little less
sure about the idea of another photo sharing site. Perhaps Sam should include
and/or work on his elevator pitch.
~~~
pclark
wicked opportunity, I think this should be a service that ties into
flickr/iPhoto - how cool could that be?
~~~
davidw
That has risks of its own. There's probably space for a photo sharing service,
but it needs a niche, or some other 'special sauce'. Maybe he has that all
sorted out and just doesn't want to spill the beans to everyone.
~~~
pclark
would be cool if it integrated with iPhotos "event" albums ...
they have a great logo, too.
------
ajkirwin
Oho. Risky post, davidw.
And does this product seem like things that others do? You can have shared
sets and stuff with flickr, I think, and facebook does something /sort of/
similar, plus it has all the social stuff already there.
Not a company I would want to work for, as I'd be uncertain about the term of
my job.
~~~
pclark
is it a risky post? aren't we giving the founder more publicity to both the
job position and the product? :)
~~~
ajkirwin
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=451859>
You may notice this has 0 votes. pg killed it, because.. I guess, he didn't
like it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Slim your wallet. Slide your favorite card. The MostRad Minimalist Wallet - mostrad
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2137162749/the-mostradtm-minimalist-wallet-integrated-rfid-pr
======
k__
The only thing that bothers me about the wallets I got, they break over too
much change.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
This hackathon is more of a virtual accelerator - HairyGing3r
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/500-blockchain-hackers-battle-50000-prize/
======
compil3r
That's a great idea! Education Coin :)
"One team, for example, wants to free academic knowledge by implementing a
token and blockchain-based publishing system to replace academic journals: A
distributed publication platform build on Ethereum and IPFS could incentivize
post-publication peer review, reduce the lag between work written and read,
and save the taxpayer billions by reducing library subscription fees."
~~~
Stephen_T
Agreed, but there also seems to be quite a few ideas that have already been
expressed. Take this one for microfinance:
"let's build a microfinance platform that provides to poor people a micro
investement to help them to make their own business. it help to creat a
partenership between the financier (the investor) and the other partner (the
requester or working partner) who manages the financier’s investment.
The investors provide the money to the requester against an agreed portion of
the profit that the second partner will make by investing the money. Both
parties agree in advance to a profit sharing relationship and the timeline of
the project. No guaranteed return, any losses would be borne by investors.
Profits generated by the enterprise are divided between the hub and the
requester in accordance with the profit sharing ratios set out in the
Agreement"
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Lazy, Hazy, Crazy: The 10 Laws of Behavioral Cloudonomics - derekc
http://gigaom.com/2010/06/06/lazy-hazy-crazy-the-10-laws-of-behavioral-cloudonomics/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+OmMalik+(GigaOM)
======
wazoox
Then contrast with this article: [http://arstechnica.com/business/inside-the-
cloud/2010/06/clo...](http://arstechnica.com/business/inside-the-
cloud/2010/06/cloud-tradeoffs-freedom-of-choice-vs-freedom-from-choice.ars)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Best current model routers for OpenWRT, DD-WRT, Tomato, etc.? - malandrew
There are many models of routers that support open source router software/firmware like OpenWRT, DD-WRT and Tomato. However, when you look around, it's very difficult to determine the recency of router models out there and post date isn't always useful since many use which ever router just happens to be available to them for free. If one were to decide to buy a brand new model router to install open source router software on, where would you go to find out the best current models and be able to compare their features?<p>While it would be nice to know the best models as of today (December 1st 2013), I think it's more interesting to be taught how to fish instead of being given a fish. This also makes it easier for me (and anyone else) to pass this advice onto the next person.
======
suprjami
My advice is to just avoid DD-WRT altogether. The community is so hostile and
unhelpful, the site and wiki full of conflicting information, and almost all
builds for anything besides the old Linksys gear is in a real unstable state.
It seems almost inevitable that DD-WRT will just result in bricking your
router and having some forum asshole mock you for it.
I'm running Merlin's AsusWrt on an RT-AC66U and I've been very happy with it.
I bought it earlier this year to replace my aging WRT54GL which had run with
Tomato for years.
I'm also a fan of OpenWrt, but I use the x86 build on a VM host, it acts as a
router/firewall to other VMs in a private bridge.
~~~
lelandbatey
I can vouch for this. I've run ddwrt on all my routers for some time, but it
seems like they're no longer the favorite, for many reasons.
If I could do it all again, I'd go for OpenWRT, though in my case that's just
because OpenWRT has some features that ddwrt is lacking (e.g. native IPv6).
~~~
GigabyteCoin
Considering DD-WRT is simply a closed version of OpenWRT and this is HN... we
should all be going for OpenWRT!
It's a pretty amazing little project.
------
sigil
Ubiquiti devices all the way [1] [2]. They're the hacker's choice!
Before I discovered Ubiquiti, the Linksys WRT54Gx series was my goto. The
problem with them is that, as a given WRT54Gx line matures, they usually shave
down the specs. You can see that in action with the WRT54GS series here [3],
which debuted with 8MB of flash and now only sports 2MB. Good luck getting
anything useful into 2MB.
The other problem with the WRT54Gx's is that there's quite a lot of hardware
and architecture variation under the hood. You're usually fine, but I do have
one WRT54G-RG at home here that wouldn't even take OpenWRT. It's running DD-
WRT, which is a ghetto. (I see some other commenters here feel similarly).
Anyway the Ubiquiti PicoStation 2HP, by contrast, has
- 8MB of flash
- 32MB of RAM
- a nice Atheros SoC which transmits at the legal max of 1000 mW
- can easily be outfitted with high gain external antennas
- works perfectly under OpenWRT, and
- is competitively priced at $78 [4]
The only downside: if you need extra ethernet ports, you'll want a separate
switch or possibly a wired router. But I think it's worth it. You shouldn't
put an all-in-one wireless / router device on the public internet. The
commenter who runs pfSense on an x86 system has the right idea:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6829315](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6829315)
Source: I started a live entertainment company 4 years ago. We use Ubiquiti
equipment in all our shows, and we've deployed about 50 PicoStations with our
own OpenWRT packages to date.
[1] [http://www.ubnt.com/picostation](http://www.ubnt.com/picostation)
[2] [http://www.ubnt.com/nanostation](http://www.ubnt.com/nanostation)
[3]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_WRT54G_series#WRT54GS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_WRT54G_series#WRT54GS)
[4] [http://store.netgate.com/Ubiquiti-
PicoStation2HP-80211bg-100...](http://store.netgate.com/Ubiquiti-
PicoStation2HP-80211bg-1000mW-IndoorOutdoor-AP-P245C157.aspx)
~~~
shalmanese
I have to wonder what the difference in BOM costs there is between 8MB of
flash and 2MB of flash? Consumer USB flash prices in the 10+GB range are
around 0.05 pennies per MB. Surely at the point, the cost of the enclosure
dwarfs the cost of the actual memory for flash chips in the MB range.
It seems like the cost of retooling would far outweigh any cost savings from
spinning a new rev with 6MB less flash.
~~~
VLM
They sell a lot more than just the WRT54 and are terrified that the $250
market (or whatever) will collapse if people start buying low end models and
reflashing to gain features.
Its a market segmentation game. They'd gladly pay $5 extra for less memory, if
neutering the low end device saves the sale of a high end $200 model.
You may wish to look into who owns Linksys.
~~~
meatmanek
> You may wish to look into who owns Linksys.
I think you're referring to Cisco, who manufactures higher-end networking
equipment. But recently, Belkin bought Linksys from Cisco:
[http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57574628-92/belkin-
complete...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57574628-92/belkin-completes-
acquisition-of-linksys-from-cisco/)
------
seliopou
The OpenWRT wiki[1] is a great resource for this. There you can find a Buyers'
Guide[2], as well a Table of Hardware[3] with compatibility tables for
vendors, models and OpenWRT versions.
I recently flashed a TP-Link TL-WR1043ND with OpenWRT and it worked like a
charm. I'm planning to flash it with the Pantou[4] OpenWRT distribution so I
can start running OpenFlow with real hardware.
[1]: [http://wiki.openwrt.org/](http://wiki.openwrt.org/)
[2]:
[http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/buyerguide](http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/buyerguide)
[3]: [http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/start](http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/start)
[4]:
[http://archive.openflow.org/wk/index.php/Pantou_:_OpenFlow_1...](http://archive.openflow.org/wk/index.php/Pantou_:_OpenFlow_1.0_for_OpenWRT)
~~~
Scaevolus
The TP-LINK TL-WDR3600 is the same price, but supports 5GHz as well.
~~~
samcrawford
Not only that, but the WDR3600 has a significantly faster CPU, more memory and
more flash than the WR1043ND. It's about 2 years newer too. Definitely worth a
few extra dollars.
------
moreentropy
I usually use tp-link gear for openwrt, it's readily available from our
distributor and dirt cheap. Don't just look for recent models, pick your
hardware from the openwrt hardware compatibility list based on the specs you
need.
If you can disregard the fact that the firmware isn't open source, have a look
at www.ubnt.com and www.routerboard.com . Those don't run openwrt, but
price/performance and features beat everything else that's on the market. The
mikrotik routers are performing so well and have so many features it's
ridiculous. If you really need Cisco, you'll know. If you're not sure, get a
mikrotik, it will cover everything you'll ever need.
~~~
samcrawford
Agreed... You really cannot beat TP-Link for the money, and the vast majority
(but not all!) of their routers are OpenWrt supported.
I buy literally thousands of them for work (we re-purpose them as network
measurement devices, running OpenWrt), and the models we use are as follows:
* TL-WR741ND - 100M ports (can saturate the WAN link).
* TL-WDR3600 - 1G ports (LAN-WAN can hit around 500Mbps with careful tuning, but I don't know how that changes when NAT is enabled)
* TL-WDR4900 - 1G ports (LAN-WAN can hit around 900Mbps, and that's even without using the NAT co-processor, which OpenWrt doesn't support)
Ones I would avoid - WR1043ND (very popular, but old now - it was the
precursor to the WDR3600), WDR3500 (100Mbps ports - yuck), WDR4300 (very
little difference to the WDR3600, but more expensive)
The TL-WDR4900 really is blindingly quick, largely because it has a PPC CPU
inside rather than the MIPS CPU, but it's also double the price of the 3600.
Unless you need the horsepower, the TL-WDR3600 really is the way forward.
I would avoid the 802.11ac models at the moment; they're more expensive, and
there's no 802.11ac driver for OpenWrt yet, so you'd be wasting your money.
~~~
skystorm
Seconded. I use the 3600 with Gargoyle OpenWrt (www.gargoyle-router.com,
basically a web interface to OpenWrt) and it's been nothing but great.
