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Autonomous Robots Invade Retail Warehouses - prakash
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/01/retailrobots.html
======
ivankirigin
Interestingly, these robots aren't that smart. It just goes to show how much
you can build by engineering a whole system, and not expecting a single robot
to be that intelligent.
For example, the vision system is essentially built with fiducials (markers
like QR codes) on the trays.
These robots could do nothing in your basement. I'm not saying this is bad -
it's actually awesome to see more real robotics companies selling products. My
point is that I really look forward to robots that can perceive their
environment better and manipulate objects in it with dexterity. That will
really knock your socks off.
~~~
sho
Amen. Proper computer vision would revolutionise .. well, an awful lot of
things. Let's just hope it doesn't turn out like Manna, though ..
<http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm>
~~~
noonespecial
I think this scenario is highly unlikely because society will not allow robots
to make mistakes. A robot pilot might fly perfectly 99.999% of the time. 100
times better than human pilots but the first time a robot plane crashes,
people will go nuts and adopt a "ban them all" mentality. With a human pilot,
they just shrug and say "pilot error". People make mistakes. Robots aren't
allowed to.
~~~
yters
I think this is due to a sense of control and fear of the unknown. People
shrug it off because they think they could conceivably do better, or have
helped the situation. But, the higher the barrier to entry the less accepting
people are of error. Look at the discrepancy between about of airline deaths
and car deaths, and the respective fear it engenders in people. Just about
everyone knows about driving a car, but very few know what it is like to fly a
plane.
------
elecengin
These guys are a local company out in Boston, and I know a few fellow students
who have interned with them. The beauty of the system, as many people
mentioned, lies in the simplicity of it. It has two uncommon traits for
robotics - reliability and affordability.
Another neat feature of the system that is not clearly shown is that when the
shelf is brought to the employee to have the item picked, a laser pointer
mounted at the human station points to the item on the shelf to be picked.
Quite impressive!
------
dmix
Demo of the robots: <http://www.kivasystems.com/demo/index.html>
------
mojonixon
not new. I spent a couple weeks in a HallMark warehouse in the mid to late
90s. The actual warehouse was about 4 football fields with shelves about 60
feet high. Automatic pickers running on rails would go along the aisles and up
the shelving to grab boxes, and deposit them on conveyors. The conveyors read
the bar codes(they were talking about rfid at the time) and delivered them to
the proper loading dock. No one was actually in the warehouse and they had to
turn up the lights to give us a tour. All run off of two three crappy tower
servers.
~~~
Retric
I would like to point out that it is a novel solution because it uses what
works well from a robot standpoint and what works well from a human one. The
robots do the sorting, moving heavy things etc. The humans take the huge
assortment of different items and package them. It also minimizes what changes
you need to make to the warehouse so it should be a quick and cheep to retro
fit.
While some warehouses specialize others hold 100,000+ types of items that are
not in boxes ready to ship. These items range in shapes and sizes and can be
grouped to save on shipping costs etc. Think a Ford warehouse that holds every
part ever made over the last 10 years or Amazon.com not Netflix.
So yes, human costs are higher, but they should be (~15 seconds a box and 20$
/ hour) > 15c a package which could be far less than the savings from grouping
items. And the system should be far more fault tolerant than robots moving on
fixed tracks that need to pickup a wide range of box sizes vs the same shelf
system every time.
------
gravitycop
The meat:
_the robots, which look like massive orange Roombas, [...] locate the stack
of shelves with the needed product on it, slide beneath the stack to pick it
up and then find their own routes from the stacks of stuff to human operators.
And they manage to find just the right time to get themselves recharged for
five minutes out of every hour. [...]
Any worker (sometimes called "pickers" in the industry jargon) can ask for
anything from anywhere in the warehouse and ship it out.
"Every worker has random access to every product in the warehouse," Wurman
said. [...]
As the robots pick up loads of products and put them back, they adjust the
warehouse for greater efficiency. [...]
"We find that it's two to four times more efficient [than the average
warehouse]," said Wurman. [...]
they know where they are by using a simple and cheap grid system that's stuck
onto the floor of the warehouse.
That allows warehouse operators to switch off the lights and climate controls
in the large areas of the warehouse that are patrolled solely by robots,
cutting energy costs by as much as 50 percent over a standard warehouse. One
marketing trick the company uses is to bring people out to the center of a
warehouse and switch out the lights: The robots keep working around the
people, cruising around in the dark._
------
jmatt
Between their demo and the youtube video in the wired article, Kiva couldn't
ask for better PR.
It really is an interesting system. No RF technology used as far as I could
tell. Simple solutions combine to make an efficient reliable scalable system.
I'd love to talk to the programmers that got to build this system, what fun!
------
patrickg-zill
First we had "lights out" datacenters, now we have "lights out" warehouses.
~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
We've had "lights out" manufacturing centers for decades now. There's a lot
more automation out there than most people realize.
------
andreyf
_Warehouses run by Gap, as well as Zappos and Staples now use autonomous
robots to pluck products from their shelves and send them to you_
I'm surprised Amazon isn't on that list... anyone care to hypothesize why?
~~~
brk
Amazon is eating their own dogfood. They have been beta testing a product
called "Actual Turk". With Actual Turk, people show up at a defined location
and perform menial tasks for a few cents each.
Any product you order from an Amazon warehouse has been picked and packed by
an Actual Turk over the last 3 months. In between product pick/pack jobs
Actual Turks also perform other jobs on demand, such as making hand-shadow
puppets in front of a webcam, reading bedtime stories to children over the
phone, or seeking out specimens to ship to a child for their school rock-
collection project.
This offering was also alpha-tested in front of many Home Depot locations in
the Southwest.
~~~
queensnake
... but seriously, I heard they use(d) Segways; that was their level of
automation for a while (maybe still).
------
pchristensen
This is like Google for blue-collar workers. I love being able to think of
something and have it appear magically, and this should let people that work
with their hands do the same.
Ironically, taking the time and cost out of finding parts should make more
room for creativity in manufacturing and distribution jobs.
~~~
queensnake
Really? Or, more, make room for more no-jobs.
~~~
pchristensen
My comment wasn't meant to apply to every business, but the most creative and
enlightened ones would definitely take advantage of this and thrive (Zappos is
a case in point).
------
andr
If you look 0:21 in the video (scroll down), the robot at the top looks like
it's stuck searching for a waypoint.
~~~
devicenull
Looking at the other videos, it would appear the robots spin in circles in
order to lift up the racks.. so I'd suspect that's what's happening there
------
robotron
We've been wanting to do this where I'm at for a while. While I hate to put
human beings out of work, they really do make too many mistakes for shipping
things perfectly.
~~~
ovi256
> While I hate to put human beings out of work
That's understandable, but think that these people will probably find more
fulfilling and productive jobs. As long as the layoffs are gradual, they will
have time to retrain and find other jobs. Of course, if their skillsets are
really obsolete and many are laid off at once, this can lead to structural
unemployment. Eastern European countries went through that after the fall of
communism. The transition was not pretty.
But smaller layoffs and career changes are just the cost of technical
progress. Have a look at the Industrial revolution [1] and Luddites [2].
[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution> [2]
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite>
Also, here's my first law : "Anything that can be automatized WILL be
automatized, whatever the costs."
~~~
rw
> Also, here's my first law : "Anything that can be automatized WILL be
> automatized, whatever the costs."
The point of automation is greater efficiency and efficacy, not some fetish
with robots. Your "law" probably does not hold.
~~~
Raphael
It does hold, because humans aren't as specialized as a robot designed
specifically for the job.
~~~
gravitycop
_It does hold, because humans aren't as specialized as a robot_
That humans are not as specialized as specialized robots was not contested.
What about the "whatever the costs" part?
------
pskomoroch
My friend Tom is a python hacker and works there, I pointed out the thread...
maybe he'll chime in.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Harriton High, the shape of things to come? - ErrantX
http://www.errant.me.uk/blog/2010/04/harriton-high-the-shape-of-things-to-come/
======
hga
If you're in the U.K., almost certainly.
In the US, I'm not so sure. Yep, the Harriton High mess is being
ignored/suppressed by the media about as much as the "Cash for Kids" crime of
the decade in the same state (two judges extorting/taking bribes from a
private prison company, to whom they illegitimately sent hundreds, perhaps
more than a thousand kids (create a blog critical of your teacher, go to jail!
(real story))....
But we push back a lot more than the subjects of the U.K. do _or can_ , we
have much more responsive political system, things aren't such that New
Labour's _explicit_ class war against the rural part of the nation could work
here, ASBOs would be held unconstitutional here, we still value privacy more,
etc. etc.
At worst case, we have retained our firearms while the U.K. started stripping
them from their subjects in the '20s (terrified by the Bolshevik revolution),
they judicially nullified self-defense in the '50s ... I could go on and on,
but the bottom line is that while this may be the shape of things to come
elsewhere, I expect American Exceptionalism to continue.
~~~
ErrantX
To be honest I'd say we (the uk) are doing a reasonable job. Deep packet
inspection was roundly beaten here. The continent is probably going to see t
first.
No, from this side of the ocean the US seems to be treading dangerous ground.
The idea that a school could interfere with home life without serious grounds
(ie abuse) would be considered outrageous - though people are trying to bring
it in. I mean it in the politest way but it is not national policy that is the
danger here. If local policy - such as that in school - gets us used to the
idea of being monitored then national policy will emerge faster...
~~~
hga
" _Deep packet inspection was roundly beaten here._ "
And that's certainly not true here.
As for your latter point, the US principle of federalism, which leaves issues
like this firmly in the hands of localities (think cities for a first
approximation) means we have _thousands_ of Petri dishes in which all this is
going to play out.
The theory here is that a school district like this one and others may
misbehave, may or may not get formally slapped down, but as long as not too
many others follow its lead we're OK (you can in theory always vote with your
feet, or home school etc.). And I'm pretty sure this example will help achieve
the right result for most school districts.
On the other hand, there are a variety of strong and not strongly opposed
programs to have schools quite explicitly interfere with home life, e.g. the
"Parents As Teachers" program, which has seen a lot of abuses ... and that's a
very real problem. Although I don't know how widespread, since my home state
and the one I've retired to is one of the pioneers in it.
There is a general conceit (and probably not just on the Left) that if the
parents aren't doing their jobs it's up to the government, often the schools,
to step in. Free hot breakfast and lunch for the poor are a nationwide Federal
part of that (with all the red tape that implies).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Proposal: Linear Algebra Study Group - gruseom
Inspired by http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2992963, let's start a group to (re-)learn linear algebra.<p>Who's in, and how shall we go about it? Something like a chapter every week or two, plus do the exercises?<p>Time to trade in a few hours of internet downtime and actually learn something.<p>Edit: here's what seems to be emerging. We'll read Strang's "Linear Algebra and its Applications" (ISBN 0030105676), one chapter every two weeks plus exercises. We'll stay here where the community is, unless proven otherwise. And... that's about it! I like systems with few rules.<p>The one sticking point is waiting for people to get the book. Anyone who, like me, just ordered a cheap copy on Abebooks (probably a re-import from India) is going to be blocked for a bit. I will post again when my copy arrives, and will email everyone who (a) has said on this page that they're in and (b) has an email address in their HN profile. Will that be suitable?<p>I'll check back this evening.
======
tzs
It would be best to do this somewhere that supports MathJax
(<http://www.mathjax.org/>). HN does not, which could make it awkward to
discuss math in an HN thread.
There are three reasonable ways to add MathJax support to a site.
1\. Get the site owner to do it. The site owner simply has to toss in a script
tag that loads MathJax from the MathJax CDN and sets some configuration
options. Someone would need to convince PG that this is worthwhile. (I've done
some timing tests, and MathJax doesn't seen to cause any noticeable
performance problems when used on pages that contain no math. Any decent
browser caches the script so load time of the script is not a problem).
2\. The user can use a Greasemonkey script to load it, for browses that
support Greasemonkey scripts. Here's an example that loads MathJax on Reddit:
<http://userscripts.org/scripts/review/108770>. This could trivially be
modified to work on HN instead of Reddit.
3\. Safari doesn't support Greasemonkey scripts. There is a Safari plugin to
add that functionality, but it does not work very well. I wrote a Safari
extension to load MathJax (or Tex The World, discussed below) on Reddit:
<https://github.com/tzs/Reddit-Math-Display-for-Safari>. This could easily be
modified to work on HN instead of Reddit.
On Reddit, in /r/math, the convention is to use LaTeX delimited by [; and ;]
to mark math, and to use a script called Tex The World to render it
(<http://thewe.net/tex/>). That script finds the math, and sends it off to
CodeCogs.com where it is rendered and an image is returned for display. This
occasionally causes problems due to the load on CodeCogs.
To work around this, someone has a hacked version of the that script (link
available in the sidebar on /r/math) that uses the Google Chart API to render
small equations and does some kind of caching.
I'd recommend NOT using either of these. The author of TeX The World stopped
work on it quite a while ago. There's no licensing information on the site so
it is not clear if anyone else can take it over, and by using an external
service to render the math it is fragile.
MathJax seems to be the best approach. That's what they are using at
mathoverlow and math.stackexchange.com. Note that if MathJax is loaded by the
page itself, rather than by an extension, then it works great on iOS and most
other major mobile web devices, in addition to pretty much all major desktop
browsers, without the need for the end user to do anything special.
~~~
mkl
Testing new HN version of script: [;A\boldsymbol{x}=\lambda\boldsymbol{x};]
Seems to be working, in Chrome at least. Can some other people try it out?
<http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/112966>
Put latex code inside square bracket semicolon pairs: _[_ _;...code...;_ _]_
~~~
tzs
Note that /r/math on Reddit is using those delimiters because that's what Tex
The World uses. I don't see any particular reason to use those over just
sticking with the MathJax defaults, which are backslash-brackets and dollar
dollar for display math, and backslash-parens for inline math.
For your script, this can be achieved simply by deleting the line in the
configuration that sets the inline math delimiters.
I've tested, and the default delimiters seem to work fine on HN.
~~~
mkl
Cool, thanks. That would be better.
Testing new version: \\(\sum_{i=1}^n c_i
\phi(\|\boldsymbol{x}-\boldsymbol{x}_i\|)\\)
------
tptacek
Chapter ever two weeks plus exercises sounds simple, doable, reasonable. Let's
do it that way.
Once we feel like we've picked our book, let's decide on a date to start; 2
weeks from that date, one of us will just post a "STUDY HN:" post for the
first chapter.
We can figure out the formalities, like, what do those threads look like, once
we get started. :)
~~~
micrypt
I'm in. How do we coordinate? <http://convore.com> perhaps?
~~~
tptacek
I seriously think we could just do it on HN threads...
There are feature-y-er places to do it, but this place actually works.
~~~
gruseom
I agree. I'm superstitious about origins. When something spontaneously happens
at location X it's good to let it continue to evolve there. I say we stay
where the party started. We can post occasionally and nobody who's
uninterested need look at it. I also confess to tasting sweet irony in the
idea of turning HN to more productive use. I feel like I've finally got my
enemy in a corner. (The internet has never stopped me from working, but man
has it stopped me from learning. But I digress.)
As for what book: "Linear Algebra and its Applications" by Strang does sound
like a good fit for hackers. I was convinced by this review:
[http://www.amazon.com/review/R289C7K1TN2RO2/ref=cm_cr_pr_per...](http://www.amazon.com/review/R289C7K1TN2RO2/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0030105676).
Some cheaper copies are available on Abebooks.
There's a case to be made for the other Strang, but again - origins are magic,
so unless there's a compelling negative I say we stick with tptacek's original
inspiration.
~~~
akkartik
How many times have I seen an ad hoc thread that people would just hit reply-
all to converted into a mailing list. Instant community killer.
------
michaelchisari
I think this is a great idea, although I don't know if I'm a good candidate
for it, since I never officially got past a Pre-Calculus level.
I recently decided in the past couple weeks to go through Khan Academy from
the very beginning (simple arithmetic! :), and run through every one of their
exercises. I'm moving pretty fast through all the refresher courses, and I'm
amazed at what I've retained (and disappointed at what I've lost).
I've completed 113 out of 171 exercises in my off hours in the past couple
weeks, and once I've gotten through them all, I'm going to run through MIT
18.01 Single Variable Calculus, 18.02 Multi-Variable Calculus, and 18.03
Differential Equations.
From there, I was planning on doing MIT 18.06 Linear Algebra, so even though I
don't think it would work out for me to jump in to a group like this without
the proper background, I'll be following the progress of things closely.
In fact, the idea of HN being a platform for self-directed group education is
a brilliant one. While there are already websites focused on that, I know
we're all impressed enough by the HN readership that there is an obvious
advantage of organizing it here. Hopefully this experiment can work for other
areas of study as well.
~~~
asdf333
For the most part, I don't even think you need 18.01. 02 or 03.
there may be a few applications in 18.06 that you miss out on but it wont' be
a big deal.
------
aamar
Interested; please include me. Once the book arrives I'll have to confirm I
can make the time.
In terms of how: I was part of a terrific, useful "HN reads SICP" group a
while back (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=428248>, couple of us made it
through to the end). In that case the meeting place was simple (irc) and we
generally linked to our answers on pastebin/github/personal site which
supported whichever features we needed it to. An HN thread per "meeting" could
work similarly as a hub.
It is probably useful for each person to chime in separately, e.g. "I agree
that this is the right answer" or "I also have this confusion", despite this
not being ordinary HN etiquette. That allows us to know how many people are
participating and evaluating answers, which is difficult, especially given
hidden comment points.
------
timgluz
How about OpenStudy studygroup for MIT linear algebra course?
[http://openstudy.com/groups/mit+18.06+linear+algebra%2C+spri...](http://openstudy.com/groups/mit+18.06+linear+algebra%2C+spring+2010)
------
ivan_ah
> Time to trade in a few hours of internet > downtime and actually learn
> something.
Amen!
Some tools I can recommend are dokuwiki with jsMath plugin and etherpad for
live collaboration/note-taking
<http://piratepad.net/sj8l1FIUIK> \--> I started one pad for this project.
If someone is willing to setup a public dokuwiki on their server, I can
provide examples of latex code for matrices and vectors.
------
silentbicycle
I'm interested, except I recently bought his _Introduction to Linear Algebra_
(to go with his opencourseware). I'll probably eavesdrop and do the exercises
in that one instead.
~~~
gruseom
Yeah, that's the argument in favor of the other Strang: it's more standard and
would allow piggy-backing on the open course. Still, the material is mostly
going to overlap.
------
endian
I'm in!
By the way, some less applied materials include:
\- [http://www.amazon.com/Linear-Algebra-Right-Sheldon-
Axler/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Linear-Algebra-Right-Sheldon-
Axler/dp/0387982582)
\-
[http://www.math.mcgill.ca/goren/AlgebraII07-08/CourseNotesMa...](http://www.math.mcgill.ca/goren/AlgebraII07-08/CourseNotesMath251.pdf)
------
bugsbunnyak
Two collaboration suggestions:
Sage: <http://sagemath.org/>
<http://math.chapman.edu/~jipsen/tiddly/tiddlymath.html> (related example:
<http://deferentialgeometry.org/>)
------
ebiester
Which textbook are we talking about? Timing isn't perfect for me, but I'm
willing to at least try until everything catches up with me.
~~~
corey
I'd also like to know which book. I just bought Strang's _Introduction to
Linear Algebra_ to study along with his video lectures.
If it's based on this book I'd love to join.
------
marshray
Count me in. I already have Strang's textbook and have watched some of his
lectures.
However, I was quite impressed with a few minutes of Khan Academy I watched
the other day. I don't know what the dependency chain is for their L.A.
modules but that site seems to have some good metadata and group organization
tools.
~~~
tptacek
I've been liking Khan's linear algebra stuff too, but feel like its time to
level up.
------
nkurz
I'd like to be involved (email in profile).
Are there significant differences between editions? For those not employed by
Thomas, the 4th edition is a expensive book even when used. The 3rd, by
contrast, has many affordable used copies available. And are the international
versions identical?
~~~
fuzzythinker
Same thinking. $90 used is just too much, so I picked up the 3.ed. Hopefully
it's good enough. Yes, please count me in too!
------
endian
It seems one can get the International Edition of the 4th edition from Abe
Books at a greatly reduced price:
[http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?isbn=003010567...](http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?isbn=0030105676&sts=t&x=0&y=0)
------
biofox
I'm in. Does it matter which edition we use?
As for notation and sharing images, this is a great tool... provided you know
LaTeX (which is worth learning anyway):
<http://www.codecogs.com/latex/eqneditor.php>
------
trenthauck
Would definitely be interested in this. Use it everyday for stats, but would
like to get better at the fundamentals.
I think for it to be most efficient, we should use the book that coincides w/
the MIT lectures.
------
tsycho
I'm in for this. A chapter every 2 weeks sounds like a good pace without any
unnecessary pressure. How do we coordinate? @gruseom, would you like to take
the lead?
------
dthakur
I'm in; I have the book; Is the next checkpoint on Sep 27 (Chapter 1)?
With 8 chapters, this will stretch past Dec, is this correct?
------
ejanus
I am in! I live very far from Amazon.com and I don't have Kindle. Is there a
place to source the book's pdf version?
------
seandevine
That sounds good to me. Here in Chicago? If we need a location, my office and
apartment building are options...
~~~
tptacek
Daniel's in Canadia. We can just do it on HN, with a post every other week. It
probably won't hit the front page often, but who cares?
We were going to do this internally at our Chicago office (Timur is a math
grad student), so I'm open to Chicago-specific extensions, especially if they
involve alcohol. I'm better at math when slightly buzzed.
~~~
seandevine
Agreed. Alcohol & Chicago-extendsion - I'm in for that.
------
mwhooker
I'm in. Though I don't think HN is the place to run the study group.
------
loganfrederick
I'm in. My email is in my profile and is [email protected]
------
mquander
I'll get on board; I need to relearn this. Email in profile.
------
notaddicted
I'm interested! please find my email in my profile.
------
ajdecon
Awesome idea, I'm in. Time to go get Strang...
------
szcukg
I'm in. I have the 3rd edition of this book
------
ecruz3
I'm interested in participating.
------
jcarden
I'm game. Where do we sign up ?
~~~
tptacek
You don't. That's the best thing about it. We'll agree on this thread what
book we're using and when the first study thread will happen; then, a couple
weeks from now when it's time, someone will just post STUDY HN: Linear Algebra
Chapter 1, and I will ask some dumb question and Colin Percival will jump on
me for being dumb and we'll be off to the races.
I'm psyched.
------
cranil
if you're relearning, you should use Horn and Johnson's Matrix Analysis IMO
------
mavelikara
I'd like to join this.
~~~
competentgirl
I'm in. There is a free linear algebra text from UPS (U Puget Sound) as well.
------
mkl
I'm in, probably.
------
skeptical
Yesterday I pushed a tiny javascript algebra on github. I'll just leave the
link here: <https://github.com/plainas/ualgebra.js>
It might be useful for you guys to check solutions and such.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Read Steve Jobs’ emails about why you can’t buy digital books in Amazon’s apps - trymas
https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/30/21348130/apple-documents-steve-jobs-email-books-amazon-apps-antitrust-investigation-schiller#comments
======
Fiveplus
The last email definitely feels like Steve was not happy with how Amazon
depicted the ease to use of Android (via cross platform accessibility of
Kindle) over Apple's iOS.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Excel Escapades - michaelleland
http://www.michaelonsystems.com/?p=253
======
DanBC
Excel is dangerous when people think they know what percentages are; or they
think they can do "statistics".
I was involved in some work around English health care and "dignity and
respect".
The process was horribly flawed. Volunteers asked patients some questions off
a questionnaire. The answers were sent back, and reports were written.
Obviously, the sample sizes were not random; they were _tiny_ ; etc etc.
And the people writing the reports didn't get any help from statisticians. So
you got comments like "28.69% of people said they felt [...]". I pointed out
this obvious glaring error. They were grateful, and said of course they
percentages should have been rounded to the nearest 0.25%. (This was with a
sample size of 16 people.)
Anyway: Panko has some nice stuff about (scary!) spreadsheet errors.
([http://panko.shidler.hawaii.edu/My%20Publications/Whatknow.h...](http://panko.shidler.hawaii.edu/My%20Publications/Whatknow.htm))
And there's even a European Spreadsheet Risks Interest Group.
(<http://www.eusprig.org/stories.htm>)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
It Doesn’t Matter Who Owns TikTok - ourmandave
https://gizmodo.com/it-doesn-t-matter-who-owns-tiktok-1844595163
======
m3kw9
So it is saying in order to serve ads from China, all data will still go thru
Adtiger? Can’t US ban that too?
~~~
swodinsky
hi! story’s reporter here — like i said in the piece, there’s at least 50
companies that do the same sort of data-relaying, not to mention the untold
number of non-ipo’d companies doing the same thing. if the market’s similar to
that in the us, that number is likely in the hundreds, if not thousands
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Cross Compiling Rust for FreeBSD with Docker - praveenscience
https://www.wezm.net/technical/2019/03/cross-compile-freebsd-rust-binary-with-docker/
======
wezm
After I wrote this I discovered that cross[1] supports FreeBSD so it's
probably the better option.
[1]: [https://github.com/rust-embedded/cross](https://github.com/rust-
embedded/cross)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Future of the Web According to Google - cpeterso
https://divshot.com/blog/opinion/the-future-of-the-web-according-to-google/
======
mattgreenrocks
I'm not very excited.
It seems like industry is perpetually locked in a death-spiral of creating the
most "native-like" meta-platform that tries to mimic whatever proprietary
platform is currently big. Eventually, another proprietary platform emerges
and captures mindshare, and the nerds get angry at the proprietary-ness and
start a new meta-platform emerges with the same promises of "eventually it
will great." Due to idealism and politics, the meta-platform attracts a huge
amount of smart devs who ultimately are trying to replicate something that
people already have.
I'm sorry to sound grumpy, it just seems like everything runs in circles and
nobody seems to care or notice. Maybe tech is much better when it's applied to
tough domains.
~~~
mbleigh
It is circular, but that's actually a _good_ thing. It just means that large
open platforms (like the web) eventually catch up to proprietary systems.
It's a democratizing force. Something that two years ago took an experienced
team of professional developers may today take a single novice developer
reading a simple tutorial.
Both in the web and in native there will be people pushing the limits of
what's possible, but what's exciting is when fringe technologies hit the
mainstream and become available for everyone. IMHO, at least (author of the
post here).
------
pcwalton
> We all know that animating transform and opacity goes smoothly, and
> everything else goes terribly. Google thinks that's a bummer and wants to
> fix it. However, they warn that the rendering changes required are so
> fundamental that it may be difficult for other vendors to match. Expect that
> to play out over a few years.
I'd be interested to know what those changes are. From what I can tell, you
want off-main-thread layout because a lot of these properties require layout.
But Google rejected off-main-thread layout as "not helpful". Perhaps they're
referring to display lists ("Blueprints"), which can indeed be helpful, but
Gecko already has them… (Granted, display list building in Gecko is not
incremental yet, but that does not require "fundamental" rearchitecting.)
~~~
mbleigh
The answer will be in the videos somewhere. If I recall it was primarily
discussed during the Day 2 performance panel, maybe give that a watch.
------
bobajeff
Web app distribution and discoverability are things not addressed in the
current web app manifest standard. Mozilla has a API that allows sites to
trigger an install with using a navigator.Apps.install() function but I
believe browser vendors are concerned about users being bugged by sites that
would missuse it. Many websites would ask to be installed even content only
sites.
I believe Google wants to move from the curated app store model with reviews
and ratings to a search results model algorithmically ranked apps. So making a
web apps store or adding web apps to the play store doesn't work with their
future plans.
~~~
hayksaakian
Coincidently websites already bother you to install their apps if you use a
mobile device to browse the web.
------
ilaksh
I think for a mobile app, most or at least many users want to install it. Here
is a question I asked four years ago which I believe is quite
relevant:[http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/119833/does-h...](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/119833/does-
html5-have-a-feature-that-enables-a-user-to-add-an-icon-to-the-apps-screen)
------
Houshalter
I'm still upset they removed third party extensions.
------
messydoge
I don't see what the big deal is here. The web is the end all be all of the
future. The more people that wake up and realize that, the better.
------
acheron
If you want Google's vision of the future, imagine ads stamping on a human
face -- forever.
------
sparkzilla
While they are worried about performance their core business is increasingly
exposed: [http://newslines.org/blog/googles-black-
hole/](http://newslines.org/blog/googles-black-hole/)
~~~
hahainternet
This article is just terrible. Their argument is that Google is not a perfect
judge of correct information and does not instantly return all relevant facts.
No shit. In fact despite the negative tone of the article, when I googled "who
is ariana grande?", their explicit question, Google returns a Knowledge Graph
box from IMDB. A relatively authoritative source, telling me precisely the
information I would have expected.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Nokia Has Better Maps Than Apple and Maybe Even Google - susanhi
http://m.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/the-forgotten-mapmaker-nokia-has-better-maps-than-apple-and-maybe-even-google/263150/
======
toyg
Nokia has (or rather _had_ ) Better-Many-Things, and absolutely no idea what
to do with them.
They keep cutting trees but there's nobody in the forest to hear them fall,
because they put huge signs all around saying "WE DON'T REALLY LIKE CUTTING
TREES". A Microsoft (or why not, Facebook) acquisition is basically their only
hope at this point, bar miracles.
~~~
jpkeisala
Microsoft is not buying Nokia. They think it's better make their own (zune)
phone. How hard can it be?
------
twoodfin
My problem with Apple's maps hasn't been the quality of the maps but the
quality of the search. I was looking for the Sea Dog Brew Pub last night. When
I put "seadog" into iOS 6 maps, no result, despite it being only a few miles
away. Google Maps nailed it. Both maps had a record of the POI, but only
Google's had the basic smarts to handle the missing space.
More complicated examples are even worse for Apple, abs typically effortless
for Google.
Unless Nokia has all that fuzzy match/page rank DNA, I'm not sure simply more
accurate maps will help.
~~~
potatolicious
I've pretty much given up on search on iOS6. It seems more often than not
entering an address like "123 Spruce" will take me to some landmark/town
relating to the street name, a few states away.
I can count the number of times the search actually picked up on the fact that
I entered an address on a single hand. Apple, this is me trying to make things
as easy for your craptastic search as possible. I've taken the trouble to type
the number and the street name. If you can't take it from there, _what the
hell_.
I've also had the map place things in hilariously wrong places. These are
shops with addresses (addresses that are correct on the detail pane!) that
would somehow end up a block away or on the wrong side of the street. Worse
yet, I've been redirect to a few no-longer-existent Starbucks by now.
This is in Manhattan too, far from an obscure location.
~~~
untog
This is one of Google Maps' hugely understated strengths. I've never found
another service that can take a partial address and understand what you mean
as well as it does. It was one of my motivations to switch back to Android
from Windows Phone.
------
kalleboo
Nokia don't have perfect worldwide coverage though, they have nothing in Japan
aside from outlines. (understandable as Nokia have zero market presence or
ambition in Japan, but no good as an acquire)
~~~
hkmurakami
That's not entirely true, since Navteq has a strong presence in the auto
industry in Japan.
------
userulluipeste
No, it doesn't! At least not better then Google. For example streets marked in
Doha, Qatar's capital, are totally outdated in Nokia maps - years old and
inconsistent even with their own satellite view:
[http://maps.nokia.com/25.2835829,51.5508221,18,0,0,hybrid.da...](http://maps.nokia.com/25.2835829,51.5508221,18,0,0,hybrid.day)
~~~
ernesth
From what I see, google has the same map for this crossroad, but a different
satellite view.
~~~
userulluipeste
Yeah, Nokia updated it's map in last two months. At the beginning of August it
matched it's satellite view, and the funny part was that I relied on that map!
I preferred Nokia maps because I found them to be more clear. But then on the
spot I was like current Apple users with their Apple maps...
------
berkut
<http://maps.nokia.com/3D/>
~~~
lewispollard
Is there a reason Linux isn't supported? Silverlight?
Edit: There's a webgl version here: <http://maps3d.svc.nokia.com/webgl/>
~~~
snogglethorpe
This "webgl version" works for me, but seems to have no actual mapping data,
it's just a highly zoomable satellite view with no labels or other markings of
any kind.
------
rm999
I wonder if Apple has lost more value from the map debacle than Nokia's entire
marketcap. Apple's stock is down ~25-30B dollars since the the iphone 5 came
out, and Nokia is worth 10B.
------
chayesfss
Nokia sounds like it has great maps, also LOVE the layout of
m.theatlantic.com. First article in a long time I could actually look at
without feeling like I have ADHD. I'm going to start trying to add a m. in
front of domains I read!
------
mddw
Maybe better maps, but no street view, which is kind of a deal breaker for me
as an "urban pedestrian".
~~~
GFischer
Street View is amazing, but it's currently not available in my country
(Uruguay) nor neighbouring Argentina, and it's not available in any region of
Brazil that I've visited (I hear it's now available in Sao Paulo and Rio).
------
lampe
the problem with nokia is not it software. The maps are good and other
software too. BUT smartphones are about the OS these days! and Symbian(i loved
the old s60 version on my ngage) is dead... and windows mobile dont got the
big thirdparty app market like android and ios got!
Yeah nokia has great maps but its like with Opera: "Opera the worlds best
browser that no one uses"
~~~
toyg
no one in broadband-happy Western countries, no. In countries where 56k speeds
are still the norm, Opera rules the mobile space (in a way, they really are
"the cloud browser").
Unfortunately, ruling the low-end is a bad place to be in IT, especially in
the fashion-influenced mass-consumer space. No wonder they're trying hard to
be acquired at the moment.
~~~
lampe
on my Android i use Opera too! dont get me wrong i really like opera.
but on the Desktop i dont know why but at this moment Chrome is for me my
favourite browser.
everytime when opera gets a new major release i test the version and opera
next too.
------
acdha
Depends on where you live - around Washington DC, it's Google Maps,
OpenStreetMaps, Apple (at some distance below) and then a huge gap before
Bing, Nokia and MapQuest round out the low end of the results.
I rather strongly suspect that the main consequences of Apple's move will be
fragmentation as people adapt to the service which offers the best local
coverage for them
------
joelrunyon
Here's the non-mobile link ->
[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/the-
fo...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/the-forgotten-
mapmaker-nokia-has-better-maps-than-apple-and-maybe-even-google/263150/)
------
nekojima
I'm disappointed to see that the earth maps from Google and Nokia of my town
are three years old. I saw the copyright 2012 and had heard they'd been
updated through a Google posting a few weeks ago. But checking a few new
construction developments, which cars are in my parents' & their neighbours
driveways and its no later than June 2009.
------
__chrismc
If Nokia has (supposedly) better map data than Google, how much money could be
made by licensing that data?
Alternatively, how much could be made by creating a map application for the
major mobile platforms, and sell it to the consumer direct? (bundled free with
Windows Phone, no doubt) Probably not as much as a licensing deal, but still
no small amount.
~~~
archangel_one
> how much money could be made by licensing that data?
Navteq still do license map data. But it's not as profitable as all that; IIRC
they weren't breaking even when Nokia took them over. This seems fairly common
in that industry; Ordnance Survey (who aren't fully commercial, but the same
concept applies) are heavily supplemented by public money, for example. It's
presumably even more expensive to do all the capture for Street View type
data.
> Alternatively, how much could be made by creating a map application for the
> major mobile platforms, and sell it to the consumer direct?
That seems like a pretty good idea to me, although I doubt it's going to dig
them out of a €1.5bn hole. Still, Nokia don't have a lot to lose at this
point, although I feel like they're still in denial about their recent lack of
competitiveness in smartphones.
~~~
gman99
€1.5bn hole? Last I checked they had €4.2bn in the bank?
[http://press.nokia.com/2012/07/19/nokia-
corporation-q2-2012-...](http://press.nokia.com/2012/07/19/nokia-
corporation-q2-2012-interim-report/)
Edit: €1.3bn loss in Q1, €800ml loss last quarter. I guess that's what you
meant. Still, not a "hole"... just driving straight into one :)
~~~
archangel_one
Sorry, probably not the right metaphor to use really. From the article, it
suggested that division of Nokia was losing €1.5bn annually, and I don't think
selling map software to mobile phone owners would make _that_ much when there
are already plenty of free (beer) alternatives.
------
Tomis02
Nokia finger race: <http://vimeo.com/28240021>
------
mtgx
According to Ars, it's not, and Bing Maps seems to be the worst of the bunch:
[http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/10/replacing-ios-6-maps-
ha...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/10/replacing-ios-6-maps-hands-on-
with-mapquest-bing-waze-google-nokia/)
~~~
daliusd
Not really. Nokia Maps is more than Nokia Maps on iOS. Downloadable/Offline
maps is killer feature in Nokia Symbian/Meego phones (at least for travelling
person from Europe). I guess the same solution is used in Lumia phones as
well.
Since I don't want to buy Lumia phone when there will be no Symbians anymore I
hope Android will have proper offline maps or EU will force reasonable price
for data connection across Europe (what it actually does gradually).
~~~
omaranto
I'm not familiar with Nokia Maps at all. How is its offline feature better
than Google Maps On Android's offline feature? (You call it "proper"
suggesting to me that you consider better than the way Google Maps on Android
does it.) I don't have a smart phone, just a WiFi only Android tablet and I've
fund the offline maps features in Google Maps perfectly adequate.
~~~
daliusd
OK. I don't have any modern Android. I believe offline maps for Android is
pretty new function. Right? I think in offline maps for Android you can
download only selected region. Meanwhile with Nokia maps I can download map
for individual country or state (in case of US).
~~~
ctz
For Android the regions you can select to save offline are severely
restricted. In my recent vicinity I could select as much ocean as I desired,
but no land.
The regions it is available in are undocumented.
------
aroberge
I'm curious as to how they found my exact address when I turned on the locator
feature. Also, I wonder why Canada is not listed as a country for terms of
use. Perhaps because the 3d features are not available here?...
------
njx
Because they own Navteq
------
hayksaakian
Are they stealth or something 'cause I've certainly never seen them
~~~
mempko
if you used mapquest, yahoo, bing, now amazon, any garmin device or any in car
navigation system, you have seen them.
------
linyu
Google should buy Nokia then, for it's maps.
~~~
potatolicious
I'd actually rather Microsoft buy them. God help us if Google becomes the sole
provider of (competent) mapping services.
------
cmccabe
The internet has a short attention span, I guess. Nokia bought NAVTEQ for 8
billion dollars back in 2007. They sure ought to have good maps, after that!
NAVTEQ might be receiving map data from many commercial fleets of trucks, but
Google is receiving map data from anyone with an Android phone. I think GOOG
has this one covered.
When Nokia finishes its slow motion car crash, and they start auctioning off
the company's assets, they will easily find a willing buyer for NAVTEQ. Both
Apple and Microsoft will probably be interested. I don't know if it will
command 8 billion next time around, but it will definitely be worth something
(unless they make the mistake of mismanaging it into the ground before the end
arrives.)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How can I start a web development side-business? - humaninstrument
======
patatino
What I did a couple years ago was this:
\- Go to yellow pages or something similar in your country
\- Search for companies nearby where you live in a specific sector (for
example hairdressing, car repair shops etc.)
\- look for a template on themeforest or another site in this sector
\- download theme, make for every company a version with their logo
\- Cold email them with the demo page and tell them you would like to
implement their site for xy amount. Well add a little more text :)
I only did this twice but both times I sent like 5-6 mails and got one company
accepting my offer.
~~~
cronjobma
How much did you sell those for?
~~~
patatino
~2000USD (living in switzerland). Simple websites with a couple info sites
about the company.
------
ruairidhwm
There are hundreds of thousands of other web development businesses out there,
so you need something to differentiate yourself.
Whether that's a great social media presence, better branding, or working in a
niche then you need to focus on that.
Most of your business will initially be through your network so start talking
to friends/family/contacts about the fact that you're looking to do some
freelance development work. Chances are that you'll be able to get a job or
two out of that.
As you get bigger and more experienced, you'll likely find that clients come
back to you and refer you to others. That's your network providing organic
growth.
I'm now working on freelance web dev amongst some other side projects so feel
free to ping me an email to discuss if you want. My portfolio is
[https://codefox.io](https://codefox.io) and email contact is there :)
------
polote
Just think to something which will improve your life.
Code it for yourself.
And if you still think it solves the problem, make it available for anyone
with a subscription fee.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Patreon: Support the creators you love - bsilvereagle
https://www.patreon.com/
======
lscore720
I love Patreon - I've donated and just launched the Creator page on my new
site (sorry, plug): patreon.com/teleplaytime
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
USAF Unit Moves Reveal Clues to RQ-180 Ops Debut - x43b
https://aviationweek.com/defense/usaf-unit-moves-reveal-clues-rq-180-ops-debut
======
neonate
[http://archive.is/Kvkzu](http://archive.is/Kvkzu)
------
foolfoolz
even though they are different models, Iran captured a fully intact RQ-170
back in 2011
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–U.S._RQ-170_incident](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–U.S._RQ-170_incident)
~~~
m0zg
"Claimed to have reverse engineered". LOL. I doubt even a US company with full
access to the most advanced ITAR controlled tech and equipment could produce
one, even if supplied with full blueprints, let alone "reverse engineered"
something like this. The thing took cumulatively several decades to figure
out. You can't reverse engineer it in a few months. USSR couldn't even reverse
engineer the downed U2, a much, much simpler plane, even though at the time it
was roughly on par with the US technologically. They struggled with it for a
couple of years and canceled the plane. They did use the material science in
some of their later planes though.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beriev_S-13](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beriev_S-13)
~~~
goatinaboat
The article you link to suggests it was cancelled because satellites were
better able to fulfil its mission.