------
ChuckMcM
Jeff Atwood's write up : [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/06/because-
everyone-st...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/06/because-everyone-
still-needs-a-router.html) is worth reading along these lines because he does
a good job of explaining a process for surveying the market.
That said, if you are not too cost conscious you can build a wireless router
out of the Intel NUC really easily, and for modest loads I've used a
Beaglebone as an access point. So you may find you can cobble together the
pieces in a fairly straight forward way. I do _not_ recommend a Raspberry Pi
as a wireless router as its network is all going through the USB hub and as
such it has a lot of latency spikes.
~~~
doomrobo
I don't see why QoS is such an important feature for a personal router. If he
is (and I assume he is) the primary user of his network, then why is QoS
control necessary?
~~~
ChuckMcM
The common response is voip, but it can also be video on demand. While Netflix
will notch down from HD to SD to Artifact-D as the net congests it isn't
pretty. If you have multiple users and some says "Hey look the Linux Mint iso
is out, lets get both the 32 bit and 64 bit version." while you are watching a
movie, its very annoying for both the movie watcher and the other person who
says "WTF? 18 hours to complete, no way!" This way only one of you is
disappointed.
~~~
sjwright
What is Artifact-D?
(Yes, I tried googling it.)
~~~
jxf
It's probably a joke, implying that the Netflix video quality served during
congested periods is so low that all you get is video artifacts.
------
r0h1n
I've been using the Asus RT-N66U 'Black Knight' for well over a year with DD-
WRT and have nothing but praise for it.
Dual-band N900, three detachable antennas, 256 MB RAM, rock solid stability.
[http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Asus_RT-N66U](http://www.dd-
wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Asus_RT-N66U)
[http://www.asus.com/Networking/RTN66U/](http://www.asus.com/Networking/RTN66U/)
~~~
stox
I'll second that motion. I have not had a single issue with my RT-N66U and
Tomato.
~~~
gcb0
openWRT... another asus model. but yeah, after my research, asus is the best
bang for the buck.
------
rll
If you are looking for the best, regardless of price, it is probably the ASUS
RT-AC68U that was released recently. See the 9-page dd-wrt thread on it here:
[http://www.dd-
wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=177612&sid=8bfd...](http://www.dd-
wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=177612&sid=8bfdc68ee0ac089e7783b8e19f0d4ea7)
which shows a few issues here and there, but that is typical of newly released
models. You did say you were looking for recent ones.
If you don't have 802.11ac-capable devices and just want a cheap solid dd-wrt
box, I would suggest the Asus RT-N16 or RT-N66U. The thing to look for is the
amount of ram in these things. An 8M router is going to suck at running dd-
wrt. See the big huge table here:
[http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices](http://www.dd-
wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices)
And pay attention to the ram column.
~~~
philjr
I got an ASUS RT-N66U earlier this year and it really is an awesome piece of
kit. +1 for Asus routers
~~~
emmelaich
... except for the N56U. The only one NOT supported by the popular firmware
alternatives. Guess who bought one :-)
There is code.google.com/p/rt-n56u/ but it's nowhere as good as my old
Tomato.
------
kogir
I've got pfSense[1] running on a passively cooled embedded board[2]. I then
use whatever wireless APs I want in bridge mode.
I like this because x86 will always be compatible with anything I might run in
the future, and changing out wireless hardware from 2.4 N to dual-band N to ac
has been trivial and required no thought to compatibility.
[1] http://www.pfsense.org/
[2] http://www.jetwaycomputer.com/ITX-JBC362F36.html
~~~
VLM
One problem with a "customized distribution" is it probably gets far fewer
security updates, much slower, of FreeBSD, than just using straight up main
line "real" freebsd.
This kind of logic is why I use plain old Debian as the OS with roughly the
same hardware architecture as your design.
~~~
kogir
While you're absolutely right, this is my home network, and not that big a
deal. I'd guess that even outdated FreeBSD is way more secure than most
consumer router firmware, which hopefully makes me a less appealing target.
------
oceanplexian
None of the above.
Run pfSense on an old x86 box and you'll end up with something an order of
magnitude better. As far as an access point goes I'd suggest going with
ubiquiti gear if it's in your budget.
~~~
justincormack
There are huge disadvantages in using old x86 boxes, like size, noise, power
consumption, lack of ethernet ports and so on.
If you wanted to sensibly advise using pfsense you could point at the zrouter
project
[http://zrouter.org/projects/zrouter/wiki/Supported_devices](http://zrouter.org/projects/zrouter/wiki/Supported_devices)
~~~
VLM
I do not think those disadvantages apply in most cases. Back when DSL was new
I used an old 486 for many years, this is not new territory for me.
Size is irrelevant unless you're putting it in your entertainment center
(why?) or live on a sailboat. Just stick it in the basement, stack on top of
the fileserver, whatever. If you're doing the dorm room thing or living aboard
a sailboat you have to realize that involves some highly unusual lifestyle
compromises. For most people its not an issue.
Noise: I did splurge on some large slow fans (like $10) to replace old small
fast (LOUD) fans. Again this is a lifestyle thing, where if your castle has no
location further than 5 feet from your sleeping head, you're going to have
serious lifestyle issues that most people simply will not have. I don't find
my desktop at home or work to be particularly loud. I did at one time run a
more modern desktop as a firewall and specifically ripped out the fancy
graphic card and used the on board video, to reduce noise a little. After
installation I never used the video or keyboard again, all SSH access, so its
not like it needed fancy graphics. My main
firewall/wifi/dhcp/asterisk/stuff/etc box is about 50 walking feet from my
sleeping head, past the (sometimes) loud fridge, the dishwasher, the clothes
dryer, the hot water heater... For most people its not going to be an issue.
Power consumption. Not an issue. I was drawing about 50 watts which will cost
about $50 or about 3 weeks of cablemodem service per year. Using the EE
tradition of it costs about $1 to provide 1 watt for one year. I admit I was
an idiot and upgraded to a soekris box many years ago which is basically a 5
watt PC. So I save about $45 per year of damage to my finances and the
environment. Great, that'll only take like ten years to pay off the capital
expense / manufacturing environmental degradation. That was a dumb move on my
part and I'd suggest you're always better off both financially and
environmentally by reusing an old desktop.
Lack of ethernet ports (LOL, serious? Plug in another board?)
~~~
M2Ys4U
>Size is irrelevant unless you're putting it in your entertainment center
(why?) or live on a sailboat.
No, it's not. If you're using *DSL (including FTTC) then how much space you
have available depends on where your phone line enters your house, for
instance.
My lines comes in, from a pole in the alley behind my house, to my kitchen and
the master socket is by my kitchen door in the hall. I certainly don't have
room for a large box there, but a typical router fits nicely.
------
beagle3
... and while we're at it: best alternative firmware? e.g. I liked DD-WRT, but
they hadn't released version in ages - and e.g. use an exploitable version of
the dropbear ssh server. I'm now using OpenWRT and am happy -- but I don't
have enough time to really research.
~~~
moreentropy
I would say OpenWRT wins in this category. It's not based on open sourced
Linksys firmware anymore, it's a embedded distribution designed from scratch
for modularity and portability. It really is a awesome piece of engineering
which is fun to use and well documented in detail. If you want to extend the
features of the router and add things like openvpn, ntp server, traffic
shaping, asterisk pbx, tftp server or whatever comes to mind, openwrt most
probably has it packaged and ready to use.
------
FootballMuse
I along with many others are waiting patiently for the new Alix gigabit board
~Q1 2014.
[http://www.pcengines.ch/apu.htm](http://www.pcengines.ch/apu.htm)
Passive cooling, 2-4GB RAM, AMD 1GHZ APU, 3 Gigabit ports, 2 MiniPCI cards for
cell and wifi, Using 6-12W @ 12Volts.
------
HarryHirsch
People tend to overlook Thin Clients. There is plenty of these available on
Ebay, and they are mostly low-power x86 boards with one PCI slot. I am using a
Maxspeed Maxterm (that's an 800 MHz VIA C3) and am very pleased with it.
~~~
tux1968
Does it have more than one ethernet port on it? Otherwise, how can you use it
as a router?
~~~
icebraining
It has a built-in port, so you can always use a PCI Ethernet card to get two
ports. You'll probably still need a switch, though.
------
sandGorgon
If anyone is interested in a travel router - small as a pack of cards, can be
powered by USB, 3g dongle compatible - I recommend the tp-link mr3020/3040.
Do take care that it needs some configuring, because it has only one Ethernet
port used as wan & LAN [1]
I had a slightly related question on how to set up a wireless-only setup for a
startup. Hope someone has an answer to that -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6800737](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6800737)
[1] [http://www.lambdacurry.com/2013/05/configuring-the-tplink-
mr...](http://www.lambdacurry.com/2013/05/configuring-the-tplink-mr3020-with-
dd-wrt-and-the-single-port-problem/)
------
dz0ny
Latest tomato builds:
\- [http://at.prahec.com/](http://at.prahec.com/) \-
[http://tomato.groov.pl/](http://tomato.groov.pl/)
~~~
purephase
Loved the tomato firmware. Bought a Netgear R6300 with the hopes that it would
be supported. Looks like it will never happen. Regret that decision.
------
broknbottle
I would check out the edge router lite from ubiquity. It runs edgeos, a fork
of vyatta. Based off debian and has lots of options. Dual core mips64 cpu,
cavium network processors for ipv4,ipv6 and ipsec offloading. All this for $99
or less [http://amzn.to/1bBpdJ8](http://amzn.to/1bBpdJ8)
~~~
moreentropy
I have one of those sitting on my desk. It still feels a bit like early
adaptor stuff, the edge router line is quite new, but looks very promising.
I really like vyatta, but now that vyatta is basically dead, I'm happy that it
lives on in edgeos.
Don't be fooled by the GUI though, it's very incomplete, but the full feature
set of vyatta/edgeos is there accessible in the CLI.
------
mclemme
I'm a big fan of the WNDR3700, bought it on a whim a few years ago, the
firmware it comes with sucks, but with *WRT it just works (I've got a V2, have
a look at
[http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/netgear/wndr3700](http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/netgear/wndr3700)
for details about versions).
With a powered USB hub and an external disk drive and a webcam, it functions
as remote backup via. rsync and monitoring my home when I'm on vacation, when
enabled it takes pictures every 2 seconds when there's movement in the frame.
The pictures are uploaded offsite immediately.
I'm using OpenWRT and have had very little problems, only issue I've noticed
is that the wifi transfer speeds are a bit slower (10-30%) than when using the
factory firmware, but I can live with that.