~~~
m0zg
That's a solid excuse as excuses go, but remember that this was in the 60s,
and spy satellites had to send down landing capsules with _film_ back then,
and, therefore, had very limited usable life. They were also extremely
expensive, difficult to control, and the USSR wasn't really known for its
brilliance in optical tech.
------
Causality1
I look forward to seeing the final model. Northrop Grumman usually puts out
ten times the performance per dollar of Lockmart or Boeing so even if this
ends up getting scrapped it isn't going to cost us a trillion dollars.
~~~
starpilot
ok
------
Poolecockler
Just stumbled upon this site whilst questioning my own accent. Born in Germany
to English parents (one a Geordie and one a Wiltshire lad). I have lived in
Benghazi (N. Africa) , Singapore, Germany and England. I have been told I
don't have an accent but I can mimic many. I now live in Dorset. Arrrr.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Cellular Sprites – Generate 8-bit sprites using Cellular Automata - ljvmiranda
https://cellular-sprites.herokuapp.com/
======
ljvmiranda
Hi everyone! Here's a fun web-app that I made to generate random sprites using
Cellular Automata. For this, I used Seagull
([https://github.com/ljvmiranda921/seagull](https://github.com/ljvmiranda921/seagull)),
a Python library for Conway's game of life, and streamlit!
Cellular automatons are interesting creatures, using a discrete mathematical
model, you can approximately simulate artificial life. Use this web-app to
control reproduction and stasis rates, then observe how your sprites will
transform!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Airbnb CEO: Travel may never be the same - awb
https://www.axios.com/airbnb-travel-coronavirus-3f7ac17c-89d7-4ba6-9b5b-8905e4aa888a.html
======
awillen
I just don't see a lot of reasoning for these claims. The reduction in
business and travel, absolutely, but people suddenly having more diverse
travel interests and desire to go to national parks because of the pandemic? I
just don't know where that comes from. If anything, I would think that
there'll be more pent up desire for people to go see all the big cities they
can't visit right now.
~~~
sg47
More open spaces and places where social distancing is possible. Those Paris
and Rome trips will probably not happen for the time being but maybe more
people decide to drive (if feasible) to their local national park.
~~~
awillen
That's fair - I definitely buy that during the pandemic people will go to open
places that they can drive to, but his comments felt more like they were
addressing the post-pandemic world.
------
catsarebetter
I can see his point about national parks, a ton of people are out on the bay
area hiking trails nowadays, just eyeballing it I would say 50% increase easy
------
battery423
I hope Airbnb will never be the same...
There are already stories out there of people renting flats to use in Airbnb
only.
While you have and had strict regulations on hotels and renting flats out,
Airbnb just ignored it. What happened? Cheap rooms for Tourists, pushing rent
prices higher, and putting a dent on hotels who have to have high standards
and high investments.
------
Merrill
International travel may never be the same, particularly if there is never an
effective vaccine. It looks like the globe is breaking down in to areas where
Covid-19 is effectively suppressed and other areas where it is not and herd
immunity will be the eventual answer. Travel between the areas will require
quarantine in at least one direction, limiting ad hoc travel and tourism.
International tourism and cruising may also lose their impact for social
signalling. Both are at least partly motivated by the desire to come back and
tell all your friends about where you were and what a wonderful time you had.
The actual experience of having your pocket picked or being in a norovirus
outbreak may not be all that great.
~~~
redis_mlc
Can you imagine a flight of 300 - 400 people arriving, and a sudden detention
and 2-week quarantine for them?
If you think the cruise ship stories were bad, those travellers at least had
rooms and kitchens.
Airports don't have that.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Trump’s AI Initiative Falls Short on Immigration and Ethics Issues - Yuqing7
https://www.facebook.com/SyncedGlobal/posts/2285521584826344?__xts__[0]=68.ARAXpaLTcQlJtSYwftgczis52HE1VTsGIIaoEccBxnLHiTAiTZD5jB8TbK-Wh2qAXvYLHT9J8R8-oZp5qtoOH6ZDKKlo9zmBi7JqZwcDP9TLF_lqky4-M6MP029JzLToBWzCeaS0IAeT8haUZ_EUwmjY_izeyILd3O4MwSgrCfM7XTB4XTnTWeccKW9oHuLMrqN_EHAM4a1aKxiEmTUdYdwa4KtbDH259LKyUKBsmOG_aHfi43OQXYOt0AHr9LvxcEJxgjEdRHWzgteExy7LtP6EeAouOpRu4pEVDhewZzov61DNQSB5QhC_EhWH1bhFAcrzTxTAbAl7GG9vcCYAlapO2ZH3&__tn__=-R
======
mtmail
FB post links to [https://medium.com/syncedreview/oxford-university-ai-
policy-...](https://medium.com/syncedreview/oxford-university-ai-policy-
researcher-says-trumps-ai-initiative-falls-short-on-immigration-
and-558526a527d0)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Cybersecurity Pros Name Their Price as Hacker Attacks Swell - benryon
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-07/cybersecurity-pros-name-their-price-as-hacker-attacks-multiply
======
CyberBank
The biggest areas for growth for Cyber at the moment are of the not-so-sexy
jobs. The asset inventory, patch management, vulnerability management, third
party management, risk management, etc. If you are good at any of those and
are innovating in any of those areas, you are as close to naming your own
price as you can get in Cyber.
As for the most "needed" areas of Cyber, it comes down to education. Not your
bachelors degree, but educating and raising awareness to your business, your
IT staff, and even your development teams. It's extremely tricky to measure
your return on investment, but almost always it comes down to a lack of
knowledge causing one massive hole in the fence, leading to a breach.
No amount of controls will stop someone truly motivated and skilled, so you're
better off raising the fence a bit higher and hoping that it deters the truly
malicious.
Disclosure: I run Vulnerability Management and Assessments globally for one of
the largest companies in the world, so my answer may be a bit bias :)
~~~
thorwasdfasdf
I've never understood people who say: "No amount of controls will stop someone
truly motivated and skilled". I don't think that's true.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but If there's no holes in the application/web stack
to be exploited, then there's no getting in. Right? It's not about
hacker/pirate skill. It's about whether or not the target has plugged all
their holes or not.
~~~
graylights
Software is only one part. Do you trust your hardware, your people, your
supply chain, your physical security. "Truly motivated" can mean extreme
resources and willingness to cross all boundaries.
Are you secure if your admin's child is kidnapped and the ransom demand is for
network access? Are you secure from the Secret Police wanting to hijack your
service for their purposes?
Once you accept you CAN'T stop truly all attacks you can be comfortable with
acceptable risk and work to mitigate realistic risks.
~~~
btown
Yep - this is why you might try to limit pivoting based on an assumption that
everything is compromised, you can require coordination from multiple
geographies to unlock access to certain highly sensitive resources, you ensure
that these protocols aren't published, and above all you follow the New York
Times Test: don't type anything that you wouldn't want to see on the front
page of the NYT. This requires _pride in security_ at all levels of your
organization, and it's something that few organizations outside of the
military get right.
~~~
yifanl
It boils down to this: if you can access secured data, then someone following
the same steps can also access it.
So unless you advocate for no secured data, you are vulnerable to a
sufficiently sophisticated attack (I.e. hypnodrones hijack your mind)
------
jedberg
Not surprising. At Netflix, despite the already high salaries, the security
engineers were paid a premium for their skills. The highest paid engineers at
Netflix were security engineers. They did stuff like invent entirely new
security protocols[0][1].
[0] [https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/message-security-
layer-a...](https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/message-security-layer-a-
modern-take-on-securing-communication-f16964b79642)
[1] [https://github.com/Netflix/msl](https://github.com/Netflix/msl)
~~~
lawnchair_larry
How do you know what everyone was paid?
That’s definitely not the norm though - security engineers are typically
classified the same as an SDE for payroll purposes, and tend to have less
negotiating leverage than high level SDEs who build and ship products, except
maybe some very rare exceptions. But most companies also don’t have their
security engineers actually write shipping code.
I think this article, like every security related article from bloomberg, is
pretty much BS.
Also, they use the example of CISO at a large company. CISOs aren’t actually
security experts in the vast majority of companies. They’re usually business
people or outright frauds, disappointingly. The people who hire and interview
them have no way to validate them.
The article makes a case for why CISOs are worth a lot, justifying the cost of
a breach. The problem is that CISOs have virtually no impact on whether or not
you get breached, and they usually bear no responsibility for it. It doesn’t
matter who you pay how much - it isn’t going to affect the outcome much. Alex
Stamos is one of the few that actually has any background in security at all,
and look what good that did Yahoo and Facebook. Not much. The other problem is
CISOs rarely get any actual authority over product, and when they try to flex,
they just get pushed out. The ones who survive are simply master politicians
who manage their messaging and their image.
The real reason for this article, I suspect, which appears to be primarily
sourced from a security recruiting firm, is that they take a cut of every
position they fill. It’s very much in their best interest to pump up the value
to justify their fees.
Most security money is very poorly spent. I think part of the problem is that
hackers are usually bad managers, and tend to be less interested in playing
corporate politics. So the manager jobs go to someone else, who has to make
decisions they don’t understand. The higher up you go, the more this gets
amplified. For every breach you hear about, that company likely has a few
competent security folks saying, “see, I told you...”
~~~
staticassertion
I definitely feel like I have much more negotiating power than eng, as someone
who used to be in an eng role and is now in security. There are more engineers
and eng is a less niche skillset. There are very, very few people with my
skillset. Hiring for my team takes months, minimum, with far far fewer
candidates in our pipe.
I work at an SF company and routinely field offers from other companies that I
can view on levels.fyi, and my colleagues in eng are open with me about their
salaries so I have lots of datapoints to compare to.
To your other comment:
> I seriously question whether you understand how mediocre the mean security
> engineer actually is, even at top tier companies
This seems equally true for eng.
~~~
trhway
>There are very, very few people with my skillset.
"security" seems to be a very wide notion. Can you give some highlights of
what that specific skillset is and what is your job actually consists of.
~~~
staticassertion
I have an engineering background, which is quickly becoming a requirement for
security roles. I do detection and response work.
------
strict9
There is an endless supply "infosec specialists" and "ethical hackers."
But there is a massive shortage in motivated experts that ensure packages are
up to date and fluent enough in code spelunking to ensure the app isn't
trusting user input or allowing privilege escalation.
There's also a shortage in technology leaders willing to spend money on the
mundane aspect of security. It requires regular work, not compliance effort
and periodic audits/pentests that check off boxes.
~~~
cryptica
Software complexity in most companies has exploded. Nobody is doing anything
to try reduce or manage complexity so it's only getting worse. The more
complexity there is, the easier it is to find vulnerabilities.
~~~
CyberBank
>>Nobody is doing anything to try reduce or manage complexity so it's only
getting worse.
I disagree, I see a number of large corporations starting to standardize
either 1) their entire development stack from IDE all the way to how the code
is deploy 2) Reengineering entire languages to have one language be used e.g
Quartz at BofA 3) at the very least, companies are starting to standardize
their middleware stacks, to at least avoid the configuration related issues of
having a development team managing that.
While I do agree, that the complexity of third party libraries has exploded
and is increasingly difficult to manage, I'd say companies are well on their
way to standardizing that, with tools like Nexus, SonaType, Blackduck, etc.
We're obviously a long ways away from being even 75% effective across the
board, but to say nobody is managing the complexity is a bit short sighted :)
~~~
WrtCdEvrydy
> I see a number of large corporations starting to standardize
My current job in a nutshell.
It's like handling children (No, you can't add a new technology because you
want something fancy on your resume)
------
arcboii92
As a software engineer early enough in his career to change tack, how would I
go about venturing into this space? Cybersecurity is something that has always
interested me, but it seems like such a massive feat that I often find myself
overwhelmed and settle back into my comfortable dev job.
Then every time we finish building a new publicly accessible system we send it
off to "the security company" to pen test it. I am always very jealous about
this.
~~~
biztos
There is the serious end of the security business, the service end, and the
fake end. Plus of course all the black-hat ends.
If you want to be in the serious end, which doesn't necessarily pay more than
any other software job but can be really interesting work, I would suggest
learning about anti-virus and similar attacks (there are books and tutorials)
and generally making your server software game as strong as possible. Then get
a job with a security company at whatever level and bust your ass looking for
challenges. You can rise very quickly if you can move the dial for the
customers, and "smart and gets things done" plus "gives a shit about security"
is a rarer combination than you'd think.
The service part, e.g. your pen-test company, is going to be much more
mercenary. Great experience if you can get it, and probably a good space to
start your own company in, but of very limited value in the big world.
Security companies will have huge annual contracts, pen-testers and the like
will be called in occasionally to check off a box on a security audit. Either
one can work for you, but it's best to know what you're getting into.
The fake end of course is companies promising something they won't actually
deliver, or will deliver with gross violations of ethics and/or the law.
Obviously avoid these as best you can -- for the more serious companies,
having your name associated with "SEO" or other spammers can permanently
blacklist you from employment at least in the US, obviously the dodgier the
play the greater risk of blacklisting. Hiring managers worth their salt have a
nose for this, since Ethics is way more important than Skillz for any serious
security job.
In case the black-hat part isn't obvious: in many places word gets around if a
talented hacker is interested in security. Mafia is mafia even for us nerds.
If something sounds suspicious, I strongly suggest you don't take the meeting.
(This may be less of an issue in the US.)
Best of luck to you! The world needs more smart people working for a safer
Internet!
~~~
diminoten
I dunno about some of this; working for a security company in a non-security
software role gets you a lot of adjacent experience (take extra courses
mandated by the company, go to extra talks, work with super smart security
people), but I don't consider myself anything like an actual security expert
after doing this for nearly 8 years.
There's a _lot_ of not-security work to be done in the security industry, and
it's not all work that gives you security-specific experience. I like to think
I'm good at what I do, but it's not security, even though it's to help
security people.
~~~
biztos
I've been working in Security Per Se for more than 10 years and I would also
be reluctant to call myself a "security expert" \-- as would most of the
people I respect in the business. (Free pass for CVs in motion of course.)
This is because many of us have very specific domain knowledge which probably
doesn't map to a layperson's expectation of "security expert" \-- and while I
don't see much "Impostor Syndrome" I would assert that most branches of
Security will humble you if you really know your shit, so a great indicator of
someone who doesn't is their readiness to claim broad expertise.
Yes, most of the work in "security" is just "software engineering" \-- but my
own experience has been that for people who care about the security angle,
plenty of domain knowledge accrues over time. You might not even realize how
much you have, but others do: for me there is a _huge_ difference between
working with an ops person who has internalized the adversarial worldview of
Security and one who is "just a sysadmin."
------
SubiculumCode
I told my son repeatedly that if he ever wanted a secure and high paying job
it coukd be in cybersecurity. We aren't going back to less dependence on
networks, and we are putting more and more valuable assets and operations on
those networks, which will need to be protected. Although, I suppose ut is
possible that computer security could move into the automsted sphere....
------
bulatb
High-profile well-connected people, friends and peers of executives, and
people in a right-place, right-time situation name their own price.
ICs at FAANG get FAANG-level comp. Consultants gladly take dumb money's
budget.
"Cybersecurity Pros" get the standard NDA and noncompete.
Until there's a breach.
------
novok
A lot security issues will boil down to the CISO / consultant saying: You have
to spend a lot more on your software infrastructure, hire more staff and keep
shit up to date and not use bottom barrel $10/hour offshored engineers. It
will have to become company culture to keep shit up to date and do the basics
in security. Like with equifax:
[https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2017/10/a-ser...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2017/10/a-series-of-delays-and-major-errors-led-to-massive-equifax-
breach/)
And when that is the problem you have to deal with, it's more about executive
buy in and management than it's about any sort of security expertise, and that
seems fairly difficult to do at most companies with really large systemic
security culture issues such as that.
------
siculars
“CEOs don’t know what it’s worth until it’s walking out the door,” Comyns
said. “Then they stand in the door and say, ‘You’re not going anywhere.’”
They deserve what they get. If you underfund critical parts of your
infrastructure that you don't even realize are critical, what do you expect?
Pay for talent. End of story.
~~~
Spivak
True, but if it's critically underfunded everywhere then it's what we have now
where it's just the cost of doing business and a risk you account for.
I would imagine most sites on the internet could be exploited by someone
targeted and ultimately relying on the fact that their data/site isn't
valuable enough to attack in the first place.
------
euske
No disrespect to actual security experts, but here are the four common areas
where a lot of dubious/questionable "pros" can pop up:
\- Health experts
\- Education specialists
\- Productivity gurus
\- Security specialists
~~~
freehunter
As a security specialist, 100% agree. It’s just not provable that we are worth
anything. There is so much theory and guesswork and companies still get hacked
because you can’t prove if I’m wrong or right until you actually get hacked.
There’s too much ground to cover and not enough people watching the alarms.
And of course he alarms trigger whenever a stiff wind blows.
Everyone wants to do security but no one knows what security means so they
just cut a fat check and pretend like it is working.
~~~
westpfelia
Plus Security Expert is incredibly vague. Like what do you do? Are you a pen
tester? SIEM analyst? Compliance? Do you work in SecDevOps? Or are just a
firewall/IDS guy? Or maybe you walk around the office and hit your accountants
every time they click on a phishing link with a wiffel ball bat.
The world of info sec is so massive that saying you are a expert in 'Security'
is useless.
~~~
PenguinCoder
> _Or maybe you walk around the office and hit your accountants every time
> they click on a phishing link with a wiffel ball bat._
I would like this job. Please post the job link ;)
~~~
SamuelAdams
Search for "Corporate Controller". They typically report directly to the CFO
and oversee a lot of other financial roles. Every company has one, and they
usually only step out of their office to hit someone with a club or something.
A lot of their job is protecting the company from lawsuits, usually because
someone somewhere did something dumb.
Source: worked closely with a corporate controller for many years.
------
aczerepinski
I'm skeptical about the "more than 300,000 unfilled security jobs" stat. Are
we talking about thousands of empty chairs for each of the big tech companies
and hundreds for each of the remaining fortune 500?
~~~
mr_toad
I don’t know about this particular statistic, but what is often done in these
studies is to survey organisations to ask how many of these staff they want or
need, or how many vacant ‘positions’ they have.
The numbers don’t always reflect how many positions they actually have the
budget for, or whether they’re willing to pay a realistic rate.
Arguably, if they were willing to pay market rates there couldn’t be any
vacancies, because supply and demand.
~~~
bayesian_horse
I rarely see the concept of "supply and demand" used properly.
In introductory economics, it's just two lines crossing somewhere. In reality
though, companies still have to make a buck, so there is a definite limit on
how much a company can pay a "security professional" and still be profitable.
And worse, if we are talking about a labor shortage across an industry or
country, price doesn't really come into it at all. Price is only a competitive
factor, it doesn't create or destroy individual developers. If one employer
"scoops" an employee for a higher price, the shortage moves to where he just
left.
Sucking in talent from other industries or countries also has its limits. And
on top of all of that there seems to be some anti-competitive effects
preventing wage-wars.
------
buboard
cybersecurity is a cat and mouse game, it will never end. If it ends up like
another arms race, it s going to be a huge cost to the markets, bigger than
any national defense budget. The best way to secure data is not to have them
stored in the first place. I think this will be the next big trend, from big
data to small data
~~~
bayesian_horse
Most cybersecurity threats are "simple" crime, rather than government action,
and even the latter is often quite "commercial".
If there is enough law enforcement and enough self-protections by civilians
(companies), criminals should get demotivated and the overall level of
activity should die down, just like "real" crime. We're far from that though.
------
gist
Also sounds like in the old days and somewhat similar to 'nobody ever got
fired for buying IBM'. Why? Well by throwing money a great deal of money to
hire the experts (if that is the case) nobody can be called out as they can if
they didn't pay for that insurance.
------
jamestimmins
I'm curious if anyone has found consistent work doing bug bounty's and things
like HackerOne to a sufficient degree that it would replace a FT engineer
role.
I'd love to hear/learn about someone's experiences if it exists.
~~~
sp_
I co-manage
[https://hackerone.com/googleplay](https://hackerone.com/googleplay) and the
top contributor there probably makes 5x - 10x of an average software
engineering salary for his home country.
Not a lot of hackers care about Android app security so there's barely any
hackers participating and little competition. Most apps have never had anybody
do a security review.
Additionally the scope of the program is so wide that you can look through
hundreds of apps from companies that have no security posture at all. Finding
bugs is easy and payouts are more than generous.
~~~
biztos
> 5x - 10x of an average software engineering salary for his home country.
...which might still be 0.2x of an average Google salary in Mountain View, as
noted above.
The fact that you even mention "home country" pretty much requires that you
give us specifics if you want us to take the claim seriously.
------
slowhand09
I want companies to be held liable for their breach, especially when they are
negligence or easily avoidable. I currently have FREE CREDIT MONITORING as my
PII has been exposed by multiple reputable companies plus the government.
Monitoring x3 doesn't punish them for leaking my data. I doesn't even (in my
mind) give them enough incentive to make it much harder to loose. I'd be happy
if is was encrypted and regularly tested to make sure it was still encrypted,
both at rest and in motion.
~~~
slowhand09
note: monitoring X 3 as multiple leakers each are being "punished".
------
ummonk
>Just last week, Capital One Financial Corp. disclosed that personal data of
about 100 million customers had been illegally accessed by a Seattle woman,
possibly one of the largest breaches affecting a U.S. bank. The firm’s shares
have fallen 8.9% since the intrusion was revealed.
Misleading reporting. The whole stock market went down since then, and banks
particularly so.
------
auiya
Yes and no. The price many cybersecurity pros want, is to be able to live in a
place of their choosing and work remotely. Many will even take lower salaries
than the market would dictate where the company is located to do so. While
this is slowly improving, a majority of companies are still not willing to
accommodate this in my experience.
------
plolio
I'm studying cyber security in Germany. It's the single best decision I've
made so far. The work opportunities seem endless and I love working in the
industry.
Most of my fellow students simply decided to go into this field because of the
high monetary compensation and expect salaries starting from 60k€ upwards with
a Bachelors.
~~~
hwj
Does the name of your university start with an "R"? ;)
------
dandare
The last time my work password expired and I had to increase the number at the
end from 7 to 8, I asked our 6-figure-salary cybersecurity pro what is the
point of password rotation when all it achieves is that regular users stick it
on post-its to their monitors or store it in draft emails in Outlook.
> Compliance.
------
mrdependable
I've been interested in learning cyber security for a while, but I can't help
but feel if there was a successful attack the fallout and pressure would be
intense. Is that a real thing to worry about or is my imagination getting away
with me?
~~~
TACIXAT
There are all hands on deck situations, but you just do what you're good at,
figure stuff out, and fix it asap. Usually it's a team effort. Not awful. If
you're interested I really recommend it.
------
zer0faith
Guess I need a raise.
~~~
commandlinefan
Title is misleading. It should read “Cybersecurity pros who graduated summa
cum laude from Ivy League universities with dozens of contacts in the C-levels
of Fortune 500 companies and are under 30 can name their own price”. Truly
unique times we live in.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do you deal with the shiny object syndrome? - cronjobma
======
danielvf
What is the shiny object syndrome?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Brain by Mailchimp - niico
http://mailchimp.com/brain
======
erickhill
Jesus the scrolling is horrific. I gave up trying to understand what this
product is offering as I couldn't get the scrolling to behave at all.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Django Dose - DjangoCon Live Stream - twampss
http://djangodose.com/djangocon/
======
kluikens
Yeah, nothing yet for me. The conference should've started by now.
~~~
icey
The conference starts tomorrow (Tuesday)
------
mattcottingham
Seems to hang my browser. Is it video?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fermat’s Library – Annotating Academic Papers Every Week - lainon
https://blog.ycombinator.com/fermats-library-annotating-academic-papers-every-week/
======
wodenokoto
I kinda want to like Fermat's library - the concept is good - but mostly I
hate reading articles on their websites. I would much, much rather just read
the raw PDF, and it annoys me they do not link it.
Rendering is slow, buggy, and results in choppy scrolling. The annotations
feels out of place UI-wise, but often also content-wise.
~~~
throwawayjava
_> Rendering is... buggy_
Unfortunately, [http://fermatslibrary.com/](http://fermatslibrary.com/) is
down at the moment so I can't comment with an informed opinion.
But there are two killer features that most annotation software fail to
supply:
1\. print-ability. Physical copies are important.
2\. Accurate rendering (related to 1). There's a pretty high barrier to
overcome before someone else's inline notes are more valuable than knowing
that I'm looking at exactly what the authors intended for me to look at.
That said, the scientific PDF annotation space is ripe for disruption. IDK how
meaningful that market is (directly or indirectly), but someone could
definitely step in and own it with something that's even an iota better than
current options.
~~~
wodenokoto
> But there are two killer features that most annotation software fail to
> supply:
I don't know what kind of annotation software you usually use, but I have yet
to annotate a PDF and lose the ability of 1 and/or 2.
As for crowd-annotation services, I can only think of genius and medium.
Genius does not preserve original format, but that is obviously unreasonable
to expect (they're songs!). Medium is its own format, so rendering is accurate
by definition.
~~~
henrikeh
What programs do you use? Can they make annotations with math typesetting,
markup, links and images?
~~~
wodenokoto
Technically, yes. In practice no.
I've mostly dabbled with preview, Adobe reader, Zotero and Mendeley. You can
in all do whatever advance shit you'd like in 3rd party software and copy-
paste.
------
davidzweig
In 2014 I had an idea, didn't go anywhere though:
"I've been working on a project to implement a feature similar to PDF native
'custom annotations,' but using an external JSON file. The idea is to allow a
more hacker-friendly way to add javascript-powered interactivity to a PDF
file, and allow a js-based-document-viewer to interact with other elements in
a web page. Somewhat like using an external subtitles-file for a video instead
of hard-coded subs, allowing you to use things like HTML5 tracks for
generating events etc. (manipulating PDFs internal workings is hard work for
those who create documents/content, and the JS support is old-fashioned, if I
remember rightly).."
[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.pdf-
js/2...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.pdf-
js/24DK2E7I5nc)
I think mostly I liked PDF's precise, fixed control over layout, and wanted to
be able to program some js onClick callbacks on top of it in an easy way.
Maybe sometime I will revisit the ideas, see if there was something there.
------
a_d
This approach could save journalism from the scourge of fake news. The
specific issues are:
1) opinions masquerading as news. 2) misinterpretation of facts/data. 3)
misrepresenting the facts. 4) cherry picking (not showing full picture, such
that the meaning changes). 5) insufficient context / history about the topic.
All these issues with reporting could be mitigated with expert + crowd
annotation — esp where the author and the subject (say people mentioned in the
news) can come and add more context.
When objective function is speed and clicks, sometimes depth on a topic
suffers. This is true whether news is human or machine generated. In that
case, continual engagement with the original article, amendments and updates
become a very important tool.
If journalism is defined as a search for truth, then news annotation could be
the thing that saves it.
HN, thoughts?
~~~
pvg
_journalism from the scourge of fake news._
Journalism isn't suffering from a scourge of fake news.
~~~
JoshCole
[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6380/1146](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6380/1146)
You don't need to have an increase in fake news to have an increase in the
perception of fake news. Another way to get an increase in the perception of
fake news is to change the structural graph through which news propagates. The
two most outspoken people I know of on the topic of the problem of fake news
both happen to be twitter users (Elon Musk, Donald Trump).
~~~
pvg
I don't really understand how this is a response to what I said.
~~~
JoshCole
The Science paper I linked was meant to show that the twitter graph has
properties which spread fake news through its part of the news propagation
graph. The people I referenced were meant to show that people on the graph
with such a property are talking about the fake news problem as if it is real.
Taken together, my response to you was trying to get at the idea that fake
news, even if not a thing from the perspective of one node on overall news
propagation graph, can seem very real from another position on the graph.
So basically, I disagree with the claim that fake news doesn't exist, in a
subtle way.
~~~
pvg
_I disagree with the claim that fake news doesn 't exist_
I got that bit, it's just not a thing I argued.
------
cf
This reminds me a lot of [https://via.hypothes.is/](https://via.hypothes.is/)
. Could someone familiar with both explain why to prefer one service over
another?
~~~
pvg
The thing you linked seems to be 'annotations generally' whereas Fermat's
library is 'curated sequence of academic papers with an annotations feature'
~~~
cf
Thanks!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Charlie Puth Is Finally Comfortable in the Spotlight - foreach
https://www.wsj.com/articles/charlie-puth-interview-katy-perry-11572374099?mod=rsswn
======
dang
Most pop culture du jour articles are off topic for HN. There needs to be an
intellectually interesting angle for such a story to be on topic here.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Which websites actually have a useful search that Google can't beat? - photon_off
Everybody uses Google, Bing, DDG, or some other search engine. But are the search giants as ubiquitous as they seem? I think there's a great value to individual sites' search features, mainly because they go beyond the grasp of GoogleBot.<p>There was a post recently about Google's main competition being Bing. I think that's entirely untrue. I think their main competition is the long-tail of search that they simply don't have the dataset to compete against.<p>Here are sites that I can recall using the search feature, and it actually being useful:<p><pre><code> - Wikipedia (half the time I use Google, though)
- SearchYC
- Urban Dictionary
- BTJunkie
- StackOverflow
- Delicious
- Twitter
- YouTube
- eBay
</code></pre>
What sites do you find have a useful search feature?
======
iamelgringo
Bing's travel search is the best in the Biz as far as I'm concerned.
Wolfram Alpha is phenomenal for certain types of queries. I find their results
for companies pages to be so cleaner and more intuitive than either Google or
Bing's.
I think there are huge openings for competing with Google and Bing when
focused on a specific niche. Google's revenue per search query in the US is
$0.12.[1] And, I know I"m getting frustrated with their search results, and I
find myself using multiple search engines for different types of queries.
There's tons of room for competition in this market, and I don't know why more
startups aren't taking advantage of it.
<shameless plug>
This is the reason that we're turning <http://Newsley.com> into a search
engine for economic and financial news. The news sections of Yahoo Finance and
Google Finance suck IMHO. We're trying to make financial news search suck
less.
We're focusing on building our index and results pages like crazy right now.
We're currently indexing the Economist, NYT Business and BBC Business[2].
Bloomberg News should be online this week.
After getting Bloomberg online, we're going to focus on getting the alpha
version of our search released.
We're making our results pages available as soon as possible, however, so we
can start building a bit of organic search traffic to our site even before
search is released. So far, it's worked great. Since we started releasing
those pages 6 weeks ago, our traffic has tripled.
In the meantime, each one of the keywords or tags below each article leads to
the results page for that specific term. Feel free to click around.
</shameless plug>
ref:
[1]
[http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2007/05/why_1...](http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2007/05/why_1_of_search.html)
[2] <http://newsley.com/crawl_stats>
~~~
nostrademons
What are the particular queries where you've been frustrated?
~~~
iamelgringo
I'm finding Google less and less useful for queries about specific programming
problems.
I'm finding myself going to DDG and Stack overflow for answers to those
problems first, just because I don't have to sift through results from crappy
forums or Experts Exchange to get to answers for my specific query.
I do prefer Google results to Bing's results for those topics, because I can
query Google groups, which also tends to have higher signal::noise ratios.
As I said, Bing has Travel search down pretty cold as far as I'm concerned,
and I travel quite a bit. That may well change since you guys bought ITA,
which provides Bing's data. Brilliant move, btw. I do use
<http://matrix.itasoftware.com> a ton after a quick overview search on Bing
because of the domain specific language that itasoftware lets you use on your
searches.
Amazon does much better for shopping and product search. My first inclination
these days is to go to Amazon and look for a product. If the price seems
reasonable, I have Amazon prime and the product gets shipped to me for free in
2 days, or I can spend $4 and get it shipped next day.
I found myself living over at Edmunds.com when I was searching for a used car
to buy two months ago.
I think that the results from Wolfram Alpha on company financials are much
better laid out than Google Finance or Yahoo Finance. I'm much more likely to
use Wolfram than GOOG or YHOO to get an overview of a companies financials.
I think there's a lot that can be added when it comes to financial news
search, which is why I'm building <http://Newsley.com>
Looking for recipes on Google pretty much sucks. I'd much rather go to the
Food Network.
The reason that I think you guys are hurting at times in search results, is
because your mission is to categorize "all the world's information". So,
you're approach is to pull in as much information as possible, and then sift
through and sort though what's important.
If a site takes a semi-supervised approach like DDG or provides search over a
specific silo of curated content like Stack Overflow, then I think you guys
are going to be hard pressed to compete.
And on a certain level, it doesn't make sense for you guys to try and compete
with sites like Edmunds.com or Stack Overflow. You guys are looking for niches
that can provide the next $0.5 Billion to $4 Billion in revenue. Small
verticals like programmer searches, recipe search, financial news search
etc... aren't really going to be worth a huge investment for you guys to
dominate.
~~~
nolite
umm..what's DDG? (yes, I googled it)
~~~
boundlessdreamz
<http://duckduckgo.com/>
------
byrneseyeview
LinkedIn. Try asking Google for a list of all the Ruby developers who went to
Princeton and live in New York City.
~~~
photon_off
I did, and it let me straight to your post.
------
vaksel
stackoverflow is useful? they have one of the worst search engines I've ever
seen. If you are looking for anything more specific than "Javascript" you are
going to have a hard time finding good results.
if I need to find something on stackoverflow, I just go to google and do a
site:stackoverflow.com
~~~
photon_off
I personally hate typing out the whole "site:stackoverflow.com" before my
query. But you're right, it is better.
~~~
marcusbooster
If you do it often just make an alias for it in the browser.
~~~
photon_off
True. But that won't solve the problem for everybody. I will solve the problem
for everybody.
------
CohenYuval
Standard search engines can only help you find results to a search query you
can put into keywords. Often I want to ask the question "Am I missing
something important about X?" and that cannot be translated into an effective
search query.
We've built resourcey.com trying to tackle this problem. That is,
<http://resourcey.com/site_details/2/news.ycombinator.com/> is the answer to
"Am I missing something important about Hacker News?".
This is a different form of search queries we couldn't find a way to get
results for via standard search engines. If you think this functionality can
be somehow produced by a standard search query, do tell.
~~~
photon_off
This is great.
Right now, there are not too many metadata websites out there. Your site,
AboutUs.org, Alexa and ilk, moreofit.com and ilk, and comment aggregation like
BackType and UberVU, are all that come to mind when I think: "I have a URL,
what can you tell me about it?"
------
unfasten
Newegg. The Power Search, in particular. I find the ability to specify certain
features for a product extremely useful. The guided search is also nice to
quickly narrow down on more common criteria.
For example, here's the video card power search:
[http://www.newegg.com/Product/PowerSearch.aspx?N=100007709&#...</a><p>It
allows you to specify manufacturer, port types, memory/memory type, chipset,
etc. When I'm just starting to look for a new part or device being able to
narrow down the list that way is very helpful.
~~~
safetytrick
This is interesting though, Newegg has to change the standard search box to
something more guided to be useful. I think most sites have too little content
for a visitor to find anything useful with a search box. In these cases a
directory or tag system is a much better solution. Some exceptions to this are
web applications where users are looking up content they created on their own.
------
_delirium
Often at database-like sites, where I can get a list of something in a
selectable category that matches a particular term. For example,
IMDB can give me a list of all TV series / films / etc. with "Hobbit" in the
title:
[http://www.imdb.com/find?s=tt&q=hobbit](http://www.imdb.com/find?s=tt&q=hobbit)
Musicbrainz lets me search by track name, album name, artist name, etc.:
[http://musicbrainz.org/search/textsearch.html?type=track&...](http://musicbrainz.org/search/textsearch.html?type=track&query=I+Am+the+Walrus)
~~~
photon_off
MusicBrainz is nice. Thanks for sharing.
~~~
mdaniel
And is community built, so please contribute your CD listings.
I don't have any experience with their audio file (MP3, AAC, etc)
fingerprinting, but I can tell you it's a great experience to pop in a freshly
purchased CD and have MusicBrainz find it. I know that experience comes from
some other kind soul having input the CD, so I try very hard to make sure I do
the same.
~~~
bartl
>I don't have any experience with their audio file (MP3, AAC, etc)
fingerprinting
I do, via the desktop program
[Picard](<http://musicbrainz.org/doc/PicardDownload>). It really works well
for properly tagging mp3 files (and renaming files to fit the tags) -- once
they know the tracks. That often isn't the case with obscure, new releases.
But you can't win them all. It's a program that's really worth using.
~~~
nitrogen
Maybe it would be possible to identify tracks not known to MusicBrainz by
uploading them to Youtube and seeing who sends the automated takedown notice.
------
theospears
TinEye (<http://www.tineye.com>): a 'reverse image search'. You upload or link
to an image and it finds you other copies of that image on the web. This is
something you absolutely can't do via google, and is surprisingly useful, for
example to find uncropped or pre-photoshopped copies of images.
------
StavrosK
Whaaat? Wikipedia's search sucks (at least it sucked last year, when I last
used it). Now I use a Google search with the site specified to get Wikipedia
pages.
To answer the question, I'd have to plug my own startup, <http://historio.us>.
It's actually made bookmarking viable, for me.
------
tokenadult
I use Google for finding most pages with information on Wikipiedia, and I am a
Wikipedia editor who has read three whole books about how to use Wikipedia.
Wikipedia's search usability is a disaster compared to using Google to search
for Wikipedia pages.
------
petervandijck
amazon.com (their focus on products that they sell makes their suggestions
almost perfect).
------
eklitzke
I think Yelp is a good example. When you're looking for a local business, you
have a category/search term in mind, as well as a location. The single input
field in Google search is awkward when trying to fulfill this need.
------
gregable
More structured queries that those that main search engines offer. For
example: kayak, travelocity, etc. Bing bought out farecast for this reason.
These kinds of queries can't be done easily if the only input a user can
provide is in one text box. That isn't to say that web search engines could
tackle these areas, but they wouldn't have as much of a head start in the
technology.
~~~
bl4k
"flight to LA", "hotel room in New York next weekend", "metallica san jose
tickets" etc. will return structured results, in both Google and Bing, soon I
feel.
Google bought ITA and Bing bought Farecast for the purpose of getting direct
access to this data. Since they can't web crawl this type of data, I would
expect more acquisitions and/or licensing deals - such as the deal with
Twitter.
Google has a decent foundation already with queries such as 'population of
london' '<movie name>' (which shows local theatre times) and 'weather 94000'
etc. Full list here:
<http://www.google.com/landing/searchtips/#helpcenter>
~~~
gregable
Those queries don't even begin to give enough information.
Flight to LA from where, when, how long, economy/first, what times of the day,
etc.
Hotel room in New York next weekend which days, smoking or not, upscale or
not, which part of new york, which new york?
Metallica san jose tickets are closer and could generally get you the venue's
page that will then ask which showing, which seats, how many tickets together,
etc.
~~~
bl4k
Google would use all the information it has to make assumptions about defaults
to display. When you click-through to the site to make the booking or to drill
in further you can specify the details.
eg. 'flight to LA' can show :
SFO -> LAX Tod Tom Wed Thu Fri
Orbitz $187 $210 $299 $330 $450
Travelocity $200 $350 - $89 -
United.com
etc. etc.
------
Freaky
Newzbin. Bespoke C in-memory search engine with full substring matches and
loads of metadata to play with, indexing data Google has no interest in.
I may be biased, since I wrote half of it. Funny seeing it turn into some kind
of zombie :/
------
pietrofmaggi
Mainly White pages, when I need to find same phone numbers, but for the other
stuffs I can think only at very specialized info like publications where
google is not a good enough choice.
StackOverflow is a good example for this, I can usually reach what I was
searching for in it with from a good google query.
~~~
photon_off
Thanks for sharing. Do you have URLs for the aforementioned White Pages and
specialized publications?
~~~
pietrofmaggi
Is this a joke? ;-)
Well, in Italy we have "pagine bianche":
a<http://www.paginebianche.it/index.html>
Which is simply the translation of white pages: <http://www.whitepages.com/>
Regarding specialized pubs, its a long time I don't use one, but this list
seems fairly complete:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_databases_and_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_databases_and_search_engines)
------
m0shen
For audio software -- <http://www.kvraudio.com/get.php>
------
lien
Google's search engine is good, but not necessarily the best. For small
datasets, I am using Apache's solr. Google's custom search doesn't produce as
great results. solr is also highly scalable. read about it here:
<http://lucene.apache.org/solr/>
~~~
lien
just wanted to point out that this is not a website but a tool to implement
for your own website...
------
JeffJenkins
The startup I work for will let you do queries using units of measure and
price filters in the query string. For example:
<http://www.shopwiki.com/LCD+TV+%3E43%22+%3C%241000?sb=1> (LCD TV >43" <$1000)
~~~
EricBurnett
[http://www.google.com/search?q=LCD+TV+43..100+inch+%240..%24...](http://www.google.com/search?q=LCD+TV+43..100+inch+%240..%241000)
~~~
aberkowitz
I looked at the results, and I found that Google has some problems parsing
content. For example "50in TV $1200 after $500 discount" gets included because
Google assumes $500 is the price.
------
AlphaSite
Every single forum search engine, ever. Google is awful for that, the tools
just arnt up for the job.
~~~
nostrademons
What, in particular, are you looking for when you search for forums? Example
queries and the tasks that generated them would be most helpful.
There is a fair bit of data on forums that is not exposed in the UI, simply
because no frontend engineer has had a chance to look at it. I'm a frontend
engineer, I'm potentially looking for a new project or some 20% work, and so
examples of where Google isn't quite working right are pretty helpful to me.
------
rschq7
lxrs are a good example of a kind of search that google can't replace yet:
<http://mxr.mozilla.org/search>
i also find <http://koders.com> to be useful
bing video search has lots of advantages when it comes to showing and
previewing results. (and google video search sucks)
for places photos i always use panoramio search. (compare their results to
google images)
Google Blogs search has been completely replaced with twitter search.
and i use thepiratebay.org to search for torrents. (but only backups of things
i own :))
------
jack7890
In addition to the travel search engines that have been mentioned, I'd include
Hipmunk.
------
andrewljohnson
The best way to search StackOverflow is definitely using Google.
site:stackoverflow.com
That's one of the first ways I will refine a search about a programming topic
these days, but no need to use stackoverflow.com search.
------
blasdel
Considered as a separate site, Youtube is actually #2 in search volume behind
Google and ahead of both Yahoo and Bing.
Craigslist and Facebook are both in the top 10 search engines.
~~~
photon_off
Where can I find a list of the sites with the highest search volume?
------
dagw
eniro.se is much better for looking up people or companies in Sweden
(basically yellow and white pages). I'm sure all countries have some sort of
local equivalent.
------
Dramatize
I'd say Torrentz for a torrent search engine.
~~~
photon_off
Why are you being downvoted? Sites that have useful searches was exactly what
I asked for. Thank you.
~~~
Dramatize
Hmm I don't know why. NP
------
rrival
iStockPhoto - semantic, allows for moderately easy refining
------
terryjsmith
PHP.net
------
duck
Intranets
------
slig
NZBMatrix.com
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
You can now run Arch & Debian Linux on a Raspberry Pi - Garbage
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/you-can-now-run-arch-debian-linux-on-a-raspberry-pi/10486
======
shaggyfrog
> Fedora, however, the “official” distribution is still no-where to be found.
Does zdnet have any copy editors left? Apparently not.
------
navs
> Arch Linux is a Linux for expert users.
I've heard this said often and feel it's pushing away potential users. I'm not
even close to an expert user but I've managed well with Arch and its awesome
wiki. It's certainly not as "out of the box" as Ubuntu or Fedora but beginners
shouldn't be scared off.
~~~
Jach
Similar things are said about Gentoo (my preferred distro). I tend to view
both as "Linux for users who want to learn about Linux", along with Linux From
Scratch. Picking your path just determines how much you learn; on the Gentoo
side there are several "easy" paths where you won't learn much. By the time
you're done going through the install process and have maintained a stable
system for a year, I guess compared to most Linux users you're an "expert".
------
alextingle
I'd much rather have Debian than Fedora anyway.
------
c0m47053
Now, if only anyone could get hold of one...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
International Standard Paper Sizes - polm23
https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html
======
mark-r
This is a very thorough explanation of what I consider a brilliant paper size
standard. What genius to make the aspect ratio identical for each size, and to
create smaller variants by cutting the larger one exactly in half.
There are two places where you can tell it's a bit dated though. The first is
in declaring the TV aspect ratio as 4:3; it's just about universally 16:9 now.
The second is the expectation that the U.S. would be converting to metric,
that becomes less likely with every passing year.
~~~
henrikschroder
The brilliance becomes obvious when you combine it with the envelope sizes.
Mailing things in the US always ends with you having to awkwardly tri-fold
papers and hope that you didn't botch it, so that the result will fit in your
envelope of a non-standard size.
Meanwhile, anyone can fold an A4 perfectly in half and it will always fit
perfectly in a C5 envelope. Paper can't be folded? Mail it in a C4 envelope
instead. Think a C5 is too big? Get a C6 envelope and fold it twice.
All the parts fit perfectly into each other, and it's obvious how they fit.
Any size paper can be mailed in any size envelope simply by folding it.
~~~
polm23
I live in Japan and the vast majority of mail is folded in thirds, just like
it is in the US... Is using envelopes for paper folded just in half actually
widespread in other countries?
~~~
tilt_error
After a vacation in, then, Czechoslovakia I received a letter from the police.
The letter was artfully folded so that the text would overlap at 90 degrees
(if viewed with a light source behind the folded letter). I always reckoned
that was done to scramble the letter from unintended reading.
Normally the C3 or C4 envelopes used by government would be printed on the
inside with a mass of letters, but in a way that matched with how the letter
paper inside would be folded.
------
alister
> _The Legal format itself is quite rarely used, the notion that it is for
> “legal” work is a popular myth; the vast majority of U.S. legal documents
> are actually using the “Letter” format._
Can anyone confirm that this is really the case in the U.S.? In Canada at
least, lawyers often use a paper size _even longer_ than legal format. It
makes photocopying a huge pain because the glass plate isn’t long enough on
ordinary copiers, and these extra long sheets don’t fit in standard file
cabinets without folding, and forget about using binders. Nobody uses these
ridiculous extra long sheets except (Canadian) lawyers.
~~~
polm23
So looking around more, this is interesting - historically US lawyers did use
legal size, but in 1983 the Supreme Court instituted a rule to move all
federal paperwork to letter size, and most states followed shortly thereafter
if they hadn't already transitioned.
[https://www.michbar.org/file/generalinfo/plainenglish/pdfs/8...](https://www.michbar.org/file/generalinfo/plainenglish/pdfs/89_july.pdf)
------
seven4
Digging around on the same page i stumbled into this which i think is a
fun/interesting look at the history..though sounds like the ratio was in use
even before its referenced here. Anyone know more about it?
_" letter, written in 1786-10-25 by the physics professor Georg Christoph
Lichtenberg (University of Göttingen, Germany, 1742–1799) to Johann Beckmann,
seems to be the oldest preserved written reference to the idea of using the
square-root of two as an aspect ratio for paper formats"_
Excerpt of the English Translation -
_" I once gave an exercise to a young Englishman, whom I taught in algebra,
to find a sheet of paper for which all formats forma patens, folio, 4to, 8,
16, are similar to each other. Having found that ratio, I wanted to apply it
to an available sheet of ordinary writing paper with scissors, but found with
pleasure, that it already had it. It is the paper on which I write this
letter, but to which, because since by cutting some of its original form may
have been lost, I also add an uncut original. The short side of the rectangle
must relate to the large one like 1 : √2, or like the side of a square to its
diagonal. This form has something pleasant and distinguished before the
ordinary [form]. Are these rules given to the paper makers or has this form
spread through tradition? Where does this form come from, which appears not to
have emerged by accident? Honoured wellborn forgive me this freedom."_
[https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/lichtenberg-
letter.html](https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/lichtenberg-letter.html)
------
hannibalhorn
> Based on the experience from the introduction of ISO paper formats in other
> industrialized countries at various points during the 20th century, it
> becomes clear that this process needs to be initiated by a political
> decision to move all government operation to the new paper format system.
> History shows that the commercial world then gradually and smoothly adopts
> the new government standard for office paper within about 10–15 years.
The article is obviously dated, but at this point that'd be such a waste of
time and resources. Government has to be focused on digitization and
paperless/electronic processes, ideally getting rid of photocopiers instead of
upgrading them.
Had never heard the logic behind the ISO paper sizes before though, very cool!
------
emj
From 1996, the one from 1999 is not that different though.
[https://web.archive.org/web/19990129003006/http://www.cl.cam...](https://web.archive.org/web/19990129003006/http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-
paper.html)
------
terakhirx
I feel there are something missing. B0, C0, A0, ..., B1, C1, A1, ..., B2, C2,
A2, ... . How about make "D series"? B0, C0, A0, "D0", B1, C1, A1, "D1", B2,
C2, A2, "D2", ... .
------
kkylin
[https://xkcd.com/2322/](https://xkcd.com/2322/)
~~~
mark-r
11/8.5 = pi/4?
------
systemvoltage
One of the things I keep hearing from non-Americans is how dumb Americans are
and then proceed to explaining the benefits of the metric system. I see this
from random internet forums to Youtube comments, from news paper articles to
talking to people in Europe. What people don't realize is that America is like
a giant ship that has a ton of inertia to change. It is the world's largest
economy with huge diversity of evolved shit that has piled up. It is difficult
to clean it despite of the will. The US gov tried to convert America to the
metric system unsuccessfully [1].
The US (NIST) in collaboration with international bodies lead the redefinition
of SI units based on fundamental constants [2]. Furthermore, semiconductor
industry, university labs, medical industry, etc. all use ISO standards and
the metric system. The US semiconductor industry alone is larger than the GDP
of Switzerland. I studied engineering in America and we used the metric system
throughout with some problems in ANSI units for familiarization of the units -
ultimately, the engineer needs to adapt to the company's unit system and not
try to be a thorn.
I personally am tired of the rest of the world patronizingly explaining the
advantages of the metric system to Americans - over and over. It is not that
difficult of a concept and most technical people, engineers I know in the US
already understand the benefits of the metric system. It is mildly annoying at
best and condescending at worst. If we are in the unit system mess, there are
a lot of things that _still_ do not follow base-10 based units. For example,
font type units (points) from Switzerland. Or the way we measure time. How
come there aren't 10/100th units of a minute/hour commonly used around the
world? A second is split into 1000 milliseconds but a minute is not split into
1000 seconds. Why this inconsistency? Why 360 degrees? If we didn't have 10
fingers, the entire decimal system is worse than base 12 or duodecimal system
[3].
The problems faced by America are exactly the same type of problems if we want
to convert the entire world to duodecimal system. It is next to impossible
despite of clear advantages. Note that I am not defending the people that
arrogantly want to stick to status quo - there are certainly people like that
in the US.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_Stat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_States)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_redefinition_of_the_SI_ba...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_redefinition_of_the_SI_base_units)
[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal)
~~~
msla
Another thing is that a large portion of the "metric" world isn't fully
metric, using old-fashioned units like miles and pyeong and tsubo. Really, the
whole metric vs non-metric debate comes down to _how much_ non-metric people
see in their daily lives, not any binary distinction between "always use
metric" and "never use metric" or anything of the sort.
~~~
swimfar
Almost the entire world still uses nautical miles, knots (speed), and feet for
aircraft altitude. I'm pretty sure most airplanes all use AN hydraulic
fittings, which are based on Imperial sizes (correct me if I'm wrong there).
Also, people always say that the US is the only country that uses feet,
pounds, miles, etc. But there are a lot of other countries that still use
those units, or at least understand them, even if it's not an official unit. I
even work with engineers from China who use and understand Imperial units. I
also visited a friend in Ireland who had a (pre-digital) scale that measured
weight in stones.
~~~
GuB-42
Living in France, general aviation is a bit of a mess.
\- Light aircraft use nautical units.
\- Ultralight use metric for speed and distance but feet for altitude and
vertical speed
\- Gliders use metric
\- Charts use feet for altitude. Aviation authorities define airspace using
nautical units but ground authorities use metric for things like fly over
altitudes. All converted to feet in charts but the legal text use meters.
\- AFAIK, mechanical parts for non-US built aircraft are metric. Pipe fittings
have always been in inches for some reason, but commonly converted to metric
(1/4in is written as 6.35mm).
~~~
fmajid
In France the Air Force uses feet for altitude due to NATO STANAG, and the
ALAT (Army helicopter corps) uses meters.
------
app4soft
> _ISO 216 defines the A series of paper sizes based on these simple
> principles:_
> _\- The height divided by the width of all formats is the square root of two
> (1.4142)._
> _\- Format A0 has an area of one square meter._
When we look on _A0 papers on the market_ mostly it's size is _841 mm × 1189
mm_ , that is not correspond to this standard:
\- Length Ratio: 1189/841 = 1.41379310345 (should be 1.4142)
\- Area: 0.999949 m² (should be 1.0 m²)
P.S. There are few websites which are useful for retrieving various paper
formats sizes.[0,1]
[0] [https://www.papersize.org/a-paper-
sizes.htm](https://www.papersize.org/a-paper-sizes.htm)
[1] [https://papersizes.io/a/](https://papersizes.io/a/)
~~~
function_seven
> _\- Area: 0.999949 m² (should be 1.0 m²)_
And it is! I mean, if you're not going to use an electron microscope to
measure it :)
The real measurements should be 840.9mm x 1189.2mm, but I'll forgive them for
the rounding.
~~~
occamrazor
All paper sizes are rounded to the mm and the rounding is always down, so that
is is possible to get two A(n+1) sheet by cutting one An sheet.
~~~
jwilk
It would be 840, not 841, if rounded down. Wikipedia says you should add 0.2
mm before rounding down (which gives you the expected 841), but it doesn't
explain where that number comes from.
~~~
brmgb
The answer to your question is in the comment you are replying to.
> the rounding is always down, so that is is possible to get two A(n+1) sheet
> by cutting one An sheet.
~~~
jwilk
Huh? I pointed out that the rounding is _not_ always down, and I didn't ask
any questions.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
By Surrendering, Diaspora Might Still Beat Facebook - eavc
So far as I can gather, the egregious security errors present at initial release point to a team that is less capable at the craft of coding than we might have initially hoped.<p>That's no indictment of anything other than their experience level, but it's a reality nonetheless.<p>Here is my suggestion for how they can still hit a home run.<p>Step 1: Identify the best existing team or project other than Diaspora that is working on solving the same problem.<p>Step 2: Approach the team with a proposal.<p>Step 3: Transfer the balance of the $200k along with the diaspora* name and brand.<p>Step 4: Public relations. "In summary, this is the best way for us to honor your donation--to take our initiative and our vision along with your support, interest, and donations and marry those to something with technical maturity, sophistication, and experience.<p>"That's why diaspora* and (insert other project) are now one.<p>"For us, nothing has changed in the initial vision apart from our awareness of our limitations. The goals are the same, the enthusiasm is the same, and now, the chances of success are far better than they were when we began.<p>More to come soon."<p>As I see it, Diaspora has media attention, community attention, idealogical support from many savvy people, and a substantial pile of cash. In my opinion, they've also got someone on their team with a really good mind for branding and PR.<p>They are lacking experience, technical skill, and a solid existing project.<p>Other teams have the opposite problems, I imagine. If there's a quality candidate in the bunch of competitors, $200,000 and the momentum around the Diaspora name might be enough to catalyze a critical level of adoption.<p>A merging seems like it might be a winning idea, but it would depend on the Diaspora guys being willing to be incredibly self-effacing and impressively true to the idealogical principles that they set out with.
======
jacquesm
What did you expect? A picture-perfect first release? Of course there are bugs
and of course there are problems.
The bigger questions are not security issues but more along the lines of the
grand architectural plan of Diaspora, and I have yet to see a thorough review
of that.
------
aeden
Who would you suggest they merge with?
~~~
eavc
I wouldn't. I have seen it said a hundred times that there are competitors. I
lack the insight into the relevant technical issues to evaluate them even if I
wanted to try.
I'd like to hear someone else's answer to that question, though.
~~~
aeden
OneSocialWeb would seem to be the next most significant project. IMO, they
have a leg up since they started with XMPP and have released code as well. I
see junk in the code as well (like catching and swallowing exceptions) but
then what code doesn't have junk in it.
~~~
eschnou
Thanks for the mention. As for the swallowing of exceptions, feel free to
comment the code on Github. Usually, I do that when I have already checked
before for the condition that would raise the exception and dealt with it.
Happy to discuss, always great to exchange ideas and improve coding skills.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: My first app – The minimalist distance-based transit alarm - Jaberer
Hi all!<p>I'm a 17-year old self-taught developer just starting to tap into the mobile world! :3<p>This summer, I've worked on a minimalist distance-based alarm clock app that wakes you up before you miss your stop!<p>Check it out here!
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/commuter-buddy/cb9b5107-41e0-4d2b-b0d6-110fe555fc3b<p>Feedback and comments are welcome, thanks :)
======
bithush
I am quite ignorant when it comes to Windows Phone development, mainly because
it never took off how Microsoft wanted it too.
Would you mind sharing the tools and technologies used to develop your app? If
not here then a blog post would be fantastic, describing the process from
start to end, issues you had with the tools/processes, etc.
One small bit of feedback on the UI, make the background for the "Type or tap
destination" text entry field darker, it looks kind of messy at the moment as
the background information is too visible.
~~~
miguelrochefort
Professional Windows Phone developer here.
Here are the tools/processes usually used in WP8 app development:
IDE: Visual Studio Language: C# or F# UI: XAML (WPF) and Visual Designer
Deployment: Windows Phone simulator (really good) or Device Architecture: MVVM
(Model-View-ViewModel) with Two-Binding
If you do it right, you should be able to reuse 80-90% of the code in a
Windows 8 app. With Xamarin, you can reuse 50-75% of the code on iOS and
Android (depends if the app is UI-heavy or not).
I worked with native iOS (Xcode and Objective-C), native Android
(Eclipse/Android Studio and Java), and Windows Phone. Microsoft has, by far,
the best tools which makes building a Windows Phone app quicker than doing the
same on any of the other two platforms. iOS is the second-best, and Android is
the worst. Xamarin makes things a little better.
~~~
Jaberer
Thanks for your comment! Yup, I used VS2012 in C# and XAML
Definitely got a lot of feedback from my friends to get it on iOS and Android.
Haha, and yeah, Android Studio is quite the hassle compared to Visual Studio,
but will definitely get through it :)
------
empressplay
Don't worry too much about what platform you initially develop your app for --
if you can validate your concept then it shouldn't be hard to find assistance
porting it to other platforms.
Too many people get tied up on "what platform should I develop for?" when they
could be spending that time getting an MVP up on _something_, validating it
and getting the ball moving.
~~~
miguelrochefort
I believe he made the right decision in starting with Windows Phone. Not only
is it easier to build an app on this platform, but once he validate the idea,
he can easily port the app to iOS and Android with Xamarin and share at least
50% of his code with all platforms. The opposite (porting an iOS/Android app
to Windows Phone) is much less trivial.
~~~
Jaberer
Lol, I didn't do much thinking into which device to start with I'll take a
look into Xamarin, I actually never heard of it before. Thanks for your
advice!
------
bnjs
It looks cool! Well done! :)
As others have commented, in my opinion Windows Phone will have a negligible
influence on the mobile market going forward. I think it would be a much
better investment of your time to start developing on either iOS/Android (or
both!) as early as possible.
Good luck!
~~~
bithush
The future of Windows Phone is solely dependent on how Microsoft executes its
universal app strategy. If they successfully launch a way of running the same
app on Windows (desktop/laptop), Phone and Tablet (non-x86) then it may be
able to come back from the dead.
Unfortunately Microsoft have almost no experience at doing such a thing, they
have always lived in their [big] Windows eco-system bubble and that may very
well be the thing that stops Windows Phone, Windows Tablet's etc from ever
becoming a real player in the market.
The next year is going to be critical to Microsoft's long term success as a
platform provider outside of PCs.
~~~
miguelrochefort
It is currently possible to share 90% of the code between a Windows Phone and
a Windows 8 app. Heck, it is even possible to write the UI of an app once and
make it work on both platforms. The binaries are now the same on Windows Phone
and Windows 8 (I think you can submit a single one for both apps), and
universal apps are already a thing (you can buy it once and get the app on
Windows 8 and Windows Phone).
It's a matter of time before people realize they can use Xamarin to port a
Windows app to iOS/Android in a matter of days.
~~~
Jaberer
All this craze of Xamarin, I really need to check it out haha
------
highace
Windows phone development isn't all that bad. For starters there isn't as much
competition as Android/iOS, so the chance to become the defacto app in your
category is greater. And being a big fish in a small pond can work just as
well as the opposite.
~~~
FlyingLawnmower
I completely agree. I've also found that the relatively few users of windows
phone tend to be more passionate about supporting developers on their
platform, so it's much easier to get attention for good applications from the
windows phone subreddit and windows phone dedicated new sites. Obviously this
is due to there being fewer WP developers in the first place, but it's easy
enough to take advantage of nowadays.
------
diminish
>> I'm a 17-year old self-taught developer just starting to tap into the
mobile world! :3
Great idea indeed, wish I could try.
To tap into the mobile world, it could be better if you'd target the 95% user
base (iPhone or Android). Unfortunately Windows Phone sells less than 3%
globally in Q2 and going forward, the prospects for Blackberry, Symbian and
Windows Phone look darker. Even newer more exotic options such as Jolla,
FirefoxOS, Tizen, Ubuntu Touch don't seem to have prospects for much bigger
market share.
But impressive idea, again.
~~~
timthorn
In some markets, WP has over 10% market share. It's absolutely true that
globally the share is much less but it isn't a small number of deployed units
in absolute terms.
~~~
loosescrews
From what I have seen, Windows Phone has way over 10% market share amongst
Microsoft employees.
------
FlyingLawnmower
Jaberer, I wouldn't worry so much about the platform either. If there comes a
time where you want to make an iOS/Android version, you can always try out
Xamarin, which lets you use Visual Studio and C# to generate Android and iOS
apps with relatively little extra effort.
I'm not related to Xamarin in any way, I'm just a fan of their cross platform
mobile development solution. I'm also a student, and their academic license is
only $99/year (though it will get expensive when we graduate).
~~~
anirudhrata
Hi, have you used Kivy? I code in Python and have always wanted to build
mobile applications. Do you think it is good?
------
mbmccormick
I wish more people your age would teach themselves something like this in the
summer. I remember tearing down and rebuilding computers and teaching myself
Linux in the summers when I was your age. I wouldn't have picked up those
skills in school otherwise.
Keep up the good work, passion and initiative like this will take you far.
~~~
Jaberer
Thank you so much for your support!
Yeah, I don't have too much time or resources for learning CS, and gotta scrap
as much I can during the summer breaks :)
------
dummyfellow
Nice App! Like the minimalistic interface, but you should work on spacing,
font-size, colors etc. they need to be polished. Also toggle button should
change state, irrespective of touch point.
Don't worry about Windows Phone, it's good for starting out, very polished
tools and APIs.
~~~
Jaberer
Thanks for your comments!
Yeah, definitely not a finished product; many updates incoming !
------
lacconto
Nice work! FYI I did quite the same app for BlackBerry 10 a while ago.
link:
[https://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/51602887](https://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/51602887)
Good luck!
~~~
Jaberer
Cool!
I think everyone needs a transit alarm :)
------
Jaberer
Wow! Thanks for all of your comments! I am abashed by the positive feedback,
thanks again!
------
alexvr
Great idea!
~~~
Jaberer
Thanks!
------
joliv
From the HN guidelines: "Don't abuse the text field in the submission form to
add commentary to links. The text field is for starting discussions. If you're
submitting a link, put it in the url field. If you want to add initial
commentary on the link, write a blog post about it and submit that instead."
~~~
coherentpony
It's not a commentary, OP is simply introducing her/himself.
~~~
Jaberer
Hehe :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Radiotrophic fungus - zerogvt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus
======
apo
> Radiotrophic fungi were discovered in 1991 growing inside and around the
> Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.[1]
The original study is open access and is worth reading. Here's an interesting
little review:
> The literature already contains some indirect evidence for the notion that
> radiation can enhance the growth of melanized microorganisms. For example,
> the melanotic fungus C. cladosporioides manifests radiotropism by growing in
> the direction of radioactive particles and this organism has become widely
> distributed in the areas surrounding Chernobyl since the nuclear accident in
> 1986 [7]. Both in the laboratory and in the field several other species of
> melanized fungi grew towards soil particles contaminated with different
> radionuclides, gradually engulfing and destroying those particles [35],
> [36]. In addition, there are recent reports that certain life forms can
> utilize non-conventional forms of energy - microbes in geothermal vents at
> the bottom of the ocean can harvest thermal radiation as an energy source
> [37] while some microorganisms living in mines exploit energy from
> radiolysis of water [38]. On the basis of these precedents and the results
> of this study we cautiously suggest that the ability of melanin to capture
> electromagnetic radiation combined with its remarkable oxidation-reduction
> properties may confer upon melanotic organisms the ability to harness
> radiation for metabolic energy. The enhanced growth of melanotic fungi in
> conditions of radiation fluxes suggests the need for additional
> investigation to ascertain the mechanism for this effect.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1866175/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1866175/)
In particular the part about growing towards contaminated particles,
"engulfing and destroying" them, seems like a finding with enormous practical
potential.
~~~
peteradio
I too was fascinated by that statement. How does it destroy them? Is it
extracting energy faster than would be let off in vacuum? Or is it an
encapsulation?
~~~
logfromblammo
I presume that the fungi grow toward the source of radioactivity until they
engulf it, and it is not destroyed, but instead segregated and more easily
separable from the environment by bio-accumulation.
I.e. if you seed radioactive soil with radiotrophic fungi, wait a few years,
and then mechanically separate fungus from soil particles, the separated soil
would be less radioactive than it had been previously.
~~~
mac01021
Presumably, though, other surrounding places will be more radioactive than
before?
~~~
logfromblammo
The fungus itself will be more radioactive than background.
I don't believe neutron activation is significant anywhere on Earth outside
the containment of a fission reactor, power research facilities, or nuclear
bomb tests. So mostly, places slowly become less radioactive over time unless
you get radioactive particulates from one of the aforementioned sources, or
from a natural concentration, and release them into the environment somewhere.
Bio-accumulation can occur, such as the naturally radioactive potassium in a
banana, but that's just shifting around the radioactive materials already
present in the environment.
Wherever you dump the fungus, or the ashes of the fungus, will be more
radioactive than before. So a bio-remediation plan would likely grow fungus,
separate most of it from the soil, and allow the remaining fraction to regrow,
repeating as necessary. The separated fungus would be burned, and any
radioactive fractions removed from the exhaust gases and dissolved in liquid
or crystallized somehow. The ash would be vitrified into glass pellets.
And then it'd probably still be less radioactive than an asphalt parking lot.
But okay, seal it all up inside a drum and forget about it for 10000 years
anyway.
~~~
AstralStorm
You must have never went to a place with active radon gas venting... Or to the
mountains.
Of course significant is in eye of the beholder, but those places do exceed
typical background doses a lot.
~~~
logfromblammo
Uranium -> thorium -> radium -> radon -> ... -> lead is a natural decay chain
that does not typically activate other atoms to become unstable, so the decay
energy between uranium and lead represents all the radioactivity there will
ever be from that uranium. You can't predict exactly _when_ it will be
released, and because radon is a gas, you can't as easily predict _where_ it
will be released, but once you get to stable lead, it's done.
If you tack up a slab of any stable nucleus higher than iron on the nuclear
binding energy curve to the inside walls of a neutron chain-reaction reactor,
you can probably get it to absorb neutrons of the appropriate speed and become
unstable, promising future radioactivity with an amount of energy between its
current state and whatever its final decay product may be. That may be less
total energy than the difference between uranium and lead, but it probably
runs faster from start to finish than billions of years, and is probably more
energy than the absorbed neutron.
So aside from natural reactors, which mostly shut down a long time ago, the
only increases in radioactive potential are going to be from human-built
reactors. The radon is just moving primordial radioactive potential from where
the radium is, which is also where the uranium or thorium is, to wherever
heavier-than-air gases can accumulate. If you remove the radium, you stop
that. If you encapsulate the radium in a glass that traps gas, you stop that.
Mostly, we don't bother trying to remove trace amounts of uranium and other
radioactive isotopes from mineral resources, but if a fungus could do it
cheaply, it could make coal ash less dangerous to process and store.
------
ThouYS
If you're interested in funghi, I recommend Joe Rogans podcast with Paul
Stamets, funghi seem to be able to do many things:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ)
~~~
Robin_Message
Ammusingly, Paul Stamets is the name of a scientist in the newest star trek
series. He is an astro-mycologist and apparently they named him for this real
scientist.
~~~
mirceal
the character is named after him.
~~~
resoluteteeth
The comment you are responding to says that.
~~~
cestith
So long as we're correcting people, no. The comment in question says
"apparently" the character was named after him. Someone replied that was in
fact the case. Then you came along and shamed the person for confirming it.
~~~
mirceal
for what is worth the parent comment I responded to was: "Ammusingly, Paul
Stamets is the name of a scientist in the newest star trek series." The
clarification was added afterwards, but who cares. if people want to downvote
me, go ahead :)
------
londons_explore
How fast do these fungi grow?
Might they be a future food source? Radioactive materials could be coated in
an inert material and made into pellets which would be easy to filter from the
final resulting food.
------
legulere
Meanwhile we use can use gamma radiation only by converting first to heat.
~~~
raverbashing
Really
Most of our "energy generation" is still based on 19th century physics
Sure heating stuff and turning water into steam is easy, but it might not be
the most efficient way of turning some sources into energy
~~~
nerdponx
This has always bothered me. To think that we can induce nuclear fission, but
then can't actually use the generated energy without boiling water and using
it to turn a turbine!
~~~
gameswithgo
Sometimes we just stumble onto a near ideal solution early. A chain on a cog
for a bike drive for instance. People keep trying other things but they are
all less efficient.
~~~
burfog
This is more efficient:
[https://www.digitaltrends.com/outdoors/ceramicspeed-
chainles...](https://www.digitaltrends.com/outdoors/ceramicspeed-chainless-
bike-drive/)
It's a shaft with a weird gear at the end. The gear teeth spin on ball
bearings.
~~~
layoutIfNeeded
According to whom? The manufacturer?
This company is known for selling snake oil products to amateur cyclists.
When I see this on Tour de France I’ll believe it.
~~~
8note
competitive cycling doesn't let racers use whatever setup they want for their
bikes.
if something is too good, like the really aerodynamic handlebars, they won't
be allowed
~~~
sliken
Aero is quite regulated. So you can't play with wheel size, or various non-
traditional bike designs. But other things seem like fair game, tweaks to
geometry, different bearing technologies, new bearing races, electric
shifting, disc brakes, etc.
The spirit of racing is that the race should be won largely by the best
bicyclist, not the best bicycle. I'd expect a more efficient transmission
would certainly be considered.
~~~
legulere
Disc brakes were also banned for pretty long.
~~~
sliken
Right, but aren't now. Progress is being made, fortunately mountain bikers
(and their organizations) are much more open to progress.
------
jaddood
I wonder if there's any possibility of genetically engineering the fungi and
using them to extract more energy from contaminated areas and nuclear waste as
a form of biofuel. That would be quite an interesting way to use nuclear
waste.
~~~
justinclift
If someone does this, _please_ name your gamma radiation absorbing fungi "The
Hulk". :)
~~~
muthas
...with the corresponding scientific name would be "Brucea Banneriolus".
------
lioeters
On a related note, I wanted to mention "mycoremediation", a "fungi-based
technology to decontaminate the environment" [0].
In particular, I learned in the wake of the Fukushima incident that the
mycologist Paul Stamets suggests an unusual plan to remove radioactive and
other pollutants from soil/land. [1]
[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoremediation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoremediation)
[1] [https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/using-fungi-
remediat...](https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/using-fungi-remediate-
radiation-fukushima)
------
blauditore
Given the fact there's hardly any such radiation in the wild, does that mean
they evolved that ability just within a few decades? If so, that would be
quite astonishing as it seems pretty different from other biochemical
mechanisms (e.g. photosynthesis).
~~~
Hendrikto
Humans did not invest radioactive decay. We merely discovered it.
~~~
blauditore
Of course, but the radiation caused by artificial reactors (and their
leftovers) is magnitudes higher than anything in the wild.
------
rezmason
I'm surprised no one here has mentioned the post-apocalyptic platformer,
Mushroom 11. Radiotrophic fungus lends a lot of credence to a game where you
guide a mycelial glob through the remains of a nuked landscape.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What Python framework would you use to serve up a REST API? - dheera
flask+uwsgi+nginx, tornado, or something else?
======
avinassh
I use Tornado. It's simple, lightweight and very well documentated. It
wouldn't take much time to get it up and running. And it also supports
asynchronous operations out of box unlike Flask.
However community isn't big as that of Flask and has low bus factor.
Other alternative is Django REST Framework[0]. It's also well documented and
get the work done. However code base is large compared to Tornado. Advantage
is, it has a bigger community support and it's easy to find a developer.
[0] - [http://www.django-rest-framework.org/](http://www.django-rest-
framework.org/)
------
dougzor
We use pyramid+gunicorn+nginx without any issue. Behind that is SQLAlchemy &
Postgres (with memcached for caching layer)
I know that SurveyMonkey also uses the pyramid+nginx setup.
Edit: Pyramid Documentation:
[http://docs.pylonsproject.org/en/latest/docs/pyramid.html#py...](http://docs.pylonsproject.org/en/latest/docs/pyramid.html#pyramid-
documentation)
------
jackgolding
I use flask-restful at work, as a non web developer I haven't had any problems
with it.
------
mushfiq
I used Django Tastypieapi
([http://tastypieapi.org/](http://tastypieapi.org/)). Deployed with wsgi,
backend was mongodb. Worked perfectly fine. Documentation is also better than
average.
------
webmaven
I've just started using Morepath:
[http://morepath.readthedocs.org/](http://morepath.readthedocs.org/)
It's new, not fully baked yet, and yet it is amazingly powerful and simple to
use.
------
techdragon
Another vote for Django Rest Framework, it's very good at getting an API going
when prototyping.
------
kolev
I use Eve [1].
[1] [http://python-eve.org/](http://python-eve.org/)
~~~
mercnet
Eve looks amazing! Do you use SqlAlchemy with it? I notice they created a
separate branch for it and was wondering if it was stable.
~~~
kolev
No, I haven't, but our Eve-based backend has been one of the most stable and
well-performing component.
------
hakanderyal
Flask+uwsgi+nginx. Simple, battle tested, just works.
~~~
dheera
Thanks! Any particular points I should be aware of in this setup?
I've deployed many _small_ websites using flask+uwsgi+nginx before, but for a
high-volume API, there seem to be a number of "fragile" aspects to this, e.g.
processes and threads settings, since WSGI is synchronous.
If I may ask, what's usually the weakest link in this setup, and what's the
best way to monitor for problems and scale appropriately and intelligently as
users grow? For example, let's say I set processes = 16, it hits the limit,
but it turns out that I still have plenty of CPU and RAM to spare and I want
it to dynamically make use of that?
------
johns
flask-restful if flask (powers Twilio API and was written by my co-founder),
Django Rest Framework if Django
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How many users does GitHub have right now? 15.82M and counting - aaggarwal
http://blog.ankitaggarwal.me/technology/how-many-users-does-github-have-right-now
======
minimaxir
> _Note: The total accounts would include the deactivated or deleted accounts
> as well. So, it may not truly represent the number of active Github users._
Understatement of the century.
Counting on user IDs is an especially bad way of calculating users. I just
used BigQuery to check the number of unique users in all of 2014 and there are
only 3 million unique accounts who actually did something.
~~~
aaggarwal
I understand your point, and yes the active users for a particular period is
going to be a lot less than the total number.
However, my goal here was to know about the total number of accounts existing
on Github. I guess that the title could be changed to "How many accounts does
the Github have right now?", that would do the justice.
Btw, I didn't know about BigQuery. It is pretty amazing and free. Thank you
for sharing.
~~~
vgt
There's a free tier, but it's not free beyond that. Otherwise folks would be
mining bitcoins using BigQuery UDFs :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Password Hashing Competition - LaSombra
https://password-hashing.net/report1.html
======
jszymborski
I'm no cryptoexpert but I was under the impression that slow password hashes
were best, as they are harder to generate rainbow tables for and brute force
the algorithm. Many of these algos are put aside for being too slow or praised
for speed, and CPU/GPU optimization seems to be a big goal.
~~~
warbiscuit
It's not necessarily "slow is best", but rather minimizing the ratio between
how fast your production server can calculate them multiple hashes while under
load, vs how fast your attacker can crack them on dedicated hardware.
Which, for example, is why something based on SHA3 is bad, because your
typical server is just going to be doing SHA3 hashes via CPU. Except SHA3 was
chosen to be ASIC-friendly, so your attacker will be able to calculate SHA3
faster than you. As long as the attacker has no faster calculation method than
the one you're using, the absolute speed doesn't matter. This is why scrypt,
bcrypt (and to a lesser extent pbkdf2-hmac-sha256) are doing well, because
running them on GPU or ASIC isn't meaningfully faster than the CPU
implementation the defender is using.
All that's left at that point is making it as expensive as possible for them
to parallelize their attack. Which is what scrypt and other things attempt to
do -- require as many non-CPU resources (memory, hd space, etc) so that the
attacker's parallelization cost is also maximized.
(Personally, I've been playing around with the idea of incorporating random
accesses to a 2-tb file of random data, so that the attacker would have a HUGE
amount of data to steal before my hashes would work. And they'd have to
establish shared access to all the CPUs/etc they're attacking with)
~~~
floody-berry
yescrypt has ROM capabilities [1], which function like your large file idea.
[1] [https://password-hashing.net/wiki/doku.php/yescrypt#read-
onl...](https://password-hashing.net/wiki/doku.php/yescrypt#read-
only_lookup_table_rom)
~~~
warbiscuit
Ooh, that looks interesting ... and not just for ROM feature. They've packed a
TON of things into there. Even SCRAM support!
I'm really intrigued by one of the planned features... "Hash upgrades to
higher cost settings without knowledge of passwords". I can think of a way to
implement that alone, but to pack that all in with those other features will
be really impressive. And would be a huge boon to systems w/ infrequently
logging-in users.
~~~
solardiz
"Hash upgrades" have been added with the just-published v1 of the yescrypt
submission to PHC. There is not yet an implementation of an "upgrade this
hash" function (also, hash encoding needs to be finalized, including encoding
of the upgrade count parameter), but now it's a matter of writing this
additional code outside of the actual password hashing code (already capable
of computing possibly-upgraded hashes).
Unfortunately, with memory-hard schemes such upgrades involve an efficiency
loss in terms of normalized area-time, and there's a tradeoff between
granularity of upgrades and efficiency. For Catena (another PHC finalist that
supports these), the time granularity is 2x to 3x, with efficiency down to
33.3%+ of non-upgraded hashes (after many upgrades). For yescrypt, it's 4x to
5x granularity and 60%+ efficiency, respectively. (I felt that 33.3%+ is just
not good enough - in my opinion, it's usually better to postpone the upgrade
until 60%+ can be achieved rather than upgrade early and prevent it from ever
being achieved. The next easy step would be 77.7%+, but the granularity would
be too high.)
At the same time, support for ROM access frequency tuning (and thus for ROM-
on-SSD, as opposed to ROM-in-RAM) has been dropped from yescrypt for now. The
rationale is that builtin ROM-on-SSD didn't make enough sense without also
having a ROM-in-RAM (in use cases for the former, the latter would also be
easily affordable, including complexity wise, and would provide significant
extra defense), and supporting two ROMs at once would be further beyond the
comfort level for complexity of a hashing scheme in PHC (yescrypt is already
somewhat beyond the comfort level). Support for two ROMs along with access
frequency tuning might be re-added in an extended revision of yescrypt for
specialized use cases at a later time, but this will be outside of PHC.
------
yowmamasita
Are there any pure Python implementation of these algorithms? I am looking for
something that would work with Google App Engine.
------
cmiller1
I wonder how these compare with bcrypt and scrypt. Anyone have any insight?
~~~
solardiz
Differently! The goal of PHC is to improve upon the current state-of-the-art,
which includes bcrypt and scrypt, but there are many tradeoffs involved. A
scheme that is better in one aspect might be worse (or just different) in
another.
These finalists try to improve upon scrypt (increase attack/defense cost ratio
or/and avoid cache-timing side-channels while building upon ideas from scrypt
and more): Argon, Catena, Lyra2, yescrypt, and maybe POMELO. Ditto for some
non-finalists: Gambit, RIG, TwoCats. (Arguably some other non-finalists fall
in this category as well.)
These finalists include bcrypt-like components or properties while being
scalable (to a varying extent) to larger than bcrypt's memory usage:
battcrypt, POMELO, Pufferfish, yescrypt. And a non-finalist: TwoCats. Unlike
bcrypt itself, battcrypt is likely to be implementable in scripting languages
that offer native Blowfish.
These finalists are totally different from bcrypt and scrypt, not trying to
improve upon them nor even be on par with them: Makwa and Parallel. They are
for different applications than bcrypt and scrypt. Parallel can be said to try
to improve upon PBKDF2, though.
As to more specific comparisons, with benchmarks and cost estimates for
various settings on various types of hardware, this goes beyond a comment
reply like this (or I'd need to focus on one PHC candidate, like mine, which
would be unfair). It is a topic for the PHC discussions list and for materials
included with each PHC candidate (some do include various numbers or/and
claims to this extent).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What I wish systems researchers would work on - ivanist
http://matt-welsh.blogspot.com/2013/05/what-i-wish-systems-researchers-would.html
======
jacques_chester
Computer systems, which are _deterministic_ , have long since passed out of
the realm of being _understandable_.
They're chaotic systems[1]. Parameters which are below the threshold of
detection can drastically affect their trajectory in phase space. Accidental
complexity has zoomed off to live a life all its own, and that takeoff has
been continuous for decades [2].
Everything we build around software that's not directly bearing on the problem
domain is chipping away at this or that aspect of the ungoverned bits. As we
corral each level of new unpredictability, we merely set the scene of the next
level of complexity.