21:47:12 up 221 days, 5:22, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.04
------
m86
Personally,
-General device testing is well served at SmallNetBuilder (the octoBox test environment used now is awesome), though the stock FW is obviously tested more often than not
-Ubiquiti gear is indeed pretty rad
-Old Broadcom-based gear is still holding up well for low throughput use using Tomato + variants (.. or even DD-WRT)
-I would probably avoid 11ac models for now (unless you have a compelling reason not to).. but if you do decide to go that route, the BCM470(8/9)x SoCs are Cortex-A9 based [versus the single-core MIPS based BCM4706]
.. for a bit more data, a somewhat thorough overview of available hardware is
available via the below WD query (in table form)..
[http://wikidevi.com/w/index.php?title=Special%3AAsk&q=%3Cq%3...](http://wikidevi.com/w/index.php?title=Special%3AAsk&q=%3Cq%3E%5B%5BThird+party+firmware+supported%3A%3AOpenWrt%5D%5D+OR+%5B%5BThird+party+firmware+supported%3A%3ADD-
WRT%5D%5D+OR+%5B%5BThird+party+firmware+supported%3A%3A~Tomato*%5D%5D%3C%2Fq%3E+%5B%5BEmbedded+system+type%3A%3Awireless+router%5D%5D&po=%3FEmbedded+system+type%3DType%0D%0A%3FThird+party+firmware+supported%3DTPFirmware%0D%0A%3FFCC+ID%0D%0A%3FManuf%0D%0A%3FManuf+product+model%3DManuf.+mdl%0D%0A%3FCPU1+model%3DCPU1%0D%0A%3FCPU1+clock+speed%0D%0A%3FFLA1+amount%3DFLA1%0D%0A%3FRAM1+amount%3DRAM1%0D%0A%3FWI1+chip1+model%3DWI1+chip1%0D%0A%3FWI1+chip2+model%3DWI1+chip2%0D%0A%3FWI1+MIMO+config%3DWI1+MIMO%0D%0A%3FWI2+chip1+model%3DWI2+chip1%0D%0A%3FWI2+chip2+model%3DWI2+chip2%0D%0A%3FWI2+MIMO+config%3DWI2+MIMO%0D%0A%3FSupported+802dot11+protocols%3DPHY+modes%0D%0A%3FEstimated+year+of+release%3DEst.+year%0D%0A&eq=yes&p%5Bformat%5D=broadtable&sort_num=&order_num=ASC&p%5Blimit%5D=500&p%5Boffset%5D=&p%5Blink%5D=all&p%5Bsort%5D=&p%5Bheaders%5D=show&p%5Bmainlabel%5D=&p%5Bintro%5D=&p%5Boutro%5D=&p%5Bsearchlabel%5D=%E2%80%A6+further+results&p%5Bdefault%5D=&p%5Bclass%5D=sortable+wikitable+smwtable&eq=yes)
------
nano_o
I am running OpenWRT on a Buffalo WBMR-HP-G300H without any issues. This model
has an integrated ADSL modem and has a few USB ports. I have a USB hard disk
attached and I use it as a media and bittorrent server. Over LAN it can stream
an HD movie from the disk, but over wifi it seems too slow for that.
~~~
vsviridov
I have the AirStation N600 Buffalo router.
It's kind of annyoing that it comes with DD-WRT preinstalled, but it's half-
assed and is not configured for easy modification.
I have not taken the plunge yet, because I do not want to deal with jtag
cables if it bricks, and the whole "install our binary, and then do not even
breathe in the direction of the router for 10 minutes" part does not inspire
much confidence...
~~~
doelie_
I got one of these with the idea of installing OpenWRT. No problems at all.
Telnet into DD-WRT, then wget followed by mtd.
The console approach makes it clear what's happening.
[http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/buffalo/wzr-600dhp](http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/buffalo/wzr-600dhp)
------
dmbass
The Wirecutter does pretty extensive lists of "the best" electronic
products/gadgets.
Here's their networking section:
[http://thewirecutter.com/leaderboard/networking/](http://thewirecutter.com/leaderboard/networking/)
------
hemlock
For OpenWRT, if you'd like a Netgear R6300 do not get the v2. I've been told
on OpenWRT's IRC just recently its not supported so you won't get usb,
ethernet, wireless etc.,pretty much all that is vital. Whereas v1 is supported
and said to have worked, it's not on the officially supported hardware list.
There isn't much info on this model with regards to openwrt I'm afraid. In
fact, I'm atm busy trying to build a custom fw for it myself & will update if
I manage to get it working. (Though fyi, I can confirm DD-Wrt is working for
this model)
------
toni
ASUS RT-N16
Its cheap, stable and un-brickable. So much so that there is a special tomato
version dedicated to this model.[1]
[1] [http://www.easytomato.org/download](http://www.easytomato.org/download)
~~~
justin66
Still not supported properly in OpenWRT, all these years later. (yes, I've got
one sitting on the shelf waiting for this purpose)
------
devhen
I've had success with the Netgear WNR3500L running DD-WRT. It doesn't have
5GHz but it does 2.4GHz great and on the cheap. The one I'm running now I
bought refurbished for $35 and its rock solid stable and performs well.
Of course, its WiFi, so I'm already wishing I had AC so my portable devices
were as fast as my wired desktop. But I don't think that will ever change.
WiFi will probably never catch up to our ever increasing internet download
speeds.
------
leeoniya
been running various Tomato flavors w/VPN for many years, first on WRT54GL,
now Asus RT-N16. currently run Toastman builds [1] but Shibby [2] is good too.
[1]
[http://www.4shared.com/dir/v1BuINP3/Toastman_Builds.html#dir...](http://www.4shared.com/dir/v1BuINP3/Toastman_Builds.html#dir=zBnbpdpY)
[2]
[http://tomato.groov.pl/download/K26RT-N/](http://tomato.groov.pl/download/K26RT-N/)
------
jotm
I love DD WRT.
As for router models, development seems to be slow these days - I can only
recommend the older Linksys routers, the Belkin F7D4301 and the many TPLinks
(WR7-10xx series in particular)...
But any model that has a stable DD WRT release should be good - most important
thing is the processor and Flash/RAM size in my opinion...
[http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices](http://www.dd-
wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices)
------
benhedrington
ASUS RT-N66U is nice, didn't have a need for AC. I have that and an older
Netgear WNR3500l (v1) running upstairs and down same SSID different channels.
Tomato is my firmware of choice although ASUS with Merlin is pretty solid.
There were some pretty good router deal on Black Friday, be on the lookout for
the ASUS on Cyber Monday I'd say.
------
berberous
Other than price, can anyone give me a rundown of any benefits to this
approach over an Airport Extreme? Other than ideological benefits. Do they
perform better, or are there things I can't do with the Apple device? I'm not
sure I want to deal with headaches here. Thanks.
~~~
runjake
I've done pretty extensive comparisons between one of the old Airport Extreme
Dual Band units that look like a white Mac Mini and run some flavor of NetBSD
and it performs slightly (~10%) better than both my old WRT54G and superior-
specced WNDR3700 running DD-WRT builds. I still use the WNDR3700, not for
performance, but for features and configurability. The APE basically just sits
and serves a network disk.
------
sz4kerto
The old Netgear WNDR3700 is one of the best because of very good 2.4 GHz range
and lots of RAM.
~~~
67726e
I've had a bad impression with the v3 release. In the past year I've had two
hardware failures and recently had an issue with the Netgear firmware causing
upwards of 80% packet loss. Switching to DD-WRT fixed the packet loss issue.
The v3+ routers also only have DD-WRT builds so far as I can tell, and
switching to another firmware is damn near impossible once you switch to DD-
WRT. That said, with DD-WRT it works and works well so long as the hardware
doesn't fail.
------
tvon
The Asus N66u is highly regarded:
[http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-wi-fi-router-asus-
rt-n...](http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-wi-fi-router-asus-rt-n66u/)
I have one myself but have not loaded Tomato on it yet.
------
laveur
I've used DD-WRT before and it bothers me that their releases are seemingly
far and few between. Even my commercial router with its original firmware got
more updates than DD-WRT. Just some food for thought.
------
justincormack
Netgear lists their current models that they support for open firmware here
[http://www.myopenrouter.com/](http://www.myopenrouter.com/) \- thats how I
chose one.
------
yashau
The ASUS RT-AC66U supports Tomato
You can find the firmware here: [http://tomato.groov.pl/download/K26RT-
AC/](http://tomato.groov.pl/download/K26RT-AC/)
~~~
fsckin
This Asus router scores a 95/100 from me. I ran a pfSense machine and separate
AP for several years and bought this when the machine died. The RT-AC66U has
been almost as solid and capable as the dedicated pfSense setup, without the
extra power usage that comes with running an x86.
------
elheffe80
I am a bit surprised I only caught one mention of the Buffalo N600. I know it
doesn't have AC, but it runs DD-WRT for all that I need and has full gigabit
ports on the switch.
------
jagermo
I have a DLINK DIR-615. Cheap, easy to install (just flash via webinterface)
and nearly unbrickable. Although not very powerful, i find it is a nice device
to try out new stuff.
------
Xdes
I'm suprised no one has mentioned MikroTik.
Take a look at their RB750[1] which is about $40.
[1] [http://routerboard.com/RB750](http://routerboard.com/RB750)
~~~
gcb0
because it is wired only, without gigabit ports.
------
singingfish
I've been generally impressed with TP-Link's kit, although it is cheap, so
don't expect it to hold up in a hostile environment (e.g. lots of dust).
------
jmpe
Carambola-2 with dev-board. No hassle, low price and compact.
[http://8devices.com/carambola-2](http://8devices.com/carambola-2)
------
lordlarm
I recently bought a Linksys 1200. Works beautifully with DD-WRT. Or the
Linksys 2500, if you want more power.
I can also recommend Netgear WNDR3700 if you want 5Ghz.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Mosaic – A declarative, front-end JavaScript library for building UIs - authman2
https://github.com/Authman2/Mosaic
======
purrcat259
Not sure if I am alone in this, but I tend to skip straight to demos after
skimming the first few lines. I guess it serves as a basic indicator that the
code actually works.
Would love to see some demos of this library.
~~~
bestest
Many examples of the library-in-action may be found on the homepage:
[https://mosaicjs.netlify.com](https://mosaicjs.netlify.com)
edit: update link
~~~
dmethvin
I wasn't able to find any working examples from the homepage, even with the
updated link. Can you link directly to a demo page or two that uses the
library, rather than a Github repo with code that uses the library?
~~~
bestest
Looks like they could improve their examples section. These are links to
jsfiddle from their documentation with some examples:
[https://jsfiddle.net/authman2/kdfzL2m5/39/embedded/js,html,r...](https://jsfiddle.net/authman2/kdfzL2m5/39/embedded/js,html,result/#Result)
[https://jsfiddle.net/authman2/e8nuydLo/39/embedded/js,html,r...](https://jsfiddle.net/authman2/e8nuydLo/39/embedded/js,html,result/#Result)
[https://jsfiddle.net/authman2/yfhsxrcm/35/embedded/js,html,r...](https://jsfiddle.net/authman2/yfhsxrcm/35/embedded/js,html,result/#Result)
------
akho
So you made a web thing and called it Mosaic.
~~~
arethuza
It would be amusing to write a basic web browser in JavaScript and call it
Mosaic...
------
Zelphyr
Can someone explain the trend of mixing HTML and JS code that has been
increasing lately? We fought for years to get away from that so I'm curious to
know what happened to make people think it was suddenly a good idea. I'm not
suggesting it's not or that it is permanently bad. I'd simply like to know why
it's good after being considered a bad practice for so long?
~~~
prezjordan
When building certain applications, it turns out those concerns aren't really
separate! It helps a lot to colocate the markup and the code that
generates/modifies it.
------
tobr
Looks fairly interesting. Two questions the documentation ought to answer:
1\. How mature is it? My assumption is that it’s _not_ mature, in which case
it’s more credible if the README says so.
2\. What would be the reason to use this instead of, say, lit-html or Preact
or Mithril.js?
------
misterdata
This looks a lot like Vue.js - how is it different/better?
------
crabl
This has some eerie similarities to
[Backbone.js]([https://backbonejs.org/#View-
extend](https://backbonejs.org/#View-extend)). That's not necessarily a bad
thing, because Backbone was doing its level best to compete as a framework in
its heyday, but it's still interesting to see how different it would be if
Backbone was designed today.
------
vladsanchez
[https://mosaicjs.netlify.com](https://mosaicjs.netlify.com) contains a lot of
broken links. If you really want to promote your library, fix them! Otherwise
ppl will focus on your broken windows instead of the value of your product.
Thanks for sharing Mosaic.
------
spankalee
The source looks like it has a lot of bits in it from lit-html. ️
------
darepublic
reminded me a bit of angularjs, with its constant watching of state data
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Building an automated headless YouTube upload server with v3 API - ilmiont
I have very poor rural broadband, ~300Kbps up max. Uploading even a 100MB video takes an hour.<p>I want to use a Pi to build an automated upload server that will silently upload videos overnight. I have a working Python script to upload, pulled from the API docs, but want to take it to the next level.<p>I am aiming to create a web interface to upload videos. Select a video, it pulls across network to the Pi and the Pi then uploads to YouTube overnight. Adding another video should queue it to upload after the first one. Going to the web interface again should display the upload status.<p>My question is how to get this working in the background. Either I call a Python script from PHP and use nohup and & for background or I upload from PHP (preferred). But surely this will hit max runtime limits and fail?<p>I'd like some guidance on this architectural decision. I have the basis of the app - videos stored to a sqlite so status can be retrieved - and video upload to the Pi. I now need to find the best way to upload to YT, with a queue system so uploads are handled in order, and in the background. Uploads must continue after the browser is closed and the server needs to run headless.
======
kgtm
First of all, is a web interface absolutely required? It adds a lot of
complexity to something that is no more than a couple of lines of Bash glue.
For monitoring, you can just keep an SSH session to the Pi.
How i would do it, requiring no user input:
* Designate a hot folder on the NAS, where i put all the videos to be uploaded.
* Establish a list of what has been transferred (nothing initially).
* From the Pi, poll the NAS folder for files that haven't been transferred yet.
* If a file is found, cat file | curl --data-binary @- POST it to YT.
* On success, record the transferred filename.
* Continue polling.
Of course, you can quite easily bolt-on a web interface to this, by exposing
some of the steps as API endpoints.
~~~
ilmiont
Something like this was actually my original idea - just monitor a directory
for changes. Then I've still got the issue of running this in the background,
constantly, though, so the uploads occur automatically and keep running in
background even after user logs out. (Monitoring is not as important as
headless uploads)
~~~
kgtm
That shouldn't be an issue, why aren't you using tmux/screen in the first
place? It's what most people use to persist sessions across logins (and much
more, like terminal multiplexing). I personally use Byobu with the tmux
backend on all my servers.
If you don't want to use extra software, a simple cron job running every
minute would suffice.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to deploy your next Rails app with database to the cloud - pjeziorowski
https://docs.qovery.com/guides/tutorial/deploy-rails-with-postgresql/
======
ev0xmusic
Thanks for sharing
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What are the key ingredients to building a successful startup - DSmart1
Hi there, I'm dillon smart. I have recently launched a new project, anonymous photo sharing, however Im finding it difficult to get thing going. Does anybody have any pointers? The site is melonpix.com if you have a look I would really appreciate some feedback. Thanks.
======
pedrorijo91
When I share a photo I want to be recognised as the author. Give a good reason
for sharing photos anonymously and use it as a strength of your product when
presenting it to the world. If people like it they will share and spread the
word (you can provide means/rewards for doing it also)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Guiding a Venture-Backed Startup to a Felony - sigacts
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/guiding-venture-backed-startup-felony-sean-maday
======
jessaustin
Calling this a "venture-backed startup" is a stretch. It was really just a
con. One couldn't reasonably expect a single author who wrote five westerns
all by herself to net $250k for her efforts. They didn't really expect to be
able to pay back the investor after buying all those goodies for themselves,
even if they could have gotten a single book written.
~~~
35bge57dtjku
I'd think a web portal that fits the bill could be constructed for about 10k,
maybe 20k. So I wonder if the rest could have actually paid for the 5 novels.
> One couldn't reasonably expect a single author who wrote five westerns all
> by herself to net $250k for her efforts.
Why not, that's too low for any author? I would have thought they could find
someone somewhere who'd agree to make 5 mediocre, somewhat short novels for
150k total, maybe someone just starting out.
Wouldn't that have at least been a real effort and protected them from being
charged with fraud? That'd leave them with 80k in profit. They'd still have to
get around the part where they agree money won't be used for their salaries,
but they'd at least have fulfilled the letter of the agreement. And 80k for a
few weeks of work is pretty good, imo.
~~~
DanBC
> Why not, that's too low for any author?
It feels like a bit of a gamble to write a series of books and throw a huge
marketing budget at them. That's what publishers have been doing, and it
doesn't work for most of their books.
Average earnings for published authors in UK is £11k pa.
[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/20/earnings-
autho...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/20/earnings-authors-
below-minimum-wage)
> The top 10% of professional authors, those who make £60,000 or more a year
> from their writing, earned 58% of all the money made by professional authors
> in 2013, and the top 5%, those making more than £100,000, earned 42.3% of
> that money. The top 1%, who make mean average earnings of more than
> £450,000, take 22.7% of all earnings, said the Authors’ Licensing &
> Collecting Society, which commissioned the UK-based survey.
> The picture for lower-earning writers was much bleaker. The bottom 50% of
> authors were those who earned less than £10,500 in 2013, and accounted for
> just 7% of the amount earned by all writers put together. And 17% of all
> writers did not earn anything at all during 2013, said the ALCS, adding that
> 98% of those authors had published a work every year from 2010 to 2013.
I dunno, does this make it sound like the scam / system described in the
submission is worth a punt?
~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Most publishers throw little or no marketing budget at books, which is one
reason most books do so badly.
Promoting book sales via a specialist niche community site isn't a bad idea.
In fact niche marketing was more or less how 50 Shades got started. It was a
crappy novel marketed brilliantly by a professional marketer, who went from
persuading a small community to praise the book, to leveraging that praise to
get interest from other online communities, to leveraging _that_ interest into
a mainstream publishing contract with formal marketing support.
Of course, for that to work you need a marketable demo.
Outdoorsmen who read erotic fiction in between heroic fishing exploits are
possibly not the world's biggest niche book market.
------
dmix
> Share a Worst Case Scenario - The prospectus for the Scoundrel deal showed a
> conservative, most likely and optimistic scenario. The conservative scenario
> showed that Mr. Brandenburg would receive all of his investment back in just
> two years. In fact, Mr. Brandenburg never saw any dividend or repayment on
> his $250,000 investment. Don’t gloss over risks.
This is an interesting piece of advice. I never thought to plan the negative
scenarios when doing high-level planning. You always discuss possible risks
and keep them at the back of your mind but adding a failure scenario to your
plans among low, medium, high outcome scenarios is a really good idea.
You don't hear much about risk management/planning for startups. If you're not
monitoring your risks along with your positive KPI's (or factoring them in
your KPI analysis) it's easy to gloss over them or delude yourself that they
don't exist.
Although, otherwise I question the value of taking much lessons out of this
'startup' failure. It's not very analogous to anything like the standard HN
web startup. Just some outsider non-techies who wanted to make a 'web portal'
and wasted a bunch of money frivolously (ie: 100k went to the author for
licensing upfront). Even ignoring their lack of technical industry experience,
their business plan heavily centered around building a community with a target
market they didn't already have any traction or influence in - which is always
the hardest part in any community-centric product. The tech is (usually) the
easy part.
~~~
cookiecaper
The truth is that if you present a document to your investors that says "Worst
Case Scenario: Total Loss", it's not going to go well. Your investors will
likely believe that you're presenting that as a minimum acceptable outcome. It
may make a jury feel you were trying to be honest, but you probably won't get
any investment to start with if you take that approach.
~~~
morgante
Eh? Almost any sane investment prospectus out there will state that it is
possible for your investment to lose money and, in the worst case, to be lost
entirely. Any prospectus which _doesn 't_ say that is almost ipso fact a
fraud.
~~~
cookiecaper
Correct, there is boilerplate language that states investment is a risk which
is found on almost every investment instrument, including small print on
commercials that pitch investment products and on the footer of every online
stock brokerage. IMO that's different than inserting a projection that reads
"TOTAL LOSS". I suppose the article doesn't specify whether the boilerplate
language was included or not; I was assuming the author meant additional
attention should've been drawn to the risk beyond the boilerplate.
------
jondubois
The only thing I learned from this article is that even the most idiotic ideas
can appeal to some investors if you search hard enough.
~~~
Kequc
In my experience securing investment is like pulling teeth. The amount of
assurances and background checks involved alone, is enough to make one's head
spin and that doesn't nearly get you to the end of it.
How was an outcome of "we burned all of the money and didn't deliver a single
thing" not in the final draft of at least three different contracts? I spent a
year searching for venture funding and it was painful. There was no oversight,
or staggered milestone based deliveries? Someone just handed over $250,000? In
my dreams.
------
wtvanhest
IMNAL but...
> Keep personal expenses out of your company books.
Is likely the most important advice in this piece. If you only take the
compensation you agree with your investors/board to take, and you never pass
unrelated expenses back to your entity, you will at least appear to be acting
morally.
The second you start commingling funds, is the second you enter a period of
extreme risk. Never commingle investor funds with personal funds and avoid
spending on things that you 'justify' as a business expense if they benefit
you personally in anyway.