_There is no universal solution_. There is no final boss which, once
defeated, leads to the scrolling names and 8-bit themesong. It never stops,
ever, because the value of systems that frequently fail unpredictably is lower
than the cost of flawless systems and higher than the value of not building
such systems.
Edit: sounds very unhelpful, even defeatist. I know. I'm deeply ambivalent
about what _can_ be done versus what we should _assume is possible_. I'm a fan
of serious software engineering and tool support and all that jazz ... yet
thoroughly pessimistic about the limits of the possible. Deep sighs for every
occasion!
[1] [http://chester.id.au/2012/06/27/a-not-sobrief-aside-on-
reign...](http://chester.id.au/2012/06/27/a-not-sobrief-aside-on-reigning-in-
chaos/) (warning, self linkage)
[2]
[http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~cah/G51ISS/Documents/NoSilverBulle...](http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~cah/G51ISS/Documents/NoSilverBullet.html)
~~~
codex
They're not even deterministic. Even if your input is totally ordered, entropy
from the memory subsystem will bubble up to communicating threads if you have
more than one. Sometimes one thread will read the newly written value,
sometimes the old. That said, there is some clever research out of UW into how
to make such systems deterministic while still recovering almost all
parallelism.
~~~
InclinedPlane
I think the more important point jacques_chester was making is that even in
the case where computer systems are 100% deterministic it doesn't matter
because they are so complex they become chaotic systems. And then hypothetical
determinism won't save you because there are too many variables in play
simultaneously, and even the slightest variation in any one of them could
change the behavior completely.
~~~
slacka
Sorry guys, but I don't buy your defeatist arguments for one second. Sure
using traditional tools, you may be right. However, all we have to do is look
at the brain with its 100 trillion Connections (axioms) or a CPU with its
billions of transistors to see that your logic is flawed. If it was not
possible to design fault tolerant systems on large scale neither of these two
examples could exist.
I don't claim to have the answers, but a few years ago, I had to help out some
EE's write some testing software in LabVIEW. The first thing that shocked me
was the system was immune to bad data. Secondly, how elegantly it took
advantage of our multiprocessing and multithreading hardware.
What I wish systems researchers would work on is concurrent, signal-based,
synchronous languages. This is a winnable game, but we must swallow the red
pill and change the rules of the game with new tools and fresh ideas.
------
ethereal
Speaking as a student studying systems (particularly security and OS
development) . . . the second point sounds really interesting.
Recently I've been working on a simple microkernel (called Sydi) that should
actually make this possible. It's a distributed system straight down to the
kernel: when two instances of the kernel detect each other running on a
network, they freely swap processes and resources between each other as
required to balance the load. This is a nightmare from a security perspective,
of course, and I haven't figured out the authentication bits yet -- too busy
working on an AML interpreter because I don't like ACPICA -- but that's not
the issue here. (It's far from finished, but I'm pretty confident that I've
worked out the first 85% of the details, with just the remaining 115% left,
plus the next 95% of the programming . . .)
Due to some aspects of its design (asynchronous system calls via message-
passing, transparent message routing between nodes in the network, etc) I feel
that it will be entirely possible to take a snapshot of an entire cluster of
machines running the kernel. It would be expensive -- requiring a freeze of
all running processes while the snapshot is taking place to maintain any level
of precision -- but I'm confident I could code that in during the space of a
week or two . . .
I haven't thought much about what kind of analysis one could do on the
instrumentation/snapshot results, though. I'm sadly too inexperienced with
`real-world' systems stuff to be able to say. Anyone have any suggestions for
possible analysis avenues to explore?
~~~
pi18n
This sounds interesting! Have you published anything more substantial on it? I
yearn for the day when I can have a Plan 9-ish resource sharing and file
system connecting my personal computer to my cloud computers.
------
david927
I want to register a complaint. _Everyone_ talks about wanting ground-breaking
research and innovation, but in my own personal experience I see little-to-no
support for it.
It reminds of the scene from the film _Election_ , where a character intones,
after you've seen him ski down a double-black diamond slope and crash, "Last
winter when I broke my leg, I was so mad at God."
We're spending money to squeeze the last drops of gold out of the research
done in the 60's and 70's, while research starves, and then complaining that
there's nothing new. I don't see how we can expect anything different.
~~~
jnazario
i originally opened the link expecting to conclude the same thing, however if
you read the article again i think the guy is a) highly qualified to complain
(after all he chaired HotOS's PC, no small recognition of his stature in the
community) and b) he raises good points.
systems are about interactions, and he's identified the challenges in
analyzing systems.
this isn't so much about work from the 60s and 70s, but about modern
architectures and the new things they enable. we're still working with models
form the 60s and 70s and ignoring various aspects of new system architectures
and wondering why we still suck.
~~~
david927
Thanks, I think you're right that I need to read it again. I have a personal
issue with this and it leads to knee-jerk reactions. Thanks for that.
------
zobzu
i find it "interesting" that all the complains are about useability from a
"userland" developer pov. Generally what comes from that are patched up
systems to "run stuff in kernel" because "its safe and fast"
Which of course is not true. There are however various attempts to make a
"proper" "modern" OS but all of these have failed due to the lack of
commercial backing. There is apparently no financial interest into having a
secure, scalable, fast, deterministic, simple OS right now (which, oh,
requires rewriting all your apps, obviously)
Even Microsoft tried. Yes, Microsoft did an excellent such OS.
~~~
qznc
Well, there is a lot of interest in a secure, scalable, fast, deterministic,
simple OS which is also backwards compatible. ;)
What do you mean by "safe" though? How is kernel-space safer then user-space?
~~~
pjmlp
By being written in systems programming languages safer than C.
~~~
alberich
This could catch some programming bugs, sure, but it wouldn't make the OS much
safer. You can still have attacks on integrity, privacy and availability.
~~~
pjmlp
Agreed, but the attack window would be smaller, that is what counts.
If you really want to attack a system, nothing beats social engineering
anyway.
------
PaulHoule
CS research has been pathological for a long time.
Anybody near the field has their own list of "taboo" research topics that are
very interesting but just don't get funding.
Then you go to the library and realize they have 120 shelf-feet of conference
proceedings about Internet QoS that have gone precisely nowhere.
------
InclinedPlane
Configuration, performance, package management, reliability/robustness,
security, monitoring, virtualization, and distributed computing. Those are the
big problems and missing pieces that people doing systems level engineering
are facing today. And, no coincidence, these are the things where you see the
most repeated instances of tools that address these issues.
Consider package management. You have an OS level package manager, you have OS
level application management (on android, for example), you have node package
management, you have ruby gems, you have perl and python packages, you have
wordpress themes and plugins, etc. Obviously it doesn't make sense to have a
single global package manager, but what about standards for package
management? Competing package management infrastructures which serve as
foundations for all these lower level systems? A mechanism for aggregating
information and control for all of the package management sub-systems?
As the article points out a lot of systems folks and OS folks are still
retreading the same paths. They want to pave those paths, then build moving
walkways, and so forth. That's all fine and good, but there's a lot of
wilderness out there, and a lot of people are out in that wilderness hacking
away with machetes and pickaxes building settlements, but for some reason most
OS folks don't even imagine that roads can go there too.
~~~
regularfry
As far as the ruby/python/perl package problem goes, I think we're heading
towards a standard with virtualenv-style tools and potted environments. The
simplest possible standard there is a <foo>/bin/activate script to set the
right environment variables; you can build pretty much anything else you want
on top of that.
------
rlpb
I think all of these areas are making great progress.
> An escape from configuration hell
debconf. chef, puppet. git. augeas. gsettings. In the Windows world, the
registry.
There's tons of work being done in this area. You may say that more can be
done, or that it isn't good enough, but I think you're wrong to claim that
nobody is working on it.
> Understanding interactions in a large, production system
How about the Google Prediction API? Send the data in, and look for changes
when you have a problem that you're trying to fix, such as in your example.
> Pushing the envelope on new computing platforms
This is incredibly vague. I find it difficult to understand your definition of
"new computing platforms". Based on my interpretation of what you mean, I
think a modern smartphone might qualify: a new form factor, more ubiquitous
than before, novel UX (capacitive touchscreen), and an array of interesting
sensors (accelerometers, compasses, GPS).
I think your post highlights the lamentation of AI researchers: we don't have
a good, static measure of success. Once we've achieved something, our
definition changes to exclude it.
~~~
mprovost
None of those configuration management projects really advance the state of
the art beyond cfengine which has been around for 20 years. They're still just
pushing text files around.
------
jsnell
I think people replying here aren't quite appreciating the complexity of
configuration properly here. One might think that configuration doesn't get
harder with scale, but it does. Suggesting that the solution is simply using a
general purpose language for configuration or storing configs in a key-value
db or in a version control system is almost adorable. It's basically
completely missing where the pain points are.
And you can be sure that a company like Google will have done configuration
using flat files, key-value stores, DSLs, general purpose languages that
generate config files, general purpose languages that actually execute stuff,
and probably many other ways :-) If there were simple solutions like that,
they'd already be in use.
Here's a small list of desirable properties:
\- Configurations must be reusable, composable and parametrizable. When
running a system with multiple components, you need to be able to take base
configurations of those two components and merge them into a useful
combination, rather than writing the configurations from scratch. You must
also be able to parametrize those base configurations in useful ways -- which
external services to connect to, which data center and on how many machines to
run on, etc. And note -- this can't be a one time thing. If the base
configurations change, there needs to be some way of eventually propagating
those changes to all users.
\- Configurations must be reproducible. If the configuration is a program, it
shouldn't depend on the environment where it's run on (nor should it be able
to have side-effects on the environment). Why? Because when somebody else
needs to fix your system at 3am, the last thing you want them to do is need to
worry about exactly replicating the previous person's setup.
\- Tied to the previous point, configurations also need to be static or snap-
shottable. If a server crashes and you need to restart a task on another
machine, it'd be absolutely inexcusable for it to end up using a different
configuration than the original task due to e.g. time dependencies in
programmatic configuration.
\- It must be possible to update the configuration of running services without
restarting them, and it must be possible to roll out config changes gradually.
During such a gradual rollout you need to have options for manual and
automatic rollback if the new configuration is problematic on the canaries.
\- Configurations need to be debuggable. Once your systems grow to having tens
of thousands of lines of configuration or hundreds of thousands of
programatically generated key-value pairs, the mere act of figuring out "why
does this key have this value" can be a challenge.
\- It'd be good if configurations can be validated in advance, rather than
only when actually starting the program reading the configuration. At a
minimum, this would probably mean that people writing configurations that
other people use as a base be able to manually add assertions or constraints
on whatever is parametrized. But you might also want constraints and
validation against the actual runtime environment. "Don't allow stopping this
service unless that service is also down", or something.
Some of these desirable properties are of course conflicting. And some are
going to be things that aren't universally agreed on. For example there is a
real tension between not being able to run arbitrary code from a configuration
(important for several of these properties) vs. reuse of data across different
services.
My thinking on this is already a few years out of date, it's probable that
configuration has again gotten an order of magnitude more complex since the
last time I thought about this stuff seriously, and there are already new and
annoying properties to think about. The main point is just that this really is
a bit more complex than your .emacs file is.
~~~
vsh426
The properties that you listed reminded me of the Nix package manager
<http://nixos.org/nix/> and NixOS that uses it. I came across it originally
while looking into package managers that would allow rollbacks or at least
make it easy for multiple installed versions of a package.
~~~
abecedarius
I had the same thought. (I haven't used Nix, only read about it.)
------
tikhonj
Dealing with configuration files is a problem that extends well beyond
distributed systems, or even systems programming in general. It's certainly a
very important issue.
One of the fundamental problems with configuration files is that they are
written in ad-hoc external DSLs. This means that the config files behave
nothing like actual software--instead, they have their own special rules to
follow and their own semantics to understand. These languages also tend to
have very little abstractive power, which leads to all sort of incidental
complexity and redundancy. Good software engineering and programming language
practices are simply thrown away in config files.
Some of these issues are mitigated in part by using a well-understood format
like XML or even JSON. This is great, but it does not go far enough: config
files still stand alone and still have significant problems with abstraction
and redundancy.
I think a particularly illuminating example is CSS. When you get down to it,
CSS is just a configuration file for how your website looks. IT certainly
isn't a programming language in the normal sense of the word. And look at all
the problems CSS has: rules are easy to mess up, you end up copying and
pasting the same snippets all over the place and css files quickly become
tangled and messy.
These problems are addressed to a first degree by preprocessors like Sass and
Less. But they wouldn't have existed in the first place if CSS was an embedded
DSL instead of a standalone language.
At the very least, being an embedded language would give it access to many of
the features preprocessors provide for free. You would be able to pack rules
into variables, return them from functions and organize your code in more
natural ways. Moreover, you could also take advantage of your language's type
system to ensure each rule only had acceptable values. Instead of magically
not working at runtime, your mistakes would be caught by compile time.
This is particularly underscored by how woefully complex CSS3 is getting. A
whole bunch of the new features look like function calls or normal code;
however, since CSS is not a programming language, it has to get brand new
syntax for this. This is both confusing and unnecessary: if CSS was just
embedded in another language, we could just use functions in the host
language.
I think this approach is promising for configuration files in general. Instead
of arbitrary custom languages, we could have our config files be DSL shallowly
embedded in whatever host language we're using. This would simultaneously give
us more flexibility _and_ make the configuration files neater. If done
correctly, it would also make it very easy to verify and process these
configuration files programmatically.
There has already been some software which has taken this approach. Emacs has
all of its configuration in elisp, and it's probably the most customized
software in existence. My .emacs file is gigantic, and yet I find it much
easier to manage than configuration for a whole bunch of other programs like
Apache.
Another great example is XMonad. This is really more along the lines of what I
really want because it lets you take advantage of Haskell's type system when
writing or editing your configuration file. It catches mistakes before you can
run them. Since your config file is just a normal .hs file, this also makes it
very easy to add new features: for example, it would be trivial to support
"user profiles" controlled by an environment variable. You would just read the
environment variable inside your xmonad.hs file and load the configuration as
appropriate.
Specifying configuration information inside a general-purpose language--
probably as an embedded DSL--is quite a step forward from the ad-hoc config
files in use today. It certainly won't solve all the problems with
configuration in all fields, but I think it would make for a nice improvement
across the board.
~~~
rwmj
You really don't want to use a Turing-complete language for configuration. It
makes all sorts of things impossible such as:
\- Automatically scanning for insecure configurations (eg. OpenSCAP)
\- Parsing the configuration in other programs.
\- Modifying the configuration programmatically (cf. Puppet et al)
Also, <http://augeas.net/>
~~~
tikhonj
Those are the things that would actually get easier: your configuration would
be a data structure in the host language rather than a text file. So you
wouldn't have to parse it at all. Other programs would have to either be in
the same language or have some way of communicating with the host language,
but that isn't too bad a restriction.
Similarly, this would make modifying configuration programmatically better.
Instead of dealing with serializing and deserializing to random text formats,
you would just provide a Config -> Config function. This would also make tools
modifying configuration parameters more composable because they wouldn't be
overwriting each other's changes unnecessarily.
------
kraemate
All the three points in the "wishlist" are real-world problems, something
which academic conferences will shun straight-away. All work in areas like
configuration management must be either a)Evolutionary work based off existing
tools. This unfortunately doesn't qualify as good-enough research OR b)A
radically new approach, which is almost useless unless a robust enough
solution is developed, deployed, and tested. Researchers prefer multiple
papers over perfecting the engineering of software tools.
Hence there is no incentive for academic systems researchers to focus on these
(it's no fun having paper after paper shot down).
------
graycat
In the OP, the
> The "bug" here was not a software bug, or even a bad configuration: it was
> the unexpected interaction between two very different (and independently-
> maintained) software systems leading to a new mode of resource exhaustion.
can be viewed as pointing to the solution:
Broadly in computing, we have 'resource limits' from the largest integer that
can be stored in 2's complement in 32 bits to disk partition size, maximum
single file size, number of IP ports, etc. Mostly we don't pay really careful
attention all of these resource limits.
Well, for 'systems' such as are being considered in the OP, do consider the
resource limits. So, for each such limit, have some software track its usage
and then report the usage and especially when usage of that resource is close
to be exhausted. And when the resource is exhausted, then report that the
problem was the resource was exhausted and who the users of that resource
were.
For a little more, can make some progress by doing simulations of 'networks of
queues' with whatever stochastic processes want to assume for 'work arrival
time' and 'work service times'.
For more, do some real time system monitoring. For problems that are well
understood and/or have been seen before, e.g., running out of a critical
resource, just monitor for the well understood aspects of the problem.
Then there are problems never seen before and not yet well understood. Here
monitoring is essentially forced to be a continually applied 'statistical
hypothesis test' for the 'health and wellness' of the system complete with
rates of 'false positives' (false alarms) and rates of 'false negatives'
(missed detections of real problems).
For the operational definition of 'healthy and well', collect some operational
data, let it 'age' until other evidence indicates that the system was 'healthy
and well' during that time, and, then, use that data as the definition. Then
decree and declare that any data 'too far' from the healthy and well data
indicates 'sick'.
Then as usual in statistical hypothesis testing, want to know the false alarm
rate in advance and want to be able to adjust it. And if get a 'detection',
that is, reject the 'null hypothesis' that the system is healthy and well,
then want to know the lowest false alarm rate at which the particular data
observed in real time would still be a 'detection' and use that false alarm
rate as a measure of the 'seriousness' of the detection.
If make some relatively weak probabilistic assumptions about the data, then,
in calculating the false alarm rate, can get some probabilistically
'exchangeable' data. Then get to apply some group theory (from abstract
algebra) and borrow a little from classic ergodic theory to calculate false
alarm rate. And can use a classic result in measure theory by S. Ulam, that
the French probabilist LeCam nicely called 'tightness', to show that the
hypothesis test is not 'trivial'. See Billingsly 'Convergence of Probability
Measures'.
Of course, the 'most powerful' test for each given false alarm rate is from
the Neyman-Pearson lemma (the elementary proofs are not much fun, but there is
a nice proof starting with the Hahn decomposition, a fast result from the
Radon-Nikodym theorem), but for problems never seen before we do not have data
enough to use that result.
For the statistical hypothesis test, we need two special properties: (1)
Especially for monitoring systems, especially complex or distributed systems,
we should have statistical hypothesis tests that are multi-dimensional (multi-
variate); that is, if we are monitoring once a second, then each second we
should get data on each of a certain n variables for some positive integer n.
So, we are working with n variables. (2) As U. Grenander at Brown U. observed
long ago, operational data from computer systems is probabilistically,
certainly in distribution, quite different from data from most of the history
of statistics. He was correct. Especially since we are interested in data on
several variables, we have no real hope of knowing the distribution of the
data even when the system is 'healthy and well' and still less hope when it is
sick with a problem we have never seen before. So, we need hypothesis tests
that are 'distribution-free', that is, make no assumptions about probability
distributions. So, we are faced with calculating false alarm rates for multi-
dimensional data where we know nothing about the probability distribution.
There is a long history of hypothesis tests for from a single variable,
including many tests that are distribution-free. See old books by S. Siegel,
'Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences' or E. Lehmann,
'Nonparametrics'.
For multi-dimensional hypothesis tests, there's not much and still less when
also distribution-free.
Why multi-dimensional? Because for the two interacting systems in the example
in the OP, we guess that to detect the problem we would want data from both
systems. More generally in a large server farm or network, we are awash in
variables on which we can collect data at rates from thousands of points per
second down to a point each few seconds. So, for n dimensions, n can easily be
dozens, hundreds, ....
For such tests, look at "anomaly detector" in 'Information Sciences' in, as I
recall, 1999.
If want to implement such a test, might want to read about k-D trees in, say,
Sedgewick. Then think about backtracking in the tree, depth-first, and
accumulating some cutting planes.
For monitoring, there was long some work by Profs Patterson and Fox at
Stanford and Berkelely, in their RAD Lab, funded by Google, Microsoft, and
Sun. The paper in 'Information Sciences' seems to be ahead.
More can be done. E.g., consider the Rocky Mountains and assume that they are
porous to water. Let the mountains be the probability distribution of two-
variable data when the system is healthy and well. Now pour in water until,
say, the lowest 1% of the probability mass has been covered. Now the test is,
observe a point in the water and raise an alarm. Now the false alarm rate is
1%. And the area of false alarms is the largest we can make it for being 1% (a
rough surrogate for the best detection rate -- with a fast use of Fubini's
theorem in measure theory, can say more here). As we know, lakes can have
fractal boundaries, and the techniques in the paper will, indeed, approximate
those. Also the techniques do not require that all the lakes be connnected.
And for the dry land, it need not all be connected either and might be in
islands. So, it is quite general.
But may want to assume that the region of healthy and well performance is a
convex set and try again. If this assumption is correct, then for a given
false alarm rate will get a higher detection rate, that is, a more 'powerful'
test.
Still more can be done. But, really, the work is essentially some applied math
with, at times, some moderately advanced prerequisites from pure and applied
math. Theme: The crucial content of the most powerful future of computing is
in math, not computer science. Sorry 'bout that!
~~~
nostrademons
All of this is done at Google - there's extensive monitoring for all
production systems, with alerts firing once parameters move outside of their
statistical "normal" range. In practice the range tends to get set more by
"How tight can we make it before we get really annoyed by these pagers?" than
any rigorous statistical method, but the run-time operation carefully measures
average & extreme values and determines when a spike is just a momentary
anomaly vs. when it's worth paging someone.
The problem is that inevitably the _next_ problem is exhaustion of some
resource that nobody even thought of as a resource. In my time at Google, some
of the resource limits I've faced have included (besides the obvious
RAM/disk/CPU): binary size, size of linker inputs, average screen size of
websearch users, time required for an AJAX request, byte-size of the search
results page, visual space on the monitoring UI, size of a Javascript alert
box, maximum length of a URL in Internet Explorer, maximum length of a request
in Google's load-balancers, time until someone submits a CL touching the same
config file as you, and time before a cosmic ray causes a single-bit error in
memory.
File descriptors are a comparatively obvious resource, but nobody thought of
them because in previous normal operation they never even came close to
running out. Should someone set an alert on "wind speed running through the
Columbia River Gorge" (which would've been responsible for an actual outage
had there not been significant redundancy in the system, BTW)?
~~~
graycat
> All of this is done at Google - there's extensive monitoring for all
> production systems, with alerts firing once parameters move outside of their
> statistical "normal" range. In practice the range tends to get set more by
> "How tight can we make it before we get really annoyed by these pagers?"
> than any rigorous statistical method, but the run-time operation carefully
> measures average & extreme values and determines when a spike is just a
> momentary anomaly vs. when it's worth paging someone.
Really, "All"?
First question is, 'parameters'. Usually, and likely at Google, they are
monitoring just one parameter at a time. This is a really big bummer. E.g.,
even if do this for several parameters, are forced into assuming that the
'healthy and well' geometry of the parameters is just a rectangle. Bummer that
hurts the combination of false alarm rate and detection rate.
Next, the "normal range" is a bummer because it assumes that what is healthy
and well is just a 'range', that is, an interval, and this is not always the
case. The result, again, is a poor combination of false alarm rate and
detection rate.
Again, yet again, please read again, just for you, as I wrote very clearly, to
do well just must be multi-dimensional. I doubt that there is so much as a
single large server farm or network in the world that is doing anything at all
serious working with multidimensional data for monitoring. Not one.
Next, your remark about false alarm rate points to a problem I point out is
solved: The method, with meager assumptions, permits knowing false alarm rate
in advance and setting it, actually setting it exactly.
For how many and what variables to monitor, yes, that is a question that can
need some overview of the server farm or network and some judgment, but there
is some analytical work that should help.
For "rigorous" statistics, the point is not 'rigor' but useful power. Being
multidimensional, knowing false alarm rate and being able to adjust it, etc.
are powerful.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Twitter thread of T-Mobile Rep arguing for the case of plaintext passwords - zanbaldwin
https://twitter.com/c_pellegrino/status/981409466242486272
======
marksomnian
"What if this doesn't happen because our security is amazingly good?" [0]
So your security is good enough to store _passwords in plaintext_?
Jesus Christ.
[0]:
[https://mobile.twitter.com/tmobileat/status/9821879190613032...](https://mobile.twitter.com/tmobileat/status/982187919061303296)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
TSA Security Directive SD-1544–09-06 - cwan
http://volokh.com/2009/12/28/tsa-security-directive-sd-1544-09-06/
======
maxklein
And people still ask me why I prefer taking high speed trains! Flying by plane
is so nerve-wracking nowadays, what with dogs sniffing about and burly custom
agents and you have to arrive 2 hours beforehand, wait in long lines, sit in
an enclosed room and wait even longer, share a bathroom with hundreds of other
people.
In euro style fast trains, you arrive 2 minutes before, walk in, you can go
have a meal, there is electricity for your laptop, there are toilets
everywhere.
For any journey that can be done in 6 hours with the train, the plane journey,
which would take between 1 hour and 2 hours actual flying, will take much
longer.
That high speed train china built is the way to go. Planes should be used for
flying really big distances, and then trains should be used to go on. The
entirety of europe should be connected with trains, the U.S should have 10
major airport hubs and the rest done with trains.
Nowadays, flying is just such a bother!
~~~
ams6110
Terrorists blow up trains, too.
~~~
daten
The "terrorists" aren't the reason he prefers the train. Terrorist attacks on
both are so rare that they're not a real reason to prefer one over the other.
However the overly invasive, rude and ineffective airport security is a strong
reason not to fly when there's an alternative available. For some reason the
trains, malls, schools, libraries, churches and stadiums around where I live
aren't getting blown up by terrorists and they have little or no security at
all.
~~~
ams6110
The point being, if a few train attacks occur, you can expect similar TSA
regulations being issued for that mode of transport.
Not that its very likely in the USA; with a few exceptions rail service is
abysmal. It took me 48 hours to travel from Nevada to Chicago last time I took
the train, what with mechanical breakdowns and other unexplained delays. Lost
my luggage too. Never again.
~~~
imajes
The uk experimented with metal detector type screening at train stations after
our bombings on the 7th july. It doesn't work with you have thousands of
people streaming in and out of the gates- all you do is end up practically
shutting down the station.
So now they focus on temporary gates and profiling - which turns out to be
much more efficient than random screening.
------
henrikschroder
Why even comment on this story? It isn't even security theater anymore, it's
amateur's night at the corner pub, with knee-jerk policies that a normal five-
year-old kid can figure out how to get around.
------
axod
I still really want someone to try and blow up a plane by dousing their
clothes in some flammable/explosive/unstable chemicals.
Then we'd all be told to fly naked, or in airport provided suits.
~~~
jrockway
I'm waiting for people to start blowing up expressways. Then maybe we can get
some decent public transportation.
------
mrduncan
The original posting (as best I can tell), which has additional information,
is at the following site -
[http://boardingarea.com/blogs/flyingwithfish/2009/12/27/tsa-...](http://boardingarea.com/blogs/flyingwithfish/2009/12/27/tsa-
security-directive-sd-1544-09-06-the-fallout-from-nw253/)
This blog appears to have just repeated what was posted there.
------
muriithi
The terrorists have won.You don't have to bring down an aircraft to make
flying a nightmare.
I know this sounds insane and the Terminally Stupid Administration will not
allow it, but if someone came up with a "low security" airline, where
screening was done by the airline itself using their own guidelines, I would
be an enthusiastic customer.
We only need two things, an airline that values it's customers but is not
willing to lose any planes and passengers who are alert and ready to take on
any threats in the air. The latter attitude has been there since United
Airlines Flight 93, the former is a mirage.
~~~
decadentcactus
I agree. I don't see the need for such an invasive govt run organisation to
get airlines to provide security - they already will have an interest in not
losing their planes, they're expensive as hell.
------
icey
What do you think will happen after this directive expires?
EXPIRATION: 0200Z on December 30, 2009
~~~
nollidge
I was going to point that out also. This isn't a permanent change. It's still
silly, but at least it's not permanent like the stuff with liquids and toenail
clippers.
------
beeker
The more scared people are, the easier they are to control.
------
flatline
At least they are (so far) only enacting it for a few days. I really wonder
what would happen if people consistently, politely resisted, by keeping things
in their laps, by getting sick and having to run to the bathroom in the last
hour of the flight, etc. Seriously, how are flight attendants supposed to
enforce this stuff, and what are they to do about unruly passengers? An
airplane is not exactly a high-security area.
~~~
mrduncan
The security on an airplane is the other passengers (and air marshals). I can
guarantee that if you start resisting commands from the flight attendants
you're going to attract attention from other passengers. Like it or not, the
first thing that's going to pop into their heads is that you're planning on
bringing their plane down.
Hypothetically, lets say that all passengers coordinate such an event - I'd
imagine that's a really easy way to gain admittance to the no-fly list.
~~~
henrikschroder
Seriously, if another passenger was arguing with the flight attendants about
wanting to use the bathroom, the first thing that would pop into my head is
that the guy probably really needed to go to the bathroom.
~~~
mrduncan
I wasn't necessarily thinking of the bathroom situation (although you
certainly make a valid point).
My point I suppose was that flight attendants are in a lot of cases not going
to be able to physically enforce their will on passengers. This is where other
passengers step in, they are the ones who will come to the aid of the flight
attendant to restore the peace. This doesn't mean that everyone will be
throwing their own judgement out the window if someone has to use the restroom
or complains about having to put their book away.
It should go without saying though that reactions will seriously depend on the
situation.
~~~
TeHCrAzY
I pitty the middle-eastern man wearing a turban with a suden case of the runs
arguning the bathroom policy.
------
lssndrdn
It's true that these security directives don't seem to make much sense, but
what is the alternative? I think what they are tring to accomplish is to
simply reduce the risk of a repeat "accident" along the same line of the one
that happened on Dec 25. After an incident like that, the TSA just cannot
afford to have someone else pull a similar stunt, it would only further ruin
their already low credibility.
The challenge is about striking a balance between having passengers bring
whatever they want on a plane and having them fly naked and anesthetized, just
like if they were cargo.
~~~
trafficlight
Nobody is going to pull the same stunt. The people building these devices
aren't stupid. Kneejerk reactions never solved anything.
------
mortenjorck
The TSA has now officially become like an abusive, paranoid husband. Every
event that has happened thus far has made him more suspicious and less
rational, but the "lap burner" has at last pushed him over the edge into
raging paranoia, doubling down with fevered lists of arbitrary, bizarre
restrictions that make sense only to his unhinged mind.
And there's nothing we can do. We depend on him. We can't just walk out; where
would we go?
------
jsz0
It sounds like these directives are based on specific intelligence of
currently planned attacks and not meant to be broader long term regulations.
What if there is good intelligence to suggest there are a dozen other
attackers known to be trained and ready for this mission? If they are already
in-transit and have a communication black-out from the leaders it seems
entirely possible they would attempt it despite the failures.
------
elblanco
I've noticed though, that ever sense the TSA got their new dark blue uniforms
(from the old white ones), they seem to be quite a bit more respectful at
least.
------
jparise
The liquids aspect of this sounds like a pain to enforce. At least in the US,
the initial security screening (before you get to the gates) is supposed to
filter out all liquids (over 3oz.), but once you're through security, you can
buy gallons of drinks, etc. from the stores in the terminal. Thoroughly
inspecting those liquids at the gate without advanced equipment sounds really
difficult.
~~~
apgwoz
What's interesting to note is that I've found box cutters in the stores within
the gates of one airport before. I wonder what the regulations are for airport
merchants?
~~~
steveklabnik
Often, restaurants 'on the inside' will give you knives with your steak.
~~~
imajes
Right, one large argument against the 'sterile area' joke is that it's very
easy to acquire weapons - anything from workmen's tools to steak knives are
easily accessible.
------
waterlesscloud
"Disable aircraft-integrated passenger communications systems and services
(phone, internet access services, live television programming, global
positioning systems) prior to boarding and during all phases of flight."
Because you can't blow up the plane if you don't know where you are.
~~~
jm4
I think you're missing the point. The idea is to make it more difficult to
stage an attack around a specific location, such as a heavily populated area
or landmark.
~~~
icey
I didn't notice anything requiring that window blinds must be closed though;
it doesn't really seem to me that it would be too hard to just look out the
window and figure it out.
~~~
jm4
Personally, I find it impossible to even venture a guess as to what my
location is just by looking out the window at cruising altitude. It becomes
much easier during final descent, but it still requires familiarity with the
location. In any case, an attacker will have nowhere near the precision
provided by GPS.
Passengers, beyond curiosity, have very little use for GPS during a flight.
When I'm on a plane I could really care less what my location is. I'm more
concerned with how much longer I have to wait before arriving at my
destination.
The parts of the security directive that bother me most are the restrictions
on access to carry-on belongings and items on your lap and not being able to
get up from the seat.
~~~
wendroid
Maybe he'll just use a chronometer.
------
pmorici
Notice how the thing is signed,
"Gale Rossides Acting Administrator"
In other words the TSA still doesn't have a permanent head even though the new
administration has now been in office for a year.
------
cjoh
Keep in mind this is only about flights originating in non-US airports with
destinations in the US. None of this stuff applies to your flight back home to
New York from Kansas next week.
~~~
mixmax
Not all of us are from the US.
~~~
cjoh
No America-Centric implication was intended and I apologize if I came across
that way. Just seemed important to bring up since the lead comment as of this
writing is about using high-speed trains as an alternative. And unless there's
something happening that I don't know about, there isn't a high-speed
transatlantic train in the worls.
~~~
mixmax
No worries mate :-)
------
zandorg
2.1. All people wishing to fly must flap their wings. Airplanes are banned for
being unsafe.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Internet Hall of Fame - franzpeterstein
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Hall_of_Fame
======
na85
I was surprised not to find Jarkko Oikarninen[0] on that list. As the author
of the first instant-messaging network[1], Jarkko paved the way for much of
how we communicate today.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarkko_Oikarinen
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
HTTP vs HTTPS -- Test them both yourself - satbyy
https://www.httpvshttps.com/
======
Retr0spectrum
This seems more like a comparison between HTTP and HTTP/2\. Am I wrong?
~~~
edoceo
Nope.
"Plaintext HTTP/1.1 is compared against encrypted HTTP/2 HTTPS on a non-
caching, nginx server with a direct, non-proxied connection."
------
walrus01
some fun SSL history: SSL Acceleration hardware cards!
[http://www.kegel.com/ssl/hw.html](http://www.kegel.com/ssl/hw.html)
from the days when a webserver might be a 200 MHz Pentium Pro...
| {
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What is the Mars Curiosity Rover's software built in? - joshuahedlund
http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/159637/what-is-the-mars-curiosity-rovers-software-built-in
======
Sukotto
Tangentially, "They Write the Right Stuff" was a very interesting 1996 article
about writing the software running the space shuttle.
[http://web.archive.org/web/20050830190246/www.fastcompany.co...](http://web.archive.org/web/20050830190246/www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/writestuff.html)
------
eliben
So much programming language research in the past 40 years, but C is, no
doubt, still king.
~~~
jetti
It is a lot of money to possibly waste on a language that is not proven, so
why not stick with what works?
------
ColinDabritz
I believe the confusion between '500,000 lines' in the question vs '2.5
million/3.5 million' in the answers is the context. The 500,000 number is
involved in the entry, descent, and landing (EDL) process specifically, and
the rover systems are millions overall. Not sure why the values are 1m
different, but the 2.5m citation is what is in the linked PDF.
~~~
sanxiyn
Guess on 1 million difference: 2.5m citation is dated 2009, 3.5m citation is
dated 2010.
~~~
natep
It's hard for me to imagine 1M lines of code being written/generated in a year
and then flown. I suspect either the first person was responsible for testing
only 2.5M lines of it, or they used different counting methods.
As the one who posted the larger figure, I'd say it's more reliable because it
comes from the man who sat at the Flight Control station in the control center
:D
------
amirmansour
The two previous Mars rovers had some Java on them. I saw the code with my own
eyes!
~~~
sgt
I bet James Gosling was proud.
~~~
amirmansour
I bet he was. I also bet that MSL also has some Java on it since JPL is all
about code reuse.
------
natep
Thanks for posting! The existing answer had almost no detail, so I wrote
another: <http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/159687/61021>
~~~
mturmon
You dug up a great talk, but I could not find the PDF. There's no link, and
the expected file FSW10_Cichy.pdf is not present with all the other PDFs in
the download directory.
The author, Ben Cichy, was the guy in Flight Control during the landing last
night, sitting behind the position marked "Flight Software". So he's
definitely a good source for the background ;-)
~~~
natep
I don't know if there is a PDF. The media player is interesting, though, in
that it's actually just some javascript that loads a sequence of stills at the
appropriate time, and if you look at the source, you can write, say, a python
script to download all the images, which I did. When I get home, I'll see if I
can find it.
------
antirez
Not sure what means that most of the C code is auto generated. From what?
~~~
mgurlitz
They make models of the software before writing any code, and a lot of the
code can be generated _from the models_. There's a guarantee that if the model
is correct so is the code. Or, you don't have to check that your hand-written
C actually matches the system you were building.
~~~
msh
What do you mean by model?
~~~
andor
A formal model of how the software is supposed to behave. Models can be proven
to have certain properties (e.g. deadlock-free, cruise control _always_ turns
off when brake is hit), while with software you're usually limited to testing.
A proof guarantees that the software works for all possible inputs, whereas
when testing only some inputs are tried.
To model individual processes, one could use automata, for interaction of
processes there are process calculi.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_methods>
------
stox
The processor is an embedded, radiation hardened, version of the PowerPC.
------
kylemaxwell
You could do worse than start at the NASA Github page:
<https://github.com/nasa/>
------
zwieback
The JPL coding standards (<http://lars-
lab.jpl.nasa.gov/JPL_Coding_Standard_C.pdf>) linked in one of the comments
seems surprisingly flexible. I would have expected more limitations.
------
msantos
Let's hope Nasa is not cutting corners like Boeing did (does?) running VxWorks
on 747s and using telnet to connect to any 747 aircraft while in flight. EDIT:
Boeing only connected to aircrafts to retrieve flight stats and other data. Or
when following a customer request. The point I wanna raise is not the fact
Boeing connects to aircrafts, but the fact they do so using non-crypt
ol'telnet
------
gm34
Are you planning hacking the Rover ? :)
------
sodelate
to be sure , vxworks
| {
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Responsivator - petrel
http://dfcb.github.com/Responsivator/
======
chuckreynolds
nice! love it
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Can we talk about client-side certificates? - freddyym
https://drewdevault.com/tls/security/oauth/2020/06/12/Can-we-talk-about-client-side-certs.html
======
znpy
I've been learning oauth at work and started implementing openid using
keycloak.
Now I'm in the process of setting in a private CA with vault from hascicorp.
What ddevault is proposing is basically oauth implemented in terms of TLS and
certificate autorities.
It's not bad as an idea, per se.
The problem is, as far as I see, that x509 and TLS pull into the discourse a
lot of hard topics. You pull in x509 and you also pull in the whole ITU/X.500
thing. Have fun with that.
Just these days I was thinking that I'm having a hard time finding certificate
authorities explained in terms of actors and interactions, instead of
cryptography.
Oauth/oidc instead is just that: authorization delegation. It starts and ends
with those RFC/specs.
It helps a lot to know that all you need to know is contained in that finite
number of documents.
------
grizzles
Agree 100%. I've thought this is the right way to do web SSO for as long as
there has been a web.
OpenId connect & Oauth are privacy disasters. Before the advent of the
internet customer lists (aka goodwill) was considerd ultra proprietary
information that a company had.
Now this data is essentially given away to the big four or five internet
companies. Meanwhile, government is as useless as ever, content to fight their
culture battles as if nothing else mattered. Bad juju.
------
pabs3
The Debian experience with this is that browsers have terrible client cert UX
and are actively making that worse.
[https://lists.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/public-
inbox/%3Cf7599ba5de4864...](https://lists.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/public-
inbox/%3Cf7599ba5de4864a28293a53a1b9e4305e7c568d0.camel%40bonedaddy.net%3E)
------
Ayesh
We implemented a CA/client-cert based authentication, and decided to not do it
again.
\- Users are used to just getting public/private API keys, and it's often
common knowledge how to store the private key securely.
\- Tooling is surprisingly scarce. Not all API testing tools support client
certificates, and users didnt want to do the openssl dance.
\- Users kept forgetting the certification expiration date. We had to remind
them to do the openssl dance again every 3 months.
\- for the server side, unit testing was a bit complicated because the TLS
implementation was supposed to be a separate later from the actual
application.
| {
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Resources Groups and Tagging for AWS - gighi
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/resource-groups-and-tagging/
======
kolev
Finally! This should have existed much earlier to neat things up!
| {
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Your Cloud Instance Just Died. We’re Sorry. - jjohns
http://blog.jelastic.com/2012/06/30/your-cloud-instance-just-died-were-sorry/
======
cmsj
Doing it wrong? If one DC going down, takes out your "cloudy" application, you
suck at making cloudy apps. Surely? It's a pretty big SPOF if you are trying
to be highly available.
------
mbailey
If a single region is a single point of failure, isn't that "doing it wrong"?
| {
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‘Far Side’ Cartoonist Gary Larson Shares First New Work in 25 Years - pseudolus
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/arts/far-side-gary-larson-cartoons.html
======
tzs
Here's the link to his "New Stuff" area for those who want to go straight to
the cartoons (well, straight to the disclaimer page before the cartoons...)
instead of or before reading an article about them [1].
The first two made me laugh, especially the first.
I completely failed to understand the third, the one with the bears and the
cub scouts. I couldn't tell if it was some pun too subtle for me, a reference
to some pop culture thing I've missed, a reference to some high brow thing I'm
too peasant to understand, or just a rare for Larson dud.
[1] [https://www.thefarside.com/new-stuff](https://www.thefarside.com/new-
stuff)
------
chrshawkes
Now we just need Bill Watterson to come back.
~~~
olcor
He did a collaboration with Stephan Pastis (Pearls Before Swine) a few years
ago:
[https://stephanpastis.wordpress.com/2014/06/07/ever-
wished-t...](https://stephanpastis.wordpress.com/2014/06/07/ever-wished-that-
calvin-and-hobbes-creator-bill-watterson-would-return-to-the-comics-page-well-
he-just-did/)
| {
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High-Powered REPL for Haskell, Inspired by IPython - Terretta
https://github.com/litxio/ptghci
======
rkrzr
There is already a Haskell kernel for IPython:
[https://github.com/gibiansky/IHaskell](https://github.com/gibiansky/IHaskell)
How does this project differ in scope/design goals?
(This project uses a different approach to implement essentially the same
thing:
> It is implemented as a wrapper around GHCi based on Python's prompt-toolkit
> library and heavily inspired by IPython. )
~~~
vaibhavsagar
It doesn't look like this works in the web browser or uses any of the Jupyter
infrastructure at all. It seems like the UX is far better than IHaskell's
Jupyter console integration though, which is fantastic.
IMO the biggest issue with IHaskell is that it requires a correctly configured
Python environment (in addition to a correctly configured Haskell
environment), which this also does, so I don't think this is a substantive
improvement.
(I currently help maintain IHaskell)
~~~
ben509
> IMO the biggest issue with IHaskell is that it requires a correctly
> configured Python environment
Ah, you reminded me that I need to put up a PR with some fixes...
------
carreau
IPython dev here; congrats, that looks great !
------
xvilka
They can base the kernel on top of these C++ libraries:
\- [https://blog.jupyter.org/a-new-python-kernel-for-jupyter-
fcd...](https://blog.jupyter.org/a-new-python-kernel-for-jupyter-fcdf211e30a8)
\- [https://github.com/QuantStack/xeus](https://github.com/QuantStack/xeus)
One day, hopefully, language-independent part of Jupyter will be rewritten
completely in Rust (backend) and WebAssembly (frontend), to achieve the
portability, better safety guarantees, and speed.
------
mlevental
how does typeBarEnabled and tab completion work? I have yet to find a solution
in any editor that can do type under cursor for a trivial codebase and this,
for me at least, is the most necessary tool for writing Haskell because of how
crappy docs are usually
~~~
jose_zap
You should give VScode + haskell-ide-engine a try. It offers a really good
completion engine.
------
boothead
Looks really nice! I'm looking forward to trying this out.
| {
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Persistence pays off in 'real-time' for Windy Citizen - brandnewlow
http://blogs.vocalo.org/feder/2010/06/persistence-pays-off-in-%E2%80%98real-time%E2%80%99-for-windy-citizen/26634
======
brandnewlow
Hey guys, I just received a $250,000 grant from the Knight Foundation to spin
off our advertising program into a new online ad startup that is going to
reinvent display ads and make them stop sucking.
Link here: <http://nowspots.com/>
We've already gotten some great coverage from Mashable:
[http://mashable.com/2010/06/16/knight-foundation-
awards-2-74...](http://mashable.com/2010/06/16/knight-foundation-
awards-2-74-million-for-future-news-tools/)
Wall Street Journal: [http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/06/17/knight-news-
challe...](http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/06/17/knight-news-challenge-
winners-take-home-274-million-in-grant-
awards/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter)
PBS: [http://www.pbs.org/idealab/2010/06/knight-announces-news-
cha...](http://www.pbs.org/idealab/2010/06/knight-announces-news-challenge-
winners-for-2010166.html)
Chicago Tribune:
[http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/towerticker/2010/06/wind...](http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/towerticker/2010/06/windycitizen-
brad-flora-wins-knight-news-challenge-grant-jobs-joann-genette-wbig-high-
dellios-ap.html)
And the Chicago Reader:
[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2010/06/16/goo...](http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2010/06/16/good-
knight-brad-flora-gets-250000-grant)
I want to say thanks to the folks on HN for your support and encouragement
over the last two years as I bootstrapped Windy Citizen and learned a ton
about what works and what doesn't in the online ad space. Now I'm going to
make a run at it.
We're going to be hiring (announcements coming soon), and there will be
several open source releases as part of this project, which will all be
announced on here.
If you've got questions about the Knight News Challenge, bootstrapping, or
anything else, ask away!
~~~
michael_dorfman
Congratulations, Brad! It looks like you are doing some great work.
(I posted an article about your winning the grant here yesterday, but it
didn't seem to get any traction.)
~~~
brandnewlow
Thanks so much! Perhaps I should have hacked Dustin's Posterous...
------
kljensen
Duder who runs that is a super nice guy and has poured his heart into Windy
Citizen. Nice to see him win the Knight prize.
------
shortformblog
Brad was a super-cool person the one time I met him in person. Glad to see him
succeed. WC is one of the best twists on the Digg/Reddit model I've seen. And
I would totally run his real-time ads on my site.
------
jordo37
It's been fun watching Brad learn to hack as he rolls out WC. Best of luck
with the ads biz
------
hnhasNOpwreset
Rock on!!
------
ajkirwin
I'm quite sad that they passed over such great things as WikiLeaks for Yet
Another Ad Company.
~~~
frossie
Did WikiLeaks apply?
~~~
ajkirwin
I believe so, yes.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Copyright Lawsuits Could Come to Regular Internet Users Under a New Law - dmitrygr
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/life-altering-copyright-lawsuits-could-come-regular-internet-users-under-new-law
======
rxm
> any Internet user who uploads a copyrighted work could find themselves
> subject to a largely unappealable $5,000 penalty
Shared a viral amateur video? I understood that this law would allow a troll
firm to contact the video creator and offer to sue you and all those that did
so.
------
pmoriarty
Not enough of us acted last time and we got stuck with the DMCA.
Let's act and get others to act so we can avoid this atrocity this time.
------
bitwize
I say, pass the law. Maybe then, people will see what a joke copyright really
is and how damaging it is.
------
tnzk
(from outside of US) The article looks like written on the assumption that
every Internet user in US is automatically an infringer. Are copyright
infringement so popular there?
~~~
e1ven
I am not an expert in the subject, but as far as I understand most countries
in the world are party to the Byrne convention.
One of the details that this stipulates is that works are automatically
copyrighted upon creation – even if you don't register work with the copyright
office it still holds protection.
This means that any picture, text, or other work in a tangible medium that you
share without permission could be considered potentially infringing, and leave
you open to a lawsuit.
There are defenses you can argue, but that would only be after the lawsuit has
already started, potentially costing you time and money for legal
representation.
~~~
tnzk
I am aware of the convention, and that anything somewhat creative is supposed
to be protected by copyrights.
Are people share the things without permission there, so frequently? Even if
so, why should these sharing be legal?
------
sieabahlpark
This type of shit has been pushed for about 10 years at this point.
Who the hell wrote the bill, get them out of the Senate immediately.
~~~
comex
[https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-
bill/127...](https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-
bill/1273?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22case+act%22%5D%7D&s=1&r=3)
Sponsored by Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), cosponsored by 14 senators (9
Democratic, 5 Republican).
~~~
annadane
The same John Kennedy who lectured Zuckerberg? :/
It's really annoying. I _want_ to be on his side and then this happens
------
lunias
Charge up your VPNs boys and girls. It's insane outside.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Binaural Sound with the Web Audio API - kabla
http://blog.kaistale.com/?p=1428
======
tonetheman
Yup not working for me either :( Version 39.0.2171.95 m
Uncaught NotSupportedError: Failed to set the 'buffer' property on
'ConvolverNode': The buffer sample rate of 44100 does not match the context
rate of 48000 Hz.
hpl.init_convolver main.js:464 hpl.init main.js:506 main.js:559 (anonymous
function)
~~~
kabla
Well, this is a shame.. Apparently the sample rate of the AudioContext (for
some people 48 kHz) isn't definable (it should be 44.1 kHz here), which makes
this a tough thing to fix. For me, it works in osx but not in windows 8
(bootcamp).
I found this: [https://github.com/WebAudio/web-audio-
api/issues/300](https://github.com/WebAudio/web-audio-api/issues/300)
Apparently it's not implemented yet?
------
kapkapkap
A great demo of binaural sound -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKdDA_jhgX8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKdDA_jhgX8)
~~~
mrb
This is insanely great! Now, imagine if binaural audio was combined with an
accelerometer sensor (in the earbud/headphone) so that when you turn your
head, the sounds' origins would be adjusted in real time to reflect your new
head position. This would be awesome for video games and movies.
To make this work, you would need to record the location of every sound. Easy
to do for a video game (where the software knows the exact object or person
emitting a sound). But it would be harder for movies, as this sounds
localization data would need to be captured on set and handled during all post
production work.
I did a little research and a field known as ambisonics
([http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambisonics](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambisonics))
generalizes this concept to more than 2 speakers. Now that I think about it I
remember that the guy behind the xiph.org videos debunking digital audio myths
lamenting that not enough research was being done on ambisonics.
------
pvaldes
Not directly related, but curiously I'd noticed today that cl-binaural for
common lisp is not anymore in quicklisp. I wonder why.
------
cypher543
Doesn't work for me in Chrome 39:
> main.js:129 Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token var
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Good at programming but suck at Computer Science and coding interviews? - wh-uws
I recently started a group / meetup at the hacker house I live in SF called "Do you even code?" that is for people like you.<p>I started a facebook group for it recently<p>https://www.facebook.com/groups/871332856219191/<p>Here is the mission statement.<p>"This group is dedicated to all people who can program... but suck at data structures and algorithms coding interviews.<p>Those interviews where you have to get the answer right in under 10 minutes with nothing but a whiteboard, a toothpick, and 2 overworked engineers staring over your shoulder who just want to fill their rec who are wondering why the recruiter sent this idio...candidate in to them.<p>Soon there is that moment when one looks at you like "Do you even code?"<p>Then the nice recruiter walks in and tells you "well that's the last interview for the day!"<p>And you get escorted off the premises. And a week later you get that form letter like "We're sorry but we've decided not to 'move forward' "<p>This is a place you can learn and share knowledge about how to cross the chasm between "not moving forward" to "were excited to extend you an offer."<p>"<p>Anyone in the SF bay area is invited, we meet at 8pm on Thursdays. If interest grows enough I will be making it an official meetup group.<p>The goal of the events to help expose yourself to enough problems and solutions so that you can recognize problems and find solutions quickly.<p>https://www.facebook.com/events/741079035947419/
======
yzzxy
Why not just learn the CS, Algorithms, and Data Structures fundamentals that
theses tests are looking for instead of gaming the system?
There are some interview processes that are unfair, pedantic, or irrelevant to
be sure (manhole covers come to mind), but most of the questions are at least
_founded_ in basic CS knowledge.
A good analogy is the math section of the SAT: some people can take the SAT
naturally and understand the question models it follows on the first try.
Others will go to tutors and memorize how to solve them, essentially
programming themselves for different word questions. Which group do you think
will have a more enjoyable and valuable experience at a difficult college that
requires a high SAT score?
It seems (to me) that it would be better to acquire the actual skills so you
can improve yourself and do the job rather than memorizing problems and
solutions. Even if you believe your job doesn't involve CS directly (webdev,
for instance), a more holistic understanding of computer science is sure to
benefit you in understand how and why the APIs and frameworks you use were
designed, and how you can write clean and performant code.
If your problem is performing in front of engineers on a whiteboard, and not
the theory, then you don't need to practice questions, you need to do mock
interviews.
~~~
iends
High SAT scores are not predictive of success at college, and neither are hard
interviews questions predictive of being a successful developer.
~~~
yzzxy
I may have not articulated this very well: Both groups in my metaphor (those
who naturally understand the SAT questions from learning mathematical
concepts, and those who are tutored on known SAT questions) were meant to be
among the high scorers on the test.
This would imply that SAT scores will not predict real performance, and the
same implications would apply to job interview questions that are gamed in a
similar fashion.
------
xpto123
Just don't apply to those companies, you probably wouldn't like it there
anyway.
In fact that interviewing style is being abandoned, see here the case of
Google: [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2346126/Google-
aband...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2346126/Google-abandons-job-
interview-brainteasers-company-admits-completely-useless.html)
So why invest so much time and effort in preparation for an interviewing style
that is only practiced by a small minority of employers. Its a big world out
there.
One alternative: become a freelance, as those interviews are usually only for
employees, and you tend to take a lot less bulshit being interviewed as a
freelance, things are kept much more to the point.
Alternativelly, take this course at Coursera, lots of food for thought there
->
[https://www.coursera.org/course/algs4partI](https://www.coursera.org/course/algs4partI)
Still for those interviews you indeed need to prepare: buy books on how to do
those interviews, practice at home, etc. remember it has nothing to do with on
the job day to day work, its just an absurd silly game.
------
yunyeng
What background do you look for the event? and which language you guys use ?
This looks perfect for me who has front-end experience and trying to move on
to back-end...
~~~
wh-uws
Yunueng I myself am a person who has lots of front end experience.
The only background we look for is someone who has done some coding before.
This group is past the beginners level of not knowing how to code or use a
command line and things of that nature and is focused on algorithms, data
structures, complexity analysis and efficiency.
------
haidrali
cannot understand how can you program if you don't know data structures and
algorithms ...
~~~
izolate
There are specialties that don't require that knowledge. Show me how frontend
web developers can benefit from algorithmic CS knowledge.
~~~
kyllo
-Optimizing your JS for faster performance when mutating the DOM tree or some large array or object
-Understanding how a client-side framework like Angular or React or Ember actually works, e.g. how a finite state machine works, how the DOM is polled for changes, how templates are processed and rendered, these all require algorithms
-Writing your own client-side framework or compile-to-JS language
------
Madmallard
topcoder.com is probably the most effective tool for programming problem-
solving skills.
People that get any reasonable ranking on the algorithms section usually laugh
their way through interviews.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Breaking Bad is the Ultimate Startup - spinn
https://www.actionmint.com/daily-mint/start-up/breaking-bad-is-the-ultimate-startup
======
untog
Does that mean Walter White is the Ultimate Startup CEO? A man so driven by
his ego that he puts his entire family in mortal danger, blackmails former
business partners, alienates his co-founder and ends up dying alone as a
result of his own hubris?
Actually that might be accurate.
~~~
bly
Spoiler alert?
~~~
untog
If you haven't seen Breaking Bad then you really need to avoid any discussion
topics about it. The ending has been widely discussed pretty much everywhere
(including other places in this discussion, though comically not in the
article itself)
------
beat
Now how about something about their relationship with the venture capitalist,
Gustavo Fring? The efforts they had to go to in order to convince him that
they were personally trustworthy, his nefarious plans to steal their IP and
put them out of business, etc?
~~~
kevinmchugh
Fring acqui-hired Walt. He built a business for distribution and sales, then
acquired the competing company for their brand and talent. (Fring ostensibly
had a cook pre-walt, but it's never addressed). He gave Walt a salary instead
of ownership. He saw that Walt was a bad cultural fit, and intended to replace
him with Gale. Once Fring was gone, Walt and Jesse went back into business,
selling their product to Declan, who only had a distribution and sales
organization, and, unlike Fring, was not focused on vertical integration.
The metaphor doesn't work around equity, non-competes, etc., unless you know a
start-up that uses violence instead of legal documents and arbitration.
~~~
itsybitsycoder
Fring's cook pre-Walt was Gale. When Gale saw the quality of Walt's cook he
told Fring there was no way they could compete with that level of expertise.
------
camus2
The only thing one can learn from Breaking Bad is you eventually get killed
dealing illegal drugs, and put your family in danger.
There is nothing romantic in BB,it's a gruesome description of a world you
might want to avoid at all cost.
~~~
jmduke
At risk of derailing the original article, this is a really interesting point.
Both Breaking Bad and Mad Men are shows that go at lengths to depict how
flawed, unhappy, and usually outright immoral their protagonists are, but both
Walter White and Don Draper are the target of a lot of escapist fantasies.
(Try searching on Twitter for #TeamWalt.)
~~~
shashashasha
It reminds me of this essay, on Breaking Bad and culture:
"But despite these cautionary endings, they don’t sell Scarface and Godfather
t-shirts at every tourist shop in Manhattan because people like to remind
themselves about the dangers of hubris. Stories and the characters in them are
more than lessons, and a narrative’s most ideologically weighty elements don’t
map onto a seventh grade worksheet about major themes. Long after we’re done
watching we hold moments with us: shot angles and character dynamics, snippets
of dialog and unquestioned premises. The point of critically examining
cultural objects like Breaking Bad isn’t to place them in categories good or
bad, to predict the ending, or even to decode what’s “really” happening; the
point is to pay attention to our attention, to look at how it’s being held, on
what, and how someone’s making money on it. If pop criticism is to be good for
anything, it’s that."
[http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/walter-white-
supremacy/](http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/walter-white-supremacy/)
~~~
001sky
+1 As a general point, illegal activity has entertainment value. Goes for all
sorts, especially killing and violence.
------
chasing
"Glurge" isn't the right word... But there's got to be some term for this
genre of syrupy and mostly content-free articles about start-ups.
------
rusabd
Keep in mind that BB is ultimately a fiction. The bad traits WW poses does not
necessary means if you follow that path you will do exactly the same bad
things.
I see this story as cautionary tale for underdogs to not try to break free out
of grips of existing "natural" state. Try and pay for the consequences. Just
get second job and try to be happy
------
gpcz
While there is some overlap in terms of the mechanics, I would personally
refrain from taking this analogy too far. The point behind capitalism is the
assumption that people are motivated by money but that the profit motive can
be channeled toward ultimately being good for the public. Walt and Jesse's
meth empire caused tons of addictions, murders/deaths (both on and off-
screen), broke up families, required dishonesty at multiple levels, and was
ultimately motivated by ego more than money. Some characters (Gale) also tried
to rationalize the damage their product was doing to the world with flimsy
arguments about "consenting adults wanting what they want" when each
contributor made the choice to get into a business with horrifying societal
consequences.
Capitalism has holes in it, and it's up to everyone to make sure they are
doing things that are good for the world.
~~~
beat
Saying capitalism has a moral component is like saying thermodynamics has a
moral component.
Sadly, confusing beauty with morality has been a failing of Western thought
since at least Aristotle. Just because capitalism is elegant doesn't mean it's
"good" in a moral sense (or "evil" in a moral sense either).
~~~
gpcz
I suspect that we agree more than disagree. What I meant was that we implement
capitalism to generally get abundance of things like food and medicine that we
consider good for society (to the point of calling them "goods"), but that
individuals need to constantly examine and take responsibility for the
morality of their actions under the system.
~~~
beat
I don't think we "implement" capitalism. It just happens, like thermodynamics.
The most brutal communist systems of the 20th century had thriving black
markets. In America, we ban drugs, and marijuana becomes the biggest cash crop
in several states. Capitalism happens as long as two parties can barter in a
satisfactory way.
That's why I react so negatively to associating capitalism with morality. It
beocmes an excuse.
~~~
dublinben
Capitalism and markets are not the same thing. Capitalism is an economic
system in which the means of production are privately owned. A market is just
any exchange of goods between buyers and sellers.
------
benologist
Yay another startup whose genius marketing plan is write startup-articles for
HN.
------
codeonfire
Breaking bad had a lot to say about work in general. You have to fight for
your income and to be free from enslavement by your fellow man. Also it shows
the downside of being highly and uniquely skilled.
------
thearn4
Meh, feels like a bit of a stetch. But still a better analogy then those
consultants who try stretch and apply "The Art Of War" to everything in the
business world.
------
mistercow
The Onion pretty much covered this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvGCYyZPYPg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvGCYyZPYPg)
------
georgemcbay
Kinda glossed over the part where he died alone, hated by everyone he ever
loved.
------
neakor
Oh… how I miss that show :(
------
leerodgers
Great show, but this is a bit of a stretch.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Pioneers of Soviet Computing - gnufs
http://www.sigcis.org/?q=node/85/
======
mynegation
Some of the people mentioned in the book were my lecturers in Moscow State
University. All great people, but sometimes courses like 'Computer
architecture' left me with a mixed feeling. They used all these old
architectures like BESM-6 as examples. It was great to know how it all
started, but I felt like I am not getting enough knowledge about actual modern
architectures, and I went through couple of electives to make up for it.
Note to the translator and readers: please do not use Russian patronymic names
in the translation. It is common for Russians to address each other with name
and patronymic (a sign of respect). But patronymics confuse non-Russians. For
example the book refers to Sergei Lebedev (or Sergei Alexeevich Lebedev if we
use patronymic) as 'Sergei Alexeevich' many times over and over, and to non-
Russians 'Alexeevich' sounds like a family name.
------
danohuiginn
If you're interested in this area, I highly recommend Francis Spufford's book
"Red Plenty". It's a fictionalised account of some of this history (Lebedev is
a character, for example). Its main focus is the interaction between Soviet
computer science, economics and political idealism.
Here's one review:
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/7956346...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/7956346/Red-
Plenty-by-Francis-Spufford-review.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
"The" random tree - adamo
http://mathoverflow.net/questions/5997/the-random-tree
======
cperciva
Technically, "the" random _infinite_ tree.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Do We Want to Live Without the Post Office? - axiomdata316
https://classic.esquire.com/article/2013/2/1/do-we-really-want-to-live-without-the-post-office
======
shams93
Yeah because we can't stand job security why should we allow people on their
50s to keep working when the new trend is to force anyone over 45 to be
starved to death even if they're the former director of Disney Imagineering
ultimately we hate workers but especially older ones.
------
cwhiz
I live in a big city and would see virtually zero impacts. I’d still prefer to
keep the USPS.
But the push to privatize it isn’t coming from people like me. It’s coming
from conservative voters who skew rural.
If they want to privatize it I say just give them what they want.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
People in your organization that grow legacy code - radcortez
http://zeroturnaround.com/rebellabs/the-5-people-in-your-organization-that-grow-legacy-code/
======
brlewis
Judging code is important, but this article seems to be judging people too
much.
When I see unwieldy legacy code at Fitbit, I assume it was written by an
overworked early employee wearing five different software-engineer hats, two
of which they were experienced in. I assume they were working as fast as they
could to get their startup to take off before the end of the runway, and that
they anticipated having enough money to hire a team of people to clean things
up later if they succeeded.
They did succeed, and I'm part of the cleanup crew.
See also
[http://retrospectivewiki.org/index.php?title=The_Prime_Direc...](http://retrospectivewiki.org/index.php?title=The_Prime_Directive)
------
bluesnowmonkey
Legacy code... that's the stuff that solved business problems well enough to
provide you with a job fixing it, right?
------
neverminder
I don't agree that "the smartass" is the worst of 5. I'd propose a 6th one:
legacy technology proponent. How many times there was a moment of decision
what stack to use for a new project and there was always this one guy going
"How about we use LAMP with XYZ PHP framework? There are a lot of 'coders'
around we can hire for that and they will be cheaper than
ruby/python/scala/etc guys".
~~~
misterjangles
Or #7 the programmer who is too cool to use modern, stable, popular tools that
would be perfectly adequate for solving the problem. Instead insists that the
team write everything in unproven fad technology XYZ - then disappears when
he/she gets bored in 3 months, leaving others to maintain a code base written
on a abandoned platform.
~~~
apaprocki
Having read the article, I'm pretty sure that person is #2 :)
------
scj
While I understand the reasoning behind the Elusive Firefighter, I think the
example is rubbish. Set the license limit to MAX_INT. Surely two billion
licences should be enough, and the problem is solved (with a high degree of
confidence) within minutes. I don't know the codebase, but disabling checks
may also suffice.
Depending on the company, refactoring legacy code is like walking through a
minefield to get to a territory that isn't really desired by the higher ups.
High cost, low reward.
As for the rule "If you see something wrong fix it properly!" I disagree in
some cases. If you are a legacy maintainer, usually something is broken and
management/clients want it up ASAP. The proper fix is rarely the fastest.
Beyond that, you have to be careful when advising refactoring. If you advise
it too much, in cases that don't really need it, management may not take your
advice as seriously when there really is a problem.
~~~
fridek
Surely four billion IPs should be enough. Oh, wait...
~~~
fournm
I think we can safely assume that two to four billion unique users for a
single deployment of some software that originally had a small user count and
only four billion unique public network identifications are at a completely
different level of risk for happening.
------
Kiro
Ok, I'm an idiot but how would you rewrite getDayOfWeek?
~~~
mseebach
1: Should have used a library function
2: not 0-indexed (there can be good reasons for this, but the context of the
function should at least suggest the reason)
3: Doesn't handle errors - should throw IllegalArgumentException, and if
should do it in the default handler of the switch. If you suddenly see "???"
in the UI, it's not easy to track down to this.
4: If for some valid reason this can't be a library function, it should be an
enum, and it should be used throughout the code.
enum DayOfWeek {
MONDAY(1, "Monday"), TUESDAY(2, "Tuesday") ...
public int id;
public String displayName; // these should be private and have getters according to most style-guides.
public DayOfWeek(int id, String displayName) {
this.id = id;
this.displayName = displayName;
}
public static DayOfWeek fromId(int id) {
for (DayOfWeek d : values()) {
if (d.id == id) return d;
}
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Illegal DayOfWeek id passed: " + id);
}
}
~~~
ygra
FWIW, the default Java API to get weekday strings is also 1-based
(DateFormatSymbols.getWeekdays(); and Calendar.SUNDAY is 1).
~~~
anton_gogolev
Yeah, with Java DateTime API being royally fubarred [1].
[1]:
[http://stackoverflow.com/q/1969442/60188](http://stackoverflow.com/q/1969442/60188)
~~~
melignus
... every DateTime API ...
FTFY
------
VLM
Isn't it really just one person, the manager who permits it?
~~~
relet
You must be a manager.
~~~
VLM
LOL I've seen them work (or not) for a couple decades, and I'm observant. Boss
has no idea whats going on = best polish up the resume, everyone will be
needing a job soon.
------
finalight
omg i'm the smartass, i'll admit that
~~~
peterwwillis
I was definitely the smartass when I started out. Every time I hear someone
say the words "that's easy" or "couple of hours", I look back on my career and
cringe.
------
himangshuj
with regards to The Overly Energetic Engineer ,there is also the management
which does not allow you to give back to community. Sometimes well known
libraries have issues which are fixed inhouse but you cant contribute them
back to community and you are stuck between devil and deep blue sea.
------
DrJokepu
I'm basically all of these five people. Except maybe for the intern.
------
orkj
I've been all of these, probably a couple of them only today...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tim Cook: New Apple CEO and Most Powerful Gay in America - ForrestN
http://sfist.com/2011/08/25/tim_cook_becomes_most_powerful_gay.php
======
byoung2
As far as I know, Tim Cook has never publicly discussed his sexuality, though
there has been much discussion on the topic. All of the articles about it only
cite "two well-placed sources" as evidence.
------
ForrestN
Must say I feel a swell of pride today! I had no idea Cook was gay.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
America Needs Compulsory National Service - wellsjosephc
https://josephcwells.com/blog/e-pluribus-unum-a-case-for-compulsory-national-service
======
babulus
Counterpoint: no we don't.
Fucking idiot.
~~~
dang
We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. If you
don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give
us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Expect (and accept) the oh s%$^t moment - an agile marketing manifesto - gregmeyer
http://gregmeyer.wordpress.com/2011/11/05/the-product-you-deliver-will-change-agile-marketing-principle-2/
======
tvitesse
Love the idea of applying agile concepts to your marketing efforts.
~~~
gregmeyer
Thanks - it started as a defensive measure ;) and then I realized it had good
applicability beyond just the immediate project
------
lalehhassibi
Great article on agile marketing!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Did you know? Kodak Park had a nuclear reactor - phreeza
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20120511/NEWS01/305120021/Kodak-Park-nuclear-reactor?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CHome&nclick_check=1
======
ColinWright
Yes, I did know, because it's been reported here on HN several times over the
last day or two.
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3969776>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3970376>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3970954>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3971035>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3971310>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3975587>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tell HN: Take my idea – PC keyboard you can put in the dishwasher - nextstep486
======
sathomasga
Logitech already did, but I’m not sure it’s available anymore.
------
db48x
You can put any keyboard in your dishwasher.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Can a news site be reborn? Gigaom readers are about to find out - SimplyUseless
http://fortune.com/2015/05/26/gigaom-acquisition/
======
meesterdude
So, I think this represents an interesting space. Gigaom died, but the next
person to come along and buy it has an established name that will naturally
rank higher in google results, out the gate.
They don't have to even do anything all that amazing; all the costs have
already been spent by someone else, so they just need to coast and grow slow.
Given their lower overhead and the nature of the internet, they might be able
to get by. But, I don't think they'll manage much more than that.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Task.js – Isomorphic work distribution across all cores - chadscira
https://github.com/icodeforlove/task.js?hn
======
chadscira
I found this later
[https://github.com/adambom/parallel.js](https://github.com/adambom/parallel.js)
But I was happy to benchmark the work processing/handling speed.
node.js results
# 1000 messages
\- 88.362ms - task.js (warm) - 144x faster
\- 227.758ms - task.js (cold) - 56x faster
\- 12785.515ms - parallelize
clientside results were similar
# 1000 messages
\- 361.251ms - task.js (warm) - 83x faster
\- 473.897ms - task.js (cold) - 63x faster
\- 29999.335ms - parallelize
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Review my app - Notification Service - denik
http://www.rss.im
======
daok
Some questions: 1) How to unsubscribe? 2) I can sent RSS feed to account that
is not mine? (Spam?)
Those 2 questions can block some new user to try the service I think.
~~~
denik
1) send STOP to the bot. More info here: <http://www.rss.im/help> or send HELP
to the bot 2) that's what verification code is for. chatbot won't send
notifications or even feed's url and title until the account is verified
------
f_sav
Oh, and having tried it a bit with a twitter search feed, maybe you could have
some options for formatting too (with replacements like %t for title, %u for
url etc.).
(But of course both these suggestions break the simplicity of it, which has
its appeal.)
EDIT: also, I'd add the basic instructions (STOP, START etc.) at the bottom of
the front page.
------
f_sav
Overall good idea, but I'd say: obviously I wouldn't use this for my regular
feeds, only for some specific ones for which I want live notifications. So
maybe some basic filtering options would be good (by keyword, by author...).
(Or maybe it's implied people would use existing services for filtering?)
~~~
denik
Filtering is one of the possible features indeed. I've added a suggestion
here:
[http://rssim.uservoice.com/forums/40421-general/suggestions/...](http://rssim.uservoice.com/forums/40421-general/suggestions/485877-add-
filters) if you need it, vote for it!
------
gipsygipsy
Good to see you build this app. I actually created a similar app some time
back just to get notified on few feeds I am actively following. It is on
appengine <http://enginebolt.appspot.com/>
------
olalonde
Very cool app.! I was going to build it myself but you beat me to it. Now, can
someone build a feed for HN submission comments/comment replies? And why not a
feed for StackExchange answers/comments ?
------
kamme
Great idea, but as I suggested on your website, you should have a favicon.
It's part of the identity of a website. If you don't have it, it feels like
something is missing.
~~~
olalonde
I second. All my favorites are lined up under my URL bar and I don't have
enough space to keep the website titles, I only keep the favicons.
------
mcxx
Yes, thank you! I've wanted this for a long time, just didn't get to creating
it myself.
------
Concours
looks great and simple, is it just a for fun or do you plan to make money with
it? if so, how?
------
jporta
nice idea. I specially like the sugestions made by the chatbot based on
keywords.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Did You Mean: Google Maps? - kloncks
http://erickerr.com/did-you-mean-google-maps
======
kejadlen
The irony is that they already have a solution for this:
[http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/08/make-
your...](http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/08/make-
your-404-pages-more-useful.html)
------
roach
I think it's better to return the 404. I hate it when the Comcast DNS
redirects me to their search page when I misspell a domain name.
~~~
romland
You can meet all standards (http's 404 error) and still have links on the
error page.
~~~
mmelin
It sounds like Comcast is redirecting to a search page instead of returning
NXDOMAIN for non-existing domain names. That is certainly not possible do to
and at the same time be standards-compliant.
~~~
kree10
That's what they're doing, though only if the domain matches /^www\\..+/ which
(along with their allowing you to opt-out) makes it a few degrees less evil
than Verisign's infamous "Site Finder".
------
bmalicoat
I've always found Google's 404s jarring and retro in the worst way possible.
They are in desperate need of a complete overhaul not the least of which
should be the author's 'Did you mean?' functionality.
~~~
nzmsv
404's need to be somewhat jarring, because the user needs to see a difference
between a normal and an error page. Having "did you mean" suggestions would
still be useful, though.
~~~
bmalicoat
Eh, they could at least use their current logo and make it link back to
google.com when clicked.
~~~
ugh
The logo they use never even was their logo. It plain old Times Bold with
different colors applied. And they use tables for the layout.
There is no image on this page, it’s all just a pretty small html file (1,359
bytes).
------
ugh
Just as an aside: Google’s misspelling detection is so damn good that I find
myself smashing keys without much care whether I hit everything correctly or
not whenever using Google.
~~~
ghshephard
In case anyone is tempted to downvote the parent, I'll attest that is pretty
much my searching behavior as well - in fact, it's often the case that I don't
use the built in spell check of OS X spotlight (CMD-Space), but instead do
CMD-T (new Tab), CMD-K (Search) - and then type some characters that _roughly_
approximate what I'm trying to spell, and then hit enter.
Google usually has my results as one of the first hits, or, alternatively,
pops it as a "suggestion"
------
swolchok
Counterexample: google.com/dumbass is a 404. Searching for google.com/dumbass
returns results. "Did you mean: Google It You Dumbass" is not kosher.
~~~
erickerr
Good point - this could me mitigated by only returning the results if there
are matching Google products
~~~
swolchok
Another interesting one: gears.google.com does not redirect to
google.com/gears, which is a 404. Contrast with voice and talk. Discoverable
URLs clearly aren't a priority.
------
iigs
Two potential problems:
1) I don't recall who it is, but someone who is not google holds a patent
(sigh) on using the URL path after the host as the search string.
2) If it was my property to control, I would not want google.com/{*} to
accumulate links on the internet. That is to say, before there was
google.com/maps, one would expect some people to link to that URL directing
their users to search for maps. Now that google is so big, that could be a
dicey prospect, because substituting their own property for what would have
previously been a search could reasonably be seen as anti-competitive.
~~~
roryokane
In response to point 2, Google could still require that links to search pages
still go to google.com/search?q=whatever. google.com/whatever would show a
differently formatted page that shows a big error message at the top, with the
search results as an extra, not the point of the page. This would mean that
Google introducing new sections of the site would not conflict with links to
search pages.
------
teej
If google, in theory, determined that users almost immediately hit the back
button when they hit a 404 page, it would make sense to have the page load &
render as fast as possible. Right now, the page size is ~1.3k for me.
I also have a feeling that the 404 may be implemented in a different part of
the stack than search. In a very unscientific test of data, the response times
for 404 pages according to firebug are at least 10% faster than the normal
response on the same subdomain. Also, of all the subdomains I tested, only
m.google.com, picasaweb.google.com, and docs.google.com had different 404
pages.
Like I said, this is all blind guessing, but my feeling is that Google has
reasons for not better utilizing 404s. Having better 404's isn't rocket
science and there are google properties that have them (youtube) so there's
certainly reasoning behind it.
~~~
houseabsolute
You'll probably notice that the 404 pages across most Google properties is the
same. For example:
<http://images.google.com/mapss>
And you might also notice that no matter what subdomain you hit, the path is
all that seems to matter:
<http://images.google.com/maps> <http://maps.google.com/images>
It would be logical to conclude that there's some server you're hitting before
you get to the service specific backend, and that maybe that is the reason the
404 pages come back faster.
------
duairc
As I live in Ireland I use google.ie. I often accidentally type maps.google.ie
or mail.google.ie, to be greeted with a 404. Seems like a fairly easy problem
to fix.
------
cduan
If I had to guess, Google probably gets so many hits for bad URL's (from
hackers and such) that it's not worth the processing power to return custom
404 pages. (Notice how it also has no images?)
------
nomoresecrets
There are an awful lot of people who never use the address bar - they just go
to google.com and type the URL into that.
So this kind of makes sense.
------
paul9290
Umm they don't want u to type in the URL they want you to Google even the URLs
you visit daily. When people see the 404 I would fair to say they get
frustrated and Google what they were looking for.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Turo and Getaround Get Heat From the Rental Car Industry - pseudolus
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/05/car-sharing-apps-hourly-rentals-peer-to-peer-turo-getaround/589087/
======
maxkwallace
The problem with this article is that it doesn't go into detail about what the
"taxes and fees" pay for, aside from airport surcharges. Without knowing that
it's impossible to determine who should be paying for what.
Airport surcharges should just be a toll gate (E-ZPass) when you enter and
exit the airport. Same for roads, ideally. A single fee schedule for everyone.
Parking shouldn't be free. Someone with 3 cars on Turo shouldn't be penalized
any more than someone with 3 cars who doesn't rent them on Turo and just
leaves them parked most of the time.
I use Turo and Getaround. With Turo, I always end up meeting or interacting
with the car owner. I'm not renting luxury vehicles, but in my experience the
owners are always regular middle-class people. From what I've seen, "Tesla
fleet" Jason Chan from this article is not representative of the average Turo
renter. Except perhaps in niche luxury markets, Turo rentals won't be
massively profitable because renters are competing against Zipcar, Enterprise,
Uber, etc. and there is maintenance, cleaning, depreciation, etc. you have to
handle for the cars.
I think we can all agree that regulations and taxes should be fairly and
equitably applied. I'm fine with my Turo charges going up to comply with this.
But I don't think this article is very balanced. It spends a lot of time
talking about Turo without acknowledging the massive inefficiencies in
traditional car rental business models, as well as the big difference in
customer experience.
~~~
eropple
_> I think we can all agree that regulations and taxes should be fairly and
equally applied._
I get what you mean, so this is not a dunk on you, the words "fairly" and
"equally" are at odds in this sentence. "Equally" implies a steady disinterest
in marginal utility and situational value; it's where we get Anatole France's
"the law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under
bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread." I would suggest
"equitably" over "equally".
I agree with the general thrust of your point. But this is the door through
which nasty shit sometimes sneaks.
~~~
maxkwallace
Thank you for that! I completely agree with your comment, and I appreciate the
attention to detail. I'll edit my post to change "equally" to "equitably" in
that sentence.
------
hn_throwaway_99
I certainly have no love list for the big rental car companies, but I don't
see any logical reason why I should have to pay additional taxes and fees when
renting from Hertz but not GetAround or Turo.
The article didn't go into it that much, is the current issue that Turo is
arguing that, as just a "platform", that hosts are the ones responsible for
taxes and fees and they're just not collecting or paying them? Similar to what
AirBnB said in the early days? Because I don't understand why existing laws
would apply only for traditional rentals but not peer-to-peer rentals.
~~~
kevin_b_er
These companies are very much about externalizing the cost. They externalize
cost onto the public for what is free pickup/dropoff of friends/family. They
externalize the cost of maintenance and insurance onto the owners. They
externalize the cost of public parking area to "store" the cars when not in
use.
What you most often are looking at is corporations exploiting benefits to the
public for their profit.
~~~
sct202
There's a guy in my city who is apparently parking 40 turos by his house and
using up a lot of the street parking to do it.
~~~
freewilly1040
This is a flaw caused by unlimited free on street parking, a zoning flaw that
needs to be fixed
~~~
AlexandrB
So instead of regulating a multi-million dollar “startup” we should regulate
everyone else instead.
~~~
arcticbull
I guess so, yeah. Free parking is a tax on everyone, but especially the lower
class. This happens because the extra space needed raises the cost of goods,
of adjacent property, and so on. The poorest and those without their own cars
have to pay for it too. Regardless of why we're looking into it now, it is a
problem, and we should address it. [1]
[1] [https://www.vox.com/2014/6/27/5849280/why-free-parking-is-
ba...](https://www.vox.com/2014/6/27/5849280/why-free-parking-is-bad-for-
everyone)
------
brogrammernot
Rental car companies have refused to adapt or change their model for many
years. They’re built upon antiquated systems with the thought that they could
never be touched, and to be blunt I don’t feel much sympathy for them.
They’ve been approached numerous times with more innovative uses of their
fleet and they’ve turned up their noses so many times at it because they felt
they didn’t have to change.
------
username223
> Steven Webb, Turo’s director of communications, says that 95 percent of the
> platform’s hosts rent out three or fewer vehicles.
Three or fewer, like the guy his own mini-fleet of two Tesla 3s and an X
mentioned earlier in the article? I doubt many people have 3 cars to "share"
without having bought at least one purely as a rental. And how many people can
afford to buy/lease more than 3 vehicles for their fleets? I'll bet that 95%
would be much lower if we looked at "one or two vehicles" instead.
These negative-externality-based "Uber/Airbnb for X" companies are getting
ridiculous. Has someone started one for prescription drugs yet? "We're not a
pharmacy, we're just a platform facilitating transactions between patients and
independent drug contractors." (Or was that Silk Road's business model?)
------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
>(Turo takes a 25 percent cut on each transaction.)