I have a feeling we are about to read about more cases like this one. America
is in full startup fever right now and people will act immorally when they
realize that success is out of their grasp.
------
nstj
Without being sarcastic, I think the best part of this article was discovering
that Tom Selleck starred in a 1990 Western set in Australia called "Quigley
Down Under"[0].
And I tend to agree with the general sentiment of other comments here, it
seems that given there seemingly was no real intent to create a real company
from the funds invested, the title of the article could just as easily be "How
Not to Run a Fake Startup Investment Scam".
[0]:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quigley_Down_Under](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quigley_Down_Under)
~~~
tootie
It was a major Hollywood production with a ton of marketing behind it. I
remember seeing commercials for it. I think I rented it on VHS. It wasn't
great.
~~~
mcguire
Eh, it had its moments, Roy.
------
Pitarou
If you need these six "lessons for entrepreneurs" explaining to you, you're
not fit to take investors' money. Period. It's a story of ignorance,
incompetence and irresponsibility from start to finish.
~~~
cookiecaper
I think the article's points are expected to be received more as reminders to
keep your nose clean than actually communicating new information to readers.
------
realworldview
If it sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true. There is no
magic. Where there is money, there is deceit and opportunistic theft. Don't
believe anyone who tells you they will do a job without staging and proof.
Unless you bought those venture-backed rose-tinted glasses for those
passionate about whatever the next fad is.
Open your eyes, people... Oh and this just reeks of con.
------
api
The international bureau of you can't make this stuff up delivers yet again.
------
gerby
How did they expect to build the web portal, if no one on the operating team
had any knowledge of how to do so?
------
Waterluvian
What kind of punishment could be handed out for this?
~~~
greenyoda
The article mentions that the defendant was convicted of securities fraud, a
"Class Three Felony" in Colorado. According to this web site[1]:
_" Class three felonies, such as vehicular homicide while under the
influence, are punishable by four to 12 years behind bars and five years of
parole."_
[1] [http://www.mbslawco.com/blogs/2015/october/understanding-
man...](http://www.mbslawco.com/blogs/2015/october/understanding-manslaughter-
laws.aspx)
~~~
sigacts
Yep. We talked to the judge after the case and he said that the punishment
could range from probation to 12 years in state prison. The defendant has no
criminal history, so I would imagine the sentence will be relatively light.
~~~
sovietmudkipz
With a felony on your record, no sentence is a light sentence. He'll be
haunted by his conviction until he dies, can get records sealed (depending on
his state), or receives a presidential pardon.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: I'm 27. Why Do I Feel Like I'm Getting Too Old or Running Out of Time? - traviswingo
Perhaps it's the remarkably young tech scene, or maybe the funding bubble, but I'm 27 years old and feel like I'm too old, and that I'm running out of time to succeed.<p>Wtf is going on here? I can't be the only one.
======
akulbe
You're not getting old. You're getting older. Welcome to humanity. :)
I am 43 now. The last 10 years of my life have been equal parts challenging
and amazing. I have a little girl who is about to turn 5. My teenager is about
to turn 18. I've made more "progress" and done more growing and experienced
more in the last 10 years, than in all the years before.
Whether or not you have kids, I would do your best to learn how to enjoy each
day. But learn. Whatever you do... _keep learning_.
Contrary to popular thought, you don't have to be young for great things to
happen. They happen all around you, all the time.
Also, there's an author by the name of James Altucher and he's written some
things about just being a little bit better, a little more improved than the
day before. His stuff is good. I'd recommend it. Also, Deep Work by Cal
Newport.
Thank you for letting me share my thoughts. I'd be happy to talk more if you
ever want to.
~~~
kchauhan
> a little bit better, a little more improved than the day before.
How you do this?
~~~
akulbe
In my case, I often apply my effort to learning one more thing about
Ruby/Chef. Something I didn't know yesterday. I try to apply what I've
learned, so that the knowledge sticks, and I'm cementing the concepts in my
mind.
------
moraya-re
Tldr; Try to create balanced life. Balance is the key. & Meditate.
\- Make peace with everything that is happening around you. Be happy.
\- Building meaningful relationships will help you to be happy. When I say
relationships, it must be done without any self interest. You should never
expect anything to get from it but to just give with generosity. It works.
Trust me.
\- Most importantly delegate your work. Do not try to do everything on your
own. Consider example of your body, if one organ starts on its own, then whole
body is unstable. Same is with the community. If you play your part very well
& you'll get to have more fun.
\- Do not think in terms of milestones. Think in terms of journey. Marathon
mindset. If you think if you hit the milestone you will be successful &
content then you are doomed. You're already successful. Be content with what
you have. But keep up the hard work.
I would suggest to you to read James Allen's work.
Start with this -> [http://james-allen.in1woord.nl/daily.php](http://james-
allen.in1woord.nl/daily.php) If you read it in the morning & practice on daily
basis. You will start to see the results.
Thanks for reading.
------
karmajunkie
You're paying way too much attention to the press and PR about the tech scene.
"According to research by Vivek Wadhwa, an academic and tech entrepreneur, and
the Kauffman Foundation, the average age of successful start-up founders in
these and other high-growth industries was 40. And high-growth start-ups are
almost twice as likely to be launched by people over 55 as by people 20 to
34."
Do the things now that you won't be able to do once you've got a family
(assuming you haven't started one already.) Take a few risks, learn more than
a few things, and stretch yourself in ways that aren't comfortable. You've got
plenty of time—what you lack right now is perspective. Work on that.
[1] [http://business.time.com/2013/03/14/ask-the-expert-the-
best-...](http://business.time.com/2013/03/14/ask-the-expert-the-best-age-for-
a-start-up-founder/)
~~~
PatentTroll
There are great stories about later in life success stories too. Just
yesterday I was reading about Tom Clancey. In his mid 30s he was an insurance
salesman. His first book published when he was 37. Not that I want to be an
author, but that's a great story. Another one I think of is that John Boehner
was a plastics salesman at age 41. Not that he's a role model at all, but
clearly he had talents and abilities that were not being fully exploited as
late as his early forties. Life is long, and while people like us may have
missed the whole "teenage Internet entrepreneur/genius" train, there are lots
of exit ramps to fortune and glory throughout your 30s and 40s.
~~~
karmajunkie
Also worth noting: not every success story looks like 100M exits and millions
of users. My market has about 4000 customers tops (or about 50 enterprise-
level clients) and were a front-runner in the industry. It's never going to
garner much in the way of investment but we feel pretty successful even so.
------
nikdaheratik
You hear alot of noise about young people who manage to achieve great success
because that is the exception, not the rule. For most people, success happens
as a result of what you do in the next 10-15 years and very little of what you
did before matters.
However, I am starting to realize that the options I had before are simply no
longer available as I get older. I'm never going to be a doctor or pilot or in
the military, for example, as I chose to go into software instead. While I
could have simply decided 10 years ago to drop everything and do something
different, there's no time to do that now and expect to have the same level of
success that I would have had if I kept going with what I'm doing now.
~~~
emilburzo
> I'm never going to be a doctor or pilot or in the military [...]
A friend of mine, bus driver at 30, decided to become a pilot.
10 years later he's a captain at a major commercial airline.
Sample size of one, but never underestimate some good old determination :)
~~~
sogen
Agree, someone close decided to fly planes after retiring (60). And Some
famous painters started in their 30s/40s.
------
sixQuarks
A big misconception that I had in my 20s, and I'm sure others have had, was my
belief that life isn't as good when you're older. You probably look at 40 or
50 as being old, but when you get to that age, you still feel young inside and
besides the little aches and pains, you feel pretty much the same. I'm pretty
sure your 40-year old or 50-year old self will appreciate the work you do now
and for the next 15 years towards big goals, because you still have a lot of
time to enjoy them.
------
existencebox
You're not. Similar age bracket, similar feeling. I've gotten to the point
where I honestly feel _bad_ about doing "leisure", even activities I used to
enjoy, because I feel like I'm "Wasting time". It's become a bit of a problem,
because while I feel like "I can do this as long as it takes" Part of me
worries eventually this mythical burnout thing will kick in with no warning
and render me unable to even keep a basic income. Or maybe it already has
kicked in, and this fear/stress is what it is? Hell if I know, and that's half
my reason for posting, to let you know you're not alone in feeling worried
about this shit and unsure as to the answers.
The only logical hypotheses introspection has given is that it's reasonable to
recognize that compounding value is probably the #1 reliable way to greater
wealth/freedom later, so by not generating that initial compounding value
early the time is "doubly lost". That combined with newly minted billionaires
significantly younger than me off of photo apps makes me feel like I missed
the train somewhere as I crank away in a corner on some insane analytics SaaS.
The only pragmatic response I've found to that is to just keep cranking, and
if this doesn't work change my approach, but that doesn't really help with the
mental conflict of if I should enjoy the time I have now but shared with work,
or 100% myself now for the purpose of "buying" myself more 100% free time
later on.
I realize I gave more of a braindump than anything else, but I hope it gives
you a window into the thought process of someone else in a similar sort of
mental tumbleweed.
~~~
traviswingo
Yeah this is exactly what I was referring to. I literally feel guilty for
doing leisure activities and absolutely feel like Im wasting time. It's led me
to build some really cool things and given me the reputation for outputting a
lot of quality in a short period of time, but nothing else, really.
~~~
mmanulis
I'm in a similar boat, except I have 10 years on top of yours. It's actually
been a lot of fun, the learning and building, but I've been driven by the same
fear.
First off, this is hard and very few (any?) have this figured out. It took me
going through a major depression episode and other, significant, life changes
to start to work on this.
About a year ago I've started to change some key habits and that has helped to
alleviate this feeling. To start with:
* Reduced the amount of tech news / startup news I consume significantly. I cut down the number of blogs from ~ 300 to ~ 10. * I have a hobby (woodworking in my case). I tried a bunch of hobbies over the years and it took a while to find something that I'm sticking with, but just keep experimenting * Meditation and non-tech and non-business reading has helped. Instead of reading 10 business/startup/tech books for every 1 fiction/biography/history/fun-topic, I reversed that relationship. * Vacations. Not some huge travel-the-world stuff, but a weekend getaway with friends / significant other is amazing. Could just be to look at vintage stores, art galleries, sit on your butt by the pool, etc. Don't have goals, get lost and don't watch the clock
Lastly, the most important piece. Spend the time and the energy you're
investing right now in projects and "growing" on figuring out what you want
out of life. This is not some existential thing nor is it some grand plan.
Starting a company is a goal and good one. Traveling 3 months out of a year is
a goal too. Don't get hung up on it, it'll change and evolve over the years.
Just start somewhere, you can "pivot" as you move forward.
Here's the most important piece though - how do you measure yourself? Forget
realistic/unrealistic or external/internal - doesn't matter. Identify what are
the metrics that you use to gauge your progress and what it means for you to
have had a successful week (day - too short & month/year - too long).