Let's at least stop using "sharing" to describe what these companies do.
~~~
capsulecorp
No lets not, the term makes perfect sense how its being used. It has
absolutely nothing to do with how much of a cut the business takes, not sure
where you picked up that impression but its not correct.
~~~
yeahitslikethat
If you share something, you don't charge. If you charge, it's called renting.
They are implying benevolence when there is none. Especially on the part of
the hucksters.
~~~
capsulecorp
That is incorrect, it may be what your kindergarten teacher taught you was the
nice thing to do, but it doesn't make it the definition of the word.
share /SHer/ verb 1.have a portion of (something) with another or others. "he
shared the pie with her"
synonyms:split, divide, go halves in/with;
edit: seems like a lot of people have the same misconception that sharing
implies free of charge, here is a link to the definition for those who are
unfamiliar: [https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/share](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/share)
~~~
yeahitslikethat
Rent
verb 1\. pay someone for the use of (something, typically property, land, or a
car). "they rented a house together in Spain" synonyms: hire, lease, charter
I'd say _rent_ is a better word. Because you're _pay_ ing. Share definition
says nothing about paying. Plus, when you share, the other party keeps what
was shared. Otherwise it's _borrowing_.
Words have meanings for a reason.
~~~
capsulecorp
>Words have meanings for a reason.
Yep and just because you don't like them doesn't mean you can change them.
Share is being used correctly and you have a massive misunderstanding thinking
that it has something to do with the company profit, but it doesn't. Not
interested in continuing discourse with someone who is willfully ignorant, go
believe what you want I couldn't care less. Cheers!
------
KingMachiavelli
> 4 states pocket excise taxes on rental cars, in addition to standard sales
> taxes and airport surcharges.
Initially, I was going to argue that the existence of random taxes on car
rentals and other mostly benign services is already an arbitrary unfair
practice for state governments to raise more revenue.
Then I looked at my own state's, Colorado's, rental tax - it's $2 on top of
sales tax which seems pretty reasonable. $2 seems pretty reasonable and small
to the overall rental cost especially when tha artical says they can add up to
an extra 30% on the car. Would I be happier if the extranalities of car
rentals were collected some other way? Absolutely but I don't think the extra
$2 is what car rentals are complaining about.
If the users of these apps are cheating and not paying the sales tax and
rental tax, then the rental companies have a 100% valid point but I have a
hard time thinking they just want these ride sharing/lending apps.
On the other hand, I would much rather have no random excise taxes on
arbitrary services and more taxes on the actual externalites they produce such
as taxes on fuel and conjestion pricing in dense areas.
~~~
brogrammernot
$2 per day plus an additional 7.25% tax from Colorado, plus 2.9% sales tax.
This has nothing to do with protecting rental companies and everything to do
with states being pissed they aren’t getting their cut.
~~~
KingMachiavelli
My mistake. I'm quite curious as to how the additional 7.25% tax is justified.
Perhaps it accounts for taxes that would have otherwised been payed when
purchasing a vehical?
------
johngalt
Rental car companies have more to worry about with ridesharing than any
competitors.
------
thinkingkong
What a conundrum. If you ask for permission, follow the spirit of the existing
regulatory environments, but arent actually breaking any laws then what
incentive do you have? You’d just be the foolish one while other companies who
don’t jump through all those hoops capture market and mindshare and the
regulatory bodies catch up.
------
atwebb
>Analysts predict the global market will double in value by 2022 to more than
$120 billion.
Double in 3 years? That seems excessive.
~~~
notfromhere
Analyst predictions about global market values are basically made up and
shouldn't be used for decisionmaking
~~~
yeahitslikethat
Analyst firms take money from their clients and the vendors they analyze.
They can't be trusted _at all_.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Side Project Website Feeback Request - jfajobi
Hey Everyone. I am a full time software developer who has always struggled trying to bring side projects to life. My two biggest issues were:<p>1. Trying to make a project that was too feature rich, I eventually got bored and abandon the project<p>2. I simply got nervous about showing people my work and I buried it.<p>With my friends advice I created a project with minimal scope. SkipTheStamps.com - a simple tool to send people postcards (either anonymously or signed). Choose from 5 of my preset photos or upload your own.<p>I ask the HN community to play around with the site and let me know what you think. Feedback I am looking for could consist of design input, ease of use (or lack there of), feature suggestions or anything that pops in your head.<p>Thanks in advanced,<p>Jide
======
agentoso
I like the idea. I was hoping to see previews without entering an address.
~~~
jfajobi
Thanks, I asked for the address first just to ensure we can actually deliver
to the location you want. (I attempt to verify the shipping address)
Was not sure which is more of a turn off, not seeing the cards first or making
an order and finding out we can't fulfill that order during the last step.
I am sure there is a happy medium there.
~~~
palakchokshi
Show the cards first. After a card is picked and before you take them to
customization ask for the address to ensure it can be delivered.
------
onion2k
A lot of the addresses I've tried get rejected even if I'm selecting them from
the autocomplete dropdown. That's sad. I really wanted to send President Trump
a postcard...
~~~
jfajobi
Hmmm that is frustrating, I will have to look and see what is going on there.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Using Google's own tools to create domain blacklists - jsarch
http://www.gnaught.com
======
jsarch
Update: fixed the Google account sign in link.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
MobMov creates a new guerrilla theater while reviving drive-in culture - pg
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/30/DDAIR9BH32.DTL
======
far33d
This is brilliant! It creates a venue for films that can't achieve wide
distribution through theaters without taking away the social aspects of going
to a movie and taking away the allure of the big screen.
There's definitely potential in this kind of thing.
------
rms
But it's still illegal.
Do laws count when they are completely unenforceable?
~~~
plusbryan
Correction: this is NOT illegal.
It's illegal to show films that you don't obtain licenses for, but if you get
the rights, it's perfectly legal.
~~~
nickb
Ever tried getting a license from MPAA?! Good luck trying to break that
cartel!
~~~
plusbryan
You're right, you wouldn't have much luck getting a film licensed by the MPAA.
They're just there to crack your kneecaps if you don't.
Swank is the most well known company that sells rights for public performances
of blockbuster films. Costs average between $150 and $300 for "non-theatrical"
showings (where you aren't selling any tickets)
But why shell out such ungodly sums for the muddied films of the masses? The
mobmov makes small showings (< 50 people) feasible, so we can show more
special-interest independent films.
And independent films are so much easier to license. For the showing featured
in the Chronicle, we watched a wonderful Canadian film called A Simple Curve.
It's not something to draw the crowds, but this, at least in my experience,
means a more thoughtful and meaningful script. Our showing was licensed
through the film distributor (filmmovement.com) directly for a small fee.
So no, you'll never see a movie like Tranformers playing on the wall of your
local dilapidated warehouse.
The good news is that independent filmmakers don't like the system either. It
restricts their creativity and screws them at every turn. My hope is that as
independent filmmakers find out about this new avenue for release, we'll start
to see new films produced that are ever more inventive and unique.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
From Defeat, Rejection to Success - epi0Bauqu
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120940892966150319.html?mod=rss_Today's_Most_Popular
======
dpapathanasiou
The guys behind "Valley of Broken Dreams: A YC Postmortem" should read this.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How To Become A Hacker - iamelgringo
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html
======
henning
I've probably read this a dozen times. I used to read it for motivation.
"Trying to learn to hack on a Microsoft Windows machine or under any other
closed-source system is like trying to learn to dance while wearing a body
cast."
I never agreed with this. The only time it's possibly a problem is if you want
to learn about operating systems, and in that case the source to a current
release of the Linux kernel is probably too complex. You'd be better off
running Minix under a virtual machine, which you can do in Windows (or Mac OS
X, or other proprietary OS) just fine.
A much more compelling argument is it's much easier to experiment with and
install open source software on systems that have package management systems
like apt-get. Certain excellent pieces of software run best on Unix-like OSes:
Emacs, the MATLAB clone Octave, numerical libraries like ATLAS and GSL,
Intel's LAPACK implementation, etc.
Whether you have the source to your kernel in particular is irrelevant in all
of this and has everything to do with the open source community and traditions
surrounding free software instead.
I view things this way because I've always cared more about making enduser
applications/solutions instead of libraries and systems packages.
~~~
cstejerean
try installing something like LFS (Linux from scratch) and see how much you
learn about Linux. Maybe I'm just old school but even on Windows I was always
studying the OS internals, the specs of the various protocols and the details
of the filesystem. The difference is in Linux I have access to the sourcecode
so in addition to reading a book on the specs I can study the implementation
ad well.
Does this really make me a better programmer? I hope so. But it might be just
an extreme form of procrastination.
------
tehmoth
the problem with esr's 'definition of a hacker' is it is basically how he
views himself at some point in his life.
~~~
rams
Havoc Pennington makes a similar point in his essay "Working on Free Software"
(<http://ometer.com/hacking.html>):
"Eric Raymond's thoughts on this topic are here; his HOWTO describes how to
join "hacker culture." The culture isn't really necessary to participate in
free software projects though, IMO. As long as you follow the community way-
of-working you don't have to get into the social aspects (unless you'd like
to)."
------
thorax
Attitude #2 is precisely what our startup <http://bug.gd> is intended for:
_2\. No problem should ever have to be solved twice.
[...]
To behave like a hacker, you have to believe that the thinking time of other
hackers is precious — so much so that it's almost a moral duty for you to
share information, solve problems and then give the solutions away just so
other hackers can solve new problems instead of having to perpetually re-
address old ones._
------
illicium
_"During the first ten years of this HOWTO's life, I reported that from a new
user's point of view, all Linux distributions are almost equivalent. But in
2006-2007, an actual best choice emerged: Ubuntu."_
Ubuntu sort of spoils users by making a fancy GUI available for most every
aspect of system management and administration. When I was starting out with
Linux, I must've went through about a half dozen of broken Slackware installs
(and a lot of banging my head on the keyboard) before I really got the hang of
how to work with a Unix system, but it was a great learning experience
nonetheless.
This isn't to say that Ubuntu isn't a great distro--it is, but I'm afraid that
its ease of use impedes the whole "learning to be a hacker" process, while
other distros practically force you to learn a lot to use them, and that's a
Good Thing.
~~~
mechanical_fish
_I'm afraid that its ease of use impedes the whole "learning to be a hacker"
process_
I have extensive graduate training in the art of building transistors from raw
silicon. I guess I'm some sort of god in your world. :)
In my world, however, building transistors from raw silicon is an esoteric
skill that doesn't have much use. Most of us prefer to spend a few bucks to
buy our transistors by the billion, because transistors are a solved problem.
And I'm happy to use Ubuntu and the Mac to actually get things done, rather
than pretend that repeatedly fixing bugs in the Slackware installer represents
a valuable form of education.
------
manny
"Don't call yourself a ‘cyberpunk’, and don't waste your time on anybody who
does."
Whoa! Where did that come from? Perhaps ESR had a bad experience watching
Blade Runner or something, but this is entirely uncalled for. Quite frankly,
cyberpunk remains fresh and still alive and happily uninfected by the
mainstream -- just how we like it.
~~~
tlrobinson
I think what he's getting at is that while cyperpunk and hacking culture are
not mutually exclusive, they do not entail each other.
From what I've seen a cyberpunk "hacker" is usually the "other" kind of hacker
(again, not mutually exclusive)
I'm sure ESR wouldn't tell you to not waste your time on an amazing hacker (in
the original sense of the word) who also happened to be into "cyperpunk", but
most cyberpunks are not amazing hackers.
------
systems
of course no one should want to be a hacker ... in the same sense that no one
want to be a book reader, you just can't suddenly force it on you to like
reading book! either you do or you don't like to read, think about what you
read and than discuss what you read ... if this ever gets a better name than a
'book reader' ... you can't choose to be one
i am of course a book reader
anyway, if you ever decide to be hacker, please read the article in the link
above, actually i would recommend you read all of esr writing, particulary the
cathedral and the bazaar ... learn python too, and hack on the twistedmatrix
networking framework... this will surely make u a great hacker ... :)))
------
iamelgringo
This should be be made required reading for this site.
~~~
kirubakaran
No offense, but I guess most of us here would have read this already, don't
you think?
~~~
kingnothing
I hadn't seen it until just now.
------
tlrobinson
I can't believe at one point he recommended Java...
------
0xdefec8
How to Become A Stereotype
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Recording TV in Linux: Dissecting the top solutions - pratumlabs
http://pratumlabs.com/blog/2017/06/the-state-of-linux-media-center-software/
======
supercoder
TLDR; It's a mess.
~~~
pratumlabs
I don't know if I'd say its a mess. There are three options that are well
aligned with emerging trends: Plex, Emby, and MythTV (to a lesser extent). The
rest have a lot of catching up to do if they want to remain relevant.
------
gkop
OP: What about Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions? Does that ever
create problems consuming TV on Linux?
~~~
pratumlabs
Our client sought outside legal advice concerning topics of DRM and copyright
(we are scientists and engineers, not lawyers). In general, it is illegal to
stream copyrighted content (even if you own it) to devices that are not
authorized to view the content. The results of American Broadcasting Cos. vs.
Aereo, Inc (2014) make it quite clear these statements extends to services
that re-broadcast over the air television in a public fashion.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Uber And Airbnb Might Be In Big Trouble - ugwigr
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2014/05/13/why-uber-and-airbnb-might-be-in-big-trouble/
======
jqm
I think this article is exactly right. These types of businesses are not
prohibitively expensive nor time consuming to start and leaner competition
without the "rents" is always a danger for them.
In addition, companies like Uber and Airbnb will have to do work clearing
regulatory hurdles leaving a "free" path for competitors.
"The early bird gets the worm. The second mouse gets the cheese".
~~~
cratermoon
Uber probably and Airbnb for certain are working to build regulatory hurdles
behind them. In exchange for being allowed to compete against the same
traditional real estate and hospitality businesses they came in to disrupt,
they're working with municipalities to rewrite the regulations such that the
Airbnb business model is specifically permitted while future would-be
competitors are presented with similar or higher regulatory barriers to entry.
In a decade or so, if Airbnb and Uber are still around, expect to see them on
the same side of regulations that they are currently opposing.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Reinvent the Wheel? Could Ethereum Use Docker, ZeroVM, VirtualBox or JVM? - tenaciousmv
http://forum.ethereum.org/discussion/1203/why-not-use-a-general-purpose-vm
======
tenaciousmv
Re: Latest response on Ethereum blog
([https://forum.ethereum.org/discussion/comment/6169#Comment_6...](https://forum.ethereum.org/discussion/comment/6169#Comment_6169))
I get it, resource management is a big a problem that applies to CPU, RAM and
storage. Capabilities to do such resource management exist, though they may
not be refined to the extent the blockchain needs. We will be reaching out to
ZeroVM, Docker and other sandboxing projects to better assess the ETA of
feature-completeness in this domain.
------
tenaciousmv
I asked the Ethereum guys this question, thought people here might be
interested in the answers. Let's discuss.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Hot Potato – Windows Privilege Escalation - mmastrac
http://foxglovesecurity.com/2016/01/16/hot-potato/
======
antmldr
My jaw kind of hit the floor after reading Google Security Research's issue
222; very glad someone has built a simplified PoC. With any luck this will get
some kind of response out of MS.
------
userbinator
Is the summary basically "turn off WPAD and this won't work?" Because that's
not hard to do:
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15029615/how-to-turn-
off-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15029615/how-to-turn-off-disable-
web-proxy-auto-discovery-wpad-in-windows-server-2008/25366609)
------
jevinskie
Running a server on port 80 (< 1024) doesn't require any elevated privileges
on Windows?
~~~
userbinator
This exploit doesn't depend on that; 80 might as well be 8000 or 8080(common
proxy port) or anything else. Observe that the proxy port can be specified:
return "PROXY 127.0.0.1:80";}
~~~
CyberShadow
Don't you still need to run the WPAD "server" on port 80?
~~~
breen-machine
Yup. That's why it needs to run on port 80.
I don't think Windows Firewall lets you listen on *:80, but localhost:80 is
just fine.
------
echochar
Many times I see commenters on HN making statements to the effect of "users
cannot run their own servers" and spurring a "debate" in the context of
someone trying to innovate away from the current asymmetric, client-server,
"calf-cow" internet.
I saw one such commment earlier today.
Thought experiment:
What about exploits like this one, among so many others over the years, in
Microsft Windows?
In many cases it sure looks like the user is "running a server".
There is a port open and listening, waiting for connections. And some remote
client can connect and issue commands.
~~~
digi_owl
> Many times I see commenters on HN making statements to the effect of "users
> cannot run their own servers" and spurring a "debate" in the context of
> someone trying to innovate away from the current asymmetric, client-server,
> "calf-cow" internet.
What that is about is that most consumer level internet connections do not
have a fix IP address. Thus you can't (easily) aim a DNS reference at it etc.
~~~
echochar
Understood. However try to reconcile this with the thought experiment I gave
above. You would be saying that these Windows exploits would not work because
users have IP addresses that are changing too frequently. Is it possible that
_in practice_ many "dynamic" IP addresses are actually quite static (i.e.,
remaining the same for months or longer)? In _theory_ they could change by the
day or week.
~~~
digi_owl
Well most attacks just use such a "server" for the initial attack, afterwards
they set up something that make outbound connections to a "command center" or
similar.
~~~
echochar
Yes. But the server capability is always there. It can be launched again any
time the attacker needs it.
~~~
digi_owl
In technical terms any computer can be a server. Just look at the BBSs that
was run out of C64s and similar back in the day.
But a server that can't be reliably reached is a useless server.
And the BBSs worked back in the day because dialing the same number days,
weeks, even months inbetween would lead you to the same BBS if the computer
was still running.
A domestic internet connection is simply not reliable enough for that. Yes, if
nothing happens electrically at either the customer or ISP end the IP will
remain for some time. But have a power failure and it is likely that the IP
will be reassigned. And that random aspect, that sometimes you can retain the
address for months, and other times get it changed within hours, do not help.
~~~
echochar
I agree firewalls and NAT are a nuisance, and today's internet is not one iota
as cool as the BBS days. The nuisances introduced by "ISPs" have hindered but
in the long run have not stopped reliable peer to peer internet. I will not
name the commonly known examples lest it divert the conversation.
There are a variety of workarounds for dealing with firewalls and NAT, and
after years of using them "experimentally", I can attest that they work
reliably, at least for me. Some of them are well-known, some of them are
commonly used, others are not.
If IP addresses assigned to so-called "reliably reached" servers were as
static as you imply in practice, there would be little need for a mechanism
like DNS. (And I'm not saying there is, just pointing out that there are a lot
of folks who believe IP addresses must be able to change without notice.)
In my experience, domestic internet connections with "dynamic" IP addresses
are "reliable enough" to do some "useful" things besides simply partaking in
the "calf-cow" web.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Line-By-Line Parser for Markdown - me_e
https://github.com/erusev/parsedown
======
kikki
I enjoy using Parsedown, but this is literally over a year old. This is hacker
"news", right?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What Ivy League students are reading that you aren’t - e15ctr0n
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/03/what-ivy-league-students-are-reading-that-you-arent/
======
nicolashahn
Appropriate that The Communist Manifesto isn't on the Ivy League list.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
President Obama: new Form 1099 rules are "probably counterproductive" - grellas
http://www.startuplawblog.com/?p=565
======
devmonk
Although, I'm quite aware it would cause a lot of accountants and government
workers to have to look for new careers, they could solve this problem with
the following hammer:
<http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_main>
~~~
hga
The Fair Tax is a clear political loser (as demonstrated in the elections a
few days ago), as people _know_ there's absolutely no way it will replace the
income tax, no matter what its proponents say.
I'm not even sure starting with the repeal of 16th Amendment would be enough
(the Supremes aren't sufficiently trustworthy), but any proposed
implementation of the Fair Tax is a non-stater until at minimum that's done.
------
gaoshan
This would suck! I'd have to send 1099's to so many office supply and
computing supply companies it would be ridiculous. Then again, I could hire my
12 year old son to do the work and pay him a rate fat enough to drive my taxes
down... hmmmm.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Typography of “Alien” (2014) - pareidolia
https://typesetinthefuture.com/2014/12/01/alien/
======
rdtsc
I really like these kinds of articles. I would have never noticed most of
these details.
Enjoyed the carefully thought out icon design:
[https://typesetinthefuture.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/alien...](https://typesetinthefuture.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/alien_semiotic_01_full.jpg)
Cryogenic vault -- the blue triangle pointing down to a stick figure. Photonic
system -- has the letter F shaped by what looks like fiber optic channels.
Radiation hazard is great too -- a stick figure dead on the ground, with the
sickly bright orange color filling the top of the square.
Then not all details could be consistent of course. And the whole self-destuct
French vs English instruction bit was funny.
Then the completely off the wall stuff-- 70s psychadelics creeped into the
keyboard design, that was fascinating. What else would you put on a self-
destruct computer console than "SHAKTI EXCESS", "PADME" and reference to a
phychadelic trip?
~~~
yolesaber
If you are into industrial and globalized signage / semiotics, do yourself a
favor and check out the Symbol Sourcebook -- [https://www.amazon.com/Symbol-
Sourcebook-Authoritative-Inter...](https://www.amazon.com/Symbol-Sourcebook-
Authoritative-International-Graphic/dp/0471288721)
Some of the symbolism they use for computer operations are fascinating
------
msane
Another great aspect of the first two Alien movies is that the musical score
is very sparse and subtle. Those films don't need to use constant music to
tell the viewer what to think or feel or notice, which is an amazing effect on
it's own.
~~~
nostromo
Fun fact about the score to Aliens. There's an iconic song towards the end
called Bishop's Countdown.
[https://youtu.be/TX1rxPBTyEY?t=1m](https://youtu.be/TX1rxPBTyEY?t=1m)
It has been recycled over and over again, particularly in trailers. It's like
the Wilhelm Scream... once you start looking you'll start noticing it (and its
homages) constantly.
[https://youtu.be/dZ0dH5qv1mA?t=1m23s](https://youtu.be/dZ0dH5qv1mA?t=1m23s)
[https://youtu.be/-bBay_1dKK8?t=59s](https://youtu.be/-bBay_1dKK8?t=59s)
[https://youtu.be/jdl6eAIx2K4?t=1m35s](https://youtu.be/jdl6eAIx2K4?t=1m35s)
[https://youtu.be/67oe0_s9EIw?t=45s](https://youtu.be/67oe0_s9EIw?t=45s)
[https://youtu.be/1608jthc2VM?t=1m20s](https://youtu.be/1608jthc2VM?t=1m20s)
~~~
lucidguppy
Reminds me of mars
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmk5frp6-3Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmk5frp6-3Q)
~~~
AceJohnny2
I love Mars (worth noting Holst wrote it between 1914 and 1916), it's jaw-
dropping to discover all the references that John WiIliams was inspired from
for Star Wars' music...
[https://youtu.be/5pM2SozsyPE](https://youtu.be/5pM2SozsyPE)
Also, obligatory Venture Bros reference ;)
[https://youtu.be/K0iTfasIpLc?t=1m34s](https://youtu.be/K0iTfasIpLc?t=1m34s)
------
ZanyProgrammer
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only programmer who doesn't have an interest in
typography.
~~~
chrisseaton
When I read articles about typography I feel like I'm reading pseudo science.
They change something to do with kerning or whatever and then say it's better.
Why is it better? It's not a falsifiable claim!
When I write an article saying I'm doing something better in code I need to
demonstrate it empirically.
Maybe that's not a reasonable way to read a design article though.
~~~
jfoutz
Off the top of my head, there are a couple of examples that might change your
mind. Freeway road signs. They need to communicate what lane to be in to a
broad range of drivers, in stressful situations, very quickly. You should
never notice a good interchange sign. a quick glance is enough to know you
need to be in the second or third lane. A bad sign leads to bad driving, or a
missed exit, depending on the aggression of the driver.
Airport signage is another pretty good example. I always look for the little
man/woman symbols with an arrow pointing to the restrooms. I've missed signs
that actually say "Restrooms ->" because there's so much visual clutter in
airports. And i'm usually tired and a bit stressed out about making my
connection.
Perhaps it is pseudoscience. In this context, I'd be willing to agree it's all
just learned conventions. I'd argue, studying those conventions, and
exploiting them is more than nothing though.
You should never remember a good sign. it's noticed, used and forgotten. You
will always remember a bad sign.
~~~
jschwartzi
As an example of bad signage, the sign for the I405 north exit on I5 south in
Washington always confuses me because the road curves across a hill, and at
the distance where you should be changing lanes, the sign is aligned with the
second lane from the left. It's not until you're passing under the sign that
you can see the lane it's indicating, which is actually the far left lane.
------
vegabook
This is a brilliant angle on an defining movie, the fairly flippant (and
genuinely amusing) tone of the article belying very serious and in depth
research. Indeed as a hobbyist font nut, I'm inspired to whip out Illustrator
to try and recreate some of the designs so well detailed here. The self-
destruct keyboard alone is a gem, the graphics on which are a perfect example
of the transition period from 70s to 80s design themes. Bravo for bringing a
37-year old movie so effectively back to life from such an original
perspective. Wish I had seen this in 2014.
~~~
vermontdevil
Be sure to read the blade runner version on that site. It's great as well!
~~~
argaldo
For the lazy web:
[https://typesetinthefuture.com/2016/06/19/bladerunner/](https://typesetinthefuture.com/2016/06/19/bladerunner/)
------
izacus
If you want to admire more of the typography and great aestetic of Alien, the
2014 game Alien: Isolation is perfect for that.
It pretty much encourages you to explore it's decomissioned (and of course
Alien infested) Sevastopol station, which is lovingly built to mirror the
original movie aestetic and it's full of terminals and other lore pieces :)
~~~
brohee
As much as I loved the art direction, which I can only qualify as terrific, I
greatly disliked the "running from closet to closet" gameplay...
~~~
mikestew
I have probably a couple of hours into that game, before I got bored and gave
up. In those few hours I have not seen a single alien. It's as if the game
studio forgot the title of the game.
~~~
brohee
Oh AFAIK there is only one and you get to see quite too much of it considering
you cannot really fight it, and the running from hiding place to hiding
place...
------
amasad
Reminds me of a similarly awesome blog deconstructing user interfaces in
scifi: [http://www.scifiinterfaces.com/](http://www.scifiinterfaces.com/)
------
rdtsc
The dissection of another classic -- Blade Runner on the same site:
[https://typesetinthefuture.com/2016/06/19/bladerunner/](https://typesetinthefuture.com/2016/06/19/bladerunner/)
------
rsync
Sigh. I thought (before I saw the "2014") that this was finally a new
typesetinthefuture post.
I would love to see new entries there.
~~~
eudox
This month:
[https://typesetinthefuture.com/2016/06/19/bladerunner/](https://typesetinthefuture.com/2016/06/19/bladerunner/)
~~~
tamana
Is he making an off joke when he claims that all the replicants are
animatronic, not played by human actors? Or were there animatronic heads used
in the movie?
~~~
combatentropy
I'm hoping it's his dry sense of humor. He's also pointing out how the
replicants have a problem with red-eye: "it's unfortunate that the producers
couldn't find a way to work around such a simple photographic bugbear." In
fact the filmmakers took great pains to add this golden glow to the
replicants. It's no accident at all. In the Final Cut DVD, they talk about how
they did it. I'm sure that Dave Addey watched this bonus feature, as
analytical as he is. He mentions Harrison Ford's eyes catch this glow at one
point, saying, "How strange! I'm sure it won't turn out to be significant."
This must be more dry humor, because there's also the fan theory that Deckard
is a replicant after all.
------
timmytokyo
Here's the video of the title sequence:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUtk96wURLE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUtk96wURLE)
~~~
ghostDancer
[http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/alien/](http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/alien/)
------
tgb
I found the typography of Interstellar interesting, if only because it may be
the first time humanity has ever seen serifs in space.
~~~
brute
From the Alien article:
> _This is most unusual, if only for being a serif (rather than sans-serif)
> on-screen computer font in a sci-fi movie._
------
Pxtl
For moon, it's no wonder there's so much similarity - they heydey of space
travel was he '80s, so Moon goes for a deliberately '70s and '80s vibe. You
see this again in The Martian, where somehow by coincidence his only
entertainment is Disco and Zork.
------
ionwake
It is oddly comforting to read this blog post, and compels me to post that,
this is because a selection of the images, specifically the typographically
focused ones, have been my default image posts on some boards for the passed
couple of months. If it is a coincidence, one can see why, it is a beautiful
film.
------
jetcata
I also noticed the grammatical mistake on MU/TH/UR's screen after
interrogation: it should have been 'Ensure', not 'Insure'!
~~~
privong
> I also noticed the grammatical mistake on MU/TH/UR's screen after
> interrogation: it should have been 'Ensure', not 'Insure'!
"Ensure" and "insure" are both valid words/spellings for this. The use of
"insure" is far less common, for this meaning, though. Both include "to make
(something) sure, certain, or safe" in their definitions:
[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ensure](http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/ensure)
[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/insure](http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/insure)
------
panic
Great article, but I have to laugh at the "hamburger" menu which slides the
entire screen over just to show two links.
------
lowbloodsugar
Is there a word to describe the kind of person who gets a hard-on when reading
this kind of stuff? I'm asking for a friend.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea in Your Personal life? - 001sky
Do you have unique, original, and outstanding <i>Orthogonal</i> ideas that drive and motivate your work?
======
alid
To live on an organic permaculture farm and build a scalable aquaponics
business. Actually, build an eco village while I'm at it. Such a hippie
capitalist ;)
~~~
twistedanimator
I was seriously coming here to say the exact same thing. Right now I am a web
developer, but I've been dreaming about starting a medium sized aquaponics
farm. I'm currently building a system that will use my master bath as a fish
tank to learn the ropes.
~~~
alid
Ha! That's awesome! It's seriously the future of food security for urban
areas. I'm dreaming up low-rise & high-rise apartment developments where
there's dedicated floors of aquaponics, securing food for those people in the
building. Rooftop gardens will have chickens and goats. Bet we could develop
an awesome app systemising the process too. Good times!
~~~
JoeAltmaier
Millions of acres are under cultivation, to feed America. It seems impractical
to get that from some rooftops, even under intense cultivation.
~~~
alid
I'm not American, so am more influenced by what I've seen in Australia and my
travels around South-East Asia. There are many urban areas that are not
surrounded by arable land, or the arable land they have is dedicated to
growing cash crops for export. Globally there's a massive movement towards
locally-grown, organically-sourced, low-mileage food, so aquaponics is one
solution that taps that.
~~~
JoeAltmaier
Its optimistic to call the effort 'massive'. Current agricultural practices
are massive. The movement toward local produce is 'boutique' maybe. In fact
the whole organic food deal is a speck on the agribusiness landscape.
------
orangethirty
My most ambitious idea is to leave this planet in a better place than what I
found it. Not for my child, but for all. I don't even want to be in the
history books. Just knowing that I made a differecne is more than enough.
------
beatpanda
What do you mean by "orthogonal" in this context?
~~~
realrocker
Perhaps Standalone or Non-Overlapping Ideas.
~~~
001sky
Yes, i think that would qualify
In general, for me I think of things that are not _immediate CV materiel_ per-
se.
But are fundamental composites of what you want to achieve ultimately, in
life.
This extends the time-frame and the skillset.
To things not immediately feasible or beneficial.
But perhaps not only interesting, but fundamentally determinative.
[Edits for context]
~~~
001sky
\-- Something that _supports_ but does not _propel_ your career.
------
zxcvvcxz
To become more social.
Seriously.
------
codegeek
To be able to Fly like a bird.
~~~
001sky
Do you mean, like a bike messenger on acid? or, something altogerther more
different? [1]
[1] _Well written but vaguely NSFW day-in-the-
life:<http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=84954*>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
KwiqFlick – Store and share files, we believe in simple and easy - kwiqflick
http://www.kwiqflickfeatures.com/
======
kwiqflick
We strongly believe that file transfer and storage is an important thing to
everyone, because it's so important to share ideas and information. Right now,
we're navigating through and around clunky ways of doing it and we want to
change that by making these two things seamless and easy.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Steve Case: Even in 1985, We Knew Facebook Was Possible - hornokplease
http://mashable.com/2012/10/05/steve-case-facebook/
======
hornokplease
I thought this was an interested comment on the early challenges of offering
internet access to home PC users:
_The fact that modems were viewed as "peripheral" to personal computers was
our ultimate hurdle. Back then you went to the "peripherals" section of
computer stores if your wanted to get connected._
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Art of Doodling - CrocodileStreet
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/05/22/the-art-of-doodling/
======
grenoire
One thing that always fascinated me is that in constrained mediums like
doodles (the constraint being time spent on it and the reliance on lines),
there still are hints so as to the artist being _professional._
The doodle of King, who is not a visual artist, is just incomparable to the
one of Cocteau, who did work in film and visual arts. There's something
charming to both of them, but the way trained artists can make even the
shoddiest of their work beautiful to look at is something I am quite envious
about.
Disclaimer: My doodles are shit.
~~~
TuringTest
It's not necessarily a thing of being professional. There is this mental trick
of being able to switch your mind from a symbolic to a visual processing
style, which is easy to do once you learn it. [1] (Betty Edwards[2] uses this
explanation to sell her books, but the first free exercises are enough to
understand what it's all about).
In the article, Stephen King's and Queen Victoria's doodles are clearly using
the symbolic brain, creating "drawings" equivalent to writing in hieroglyphs -
the parts of the drawn objects are unrelated to how something _looks_ in real
life, only to what each shape _means_.
You don't need to become a professional of visual arts to overcome that style,
only realize that you're doing it and _practice_ drawing from pure visuals,
without symbolism, and turning off the analytical brain.
[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOh4eIEjqvY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOh4eIEjqvY)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Edwards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Edwards)
~~~
dtn
I don't really agree with this. Betty Edward's process is great for drawing
from reference and learning to see. Drawing from imagination relies on a
completely different skill-set.
In Cocteau's case, I would even argue that it leans more towards symbolic
drawing, but with a more comprehensive visual library to draw upon- one that
would've been developed from his profession.
~~~
dbcurtis
I will disagree with your disagree. Edwards demolished a barrier for me in
learning to see and draw. YMMV but it was profound for me.
Edwards does focus entirely on drawing from observation, but I see that as a
necessary step on the way to drawing from imagination, in much the same way
that you must first learn circuit analysis in order to do circuit synthesys.
------
prashnts
I realised recently that doodling during meetings (yes, work meetings as
well!), and brainstorming has helped me capture more details than just writing
in my notebook. Having ADHD, it’s often difficult to follow so many ideas and
points being discussed.
My colleagues noticed that and I’m grateful that they specifically asked me to
doodle during a workshop we hosted. Here’s a cartoon I did during that time:
[https://twitter.com/prashnts/status/1104060675205316609?s=21](https://twitter.com/prashnts/status/1104060675205316609?s=21)
------
kristiandupont
I always carry a note book with me. It has my plan for the day
([https://medium.com/@kristiandupont/high-resolution-
planning-...](https://medium.com/@kristiandupont/high-resolution-
planning-a76175574e7f)), random notes and random doodles. I got into it after
purchasing an old copy of Thinking With A Pencil
([https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Pencil-Henning-
Nelms/dp/1626...](https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Pencil-Henning-
Nelms/dp/1626541841)) which I think was a recommendation from some thread in
here.
I am not sure what it does for me, but I've been quite consistent for well
over a year now and I do find all my old note books are quite fun to scan
through.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Show HN: Video Game Soundtracks - leonagano
http://vgsoundtrack.com
======
nailer
Neat. A lot of these make excellent programming soundtracks since they're non-
lyrical.
------
leonagano
Thank you. Good point
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Windows 8 banned by benchmarking and overclocking site - processing
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/164209-windows-8-banned-by-worlds-top-benchmarking-and-overclocking-site
======
ajross
Title is linkbait.
What's happened is that there's apparently a bug with the Win8 RTC API
implementation that doesn't properly calibrate for changes in the CPU BCLK,
which obviously makes it useless in the presence of overclocking (beyond mere
changes to the multiplier, anyway).
That's a bug, and a comparatively bad one (though obviously it won't affect
production systems), and it should be fixed. But the lede use of "banned"
makes it sounds like MS was caught "cheating" or something, which is wrong.
Presumably other OSes like Win7 or Linux expose the underlying ACPI RTC
directly. Win8 probably tried to finesse things by using the CPU timer
counters to improve precision.
------
AaronMT
This is fascinating. I wish we had view to the bug report submitted to
Microsoft; I would love to see the discussions about this one over there.
------
vxNsr
Can someone go into a little more detail about how Windows 8 can screw with
the RTC?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Australian company to pioneer commercial courier deliveries by drone - tomhoward
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/push-for-liftoff-on-drone-deliveries-in-australia-20131014-2vixx.html
======
madao
This would be great for Pizza!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Artificial Intelligentsia - jamiehall
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-artificial-intelligentsia-timms
======
dsacco
Offtopic, but I have a really difficult time reading articles like this. I
don’t know if this reflects a problem with the style or my ability to focus,
but I find it really annoying:
_> “SANDHOGS,” THEY CALLED THE LABORERS who built the tunnels leading into
New York’s Penn Station at the beginning of the last century. Work distorted
their humanity, sometimes literally. Resurfacing at the end of each day from
their burrows beneath the Hudson and East Rivers, caked in the mud of battle
against glacial rock and riprap, many sandhogs succumbed to the bends.
Passengers arriving at the modern Penn Station—the luminous Beaux-Arts hangar
of old long since razed, its passenger halls squashed underground—might
sympathize. Vincent Scully once compared the experience to scuttling into the
city like a rat. Zoomorphized, we are joined to the earlier generations._
This goes on for about seven paragraphs before I have any idea what the
article about. I understand “setting the scene” but I can’t tell whether or
not to care about an article if it meanders about with this flowing exposition
before indicating what its central thesis is.
It seems like a popular style in thinkpieces and some areas of journalism. The
author makes a semi-relevant title, provacative subtitle, and five - ten
paragraphs of “introduction” that throw you right into the thick of a story
whose purpose doesn’t seem clear unless you know what the article is about.
Rather than capturing my attention with engaging exposition, I find it takes
me out of it. But it must work if it’s so uniquitous; presumably their
analytics have confirmed this style is engaging.
~~~
sullyj3
The next sentence afterwards is a monstrosity:
"But, I explained to my work colleagues as the Princeton local pulled out from
platform eight and late-arriving passengers swished up through the carriages
in search of empty seats, both the original Penn Station and its unlovely
modern spawn were seen at their creation as great feats of engineering."
I had to highlight between the commas to get through that one.
~~~
maxxxxx
It seems growing up with German is a great preparation for such sentences :)
------
mogget
A thought: Don't let some of the (valid) criticism alone dissuade you from
reading this.
IMO the author makes some very valid points about fuzzy products and endpoints
in the current AI/data/ML/magic craze. These are under-articulated elsewhere,
because, well hey there's a lot of money flowing! Who wants to be a killjoy
and not "get it" (just like in 1999 ;)?
Two more specific points: 1\. The descriptions of the CEO are eerily familiar
to me. This guy is almost an archetype. Reminds me of a person I've worked
with in that role who was also associated with a similar-ish company. It
really paints the con-game side of all this.
2\. A deeper point (and worth the read for me) was the author's thinking about
how all this didn't fit existing needs and workflows and then has a chilling
thought: "It’s possible that the market for a user-hostile data system that
inaccurately predicts the future and turns its human operators into automatons
exists after all, and is large." You can make an argument that this kind of
thing has already happened in modern customer service and, with greater
negative impact, in healthcare. I.e. where the tail of easy metrics and
saleable endpoints ends up wagging the dog of quality.
~~~
ghostcluster
The problem, besides the condescending tone towards everyone around him, is
that he doesn't present an understanding of the actual state of the field of
AI and deep learning, and what's worse, he cites bad science essays that will
misinform more people about how a brain works.
There's a meme going round about how the best way to refute an argument is to
'steelman' it: present the best arguments of the opposing side before refuting
them. He doesn't do that here, which is one of the reasons I found it
frustrating.
I agree that the way the venture raising market works today _rightfully_
deserves some fair criticism.
------
fckedml
By this rate, looks like we need a "Fucked AI", in the style of
"fuckedcompany.com". [1]
These people were eating VC hype money to build Hagbard's FUCKUP from the
Illuminatus! Trilogy. [2]
Not sure who I feel more sorry for. The smart employees wasting years of their
prime chasing some unattainable pipe dream, the VC's who got suckered into
pouring their money into some vaporware precog technology, the author trying
to disguise a shit river with meandering prose, or my upcoming pay cut when
the AI winter sets in.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucked_Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucked_Company)
[2] First Universal Cybernetic-Kinetic-Ultramicro-Programmer (FUCKUP). FUCKUP
predicts trends by collecting and processing information about current
developments in politics, economics, the weather, astrology, astronomy, the
I-Ching, and technology.
------
indescions_2018
Excellent Sunday morning long read!
Some of PreData's recent "insights":
"China Trade War Fears Still Running High"
"Mall Blaze Sparks Outrage Across Russia"
In short, nothing that couldn't be revealed from the briefest skim of
headlines from tomorrow morning's WSJ.com. One can stay better informed
leaving a Bloomberg TicToc (which is partially machine generated) tab open all
day.
My takeaway is that the world of the Jim Shinns is rapidly approaching
extinction. Deals done poolside at country club dinner dances. Name game
shmoozing. And serendipitous encounters on private islands. What was
considered the predominant pathway to immortality in Fitzgerald's day.
Viable alternatives exist now. And any business model solely differentiated by
prestige will be subsumed by free or near-free competition.
~~~
hodgesrm
I enjoyed the article as well (see my comments above). But I would debate your
takeaway. The money quote is in the last sentence:
> Three months later, Predata secured a second round of venture capital
> funding.
People like Jim Shinn will always find a way. At least that's the argument the
author seems to be making.
------
d_burfoot
> Machine learning, the logic- and rule-based branch of AI supporting
> Predata....
That's a _really_ embarrassing mistake.
------
untangle
Flawed? You bet. Overwrought? A bit.
But I found this Sunday AM read enjoyable, articulate, and largely on-point
(overlooking a few minor scientific errors).
The core themes here are about the hubris of a rich CEO/founder, the zaniness
of the current AI "market," and their resultant effect on a particular NYC
startup.
This is a season of "Silicon Valley" (HBO) done east-coast, hedge fund, Ivy
League style.
------
atrexler
Outside of the firms owned/operated by the real clever boys, I wouldn't be
surprised if this describes the vast majority of "AI" efforts unfolding at
dozens/hundreds/thousands of companies. Everybody is getting on the bandwagon
and either don't have any clue or find out that their customers don't even
want what they are selling at the end of the day.
I'd be shocked if anyone in the industry hasn't worked for or with a Jim.
Spot-on.
------
hawktheslayer
Reading about what _Predata_ was trying to do reminds me of the field of
_Psychohistory_ in Asimov's Foundation series.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_(fictional)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_\(fictional\))
------
not_a_moth
This startup's existence and failure and is yet another symptom of how we
grossly overestimate what AI can do. If the task isn't simple, repetitive, or
clearly defined, unlike the real world, it's probably not going to succeed.
Are there any AI startups that are an anti pattern here?
------
rdiddly
The point being made is: Technology without vision is dehumanizing. This is
widely known and is, for example, the reason good schools make undergrad
engineering students take at least a few humanities classes before they leave.
Technology without vision is dehumanizing - it happened with Penn Station,
where narrow quantitative and engineering goals displaced the broader human
ones and led to the widely-hated station that's there now, which was excavated
by people who were called hogs, and which makes passengers feel like rats. The
loss is especially acute there, since everybody knows what the old station was
like (
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=old+penn+station&kp=-2&iax=images&...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=old+penn+station&kp=-2&iax=images&ia=images)
). It was an edifice comparable to the great _gares_ and _bahnhöfe_ of Europe
(or to Grand Central which for some reason we decided to keep), a monument to
national power, industrial wealth, and the technologies of the time, but also
a space that evoked something a little more noble in the human spirit somehow.
The writer is also drawing a parallel with the dehumanizing effect of the
particular startup he worked for. The analysts are the hogs, he's the rat, his
own perceived loss of creativity (probably a bit exaggerated... aahhh youth)
is the dehumanization part, and the absentee CEO is the lack of vision. (If a
CEO has one function, it's to provide vision. And in second place, not far
behind, is to establish company culture.)
Arguably, placing technical/quantitative goals above more humanistic ones is
what an organization like Nazi Germany was all about. But obviously it's way
more complicated than that, and I don't intend to address it further.
I would point you toward Dmitri Orlov's concept of a _Technosphere_. Analogous
to the "biosphere" it models human technology as a quasi-intelligent entity
that is global in scope.
Book: [https://www.amazon.com/Shrinking-Technosphere-
Technologies-A...](https://www.amazon.com/Shrinking-Technosphere-Technologies-
Autonomy-Self-Sufficiency/dp/0865718385)
Excerpt (not much exposition but you'll get the point):
[https://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-technospheratu-
hy...](https://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-technospheratu-
hypothesis.html)
Everybody here are the ones who most need to hear this message. Some will
doubtless resist the criticism of ML/datasci with the fervor of someone whose
long-held religious belief is challenged for the first time. But you needed
that. Feel free to prove the critiques wrong, by the way... that's kind of the
whole point. Prove them wrong with broad projects that actually benefit
humanity instead of being a mess of unintended consequences and unimpressive
bullshit.
------
ghostcluster
I found the author to be slightly irritating on several occasions, dropping
veiled references to Valleywag-style anti Silicon Valley memes, and then I got
to the part where he regurgitates that idiotic article about the brain not
processing information, and there being something magical about human brains
that cannot be simulated [0].
He is right about his claim of having no right to be called a “director of
research", as it seems to me his skills center on cribbing thoughts pulled
from other people's thinkpieces. It's clear that he doesn't have a deep
background in either neuroscience or engineering and that he was brought to
the company from a background in business journalism.
In his condemnation of the state of AI research, there is no mention of
AlphaGo, or a description of the teachable pattern recognition techniques that
have swept the deep learning scene over the last 6 years.
I'm sorry to be so harsh, but there is a certain tone to this piece, "let's
hate all those startup a*holes", "Mark Zuckerberg can't write like F Scott
Fitzgerald because his knowledge of liberal arts is too limited, unlike mine"
that seems like a snooty class signaler among a certain hipster set.
There is a compelling story in here, but to me the general attitude is just
condescending to everyone around him.
[0] [https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-
informati...](https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-
and-it-is-not-a-computer)
~~~
goatlover
> idiotic article about the brain not processing information
How about the brain creates information from constant interaction with the
world based on the kinds of bodies we have and our needs/wants? This
information doesn't exist as information until the brain creates it.
Information is the product of minds. It doesn't exist in the world on it's own
to be processed. As such, the brain is something other than a computing
device. Computers exist because we figured out how to arrange physical systems
to process information that's meaningful to us. But to nature, it's just a
physical system (and not even that, since physics is a model of nature we
create).
That's Jaron Lanier's paraphrased argument against thinking of the brain as a
computer. To say that information exists in the world to be processed is to
make a metaphysical commitment that information exists ready made for us.
> and there being something magical about human brains that cannot be
> simulated
It doesn't have to be magical. There are different philosophical views on the
world and the mind which lead to different conclusions. If one takes the hard
problem of consciousness seriously, then consciousness cannot be computed. Not
because of magic or the supernatural, but just because consciousness is not
computable, since computation is itself an abstraction (Turing machines don't
exist on their own anymore than do any other mathematical systems). Unless
your metaphysics falls along the lines of Tegmark, Plato or Wheeler (it from
bit).
Instead you can think of The brain as an information creator. We give meaning
to the world. We build models. The world itself just is, it's not information,
math, physics or symbols.
~~~
adrianN
Computers interact with the world too. I'm looking at a screen that produces
patterns of light based on the internal state of my computer. How is this
different from a brain interacting with the world? The brain is a finitely
sized hunk of matter and matter seems to follow laws. We currently have no
reason to assume that those laws can't be simulated by sufficiently sized
computer, so anything observable the brain does a computer can do too.
~~~
goatlover
Yes, computers are physical systems. But what does their interaction mean
without humans around to interpret their output?
------
gaius
_Faced with the impossibility of determining whether a technology is
intelligent or not—since we don’t know what intelligence is—Silicon Valley’s
funders are left instead to judge the merit of a new idea in AI according to
the perceived intelligence of its developers. What did they study? Where did
they go to school? These are the questions that matter_
This is a perfect summary of the VC situation today. Too much money chasing
no-one knows what exactly, but they're sure they'll know it when they see it.
~~~
graycat
From all I've been able to see, that statement
"... judge the merit of a new idea in AI according to the perceived
intelligence of its developers."
about information technology VCs and AI is just totally wrong: I don't believe
VCs do that. Why? Generally, from 50,000 feet up, it's too far from the norms
of the accounting, banking, and investing communities respected by the limited
partners of the VCs. Uh, the limited partners (LPs) are where the VCs get
nearly all the money they invest, and the limited partners are conservative
people, managers of pension funds, university endowments, etc. Not only do the
VCs not do that, the LPs won't let the VCs do that!
Instead, about the shortest believable view I can see is, VCs look for
_traction_ that is significant and growing rapidly in a market large enough to
permit a company worth $1+ billion in a few years.
The VCs view of _traction_ is a weakening of the usual measures the
accounting, banking, and investing communities use and respect of audited
revenue and earnings.
So, sure, the best form of _traction_ will be earnings, then next best,
revenue, next best lots of interested customers, e.g., advertisers willing to
pay for eyeballs, then last best, just lots of eyeballs. In these norms,
intelligence, brilliance, AI, technology, etc. are mostly publicity points,
window dressing, the wrapping paper on a birthday gift, and with a dime won't
cover a 10 cent cup of coffee.
In a sense, the VCs have a good point, more from insight into humans and the
real world than anything in a _pitch deck_ : (1) With technology, it's too
easy to push totally meaningless, useless BS. (2) Carefully studying core,
deep, difficult technology is just too darned difficult to be practical for
the VCs.
Or the investors believe in a Markov assumption: The future of the business
and the technology from the past are conditionally independent given the
current traction, its rate of growth, and the size of the market. To be clear,
this Markov assumption does not say that the technology and the future of the
company are independent.
The stories in the OP about the company Predata, to abbreviate "predictions
from data", are good: The company was floundering around with guesses about
what would work, e.g., for predicting terrorist attacks, that were like
something from smoking funny stuff.
But here is one big place the VCs and technology are going wrong: We do have
some terrific examples of how to do well. The examples are from the past 70+
years of the unique world class, all-time, unchallenged grand champion of
using advanced, even original, technology for important practical results --
the US DoD.
A grand example is GPS. GPS was by the USAF, but it was a refinement of an
earlier system by the US Navy, for navigation for the missile firing
submarines and started at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics
Laboratory JHU/APL. At one time I worked in the group that did the original
work and heard the stories. A key point: The original proposal was by some
physicists and almost just on the back of an envelope. Soon the project was
approved and pushed forward with a lot of effort. Then, presto, bingo, it all
worked just as predicted on the back of the envelope. E.g., a test receiver on
the roof navigated its position within one foot, plenty accurate enough for
the US Navy.
So, net, for project selection and funding, here is the shocking, surprising,
point that the VCs miss: Really, given the back of the envelope work, the rest
was relatively routine and low risk.
And the past 70+ years of the US DoD is awash in comparable examples.
In blunt terms, the US DoD has a fantastically high batting average on far out
projects evaluated just on paper. Given good evaluations of the work just on
paper, the rest is relatively routine and low risk.
Well, that project funding technique does not fully solve the problem of the
VCs: The VCs also need to know that the resulting product will have big
success in the market. But for that there is an okay approach: The dream
product would be one pill taken once, cheap, safe, effective, to cure any
cancer. In that case, the technology is so good for such an important
practical problem in such a large market that there's no question about making
the $1+ billion. So, from this hypothetical lesson, net, need the technology
to be the first good or a much better solution, a "must have", for a really
pressing problem in a big market. So, right, this filter would reject
Facebook, Snap, and more. So, right, need to start with a really big problem
where with new technology, say, as in the US DoD examples, can get a "must
have" solution for a really big problem, and Facebook and SNAP are not such
problems. Just what are such problems? That's part of the challenge. But with
current VCs, come up with such a problem and a solution on paper, with
brilliant founders, with AI, etc., then still will need more than a time to
cover a 10 cent cup of coffee. Again, to get VCs up on their hind legs, bring
then good data on traction, significant and growing rapidly in a large market;
if the _secret sauce_ technology helps, fine; brilliant founders, fine; even
if there is no technology, fine; in all cases, what really matters is the
traction.
~~~
untangle
I think that you are over-generalizing. VCs use a number of disparate
investment theses, including gut feel and betting-the-team in a "hot"
(trendy?) space. Another dynamic is funding a team that previously produced a
big win for the VC firm (as appears to be the case here).
And do you have a reference for the "fantastically high batting average" of US
DoD research? Are you familiar with the SBIR program, for example?
I would judge that neither DoD/DARPA nor VCs have a great batting average. But
both have some spectacular wins.
~~~
graycat
> VCs use a number of disparate investment theses
To be more clear, I believe that such other issues, often mentioned, some on
the Web sites of VCs, are nearly all just smoke to hide what I listed as the
main issues. In particular, of course, I was pushing back against the
statement I quoted from the OP -- their statement was much worse than mine!
But here on HN, I warn entrepreneurs who have already sent 100+ e-mail pitch
decks to VCs: I gave my best guess on really how VCs select deals.
Batting average reference? I'm not considering the SBIR program at all. E.g.,
GPS, coding theory, e.g., as part of radar, lots more in high end radar, e.g.,
phased arrays, Keyhole (a Hubble, before Hubble, but aimed at the earth), the
SR-71, the F-117 stealth, the SOSUS nets and adaptive beam forming sonar, some
of ABMs, a huge range of parts of the SSBNs, high bypass turbo fan engines,
the nuclear power reactors on the submarines and air craft carriers of the US
Navy, and much more were not SBIR projects. I am drawing from early in my
career in applied math and computing for problems of US national security
within 100 miles of the Washington Monument and comparing with what I've seen
in VC work.
The Navy's work on rail guns looks darned promising.
For DARPA, yes, they flop a lot, on their batting average, much more than the
rest of DoD, but DARPA also has some spectacular wins. E.g., of course,
TCP/IP. And they fooled me on their autonomous vehicle "challenge": While I
believe that autonomous vehicles are a long way from being ready for real
roads with real traffic, I can believe that so far already the DoD has gotten
some good progress for some cases of logistics. E.g., one of the issues in
Gulf War I was truck drivers. There an issue was that a lot of the drivers for
the US were women, and the Saudis didn't like women driving vehicles. So,
there was a trick, a deal: The US and the Saudis agreed that when the women
were in uniform and driving US military vehicles, they were "soliders" and not
women. Otherwise they were still women and could not drive!!!
Uh, the robots of Boston Dynamics are impressive, maybe still less good on
legs than a cockroach, but already or well on the way to being useful for the
US Army.
------
visarga
It's an ad for their company posed as an opinion piece.
~~~
gaius
_It 's an ad for their company_
I guess I'm not in their target market then because it reads like a hit piece
- so much so that I was sure that all the names were changed!
~~~
jstewartmobile
I Googled because it sounded too harsh to be real, but they are all real
people!
The author is out of his damn mind for not changing names, but NMP.
~~~
aerodog
He said he didn't have to sign an NDA. I suppose he felt free to say what he
wished!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Rat Park - happyscrappy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park
======
bjourne
I'm just gonna be lazy and link to what I wrote the last time the Rat Park
page came up on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7743089](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7743089)
It comes up a lot, maybe because the result is kind of positive and aligns
well with HN's crowds drug liberal views?
The RP experiment wrt _morphine addiction in mice_ has not been replicated.
Also, afaik, Bruce Alexander had a hypothesis about drug addiction, designed
an experiment to prove his hypothesis. Performed the experiment, measured the
results and found that they confirmed his hypothesis. It's not a good way to
do research. The results of the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram
experiments should be discredited for the same reason. Because their results
were tainted by their designer.
Extraordinary claims requires extraordinary proofs. That mice wouldn't become
addicted to morphine is most certainly an extraordinary claim.
~~~
shutupalready
> _had a hypothesis about drug addiction, designed an experiment to prove his
> hypothesis. Performed the experiment, measured the results_
That's the very definition of the Scientific Method, so I don't understand
what problem you're pointing out:
"The overall process of the scientific method involves making conjectures (
hypotheses), deriving predictions from them as logical consequences, and then
carrying out experiments based on those predictions." \-- from
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method)
(That the experiment has not been replicated as you claim could be a bad sign,
but that's a separate matter.)
~~~
spb
The problem is designing an experiment to _confirm_ the hypothesis rather than
to _test_ it.
~~~
tedks
This is not a problem. You can have any hypothesis and any test. If your test
has validity it's a valid way to test the hypothesis. That's it.
The scientific process is a social one, and if you feel that an experiment is
constructed unfairly, you can devise another experiment to falsify it.
Saying that an experiment "confirms" a hypothesis is just a rhetorical trick
of the comment parent. Experiments can only ever falsify.
~~~
te_platt
This is subtle but important distinction. It is absolutely possible to do a
confirming experiment that can give misleading results. There is a nice
explanation in the wikipedia article under "Confirmation Bias".
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias)
A striking example is the (2,4,6) test. From wikipedia:
"Wason's research on hypothesis-testing The term "confirmation bias" was
coined by English psychologist Peter Wason.[66] For an experiment published in
1960, he challenged participants to identify a rule applying to triples of
numbers. At the outset, they were told that (2,4,6) fits the rule.
Participants could generate their own triples and the experimenter told them
whether or not each triple conformed to the rule.[67][68] While the actual
rule was simply "any ascending sequence", the participants had a great deal of
difficulty in finding it, often announcing rules that were far more specific,
such as "the middle number is the average of the first and last".[67] The
participants seemed to test only positive examples—triples that obeyed their
hypothesized rule. For example, if they thought the rule was, "Each number is
two greater than its predecessor", they would offer a triple that fit this
rule, such as (11,13,15) rather than a triple that violates it, such as
(11,12,19).[69] Wason accepted falsificationism, according to which a
scientific test of a hypothesis is a serious attempt to falsify it. He
interpreted his results as showing a preference for confirmation over
falsification, hence the term "confirmation bias".[Note 4][70] Wason also used
confirmation bias to explain the results of his selection task experiment.[71]
In this task, participants are given partial information about a set of
objects, and have to specify what further information they would need to tell
whether or not a conditional rule ("If A, then B") applies. It has been found
repeatedly that people perform badly on various forms of this test, in most
cases ignoring information that could potentially refute the rule."
~~~
4ydx
Yes their rules might be more specific than the general rule, but that is not
a problem. Their rules were a correct subset of the more general rule (if what
you are describing is accurate). Now if they are claiming a broad hypothesis
and only providing a set of data that asserts a subset of the hypothesis, that
is a problem. They are being misleading one way or another. If the researcher
is presenting a hypothesis and misses out on data (for whatever reason), then
somebody else will (ideally) point this out. Nonetheless, just acting like
this misrepresentation can happen therefore don't trust some particular study
is little more than baseless criticism.
------
mamer
I lived in an apartment where 6 out of 8 apartments were occupied by
alcoholics or drug addicts. Nearly every block on that street was the same.
This was Glasgow, and the drug of choice was heroin, although everyone also
smoked as much marijuana as they could afford. These people's lives weren't
particularly shit on a day-by-day basis, but they had nothing but misery on
the horizon. If they had kids they would lose them, they would never work,
never be praised. They'd never see the world. Most of them hadn't been outside
Glasgow for years, if not the whole of their lives. They would probably never
go to the beach or on even the shittest package holiday. Those who were
obviously junkies (struggling to walk, sunken faces and destroyed skin) were
basically seen as an underclass by everyone from their peers, to the rest of
the population and the police. But there were people living in the same
street, in the same apartments, with far less money, working shitty jobs, who
weren't even open to taking drugs. The structure of this area wasn't bad at
all - it could have been Rat Park, if it wasn't filled with drug-addicted rats
who just pissed in the common areas and threw their rotting food out of the
window. I don't have any great insight here - but I think there's more to it
than environment as suggested by this study. There are people all around the
world who live in far worse conditions and who aren't turning to substances,
even when they are available. My feeling is that rats living in cages, who can
see rats living in Rat Park would be more likely to seek addiction. And
perhaps even more so if they see other rats being moved from cages to Rat
Park, but not them. I don't know if rats could understand this concept though,
which might be why they aren't all living in Afghanistan's poppy fields.
~~~
frozenport
I like this post because it reminds us that humans have a complicated society,
unlike rats. Which can muddle the conclusions of this study.
>> I don't know if rats could understand this concept though, which might be
why they aren't all living in Afghanistan's poppy fields.
And indeed humans don't.
~~~
patal
>> complicated society, unlike rats. Which can muddle the conclusions of this
study
Or rather of any study trying to deduce from rats onto humans. And that's not
to say that rats have a non-complicated society.
------
nemothekid
Reminds me of reddit comment I once read of someone's experience with heroin -
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Drugs/comments/1rhn38/heroin_users_o...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Drugs/comments/1rhn38/heroin_users_of_rdrugs_are_you_addicts/cdnfuxe)
~~~
api
I knew someone once who'd used heroin for a while and gave it up and he told a
similar story. He said it "makes the pain go away," and I asked what he meant
and he just said "all of it" and smiled. He said I'm in horrible, horrible
pain and have no idea because I'd never tried heroin before. :O
Immediately made me think of this great old sci-fi story:
[http://bestsciencefictionstories.com/2009/05/17/desertion-
by...](http://bestsciencefictionstories.com/2009/05/17/desertion-by-clifford-
d-simak/)
~~~
ufmace
I remember talking to somebody in the medical industry once. I don't remember
exactly what his job was, but he told me that he had done some work with
opiate addicts. Supposedly, their brains themselves can get so powerfully
addicted to the drugs that it actually generates phantom pain in order to
force the user to get more opiates to make it go away. Every test they can run
shows that the addict is actually feeling real pain, but there is absolutely
nothing physically wrong to cause it. The idea that the brain can work on that
level, actually causing artificial sensations to trick our conscious mind, is
both amazing and scary.
~~~
MichaelGG
Forget physical pain. Opiates make the mental pain, the pain of existence go
away. Stress, business problems, finances, it's all manageable with opiates.
Most people don't know just how much better human existence can be with a bit
of tweaking to our chemistry.
We accept we're no longer in our ancestral environment, why can't we accept
that our default chemistry is suboptimal?
~~~
stefantalpalaru
Suboptimal in what way? We create, develop, improve because we are
unsatisfied, not because we are happy.
~~~
MichaelGG
I don't think that's accurate. Certainly some people work jobs just to get
cash to pay bills. But plenty of people create for the fun of it.
Our brains operate suboptimal because we can not control their state. We get
worried when it provides no benefit. We get sad and troubled when we
shouldn't. We experience intense pain with no way to shut it off. We lose
focus, even when we really want to concentrate.
Everyone should have the capability and choice of modifying their brain
chemistry on demand. Your premise that people should be forced to be
unnecessarily unsatisfied because some of them might go on to do great things
is cruel.
~~~
frozenport
>>Our brains operate suboptimal because we can not control their state.
This is backwards, our brains are _us_.
>>We lose focus, even when we really want to concentrate.
This is a microcosm of the dangers involved, in modifying brain chemistry.
Consider things like hyperfocus or working straight on amphetamine leading to
shit code.
>>Our brains operate suboptimal because we can not control their state.
Many of the things you want can be achieved well by a machine or somebody
without emotion? Do we want this?
>>Your premise that people should be forced to be unnecessarily unsatisfied
because some of them might go on to do great things is cruel.
Its hard to decouple satisfaction from drive, and willpower - we have rather
blunt instruments and current drugs build real dependency problems making it
almost impossible to stop. Today's drugs don't do what you are talking about.
------
voxic11
Or, in comic format [http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-
park/](http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/)
~~~
542458
Holy cow, what a terrible website. Hijacks the back button, scrolling is so
over-sensitive as to be useless, the left and right perform in non-intuitive
ways, and the animations all have a delay before they start.
~~~
bradbeattie
Further, scroll a few pages using your scrollwheel, then press the right key.
You'd expect to continue to the right, but instead are scrolled all the way
back to the left to page #2. Eesh.
------
b_emery
From near the bottom: "Some further studies failed to reproduce the original
experiment's results, but in at least one of these studies[12] both caged and
"park" rats showed a decreased preference for morphine, suggesting a genetic
difference"
Still, it's an intriguing result. The reviewer comments from science and
nature would make interesting reading - too bad they are not public.
~~~
kbenson
But also, from the immediately preceding paragraph: "Several later studies did
appear to confirm its findings — for example, Bozarth, Murray and Wise in
1989, also published in Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior — but nothing
came of those either."
That paints a confusing picture, so without looking at the specifics of the
later studies for possible differences, I think it's hard to come to a
conclusion.
~~~
bjourne
Wikipedia isn't so good when it comes to drug related topics. Or rather, it is
atrocious since the linked study
([http://wings.buffalo.edu/aru/HOUSING.html](http://wings.buffalo.edu/aru/HOUSING.html))
arrives at the completely opposite result Wikipedia claims. It's an
interesting read because it also discusses why setting up a study to fairly
measure voluntary drug intake among groups of mice is very hard.
~~~
kbenson
After reading portions of that study, I find it hard to make meaningful
comparisons across them. The cited source's two conditions seem to be fairly
close in many respects IMHO:
"The first group was housed in individual stainless steel cages (18 x 25 x 18
cm) that prevented tactile and visual contact among the rats."
"The second condition consisted of rats housed in groups of 10 in a large
stainless steel cage (45 x 101 x 39 cm) that permitted social contact; these
rats displayed normal play behavior, dominance struggles, and social
grooming."
Okay, one rat in 450 cm^2 vs 10 rats in 4545 cm^2, both in steel cages.
Compared to Rat Park, which was 8.8m^2 (close to twice the size), and was
specifically _not_ a steel cage[1]. Then again, I doubt this study was done
specifically to confirm or refute the earlier experiment, but to test further
hypotheses in the same area.
1: [http://www.brucekalexander.com/articles-speeches/rat-
park/14...](http://www.brucekalexander.com/articles-speeches/rat-
park/148-addiction-the-view-from-rat-park)
~~~
bjourne
Rats are social creatures so you can't just measure the area of their habitat
divided by the number of inhabitants. The experiment setup would be analogous
to humans living either in prisons or in solitary confinement.
In my previous comment, I cited another study
([http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9148292?dopt=Abstract](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9148292?dopt=Abstract))
that also failed to replicate RP. That time the flaw of that replication was
possible inadvertently introduced strain differences among the mice. It's
always possible to find some variable that is different and therefore claim
that the result isn't relevant. I'd imagine that's one big reason why
replication efforts is so uncommon in the scientific community.
Btw, BK Alexander has had over 30 years on him to setup a new Rat Park, have
it monitored by other scientists, and prove once and for all that his original
results weren't just "a fluke."
------
geographomics
Puts me in mind of a study a few years back where they had socially housed
monkeys self-administer cocaine [1]. Like all primates, each group of monkeys
ended up with a dominance hierarchy. The most dominant had a relatively nice
life compared with the subordinates: more grooming from others, more play,
more attention in general.
It turned out that the subordinate monkeys were much more susceptible to the
temptations of cocaine. In contrast, the dominant ones were able to resist its
allure a lot more effectively.
The researchers also looked at the neurobiology of the monkeys. Before being
socially housed, they were kept in individual cages for a couple of years.
They looked at the main pleasure centre of the brain and measured the level of
dopamine receptors (of the D2 type) present there. These receptors are
directly stimulated by naturally occurring rewards like social activity, food,
sex, and so on - but also stimulant drugs like cocaine.
All the monkeys had pretty much the same D2 receptor level when they were
cooped up in single cages, with little variation. But when they were socially
housed, the D2 levels of the dominant monkeys rose significantly higher; this
too was associated with their lessened vulnerability to cocaine.
So it seemed that social environment can have quite the effect on the
neurobiology of one's reward pathway, and potential for drug abuse (as the Rat
Park experiment suggested).
On reward pathways - in human stimulant addicts you also see lower D2 receptor
levels than in non-addicts [2], although this is lacking a comparative reading
from before they were addicted, so we don't know if that's near the state they
were in when they started abusing the drug. Having said that, in non-addicts
there is a natural variation in D2 receptor levels, and those with less D2
enjoy stimulants a lot more [3], just like the subordinate, lower D2 receptor
monkeys.
Unlike Rat Park, however, all the above is based on stimulants, which directly
affect the aforementioned receptors. Whereas morphine takes a more indirect
route, with different receptor types, so it's not quite comparable. Still,
interesting to think about how much we may be slaves to our neurobiology, and
our social surroundings.
[1] doi:10.1038/nn798
[2] doi:10.1177/026988119901300406
[3] doi:10.1176/ajp.156.9.1440
------
cthalupa
Diacetylmorphine is still used in several European countries as a front line
analgesic. Other forms of morphine are widely used for pain relief on a
prescribed basis all over. If it is as simple as using morphine addicts you to
morphine, why are no much wider swathes of the population addicted to it?
I don't know that it's purely environment, but there's plenty of evidence out
there that seems to suggest it's more than simply chemical dependency.
~~~
vilhelm_s
Really? Which countries are those?
My impression was that basically the only country that uses heroin for pain
relief is the UK, and even there it is basically only used in cases where
addition is not an issue, e.g. terminal cancer patients.
~~~
cthalupa
I might have been mistaken on several countries - I can only find sources for
it's use in the UK
But it is used by first responders as well:
[http://www.sjtrem.com/content/22/S1/P15](http://www.sjtrem.com/content/22/S1/P15)
A decent amount of air ambulances polled use diamorphine. I'm pretty sure (but
unfortunately having difficulty sourcing) regular ambulances have it available
as well.
It's widely used as palliative care in the UK as well, as you pointed out -
but it might be worth noting that's not it's sole use, and palliative care
doesn't always mean they're going to be dying soon enough that addiction
wouldn't be a harmful issue to deal with.
------
O____________O
This was brought up by Johann Hari on the Bill Maher show last week:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxmvFRtYuYQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxmvFRtYuYQ)
(I heard that discussion discussed on the Adam Carolla Show from the 10th. I'm
guessing it's a hot topic at the moment due to Hari promoting, I think, a
book)
------
MrJagil
I would suggest this submission from a few days ago, to anyone interested in
the subject:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9029301](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9029301)
------
raldi
He's lucky he didn't do this experiment in today's climate; it would've been
the new "shrimp treadmills".
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Anyone interested in building tools for showing bias in news? - harigov
We all know how the election turned out. I believe the internet is contributing to echo chambers because of filter bubbles. I think it is rare to see some news that is not biased one way or another, and I believe it is hard to expect it not to be so, because of our own individual biases. I think there is a need for tools that can help us see the other side.<p>What if we had a tool that is delivered as a browser extension, that can show links to alternate views (think URL links) of the exact same topic that you are reading? It can use information like how biased the current article is towards different people/events/ideas and find an alternate article that can help you understand other-side. It may not solve all the problems but it would be a good start. Would you find it useful? Do you have a better idea?<p>This requires skills (NLP/ML) that I don't have but I am willing to spend time/effort (I am a programmer/big-data-engineer) to make it a reality. Would anyone be interested in working on it? It will be open source and any organization that runs this will be non-profit.
======
michaelbuckbee
I'm concerned that your frame for this might be off as I don't think the
"filter bubble" is rational opposing viewpoints around a particular topic so
much as there just being so much misinformation and plain weirdness out there.
There's a saying about it being 10x harder to refute bullshit than it is to
spew it. How do we in the information and technology wing of society build
tools to deal with that?
Alex Jones had a rant about how Obama and Hillary Clinton both smell like
sulfur because they're demons.
I'd assert it's a "real story" and exactly the kind of filter bubble issue
we're talking about as Alex Jones was personally thanked post election by
Trump [1] and when it happened the sitting president of the United States made
remarks about it [2].
I had a real conversation with an elderly relative of mine who told me quite
straight faced that they read all about this and how it was true - this isn't
bubbles it's different realities.
1 - [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-alex-
jones_...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-alex-
jones_us_5829eb21e4b0c4b63b0d9249)
2 - [http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/12/politics/obama-sulfur-smell-
al...](http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/12/politics/obama-sulfur-smell-alex-jones/)
~~~
mtberatwork
Indeed, if we do not agree to a common set of facts and a shared reality, how
then do we proceed with any kind of meaningful debate? To paint a basic
picture, how do you debate the feasibility and merits of sending humans to
Mars with a person who denies the moon landings? You might say these are
extreme cases, but with the rise and "normalization" of Alex Jones-type media
outlets, this will only get worse.
~~~
splawn
Exactly, when it comes to reality not everybody gets a trophy. Critical
thinking and science are waaaay undervalued in our culture.
~~~
551199
Reality is lot of the science is wrong as well. Intentionally paid by special
interest or the end result is defined before any science is done.
You don't want to look science religiously either.
~~~
cwisecarver
IIRC one of the main tenants of science, when I was learning it in middle
school in the early '90s, was that it's fact until it's disproven. We don't
know everything about it which is what makes it different than religion.
There's no faith involved.
I know a lot of it is corrupt and aiming for a target but good scientists will
tell you that they're basing their findings on studies which may have flaws
and they'd want you to try and reproduce their studies to tell them if they've
gotten something wrong.
~~~
pizza
This is what falsifiability is all about in science.
Mathematics relies upon proofs, but there is no such thing as a scientific
proof.. You can find sufficient conditions for a phenomenon and have a wholly
water-tight argument as to why it occurs, but you can't use use observation to
find necessary condition.
This is because observations are evidence, and if a future observation shows
problems with your theory, you should not discard your evidence (unless of
course your secondary theory is that your evidence exhibits a model for some
reason why it doesn't explain what it seems to explain on the surface, e.g.
experimental error), yada yada..
~~~
Chris2048
I'm not sure this is True, as you can use probabilistic arguments.
~~~
pizza
Probabilistic models are what I was referring to; all probabilistic models
should produce a prediction, and also a measure of confidence. That measure of
confidence can never be 100%. Similarly, you can never have an
incontrovertible belief that is not a mathematically/logically-constructed
fact 'outside' of the messy real world in some abstract chamber walled off
from anything that is like a real life observation, no matter how certain.
Basically, you can't have P(A) = 0 or 1 as your prior probability, because
then you break Bayes' rule in the sense that new evidence is meaningless -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromwell%27s_rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromwell%27s_rule)
------
return0
I think the tool you need is "skepticism". Teach people to not rush to ascribe
labels to everything they don't like, and to stop ignoring anything that has
been labeled as X-ist by their bubble. Teach people to not think with slogans
and hashtags or listen to celebrities.
~~~
harigov
Well, that may work but you also need to have intellectual resources to be
able to process all the information and see something for what it really is.
Also, people serving news are upping the game by using the latest in
psychology research to influence us. We need _somebody_ on our side.
~~~
return0
Hmm, i think its a very difficult task. I think perhaps a useful thing would
be to intentionally break the bubbles. Something like an inverse-
recommendation engine. E.g. instead of "people who read article X also read
Y", you say "people who read X did not read Z". Or if you had access to
people's facebook likes (does facebook provide an API?) you could find the
most anti-correlated users and recommend each other's liked stuff etc.
~~~
harigov
Isn't what I mentioned sort of similar? It is difficult for sure which is why
I am asking for help.
~~~
return0
I think people in general avoid the other side, and they don't have enough
time for that. Thats why i suggest a mix up of sides. That way you read each
story once, but as a whole you get exposed to both contexts.
~~~
harigov
Interesting. I'll keep this in mind.
------
alistproducer2
> I think it is rare to see some news that is not biased one way or another
I would posit that part of the problem is the implicit assumption that biased
!= factual. This assumption is true on both sides of the political spectrum,
but it takes on a different character for those on the right.
I understand the sentiment that prompted you to post this, I'm just not sure
what you propose is any kind of a solution. If anything I believe it may make
things worse by affirming the bias != factual assumption.
~~~
mtberatwork
I would also add that the "bias argument" is trotted out so much that it
appears to be turning into a cliche in its own right. For instance, I may link
to a cogent, factual article published by Politifact only to have it quickly
dismissed as a "biased" source by those too lazy to consider its content.
------
noname123
This is a pretty good website and they also have a proprietary algorithm to
determine the political spectrum of the source:
[http://www.allsides.com/](http://www.allsides.com/)
NYTimes is ranked moderately liberal while Fox News is ranked right
([http://www.allsides.com/bias/bias-
ratings](http://www.allsides.com/bias/bias-ratings))
~~~
harigov
Thanks! It seems interesting. The problem I see is that - it's hard to pull
people away from their news sources to something unbiased. We need to take
unbiased articles to the people. Also, journals shouldn't be the only source.
Every side needs to be heard and someone's voice may come from their own blog.
I am not sure how it would work but we should at least give it a try.
~~~
rando9000
I'm curious how you think this would work.
First of all, I'm interested in what you think a news publication free of bias
would look like. Would it be a straight recitation of factual occurrences?
That would be useless, right? How would you decide which story gets a big
headline? Which detail gets included?
Second, the USA Right in general has completely broken with the idea that
there is any such thing as "fact" that matters. Evidence, etc. is irrelevant.
Look at the Right's views on climate change, etc. I'm sure there are people on
Hacker News etc. who will be like "now you're just being a Bias Liberal!" if I
don't say "the Left has its problems too" but the Left's problems, such as
they are, are the traditional problems of political parties: maybe the Left's
policy prescriptions won't work, maybe their need to maintain a coalition
means they aren't able to address Problem P, etc.
The Right in the USA is unique in having decided that there is no evidentiary
standard high enough when Rightist positions conflict with reality. So
removing bias from news sources and ensuring everything is quite factual won't
affect the ~40% or so of the USA who frankly couldn't give a flying fuck about
reality.
~~~
harigov
I am not interested in unbiased news sources. I am interested in showing
alternately biased news source so that you can develop your own opinion. Even
showing snippets of alternate views superposed on the same article can help
people a bit.
My aim is not to solve the problem in its entirety. If others cannot
understand our opinion, we should at least try to understand theirs. The
current situation is horrible in terms of people not even having a clue as to
what's going on. If 10% benefit from this, that means there are 10% of people
who at least know both/many sides.
~~~
lj3
> it's hard to pull people away from their news sources to something unbiased.
> We need to take unbiased articles to the people.
> I am not interested in unbiased news sources.
So, which is it? I think the focus on bias vs unbiased news sources is a
distraction. ALL news is biased. That is something that will never change.
> If others cannot understand our opinion
What if the issue here is that others understand your opinion perfectly, but
still disagree with it? This whole conversation is starting to sound a lot
like you want a tool that will magically make people agree with you.
~~~
harigov
Good catch regarding the biased/unbiased. Parent to that post pointed out that
there is a news source that tries to show unbiased news. I was implying that
we need to take such news sources to people, rather than expecting them to get
to that on their own. As I mentioned elsewhere, the idea is not to show
unbiased news but rather show other side of the news (in the bias spectrum). I
am not entirely clear on what makes the most sense, which is why I posted it
here.
I don't have any claims on people not agreeing with me. I have claims on me
not understanding what's going on. I think if such a tool as I proposed
existed, I would be happy to use it.
~~~
htwillie
The best "tool" available is the No Agenda Podcast.
Hosts Adam and John present national and global issues as portrayed by mass
media, and systematically DECONSTRUCT the stories. They not only highlight
biases, but explore propagandistic elements and discuss how the media
intentionally affects the consumers.
Most importantly, they work to identify the MOTIVATIONS for medias' biases in
the first place, and demonstrate for their listeners how to be much more
critical, skeptical, and analytical in the way they consume the news.
Listen to a few episodes and you might rethink the need for building a tool at
all.
~~~
jquip
In all aspects, they would be brilliant, but what about spectrum of content
coverage. What about readership?
But this dissemination of information by identifying biases of the entities
involved is a tactic that can be used by anyone. Objective thinking belongs to
everyone, doesn't it?
------
wendybeth
I also don't have the skills for building such a thing. But if I could help
with such a project through testing/QA, or contributing to a website, or
gathering resources - whatever, really - I would, and I would use it. I've
been thinking a lot about confirmation bias and echo chambers lately, too, and
the truth is I don't know exactly where to look for opposing viewpoints all
the time, and it's hard to gather the courage to just dive in when I know a
good amount of it will make me feel ill.
Maybe just starting with a collection of opposing resources? There could be a
call to action to ask people to submit articles or sources for various
"stances" on different topics, and a list divided by topics and view points,
or links to the few sane and awesome discussions you can occasionally find
where people who think differently actually talk to each other about their
differences like rational human beings. That might be an approachable place to
start, anyway.
~~~
harigov
I created a new GitHub project over here -
[https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer](https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer)
and a corresponding gitter chat group over here -
[https://gitter.im/newsalyzer](https://gitter.im/newsalyzer). You can feel
free to contact me through my id @ gmail so that I can start the conversation.
------
jstewartmobile
One component of this problem that is rarely mentioned is bias-by-omission.
Journalists commit this sin frequently and vigorously. With enough elbow
grease, you could make some progress towards detecting it.
------
pg314
It is certainly an interesting idea, and I don't want to discourage you, but
how would you reach the people who would benefit from it the most? If you are
aware of a filter bubble, you can easily seek out alternative information...
~~~
harigov
Good point. If it works, maybe we can convince browser developers to include
this as default similar to how security is done. We are putting more effort to
secure our computers than securing our minds. Even if I were aware of being in
a filter bubble, it takes time and effort to get out of that. We need to make
it easy.
~~~
arkymark
I agree with the comment below about this being a technological solution to a
human problem. That said, I'm interested in looking into the NLP/data side of
things, and I look forward to how this idea would supplement existing news
sources. Keep me posted on the status of this project! :)
~~~
harigov
I created a new GitHub project over here -
[https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer](https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer)
\- drop me an email at my id @ gmail if you want to join the discussions
------
mevile
I saw two big issues on both right wing and left wing political blogs and news
sources over the election: assumption of bad faith (and in the worst case
intentionally taking the least favorable interpretation of some news item) and
lack of fact checking. Untruths abound.
It happened on both sides, people were routinely taking everything Trump was
saying and turning into a joke or making it out worse than it was (some things
were very bad and deserved the attention, but lots of things weren't bad but
were painted with that same brush). Until people are willing to admit that
whatever the result will be of this kind of project will not address the root
of the problem.