Then, ask yourself: why that?
The answers to the questions above will help show you a path from feeling like
you're spinning in one spot and what to do next.
Reach out if you want to talk about any of it.
------
Starwatcher2001
I'm 57. I've been programming since I was 19 and I'm successful.
Never made pots of money, but it's kept me in comfort. Success for me is
having a lovely wife, great kids, roof over our heads, food in our tums,
enjoying time together, doing some of those bucket list things, and laughing
every single day.
I still love programming and solving problems for people. You won't have heard
of anything I've written, but much of it is still in use and (I like to
think), makes people's lives a bit easier and hopefully helps them have the
same kind of success I enjoy.
We can't all be millionaires, but maybe we can all improve humanity a bit by
the things we create.
~~~
darrelld
Yup! The key is to define what success is for you.
As developers we're always sharing and reading stories of young millionaires
who did something that "We could do in an afternoon" and think we're failing
if we just get a decent job that keeps us in comfort.
I felt a lot like OP as I was moving into my 30's. Then I realized that
traveling and photography make me much happier than stressing out over being
the best programmer or trying to make millions on some novel new idea.
------
tnmrnis
I'm 26 and feel the same sometimes. Then I look around me and realize that I
know just one person that managed to build a successfull company before 30.
All other successful founders I know started their company in there mid to
late 30s.
My father started a successfull company when he was almost 60.
You need to realize that the young founders seem to be quite successfull for
high risk ventures but the big mass of successfull startups is built in the
not so visible B2B market, where your value significantly increases with work
and industry experience. The B2B market is also much easier to bootstrap since
you're much more likely to know your potential customers before you built a
product.
------
bas
This monster is 79:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth)
Perspective.
------
RUG3Y
I'm 33 tomorrow and I haven't accomplished a damn thing yet. Furthermore, it
sounds like you're way ahead of me. I make hardly any money and have no
prospects for anything better. Actually my situation feels quite desperate at
the moment.
What keeps me going is the thought that people in 3rd world countries have it
worse, so maybe I shouldn't complain too much.
------
burntrelish1273
Buy a sports car, have a fling, get married, become a monk, walk Camino de
Santiago, etc. are some of the usual vaguely sabbatical-like experiences
people use to assuage their internal perspectives in times of existential
"forks" in the road. Obviously, stay away from harder drugs, hookers,
shopping, food and so on.
------
alaskamiller
Yes. You are too old. In fact, it makes me feel I'm too old since I felt what
you felt twice over already. First time in the first dot com boom, again in
web 2.0, and now again at third wave internet.
Two things.
Mark time with longer references. School is a good one since it's 4 years and
you likely repeated the cycle twice. Freshmen, sophomore, junior, senior.
Freshmen, sophomore, junior, senior.
However short that felt for you, that's how fast the next 4 will hit you.
Now the second thing and the real reason you feel the way you feel.
Youth is forever refreshing. Someone will always replace you. And you just got
done being replaced. You aged out of that 22-26 bracket. Welcome freshmen to
the 26-30 league.
Better grow the fuck up and stop feeling sorry for yourself, kid. You've only
got 4 years before you start feeling the next growing pains, the one about
success. And how success is always intangible, how everyone else is better off
than you.
That one was a doozie.
~~~
traviswingo
Maybe i didn't convey the original message correctly, but I don't feel sorry
for myself. I feel pressed for time, and that I'm aging out of opportunities
even when I'm young. It's more of a psychological illusion than a reality, and
it looks like many people share the same stress over it.
~~~
alaskamiller
You don't run out of time, you run time.
------
tabeth
Who exactly are you trying to impress? You may be think I'm being
presumptuous, but because there's no objective success you _must_ be trying to
impress someone. Once you figure that out and acknowledge that you'll be
closer to figuring out what you _really_ want to do.
~~~
rak00n
Success can be measured by how satisfied you're with your quality of life.
There is no one to impress.
~~~
tabeth
I disagree. No one lives life in a vacuum.
~~~
kajecounterhack
I can see it both ways, because you can also choose who you spend your time
with, and different groups confer respect to different things.
------
dzmitry_lahoda
You are getting old, you body changes itself.
Do you run daily, swim, eat healthy food, do yoga, do gym, do you change your
position during work, do you go and speak fun stuff with friends, listen audio
books of philosophers and autobiographies, check health with various doctors?
Or you sit all day long, drink coffee, smoke tobacco, much of sugar, cheeps,
other drugs you sit on, no physical training, read only news or only books
from you pro sphere, TV/serials before sleep?
Body age changes hormones change brain. Drugs and exercise and food do change
hormones do change brain. Endogene drugs are better than exogene, I believe.
Age changes what is good drugs good food good exercise good read good movie is
for you.
------
meric
You are comparing yourself to others. That's what's happening. You aren't the
only one.
------
pastullo
Totally feel you. I'm 29 and have this sense of urgency, that i am running out
of time. My main problem is financial freedom. Is not about the money, it's
about the freedom to do whatever i want, whenever i want. Is not that i want
to buy a Ferrari tomorrow, i think it's more related to ability to travel to
places and enjoy every moment of my life instead of sitting in an office.
When i look around, i realize that i am actually doing pretty great compared
to the friends around me. I have had the privilege to study or work in each
continent of this planet, Antartica excluded. I travelled and experienced lots
of different places during my twenties, which are arguably the best time do
have these experiences. On top of that I bootstrapped two different companies
which are running and profitable (one in South Africa and one in Hong Kong),
but not yet enough to pay for my living expenses. Both amazing experiences,
but probably also adding to the psycological pressure of "not being there
yet".
And YET, i am somehow still deeply unsatisfied. I feel that i am not free and
still unsure of what my life will look like in the future. Still bound to a
salary.
Over the last year i made some small and big changes to my lifestyle to keep
things in check: \- stopped the digital nomad life and got a easy, well paid
job in berlin. That gave me the financial security and peace of mind back. \-
completely scrapped tens of tiny dead-ended side projects, which were only
adding clutters to my mind and taking away preciuos time. \- slowly accepted
that things happen when they are ready to be. I'm dumping this "launch fast,
fail fast" mindset. Most of the time a project takes lots of years to become
successful. \- Code less and talk more to people. \- forced a bit myself to
enjoy the small moments in life, like having a beer with my old time non-
business-savvy friends. \- stopped drastically reading noise-making magazines
like Techcrunch. You just read about the million dollar exits, but not about
the majority failed stories. \- stopped reading business books and switched
over to novel (sci-fi in particular).
Overall, my well being has improved a lot since one year ago. However, I
believe once you experience this lifestyle, it's hard to go back and settle
for the old one.
For the future, I will try to be more patient and wait for things to fall in
place. But overall life is not a destination but a journey. As long as you
enjoy the entire trip, it's all good!
~~~
traviswingo
This really hits the nail on the head. My main driving force behind all of
this is financial freedom - not in the sense of, as you put it, "buying a
Ferrari tomorrow," but just being able to do what I want, when I want, without
having to cater to other peoples needs to afford it. I find the idea that
people work so fucking hard just to be able to afford to work really fucked
up. At the same time, I have more than many people I know, and I earn much
more than many people I no. However, I still don't have the freedom to just
relax. We live in a backwards society where we live to work, work to live. No
one is able to just live, unless you're content with living outdoors off the
land (I'm not).
------
evex
I'm 18 and I feel the same thing, to the point that I was thinking about
quitting high school to start my own career life or build a startup. I'm
always thinking about making good money and starting my life(rent/buy a house,
travel, work, etc...), I'm so much in a hurry on myself, because I think this
is the age of taking risks, I'm still living with my parents, almost have no
responsibilities, so I can take whatever risks, I'm making my own project
now(just a project for fun currently, but looking to make money out of it)
------
aprdm
I think you first have to define what success is for you. I have a good job,
good wife, live in a good city.
I always do a little bit of study in new tech / use them in side projects /
when I see fit in work.
On that note, I don't feel like I am missing anything to achieve "success", I
am 28.
------
happy-go-lucky
I'm 43. I haven't accomplished much yet, don't have enough money to get by,
but I don't want to lose my sleep over it. I never lose hope and stop being
optimistic.
Looks like you're suffering from burnout. When you are not your normal self,
you can't think properly. See if it's just wealth, success you're after and
see if these are the culprits. Like moraya-re said, balance is the key.
Take a break. Empty your mind. Talk to people around you. Spend time in
nature. If you can, exercise, run. It's important that you have healthy sleep
habits. Stay clean.
Maintain your physical and mental health, or you won't be able to achieve what
you want in life.
------
JSeymourATL
> running out of time to succeed.
There's a great quote by Charlie Munger - "If you want to get rich, you'll
need a few decent ideas where you really know what you're doing. Then you've
got to have the courage to stick with them and take the ups and downs. Not
very complicated, and it's very old-fashioned."
Incidentally, great perspective on life & work from a successful Old Guy in
this book > [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25530069-charlie-
munger](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25530069-charlie-munger)
------
koltaggar
I like to think back to this post when I feel similar to the OP:
[http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2016/04/kings-day-
speech.htm...](http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2016/04/kings-day-
speech.html?m=1)
------
itamarst
"Success" on whose terms? What do _you_ want in life? And is it _your_ idea,
or some other person's ideal that you're projecting on yourself?
------
zaro
Well, maybe your intuition is right and you are indeed running out of time.
According to Oxfams reports, beginning of 2016 62 people owned as much as the
bottom 50%, and beginning of 2017 it was only 8 people owning the same. So if
you extrapolate this a bit, with this rate of wealth accumulation, in 10 years
time a single guy will own the whole planet and we will all be the peasants
working for him. So get your shit together and be that single guy...
------
RichardHeart
Because you are running out of time. Save thyself. You're surely still young
enough to whoop some ass. Emotionally feeling like you have no time means that
you care about too many things that don't actually matter, or you need to
delegate. Being in a rush makes you less effective.
If you want to feel like there's all the time in the world, leave your
cellular at home, and visit the DMV, grab a number and watch time extend into
the infinite.
------
ishbits
Your not. I'm 42, I still love to code and am in the very early stages of
planning a startup or something like it and am just excited about it as when I
did a startup when I was 29.
Keep learning. Find a couple things you can become an expert in, and get out
of you don't enjoy it.
------
ezekg
I'm 26 and I feel the same way. Probably because I just found out the 2
founders of Stripe are my age.
------
Dowwie
I'm 36 and feel absolutely no sympathy for you.
------
CyberFonic
Too old for what? You never run out of time if you have a good solution for a
real need.
Perhaps you could provide some specifics to receive pertinent advice.
Good luck!
------
sauronlord
You are running out of time.
I'll be 34 this year and life is great.
Set a big Mission for yourself, have great experiences and human connections.
------
forgottenacc57
Everyone is running out of time. Hurry up.
------
seno32
I am 29 and I had a BIG crisis when I turned 27. Things are settling down in
my head now.
~~~
PatentTroll
For me it was 26. Einstein was 26 when he published his paper on relativity.
Not that I was a physicist, or a genius, but the fact that a single person
could have that much impact on the course of humanity at that age really
messed with me.
~~~
zump
Is it possible to still have a big impact after 26?
------
Isamu
Yeah, I've had this feeling every year starting at age 10.
Not joking.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Cloud Firewall: Google Cloud Armor vs. AWS WAF vs. Cloudflare WAF - Elect2
https://www.chooseacloud.com/waf
======
snug
Cloudflare WAF is only available on the $20/Pro plan
~~~
Elect2
It is available for Free plan too, with DDOS protection, 1 rate limiting rules
and 5,000 ip rules.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Plus the required $10 Premium Data add-on charge - adolph
http://newsroom.sprint.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=2063&view_id=7483
======
kennjason
Just a "smartphone" charge or what? I thought at first it was for 4G, but even
the 3G phones have it...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What's that pleasant smell on your skin after it's been in the sun? - gerbilly
Have you ever noticed that pleasant smell your skin gets when it's been in the sun?<p>I used to work on a dairy farm, and when the cows would come in on a sunny day, they smelled of it too.<p>Does anybody know what it is?
======
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
MIT scholar fights malaria with magnets - drjohnson
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/05/04/mit-scholar-fights-malaria-with-magnets/aixXl6a5quOF340XMEgtnK/story.html
======
Jemaclus
I wanna know how a mechanical engineer happens to learn enough about malaria
for the thought to even cross his mind to check the iron in the blood with a
magnet. What's that thought process like?
Fighting malaria is something I'm interested in pursuing, but my background is
heavily in the computer science arena. How do I go about finding out enough
about malaria to be able to actually contribute to the problem? (And I don't
mean merely writing a check to the Anti Malaria Foundation or whatever.)
~~~
atmosx
First read a couple of papers in Malaria. You can easily go through
terminology using wikipedia/google. If you don't have a strong background in
human pathophysiology it's going to take some time, but given the right amount
of time it's not thing really hard. You'll just give the time for some
concepts to sink in.
What I'd like to see is an open source version of this _machine_ which can be
easily reproduced in pure countries.
HOWEVER, smart as it may seem, if I don't see some triple-checked hard-data,
it's hard to tell if the _magnets_ approach actually works and here is were
professional _clinical trials_ are made. Because in real life it's extremely
hard to take say 5.000 blood samples from people who might be infected (e.g.
Africans) right down the results, then go to a professional lab and compare
the samples. Write down the results, find in which conditions concentration of
'Fe' is high in blood. Probably talking to the IDI[1] would be a nice first
step and so on.
[1]: [http://www.irondisorders.org/iron-
overload](http://www.irondisorders.org/iron-overload)
~~~
Jemaclus
Awesome. Thanks for the tip!
------
ihnorton
Also covered in the NYT about a year ago:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/health/new-rapid-
malaria-t...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/health/new-rapid-malaria-test-
uses-magnets-and-a-laser.html)
The Gates Foundation has been funding development of a very similar technique
by another group since 2010:
[http://www.malariaworld.org/sites/default/files/mwjournal/ar...](http://www.malariaworld.org/sites/default/files/mwjournal/article/MWJ2013_4_7.pdf)
It appears to be an active and promising area of research as several other
groups have published work back to at least 2008:
[http://www.nature.com/srep/2013/130312/srep01431/full/srep01...](http://www.nature.com/srep/2013/130312/srep01431/full/srep01431.html)
(2013)
[http://www.malariajournal.com/content/9/1/207](http://www.malariajournal.com/content/9/1/207)
(2010)
[http://www.cell.com/biophysj/abstract/S0006-3495(08)70272-8](http://www.cell.com/biophysj/abstract/S0006-3495\(08\)70272-8)
(2008)
------
tom_jones
To renew my faith in humanity, every day I look for some happy news. I hope
this technology is successful.
~~~
DiabloD3
I agree. Sometimes I wonder if its only stories like this that even keep me
going every day.
------
batoure
The title of this article should be "Yay Science!"
During the time when I lived in Africa I was treated for "presumed" malaria on
several occasions despite taking preventative medication. The key is
"presumed" because my fever cycled at night (the best time to draw blood for
the existing test) they could never actually show that I had the disease
because at night the lab was closed.
Malaria is an awful disease and the ability to treat earlier and possibly
prevent the spread is fantastic news.
------
teddythetwig
Question, the article states that the device should be able to determine
whether the malaria parasite has infected the subject while they are
asymptomatic. From my limited knowledge of malaria, I was under the impression
that during the asymptomatic stage, malaria is multiplying in the liver and
does not infect any red blood cells. How will this detect malaria if they are
not excreting the iron crystals into the blood stream?
------
kirk21
Great. Guess the next step is to launch genetically modified mosquitoes that
do not carry the disease and can replace the other ones.
------
roblambert
A certain Jesse Pinkman quote comes to mind
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwVDDxoKBk4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwVDDxoKBk4)
~~~
spacehome
This isn't Reddit.
~~~
__matt
"If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying
that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)"
~~~
geuis
My account is rather older than a year and I share the same sentiment. This
isn't reddit.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Are Platform Vendors Stealing Linux? - ilamont
http://www.itworld.com/open-source/121824/are-platform-vendors-stealing-linux
======
wccrawford
No. Can we stop asking stupid questions?
"Why are platform vendors so keen to promote their own Linux distributions?"
Guess not. Here goes: Because it's a lot easier to do your own thing than try
to get everyone else to do it, too. The changes they have made are freely
available if any other distro (or the kernel itself) wants to make the
changes.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A gentle introduction to isogeny-based cryptography [pdf] - altro
http://www-users.math.umn.edu/~math-sa-sara0050/space16/slides/space2016121503-costello.pdf
======
jaymzcampbell
My group theory is far too rusty to gather what is really going on here, but
having looked at the Wikipedia article on SIDH the reason this might be of
particular interest is it is a "post quantum" crypto algo - i.e. thought to be
secure against attack using a quantum computer.
~~~
IncRnd
What would have been good to call out on the Diffie-Hellman Instantiations
slide is that SIDH supports forward secrecy.
~~~
eximius
Isn't that more a property of the protocol than the underlying crypto? What DH
exchange can't support forward secrecy?
~~~
IncRnd
Agreed, but the distinction you draw between kex and keys doesn't exist on the
slide, which was my point. I could have worded that better.
The slide I referred to mentioned the instantiations, not all of which provide
pfs.
------
josephv
Not gentle
~~~
cmrx64
Might be more gentle with the speaker actually presenting, instead of just
slides :)
~~~
eximius
Do we have a link to the talk?
~~~
IncRnd
This paper may be helpful until then.
[http://eprint.iacr.org/2016/413.pdf](http://eprint.iacr.org/2016/413.pdf)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The 3DO: The birth of my cynicism - smacktoward
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/KeithBurgun/20171218/311849/The_3DO_The_birth_of_my_cynicism.php
======
cortesoft
I don't quite follow the point the author is trying to make. He had an
experience where something he paid a bunch for turned out to be nearly
worthless, so now he hates all video games? But not really, he just doesn't
like the industry?
It sounds to me like he is just cynical in general. I am mid-thirties, have
been playing video games since the 80s, and still love them with the same
enthusiasm as when I was a kid.
Sure, I play a lot less. I don't have nearly as much time, with a full time
job, a wife, and a kid. It is still my go-to free time activity, though.
My buddies, married with children themselves, and I play together online one
night a week. It is our way of maintaining our social bond through families
and living far apart. We are closer because of games than we would ever be
otherwise.
~~~
christoph
I bought loads of silly machines over the years - CD32, CDTV, CDi, 3DO,
Jaguar...
It feels a little bit like we are in a little golden age of video games.
I’ve just finished up BotW (amazing), maybe 50% through Mario Odyssey (amazing
again), I’ve got Rayman Legends to play through and Splatoon 2 to get stuck
into, in between the odd game of Rocket League. That’s just on the Switch!
On the PC I’ve got countless games I’ve bought for next to nothing in steam
sales to find time for, Cuphead, Just Cause 3, Metro, Wolfenstein to finish
and highly acclaimed indy titles galore...
Then I have tons of retro games I’m eager to play for the first time, or play
through again, easily accessed and for next to nothing.
My biggest complaint is also the lack of time I have to digest it all.
~~~
stinkytaco
Is it a golden age, or do games get generally better as technology improves?
They are bigger, smoother, more complex, better connected, and so on. That's
why I don't quite follow this article either. Games are _objectively_ better.
Perhaps he doesn't find them as fun or as engaging, but that's less to do with
the games and more to do with the person.
That and the DS/3DS is probably the richest game console to date in terms of
sheer volume of quality content. If you can't find a game you like on the DS,
you might not like games.
~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
This is highly subjective so probably some people will strongly disagree, but
I do think there have been significantly better and worse "ages" in
videogames. It's not been constant progress.
For example, I'd say 1999-2005 was a quite crappy age. Dominant consoles were
Playstation 1 and 2, the first XBox and the Game Cube, which of course had
some fine outlier games but nothing compared to the mind-blowing catalogs of
e.g. the SNES or the Neo Geo, which were brimming with gems, many of them are
still widely considered among the best games of all time.
In the PC, after breakthrough games in the previous years like Daggerfall,
Quake, Master of Magic, Doom, Civ II, Ultima Underworld, Fallout, Warcraft,
Starcraft, GTA, etc., most of what dominated the market in that decadence
period were sequels of those and others, and unoriginal games.
This opinion is not just due to my being a cranky old timer wanting people to
get off his lawn. I do think the situation improved a lot from 2006 onwards.
Team Fortress II, the Wii, Portal, Minecraft... were truly revolutionary
concepts in the late 2000s in different ways, and indie games began to
flourish with titles like World of Goo or Braid (or said Minecraft). Fast
forward to now, and we have the Switch, Pokémon Go (geolocation games), and a
blooming indie universe. I do think we are at a golden age, it would be a
great time to be 15 again and have lots of time for videogames.
~~~
inertiatic
I find that statements like this serve only to reflect the writer's nostalgia.
The Playstation/Saturn/N64 generation wasn't even mentioned despite being the
one to introduce 3D games which are still being perfected and laying the
foundation for the mechanics that are still the basis of almost every single
game coming out today.
~~~
Apocryphon
And perhaps it's fueled by nostalgia, but games like Super Mario 64 and Final
Fantasy VII are still acclaimed today despite their aged tech and the creation
of better successors. And in some ways they are timeless, in the same ways NES
or Atari classics are.
------
tsunamifury
Atari Jaguar, 3DO, Neo-Geo, and WebOS and other assorted platform failures
along with the successes of OSX, Android, iOS, Xbox, psx, and nintendo left a
strong imprint on why and how I develop software platforms. I learned you
can’t just promise radical new opportunities, you have to have them ready and
usable on launch day. This allows users to buy in on day one and be generally
happy. Then this motivates third party developers which then snowballs into
more users and then the platform achieves takeoff velocity.
Ultimately all successful platforms are a collective ecosystem experience, but
they start just between the user and the first party developer.
Teams like Occulus are falling down the same trap as 3DO, promising lots of
new expertise’s but demonstrating little to no day-one practicality.
~~~
monksy
> promising lots of new expertise’s but demonstrating little to no day-one
> practicality.
That exactly describes why I can't stand the MVP trend.
~~~
bbarn
The V is for viable, but too many people seem to never get past the M.
~~~
monksy
Oh no, they totally get the minimal part.
------
detcader
This sort of story just happened en masse with Destiny 2 players. The game
($60) as a social multiplayer space kind of hit a dead end after everyone beat
the campaign, with further milquetoast content gated behind DLC and loot boxes
(all paid of course)
The whole thing of children being socially incentivized to invest huge amounts
of money in devices that might fail for fear they'll be out of the loop with
children slightly richer than them is a huge bummer. This problem doesn't
really exist for TV, movies, books, and card and board games. I'm starting to
wonder if PC and mobile gaming really should win out against Nintendo and
Sony, morally...
Another good personal story about how we interface with videogame:
[https://www.polygon.com/2017/7/12/15958318/the-5000-decision...](https://www.polygon.com/2017/7/12/15958318/the-5000-decision-
to-get-rid-of-my-past)
~~~
stinkytaco
There was a time when card games were about how much money you had rather than
how good you were. Many games have introduced rotation, which has helped, but
it's still an ongoing investment in the game and it's still a few hundred just
to be competitive on Magic night at your local shop. But they did find the
balance point that seems fair. I think video games haven't found that yet.
I'm really torn on DLC, game expansions and the like. On one hand, $60 for a
new game every year is lots when I could spend $25 on a game I already enjoy.
But on the other, it's an excuse to limit content up front in order to milk
users. I think it's a matter of perception and companies that find a fair
balance will be successful.
~~~
2muchcoffeeman
Continuously buying booster packs is only a problem only with games like
Magic.
There are lots of card games where you just buy a base set and an expansion
now and again. And the vast majority of board games don’t require constant
investment.
~~~
slantyyz
I bought Dropmix for my niece for Christmas. It's an NFC-based card game made
by Harmonix and Hasbro. It's actually an interesting music mixing game that
works really well... but..
While it comes with 60 cards, the biggest criticism that I've seen about the
game is how expensive the booster kits are and how they are packaged. To get
all aspects of a song, you may have to buy multiple booster packs. I get that
the song rights are built into the cost, but they cost as much or more than
individual songs do off iTunes, and one card usually has only one part of a
song (i.e. vocals, guitar, percussion, etc).
~~~
2muchcoffeeman
I was thinking more like Arkham Horror, or Android: NetRunner.
Not to be gender normative, but that probably doesn’t help you.
~~~
stinkytaco
With netrunner I'm not continually buying packs, but rather data sets and
expansions. Plus with rotation I need to keep that up. There's no randomness,
but there is ongoing cost.
------
vidoc
It's not just well written, it's actually quite ballsy too as I am currently
acknowledging to myself how I would never ever have the courage to come clean
and come up with a blog post explaining how I bought the Atari Jaguar in the
90s, and ended up basically in the same situation.
------
perfmode
> It really is kind of irresponsible and sort of dumb in a way to buy a
> console really early in its lifespan. But maybe that's what it is to like
> things. Being a little bit dumb - believing in something, even when maybe
> you know you shouldn't.
So true.
------
brians
The author shows us how he felt, and tells us “this is what it’s like to like
things.”
But that doesn’t seem right at all. I like reading books, and I like watching
some shows and playing video games. I’m not invested in _owning_ them, or in
the community experience of watching what everyone else recently has. This is
what it’s like to define your identity by what you own and by what you
participate in. Like a Cubs fan, maybe—you can do that, and you can care about
winning, and you can care about having popular opinions, but maybe you should
pick one of those three.
------
sametmax
Reading the title I though it would be talking about 3D0, the team behind
Heroes of Might and Magic, and how they screw up the HOMM3 steam remake
because they lost the source code.
I could have related since it's one of my favorite game ever :)
------
cdevs
On the other end of this emotional spectrum I have always loved watching games
evolve with me and what you think is now the best is kids stuff compared to
what comes next. Mortal kombat and doom enraged parents at the time and now
the stuff we can render at 60+ frames a second would blow people away in the
80s. Part software evolution and part hardware coming together each year to
push the envelope, more sprites, more triangles more pixels more frames. I can
afford whatever system I want now but when I was a kid a 180$ sega was like
winning the lottery.
~~~
0xcde4c3db
> now the stuff we can render at 60+ frames a second would blow people away in
> the 80s
It _has_ blown away people who got started on '80s hardware. In particular,
I'm pretty sure that Jeff Minter has made comments specifically saying how
amazed he was at the sheer per-pixel computational power on the Xbox 360.
------
mmjaa
I remember a time when the only way to play video games on my computer was, if
I programmed them myself. Like, there literally wasn't any other way .. the
system I'd chosen to hang my chops on (Oric-1/Atmos) wasn't that well
supported by the nascent industry at the time, and so .. it was either write
my own shit, or forget about it.
So, I grew up a coder.
While, in the meantime, my C64- and Amiga- using friends, with all their
amazing software choices, didn't have to do anything but consume, consume,
consume. And, eventually, "upgrade to a Nintendo" for their gaming needs.
See kids, this is what happens when you ship computers that no longer have
development tools/compilers/REPL's onboard!
Seriously though, I think the "3DO Moment" for me was when I realised I always
preferred to spend time with computers if there was a compiler onboard, or
some other way to build software for the thing. Anything less is just a door
opener.
------
et1337
Some video games are great. Video game culture is... not great. I think this
guy is upset with the culture and companies in gaming rather than the games
themselves. Surprised he didn't say anything about loot boxes.
~~~
detcader
He did say that many games are great on their own. But isn't it an inherent
feature of console gaming itself, that young people need to invest tons of
money to keep up with their peers, taking on the potential risk of the
console's failure?
~~~
toast0
So, I think there's a couple ways to look at it.
If you have (nearby) friends who play, and you're dealing with physical games;
if you get a console around when they do, you can share newer games and reduce
the risk of buying terrible games at full price. You'll probably buy some of
the great games at full price so you can do multiplayer games though.
If you don't hang out with people who play, you can just buy a year late, and
get the benefit of lower prices, more finished games, and a clear indication
of what's cool and what isn't. You might miss out on online
features/community, but that really depends.
Was it stupid to buy the 3DO for $700? Probably. But, it wasn't much more than
the Neo Geo home console, and the games were probably cheaper?
------
kodablah
Was just reading about the 3DO because I was gonna write an emulator.
Wikipedia and others point to steep price tag, the spec-only-third-party
hardware approach, and that they didn't collect many royalties from the games
as the reasons for the downfall of the 3DO. But as I looked around and read,
it seemed they were super proud and stingy with the tech (expensive devkits
iirc), and the tech was about 2 years too early and just a bit before the 3D
revolution that came with 5th gen consoles.
~~~
MBCook
There’s just no getting around the price. It was (inflation adjusted) $1200
plus games.
Remember when gamers were upset the PS3 was $600 even though it was also a
Blu-ray player? Remember when the Xbox One tripped out of the gate because it
was $500 and not $400 like the PS4?
$1200.
There were other mistakes. You’re right development was expensive. It wasn’t
as powerful as the PS and Saturn that came later much cheaper (the Saturn was
also considered too expensive at $400... which was $300 less than the 3DO).
They didn’t have pre-built franchises to lean on like Mario or Sonic.
But MAN was it expensive.
~~~
slantyyz
It didn't have Mario or Sonic, but looking back, you could argue that it laid
the foundation of next generation of EA (like 'em or hate 'em) titles.
FIFA and Road Rash were vastly better on the 3DO than they were on 16 bit
machines at the time. I remember being in awe of how great FIFA was on the
3DO, and the 3DO version of Road Rash was easily my favorite version of that
game.
If I'm not mistaken, Need for Speed was first introduced on the 3DO. I
remember there being quite a few good games on 3DO (mostly from EA and Crystal
Dynamics), including what might have been the closest thing to an arcade
version of Super Street Fighter 2 turbo.
But yeah, the 3DO was ridiculously expensive. Having said that, so was the Neo
Geo home console. I had a few friends who were really into the SNK 2d fighting
games at the time, and they'd be plunking well over $100 per cartridge.
~~~
MBCook
It was affectively EA’s console, they tried to support it well. And it was
obviously WAY more powerful than the 16 bit machines.
NeoGeo at least had an argument, it was literally an arcade board you could
buy at home. To the group of gamers who wanted that stuff there was a strong
reason for it to exist and an explanation for its cost.
If they had gotten a couple of killer titles maybe it could’ve done better. Or
if the price had fallen faster before the system was declared “dead“ by the
public. But by the time that happened it was just too late.
$700 was three SNESes and a game or two at the SNES launch price. But this was
three years later so you could probably buy a few more games.
It was just an obscene amount of money, especially for what was still
considered a “kids toy” until more into the PS2 and XBox.
~~~
slantyyz
IIRC, I grabbed the 3DO in 1995 for around $500 CAD (and the dollar was weak
against the USD at that point). This was just prior to the North American
release of the Saturn and PS1. It's been so long but I think I got a Japanese
import of the PS1 prior the North American release for about the same money a
month or two after getting the 3DO. At the time, a friend and I had opened up
a video game shop, and until the PS1 releases really started ramping up, the
3DO games were actually pretty popular with the kids who came into our store.
~~~
MBCook
I remember seeing them in stores before and after the PlayStation came out. I
was always kind of interested in it and liked playing with Gex some of the
other games, but it was totally academic because I knew that even after price
drops ($500, or $400) it was never going to happen for me.
------
zmonkeyz
For $750 bucks you did get an arguably perfect version of SF2 Super Turbo. For
my friends and I that was amazing.
------
Pica_soO
It would be interesting if this could be quantified into a hard number- the
damage hype does to the overall market, by disillusioning players.Seems
marketing is not a victimless crime after all.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Wiby – the search engine for old school websites - AndrewStephens
https://wiby.me
======
AndrewStephens
Try the "surprise me" feature.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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