------
wyldfire
I think the idea is promising but I'm pessimistic that those who need it most
would opt-in.
It sounds like a valuable project: good luck.
~~~
harigov
Thanks. It is clear that most organizations don't want to invest effort in
doing what is right. If there is some ready-to-use extension/service that is
proven to help, maybe we can convince the browser developers to include it in
their default installation.
~~~
lj3
That's a dangerous idea. You seem convinced that you're right and other people
are wrong. So much so that you want to force this idea of right and wrong on
people by installing it in their browser by default?! This smacks of soviet
era re-education.
> maybe we can convince the browser developers to include it in their default
> installation.
Any browser that decided to do this would quickly find themselves out of
business. Free will exists for a reason. Attempt to circumvent it at your own
peril.
~~~
harigov
I am not sure if we are talking about the same thing. I am not talking about
right and wrong. I am talking about someone's opinion and alternate opinions.
~~~
lj3
It's the "let's add it to the browser by default" part I have an issue with.
If people want to be able to see alternate opinions easily, they'll install it
on their own. If they don't, no amount of forcing it on them will get them to
consider alternate opinions. It'll just piss them off.
------
PaulHoule
Another issue is that many biases are structural, technological or driven by
commercial pressures.
For instance, I would say CNN is biased toward coverage of school shootings
and airplane crashes. CNN has the problem that there is not enough news to
fill 24 hours so they run a heavy rotation of the same crap that is cheap to
produce. Probably the best footage they show is stuff they downloaded off
Youtube.
When you catch the CNN crew on a slow news Sunday they will admit that their
problem is engaging an audience, both in the sense that they need to make
money and also in the sense that they have some duty to inform the populace,
the populace has duty to inform itself, etc. The truth is their content is
boring, depressing, and awful but they have varied their formula a lot and
they really believe they've found a local maximum of what people will watch.
In some sense CNN was biased towards Trump because he's interesting. I would
look for news about Trump every day because it was likely he would say
something crazy again and I think this was the case for a lot of other people.
CNN, Fox News and MSNBC all had great ratings this season.
This 1971 book
[https://www.amazon.com/Information-Machines-Ben-H-
Bagdikian/...](https://www.amazon.com/Information-Machines-Ben-H-
Bagdikian/dp/0060902582/)
is about as ahead of it's time as Ted Nelson's work and is very much about
what news would be like in the age of the World Wide Web and it contains a
damning indictment of the very concept of "news". (i.e. not only is there not
enough news to fill a 24 hour tv show, but it's arguable that there is enough
news to fill a newspaper every day)
~~~
jjn2009
>In some sense CNN was biased towards Trump because he's interesting.
Bias with respect to how much coverage there was of the candidates, however
many would say the content of that coverage was biased against him.
Besides this small point I agree. Time spent on a particular subject or topic
is a subtle bias in itself which can be driven by many things (including
money) and has huge effects on public perception of people and issues.
How does one expose bias in this subtle behaviour in an automated way, even
with machine learning?
~~~
PaulHoule
I think the sheer amount of press coverage that Trump got made him stand out
of the pack.
Really I think a lot of the negative coverage Trump got could have been
beneficial to him. For instance, if you are looking for somebody who is going
to "shake up Washington", then denunciations from Republicans such as Mitt
Romney and Paul Ryan add to his credibility.
~~~
jjn2009
I think it's more probable than not that it ended up helping him, but it
significantly polarized opinion of him as a candidate.
------
pinetop
I recently began working on a (somewhat) related NLP project looking at the
shift in sentiment in Trump-focused articles published pre- and post-
election. The motivation for the project is the observation that many of the
left-leaning news media outlets - who consistently lambasted Trump in the
lead-up to the US election - have begun to dial back their criticism post
election, presumably in an attempt to (re)build bridges and ensure their
continued relevance in the ensuing Trump milieu. It seems that the results of
such an analysis have the potential to be a concrete and relatively simple
example of the deviation from any stable media narrative, and perhaps a nice
opportunity to spread this message to a slightly wider audience.
The project is nascent, but it should be straightforward to implement (I have
already begun to amass articles from several major news sources). While this
may or may not be relevant to your stated goal, I'd be happy to share more
info if you're interested!
~~~
harigov
Hey pinto, I created a new GitHub project over here -
[https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer](https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer)
and a corresponding gitter chat group over here -
[https://gitter.im/newsalyzer](https://gitter.im/newsalyzer). You can feel
free to contact me through my id @ gmail so that I can start the conversation.
I would like to make use of your code for fetching articles from different
news sources as a starting point. You are free to contribute to the project as
well. Please let me know!
------
iaw
What I've wanted for a while was a curated news source that allowed me to
collapse topics (e.g. only one story about the presidential race per day). The
goal would be to present both "perspectives" as well as identify the core
shared truths between the two.
The problem is cross-article context comparison is actually a bit harder than
news article summarization and the amount of time required to pursue it made
it seem a bit too much of a chore.
One extension would fall to politicians and public entities that make
statements where it could validate/compare their statements to their historic
actions. Beyond the "is this reporting accurate" it would go into "do we think
this actor is being truthful based on historic behavior"
Edit: The other nice thing about this is that I could hear about the things
that _aren 't_ the recent election cycle or terrorist attack. It's like
sensationalist news signals were saturated which raised the noise floor
drowning out all of the other news.
------
mazr
We have a small team of researcher on that topicm working from Berlin and
Paris, come say Hi or get in touch ! :) [http://cmb.huma-num.fr/wp-
content/uploads/2016/02/Algodiv-Ge...](http://cmb.huma-num.fr/wp-
content/uploads/2016/02/Algodiv-GeneralPresentation-2016-en.pdf) A great
article of O'Reilly about this topic too :
[https://medium.com/@timoreilly/media-in-the-age-of-
algorithm...](https://medium.com/@timoreilly/media-in-the-age-of-
algorithms-63e80b9b0a73)
~~~
harigov
Hey mazr, I created a new GitHub project over here -
[https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer](https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer)
and a corresponding gitter chat group over here -
[https://gitter.im/newsalyzer](https://gitter.im/newsalyzer). You can feel
free to contact me through my id @ gmail so that I can start the conversation.
I think your expertise could be of real help in building this.
------
anasfirdousi
I'm already working on my startup which started way before this election. News
bias didnt happen and it is not a new problem. It's been there for centuries.
Unfortunately, it's my startup idea and I don't want to open source it. The
work is in its super early stages but if some one is interested in teaming up
on this and working together, shoot me an email at [email protected]. I
live in Silicon Valley so if your local it will be great but location doesn't
really matter if you passionate about the idea!
------
tmj
Instead of making some sort of judgement call (this is biased in X manner),
how about a tool along the lines of something I read about in an SF story a
long time ago (sorry, don't recall the title or author). I remember the point-
of-view character looking at news items on a screen and things like
"connotation indices" and "hyperbole metrics" were included. Those sorts of
indicators would give each reader a chance to realize to what degree bias
exists and leave it to them to decide how important that was.
------
cdvonstinkpot
I was on an Assembly project that tried to do this, think it was called
"Flipside". It never went anywhere, IIRC required coders didn't materialize.
Having been inspired by sama's dialogue regarding the downside of unfriending
those with opposing views (on the election), I've militantly kept up on
opposing Facebook friends' perspectives, giving conscious effort to see their
point(s). I see the value in adding opposing news sources to my feed, but the
rancor I see (on both sides) is a turn off. Haven't found reliable opposing
sources that don't require that I, at least at some level, apply a sort of
what I've come to refer to as 'normalizing' their points. So much emotionally
charged rhetoric- I guess the 'sizzle' factor sells, but requires additional
calories burnt to see through & try not to be disproportionally influenced by.
Maybe a sub-Reddit or sub-Voat -type thing could be built which includes meta-
rating elements to allow for rating bias leanings. Dunno what kind of software
might already exist that could do this kind of thing for cheap.
tl;dr: A failed Assembly project tried this recently It's hard to create a
fair Facebook feed of opposing views A Reddit/Voat -type board with meta-
elements to track bias might exist cheap
~~~
jquip
I'm thinking on the same lines as you! :)
------
qwrusz
A different or supplementary approach could be removing the bias from a news
item.
Instead of trying to determine which biased side an article is skewed towards
_and_ then finding other links to what is determined to be the "alternative
view". Scrubbing bias or at least highlighting it is already helpful.
For example: at work we get daily emailed briefs with major business news
items summarized to ~3-5 bullet points of facts. Journalist opinions/bias and
rhetoric language is mostly removed in the bullet point sentences. It's not a
perfect system by any means, not even close, and I would love to see something
similar offered that's improved and expanded in what it can do.
This type of bias scrubbing/summarizing is easier in business news and sports
news which involve more numbers and figures reporting (+nowadays many of the
full articles may also be written entirely by bots - see link below). It would
be harder to expand this for longer investigative/politics news articles. But
a partial imperfect solution here is better than status quo.
I would be a user of a tool that could summarize key "unbiased facts" from
articles and I would be interested in helping build it too.
Link to a NYT story about algos writing/summarizing news:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/opinion/sunday/if-an-
algor...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/opinion/sunday/if-an-algorithm-
wrote-this-how-would-you-even-know.html?_r=0)
~~~
hga
What if the bias was created by omitting important facts that, for example,
contradict the narrative of the item.
Sports are indeed a good domain for what you're talking about, but that's
because they're run by well known rules, it's a highly artificial domain, not
directly including the messiness of general human affairs (except in that
they're played, refereed, managed etc. by humans).
Business ... well, how many stories about Yahoo! have ignored its negative
market net worth when its Alibaba stake is removed, when that was relevant?
Not necessarily examples of bias, but....
~~~
qwrusz
Good point about omission of important facts. It's tough because facts can be
absent from a news item intentionally and unintentionally. Journalists have
time and size constraints - so even when striving for accuracy and
objectivity, facts may just be missed and some other known facts will
certainly be left out as determined not relevant enough at the time of
writing. This is just the reality of reporting news.
Professional Journalism has ethics and standards - of course w/ ongoing
debates in how they are practiced - and they are taken seriously by the
industry as a whole. Wikipedia has more info:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_ethics_and_standard...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_ethics_and_standards)
Ultimately, for news items where a reader wants to get a fuller picture of the
story he/she is going to have to go read multiple longer articles about it.
Scrubbed bullet points may offer discovery with less bias at this initial
stage and from which to choose those stories to go read more about.
I don't want to get off topic, but the Yahoo example mentioned is interesting
and I think worth maybe discussing so
_TL;DR skip this next part if very wonky Yahoo stock news reporting is not an
interest:_
Where did you get your Yahoo business news?...Firstly, Yahoo's (YHOO) value is
not negative ex Alibaba (BABA). "A company's shares are worth what someone is
willing to pay for them" is a relevant quote here and Verizon offered ~$4.8
Billion to buy Yahoo ex Alibaba (also ex Yahoo Japan btw).
Pretty big difference between a negative value and $4.8Billion!
Second, if talking about a stub Yahoo valuation? Like using some shorthand
value estimation method based on looking at: (BABA's recent stock
prices)x(size of Yahoo's stake) and comparing that amount to where YHOO's
market cap is trading at? Then yes you could end up at all kinds of crazy
totals, including negative numbers, depending on what shorthand valuation
method you chose to use...
But these types of calculations, maybe interesting and fun, are basically
meaningless in the real world. The amount Yahoo will receive for its Alibaba
stake at some unknown time in the future cannot be calculated accurately from
BABA's stock price today. Nor can it derived from whatever $ amount Yahoo has
written in its books for the value of their BABA stake (Book value <> market
value). (Sum of parts also <> market value)
Yahoo can be trading at a discount (or a premium) to one's hypothetical future
value calculations for all kinds of reasons: eg YHOO's potential +$10B tax
liability uncertainty should they sell their BABA shares with capital gains
(Yahoo still talking to IRS about this and its unclear how it will play out
but it's shocking Yahoo has not been given clearer answers by the IRS yet to
quite fair questions about the tax code)
Yahoo is also still facing material issues in Verizon deal not yet finalized
(YHOO email breach may change terms, this is also unclear), etc.. etc..
Basically, _Stock Valuation Is Not News_. Though some stock trading websites
look like news or are attached to legit news sites (Barron's to WSJ for
example). Barron's is not news.
NYTimes DealBook discussed Yahoo stub being negative. DealBook is a blog.
[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/10/business/dealbook/how-
to-v...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/10/business/dealbook/how-to-value-
yahoos-core-business.html?_r=0)
An analogy for those not familiar with Yahoo's stock price valuation: This is
like guessing how much money you could receive from selling your house if you
tore it down and sold it for scrap wood and separately put the plot of land on
the market. You also have to calculate this future value without knowing if
your local council will approve the idea, or how long it will take, or what
prices for scrap wood/plots of land will be, or how much tearing down _your_
house will cost, or the % odds you secretly have been living in a house built
over an old unicorn graveyard and can't sell the land at all.
One can imagine all these factors are why a number calculated for future
"value" of stock may be _very_ different than what actually is received when a
sale happens. Like way off. Like a negative number vs. +$4.8Billion way off.
------
larubbio
I had thought about something like this a couple of years ago. My idea wasn't
really about tracking bias, but providing reputation for authors and news
outlets. Users (via a browser plugin or some other mechanism) could declare an
article or statement as biased in a certain direction. That vote would give me
information about the article, the news outlet and the reader. I could then
present that information back to users. In this way I could learn just how
biased I am (and maybe even the areas of my bias) and the bias of authors and
organizations. Perhaps you could see how an author's bias changes when they
write for different sites.
However I don't think just pointing out bias will really help. People like
their bubbles, and moving out of them is painful and potentially with real
world consequences for them. I also think if you show a user an articles bias
ahead of time, it will just be used as a filter or a way to reinforce their
bubble. I thought this article was interesting.
[http://www.vox.com/2014/4/6/5556462/brain-dead-how-
politics-...](http://www.vox.com/2014/4/6/5556462/brain-dead-how-politics-
makes-us-stupid)
~~~
jquip
Very insightful.
------
crimsonalucard
How do separate bias from truth?
If I said more asian people are smarter than white people I am biased and
racist.
If I said more asians have black hair than white people I am not biased, I'm
stating an objective fact.
The only fundamental difference between the two statements is that there are
hard numbers lending support to one statement (asians having black hair) and
the other statement does not. Neither statement, from a technical standpoint,
can be verified definitively.
To build a machine that identifies whether or not a statement is biased one
must first build a machine that identifies whether or not the underlying
statement is true or false.
Building such a machine is an impossible endeavor because the means in which
we identify whether or not something true or false is through data, a source
which in itself can be biased.
------
garysieling
I built a search engine for lectures
([https://www.findlectures.com](https://www.findlectures.com)), partly to
explore this problem. I think what you're describing would be challenging, but
if you do work on this please feel free to contact me if you want to discuss
ideas.
My approach has been to obtain collections based on recommendations, filter
out low quality material (bad audio, lots of ums, etc) and categorize it so
you can explore freely.
Someone has to fund free content, and the missing topics are a form of bias -
I can't guarantee that there is a counter-argument to every lecture.
------
rkayg
Great idea! I am working on pushing my Facebook colleagues to work on this as
well. I think the problem will not be solved unless Facebook makes a serious
effort. The issue is that like the filter bubbles that are created in the
social network, the company is also in an echo chamber of its own.
So, I think for all the folks that know Facebook employees, break them out of
their bubble (if they are already broken, commend them and encourage them to
improve Facebook). Show them that Facebook is not so rosy colored as it
claims, and that they have a responsibility to build tools that promote truth
and inclusion.
~~~
harigov
I think it would gain much more credibility if this were done in the open in a
transparent manner. If there is a perfect fit for open source software, this
is it. If folks from facebook would like to invest time/effort that would be
great!
------
wrappertool
Dude... people dont even believe in the scientific method anymore, and
definitions and facts are themselves liberal bias. What is some tool gonna do
to convince those who have shut down entirely??
------
cryoshon
i've been interested in something similar for quite a while, although my
conception of it was more along the lines of a browser extension which would
identify weasel words, unsourced statements, and alert the user about
"experts" who are biased.
i'd be interested in being an editor/philsoopher for a project like this,
given that someone would need to determine what counts as bias and what
doesn't.
i do think that apps to improve critical thinking are direly needed...
------
gdulli
People would believe what they want to believe about your assessment of bias
just as they already believe what they want to believe in the news.
Caring about truth has to come from within.
------
alew1
What about a tool that allows you to find and start a chat with someone
currently reading a differently biased account of the same (or similar)
events? I can't count the number of times this election that I wished I could
discuss a Times article with a Trump supporter; I am sure there are plenty who
wish they could tell me about the contents of a Breitbart article.
------
sfrailsdev
I think it would be best to start with a small feature. For example, build a
classification tool seeing if perspectives of both sides of an issue are
interviewed and quoted. Open source it along with your dataset.
We need to build more composable machine learning based tools, and then we can
use machine learning on their results to determine which serve which purposes
best.
------
twelvechairs
Another suggestion - a clear description of both author and publisher funding
and political links which are likely to lead to bias.
------
splawn
You might want to monitor the progress unfolding on this list of dubious news
sites. It seems relevant to your endeavor.
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/10eA5-mCZLSS4MQY5QGb5ewC3...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/10eA5-mCZLSS4MQY5QGb5ewC3VAL6pLkT53V_81ZyitM/mobilebasic)
------
timdavila
Related to this, have you seen the Wall Street Journals red/blue feeds,
straight from the Facebook API?
[http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-feed-red-feed/](http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-
feed-red-feed/)
Just seeing articles on the extreme side of each topic right next to each
other shocked me.
------
realworldview
Unfortunately it often appears that one person's bias is another's fodder.
Dailymail.com is incredibly astute and manipulative—that's their business.
Bias? Of course, and they know it. They would tell you, I suspect, that they
are in the bias business.
Is there a solution? A biasometer?
------
spobin
Not quite the same thing but Rbutr
([http://www.rbutr.com/](http://www.rbutr.com/)) was features on HN a while
back.
In their own words:
"rbutr tells you when the webpage you are viewing has been disputed, rebutted
or contradicted elsewhere on the internet."
------
arisAlexis
A while ago I wrote this about the subject. Maybe you would like to read it
“The New Editors” @arisAlexis [https://medium.com/@arisAlexis/the-new-
editors-122eeb57880d](https://medium.com/@arisAlexis/the-new-
editors-122eeb57880d)
------
bjt2n3904
Why is everyone suddenly convinced we can do this now? How do you guarantee
your algorithm is without bias?
~~~
harigov
We go with the assumption that everything is biased. The idea is only to
surface the biases so you can make your own informed opinions.
------
NumberCruncher
Sorry for the offtopic, but I have to post this evergreen text:
>> There is voting, of course, but to become an informed voter all one needs
to do is read a short guide about the candidates and issues before the
election. There’s no need to have to suffer through the daily back-and-forth
of allegations and counter-allegations, of scurrilous lies and their
refutations. Indeed, reading a voter’s guide is much better: there’s no
recency bias (where you only remember the crimes reported in the past couple
months), you get to hear both sides of the story after the investigation has
died down, you can actually think about the issues instead of worrying about
the politics.
Source:
[http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews)
~~~
grzm
This just passes the buck to the voters guide. You still have issues of bias
and misinformation. You may save a bit by being able to wait to see more
information come in, but for some issues, you do want to know what's going on
right now so you can act.
~~~
NumberCruncher
Did you read the post I linked in? It's says that the incoming information
aka. news are irrelevant to our life and we should just ignore them. There are
no real issues you have to act on. If a hurricane is coming, you will know it
without reading the news.
Therefore bias and misinformation are also irrelevant to our life.
Just to have a counterpoint to this news obsessed discussion.
~~~
grzm
Yes, I did read the post you linked to. I am also responding to the quote you
provided. I should think that you quoted it because you thought it was
particularly relevant or representative, did you not?
Edited to add: I also found it frustrating that a post arguing against reading
the news includes a "You should follow me on twitter here" link at the bottom.
_Please don 't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even
read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions
that."_
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
~~~
NumberCruncher
>> I should think that you quoted it because you thought it was particularly
relevant or representative, did you not?
And that's why I started it with "sorry for the offtopic". You do not always
read what you want to but what you have to.
I just try to correct the bias I am concerned about. Lessons learned:
\- bias is subjective
\- there are people who like to stay in their own biased world
Am I relevant enough now?
Cheers!
~~~
grzm
I understood your "Sorry for the offtopic" to refer to your entire comment. I
expected the quote to be relevant or representative with respect to the post
_you_ linked to.
------
chandanrai
> What if we had a tool that is delivered as a browser extension, that can
> show links to alternate views (think URL links) of the exact same topic that
> you are reading?
The Pocket Browser Extension already does that.
------
sgwealti
[http://www.newstrust.net/](http://www.newstrust.net/) when it was around was
pretty good. It never really got traction though.
------
jackmott
Don't look for bias, just look for right or wrong.
~~~
SuperPaintMan
Easier said then done. If this election cycle didn't showcase a post-truth
condition I don't know what will.
------
sghjknbcdryu
SAAS to Facebook, etc. They can filter for low-bias news and help the zucc's
PR.
------
huevosabio
I would be interested (I was pondering on the same idea), how should we
proceed?
~~~
harigov
Hey huevosabio, I created a new GitHub project over here -
[https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer](https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer)
and a corresponding gitter chat group over here -
[https://gitter.im/newsalyzer](https://gitter.im/newsalyzer). You can feel
free to contact me through my id @ gmail so that I can start the conversation.
~~~
huevosabio
Thanks! I sent you an email.
------
quantumhobbit
I don't know how much time I have but I would love to contribute somehow.
~~~
harigov
Hey quantumhobbit, I created a new GitHub project over here -
[https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer](https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer)
and a corresponding gitter chat group over here -
[https://gitter.im/newsalyzer](https://gitter.im/newsalyzer). You can feel
free to contact me through my id @ gmail so that I can start the conversation.
------
blipblop
harigov: very interested. you should setup a Discord channel to discuss
further.
~~~
harigov
Hey blipblop, I created a new GitHub project over here -
[https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer](https://github.com/harigov/newsalyzer)
and a corresponding gitter chat group over here -
[https://gitter.im/newsalyzer](https://gitter.im/newsalyzer). You can feel
free to contact me through my id @ gmail so that I can start the conversation.
------
Mz
_I believe the internet is contributing to echo chambers because of filter
bubbles._
People hear what they want to hear. If they are intentionally seeking out (or
actively trying to create) echo chambers, you can't really stop that.
Additionally, studies consistently show that most people are pro choice. They
also consistently show that most people are anti abortion.
In other words, no one is pro abortion. No one is " _for_ killing unborn
babies." But some people frame the political policies in terms of rights of
the mother to choose and some frame it in terms of rights of the unborn to
live.
There is no easy answer here. Pretty much everyone thinks that abortion should
be a last resort, not some kind of primary method of birth control. But there
is enormous fighting about exactly where and how to draw the line on who,
what, when, where and how.
So one of the problems you will find is that when you try to get "both sides"
of _any_ argument (abortion is merely _one_ example here):
A) Either they are talking about very different foundational ideas such that
it is kind of disingenuous to frame them as "opposing arguments" or
B) You have a set of people with such narrow views that they can only conceive
of two possible options here and the real answer is to be looking for "a third
way."
I think a better answer is to write about a broader point of view that helps
promote a non-binary conversation and thought process and that helps promote
that "third way" that has some hope of addressing real concerns for "both
sides."
It's extremely problematic to try to divide more than 300 million people into
two camps and pretend that the millions of individuals making up each "camp"
all uniformly agree with each other. Yes, people choose sides in order to try
to exercise power. But that doesn't mean the camps really authentically
represent the full views and sets of positions of any of their members, much
less all (of their members).
I think your desire to create this is rooted in good intentions, but I suspect
that something like this will just help entrench the "war" by further
promoting the idea that there are, in fact, two camps and only two camps and
every American needs to choose one. I realize that is not what you desire to
do, but that may well be the result.
I find that trying to have meaningful and nuanced discussion with almost
anyone at all (other than my sons) is incredibly hard because most people want
to peg me as either "for" what they are for or "against" them. This leaves no
room for positing a third way at all, much less a potential fourth, fifth or
Nth way.
I choose to blog as my small pebble of contribution towards trying to combat
the either/or thinking and trying to posit new mental models for old problems.
If you do start something, I would be happy to give feedback or have some kind
of limited (probably short term/one time) role in its development. I am not
looking for an on-going time commitment. Furthermore, although I support your
position that it "will be" open source, I see zero reason why this must be
non-profit. I think this is just another example of common thought patterns
that somehow being non-profit means it will be done for the right reasons, in
the right way, etc and this is absolutely not in any way guaranteed.
------
japanese_donald
How do you actually do this without being biased yourself? One person's
reality is another person's bias.
~~~
grzm
Similar to how science works. Build it with the fact that you have bias in
mind, and keep your mind open to criticism, keep testing the system as best
you can to test whether it's susceptible to any kind of bias you can think of,
and remember it's always going to be an open question. Healthy skepticism.
Keeping the work in the open is pretty important, too.
------
MK999
The supposed filter bubble theory is that I (and others) didn't vote for HRC
because we are not exposed to the liberal point of view?
FALSE. LAUGHABLY FALSE. FALSE FALSE FALSE.
Let's make up a term called liberal privilege, the privilege to have your
views reflected on all major US channels (CBS, ABC, NBC, NPR, BBC, NYT,
WaPo... etc.) ALL OF THE TIME.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Story about Russian propaganda immediately flagged and removed - grabbag
The "news" on this site recently had a story about Russian propaganda and what could be done about it. It was immediately littered with what seemed to be "propaganda" comments about how the article couldn't possibly be valid. Then it was removed from HN.<p>What gives?<p>Original item and link:<p>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13413878<p>https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/perspectives/PE100/PE198/RAND_PE198.pdf
======
ash
I'm not trying to explain, because I don't know. But the story was posted
before:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13040737](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13040737)
(22 points, 52 days ago)
And first mentioned in the relevant thread 141 days ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12377286](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12377286)
~~~
grabbag
Reasonable... it's just funny because the article from today had the first
three comments that were clearly from trolls. But thanks for the info.
------
mindcrime
It's marginally on-topic IMO, and people are probably just getting burned out
on this whole topic. I didn't see it or flag it, but had I seen it, I would
have been tempted to flag it. _shrug_ It happens, there's probably not a big
conspiracy or anything.
Unless there is...
~~~
ethbro
Isn't people getting burned out by contradictory information exactly the
theory? /conspiracy
------
Zuider
I could be wrong, but it looks like a valid and interesting article. While it
is a duplicate post, enough time has passed since the original submission. It
may have been reflexively flagged due to concerns that it consisted of
politically partisan clickbait.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The new Google Contacts - matteos728
http://gmailblog.blogspot.nl/2015/03/the-new-google-contacts-bringing.html
======
peterjmag
A few first impressions:
1\. Why oh why must we always shove everything into modal dialogs? In the
"old" interface, each contact had its own separate page and individual URL.
Now that every contact is a "card" that appears as a modal dialog, I can no
longer link to it directly, and any card that I'm viewing is lost as soon as I
close the tab or navigate away from the page. (Note that I don't necessarily
believe that every possible application state should be represented by a URL,
but something as discrete as a single contact seems pretty important to me.)
2\. The JS captures my Cmd-F / Ctrl-F shortcut and focuses the search bar in
the header. To me, this is a huge no-no. Sometimes I just want to find some
regular text on a page, not send my every keystroke to Google via a search box
that gives me "helpful" page suggestions from Google+.
EDIT: Just noticed that you can still access the browser's built-in search by
hitting Cmd-F twice. A bit odd, but at least it's not completely overridden.
3\. The show-checkbox-on-hover behavior[1] in the list looks like something's
broken. It also doesn't look like a checkbox until you actually click on
it[2], which kind of defeats the purpose of a checkbox.
[1] [http://i.imgur.com/f3AVYdv.png](http://i.imgur.com/f3AVYdv.png)
[2] [http://i.imgur.com/aY5fPl7.png](http://i.imgur.com/aY5fPl7.png)
I don't mean to be super negative. I think there are a lot of nice
improvements here too, just a few things that bother me as a "power user".
------
currysausage
It looks nice. It doesn't work very well, not for me at least. I hope they do
a lot of work before making this version the default one.
Why does the search box search Google+ instead of my contacts? I don't even
use Google+. This is either a _huge_ bug, or it is insanity. And I thought the
Google+ creep was over already. (I can't even use Ctrl-F, because they hooked
that to the - currently useless - search box.)
Every contact manager that I have ever used gives me the option to sort
contacts by last name. I can't seem to find such a setting here. There are
futher sorting issues: Ö should go after O, not Z.
The overview looks nice and clean. When I click a contact with lots of
details, and when I click the Edit button, there is just one unstructured mess
of a table, crammed into a tiny modal dialog on my 2560x1440 monitor. Compare
this to the old Contacts, and you feel inclined to believe that they fired all
their information designers, and replaced them with interaction designers
exclusively.
Please don't read this as a criticism of Material Design. I really enjoy it on
my Nexus, and I think Material enables elegant interactions. But interactions
aren't everything. For a product like this, thoughtful information design
should be the priority. And I don't even see traces of information design in
this preview.
~~~
froskur
> There are futher sorting issues: Ö should go after O, not Z.
I'd just like to point out that this is not true in the two alphabets that I'm
familiar with that use Ö, Icelandic and Swedish. For both of these, Ö is the
last character of the alphabet. I don't know how it is for other languages
which use Ö but at least for these two the sorting is correct.
------
nodata
_please be fast, please be fast_
Edit: also please let us archive contacts. I want to keep someone's number,
but scrolling through hundreds of people just to call someone is not ideal.
~~~
taeric
If you are talking about for your phone. You can setup Android to only pull in
contacts in a given group. Convenient if you have groups for different cities
and whatnot that you might be in.
------
tgarv
My pre-coffee brain thought this would be contact lenses... I was so excited
for a second.
~~~
proexploit
Which also exists but is probably only exciting if you're diabetic:
[http://googleblog.blogspot.ch/2014/01/introducing-our-
smart-...](http://googleblog.blogspot.ch/2014/01/introducing-our-smart-
contact-lens.html)
------
koyote
Finally a refresh to the contacts site. I always found this to be quite useful
for managing my Android contacts.
It looks nice but there are definitely some improvements needed in terms of
merging of G+ data with existing data. For example, some of my contacts have
two birthday entries, one G+ (which might omit the year) and then one that I
have manually added.
------
nodata
[http://gmailblog.blogspot.nl/2015/03/the-new-google-
contacts...](http://gmailblog.blogspot.nl/2015/03/the-new-google-contacts-
bringing.html) has screenshots for the rest of us.
~~~
sctb
Thanks, we updated the submitted URL from
[http://contacts.google.com](http://contacts.google.com).
------
solvitor
Gmail accounts only; no Google Apps (yet?). Yet another roll-out (ahem, Inbox)
where the paying customers get left behind. I realize businesses may want
stability with new versions for training, etc. but it would be great at least
to have the option by domain/account to be on the new products earlier.
~~~
CSDude
As I said before, paid users get stabler products whereas us the free loaders
are beta testers.
~~~
cujo
That's fine on paper, but the reality is that none of their "beta" products
come with any real user risk.
I think it's more of a "test drive" scenario for google. It's fully baked but
they want to see how it changes behavior on a wider scale where people make
choices independent of the organization.
~~~
eitally
That's not true. Google has hosed large enterprise customers many times by
rolling out new features or changes to existing products with zero warning,
and they have adopted a phased deployment process and a formal trusted tester
program to help mitigate it. Contacts is a waaaaaaay bigger deal for
businesses than individuals, and there are tons of edge cases Google has to
deal with re: Apps customers.
~~~
cujo
I honestly don't know of any google apps that have hosed enterprise customers.
Can you point me at some articles or something?
------
omnibrain
Ok, after mixing the birthdays the random people I follow on google+ into my
calendar they now mix the contact details of those people into my contacts
list. :(
~~~
currysausage
Things like these were my top reasons for leaving Google+ very quickly. If I
follow Linus Torvalds in the stream, that doesn't mean that I want him
everywhere in my PIM suite (Gmail, Calender, Contacts).
But yeah, Unified Experience matters, blah blah. They were probably thinking:
If not for the Unified Experience, why else would anyone use Google+ instead
of any other social network?
------
monitron
I got really excited about this, and then was immediately disappointed when
merging contacts in this interface didn't seem to sync to my Android phone. I
hate that I have to merge contacts separately on every device. Is it just me?
------
taeric
The one thing I have yet to find on any online contacts program (not that I
have checked that many...) is the ability to mark some numbers as "previous
number|address" for folk. This can be very convenient when someone moves.
------
binxbolling
Is there any easy to way to grab some contacts off my Google Apps account
(i.e. work) to add to my personal Gmail contacts? When adding contacts on my
phone, I often forget to attach them to the right account.
~~~
timdierks
You can export them into a file and reimport them into Contacts.
[https://support.google.com/mail/answer/24911?hl=en](https://support.google.com/mail/answer/24911?hl=en)
(Disclaimer: I haven't tried this with the new Contacts).
------
scrollaway
I like the new design, but it seems impossible to merge contacts that aren't
automatically detected as duplicates by their less-than-perfect algorithm.
~~~
mpgarate
I had that thought at first, but I figured out how to do it.
Check the box on the left for two contacts, and then in the upper right you
can click the merge icon, two arrows coming together.
~~~
scrollaway
... OH THOSE ARE CHECKBOXES?!
FFS, I have 2.5k pixels of horizontal space, and they're saving up space this
way? This isn't even a good idea on mobile where there is no such concept as
hover.
The UX designer in me is enraged right now.
~~~
anon012012
It's probably more a matter of simplifying the look, having portraits first.
If we're trying to one-up Google at design, here's my probably-lame attempt,
using the bevel to have the cake and eat it too, hopefully.
[http://i.imgur.com/X4LQD03.png](http://i.imgur.com/X4LQD03.png) (I changed
the names)
I guess it's still less pretty, I don't know.
~~~
scrollaway
I don't dislike the idea but it'd need more work graphically. Like this it's
barely visible. Making it obvious to the user that this part of the screen is
there for your to click on should be priority #1 when you design a nonstandard
checkbox.
Edit: And remember, something doesn't necessarily _have_ to be a checkbox for
you to select it, it can just be a bevel of some kind. You don't even have to
require clicking as an action: You can square-select items (like you would in
a file manager), you can long-press (like you would on mobile) etc.
~~~
anon012012
It's possible my monitor brightness is wrong (nevermind, you're right, I see
it now), and thanks for the feedback and sharing tips.
------
wodenokoto
Can I edit the phonetic reading of my contacts name? I have a lot of Japanese
friends and believe it or not, you cannot read how their names are pronounced
from just reading the name. 井上 could be inoue or iue or ikami or a lot of
different things.
This is usually solved by adding a phonetic field to the names field, and
while I can do it on my iPhone, I haven't figured out hot to do it on Google
contacts, which I sync with.
~~~
ranmocy
Not sure it's new feature or not. When you edit it in the new version, click
"Show All Fields", and you will find phonetic fields.
My problem is that I added phonetic names on my Mac and synced to Google, but
the fields are missing on the web. Nor could be synced to my iPhone. Wired
thing is that my old phonetic data is synced. I suppose that they have some
compatibility bug.
------
lkbm
Was giving a loading error for me yesterday. Finally works now.
When you expand the groups or circles on the left, if there are too many to
fit on your screen, you're out of luck--no scrollbar appears.
All the same, if I no longer have to worry about Google Voice contacts being
somehow distinct from Google Contacts, it's an improvement.
------
mistermann
I wish Google would force app settings to comply to a framework / interface
such that you could manage the configuration of all your apps via a single
website (appsettings.google.com/devicename) as well.
------
fenomas
Meta-feedback: I just submitted a bug report, and the "Send feedback" feature
is damned spiffy. If you're into such things give it a look.
(I don't know if it's new or specific to Contacts though.)
------
VSpike
I get this on my personal Google account, but our work Google Apps account
doesn't show the change. I'd guess it's rolling out gradually, presumably with
GA work customers getting it last.
------
stephane-klein
Is it possible to share contact group between different gmail user ?
------
Navarr
Previously posted:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9140626](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9140626)
------
sjs382
As usual, Google Apps is late to the party.
------
dandare
Automatic contact merging works for about 10% of my duplicates :/
------
tdkl
Holy whitespace Batman.
~~~
dexterdog
Hey - you've gotta make it so that a 27" screen only shows as much information
as an iPhone.
------
abluecloud
Is there?
~~~
sjbennett
It's at
[https://contacts.google.com/preview](https://contacts.google.com/preview)
~~~
VSpike
404 on my work Google Apps account.
~~~
Navarr
Not yet availble for GApps users.
Because Google hates us :(
------
h1fra
Nice, not a revolution though
------
sauravc
About time!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Flaws of “Subscription Fatigue”, “SVOD Fatigue”, and the “Streaming Wars - yarapavan
https://www.matthewball.vc/all/misnomers
======
c0nsilienc3
I skimmed the whole thing, but I don't agree with the author when he says
subscription fatigue should really be called spending fatigue. Nor do I agree
with the burden being irrelevant whether you do a subscription or a one-time
cost.
The first example that comes to mind is what Adobe did, causing it to lose
some business, but overall increase profits: switching to a subscription
model. I think around 10 years ago or so I paid about $150 for Lightroom. For
the last 4-5 years, since Adobe switched to subscriptions, I've paid more than
quadruple that just to have access to Lightroom and Photoshop.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Rfc-ignorant database / DNSBL shutting down - dredmorbius
http://www.rfc-ignorant.org/endofanera.php
======
dredmorbius
By way of context: the RFC-Ignorant database (and DNS-queryable zonefiles)
were helpful especially in identifying network space (domains, IP blocks) for
which primary contacts, particularly abuse and postmaster, couldn't be
reached.
For many of us, such failure to close the loop in policing your own IP space
was a very strong argument in favor of blocking traffic from same.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do you manage your Twitter reading? - ramk
As you come across interesting content on Twitter with links to some longer reads or books or other things you want to refer back to in the future - how do you keep track of them?
======
pjc50
Pinboard's "read later" feature.
I never actually go back, but it's nice to know I could.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How Do You Learn How to Cook Well(Michelin Star Level)? - kevindeasis
I know how to cook, but I have a hard time finding resources about cooking well. It's pretty easy to find resources about programming design, philosophy, theory, etc. However, I can't say the same for cooking.<p>I find it hard to find books about the theory of cooking. Things that include cooking temperature, texture, color, taste, chemistry, etc.<p>What resource are you all using to learn how to cook well?
======
forgetsusername
A decent start:
[https://www.amazon.ca/Science-Good-Cooking-Cooks-
Illustrated...](https://www.amazon.ca/Science-Good-Cooking-Cooks-
Illustrated/dp/1933615982/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1470506465&sr=8-1&keywords=science+of+good+cooking)
The next step:
[https://www.amazon.ca/Modernist-Cuisine-Art-Science-
Cooking/...](https://www.amazon.ca/Modernist-Cuisine-Art-Science-
Cooking/dp/0982761007/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1470506516&sr=8-2&keywords=nathan+myhrvold)
------
GFK_of_xmaspast
Have you considered "taking classes"?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Grammarly doesn’t do all it claims to do - jimsojim
http://grammarist.com/articles/grammarly-review/
======
DrScump
Heck, in the quote box from Grammarly's site (the one with five sentences),
the middle three are run-on sentences!
~~~
dragonwriter
No, they aren't. They are grammatically correct sentences, all of the basic
form "Grammarly's _foo_ checker not only _performs one function_ , but also
_performs another function_."
They are pretty much textbook examples of correct "not only / but also"
structure.
~~~
DrScump
Not when both clausea have _their own verb._
Here's the distinction.
"The Grammarly spelling checker not only helps you locate misspelled words in
your writing, but also helps you to identify the correctly-spelled words that
you have used incorrectly." \- RUN-ON SENTENCE
"The Grammarly spelling checker not only helps you locate misspelled words in
your writing, but also to identify the correctly-spelled words that you have
used incorrectly." \- Acceptable, but unnecessarily awkward
~~~
dragonwriter
Actually, your first example is also grammatically correct (not a run-on).
"Not only / but also" is a correlative conjunction set; when it splits items
that are complete verb phrases -- as in your first example and the Grammarly
quotes -- there is a comma before the "but also", which is correctly present
in the examples. There is no run on.
For a basic discussion with examples, see
[http://www.theyuniversity.net/blog/2015/4/29/parallelism-
wit...](http://www.theyuniversity.net/blog/2015/4/29/parallelism-with-
correlative-conjunctions)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
OK, so it’s not exactly "grim" up North for tech - But there are some issues - paulsb
http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/07/25/ok-so-its-not-exactly-grim-up-north-for-tech-but-there-are-some-issues/
======
paulsb
Video summary: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8phWzXgNFGY>
So very true, especially the part about skills retention.
------
inovica
Interesting article (and video). I'm actually based in the North East of
England and have quietly "got on" with building businesses. I have 2
registered in London though because that ultimately became necessary to
achieve the ends I required there.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
8 Outdated notions of entrepreneurship - DaniFong
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2007/01/05/8-outdated-notions-of-entrepreneurship/
======
jamesbritt
How much of this rings true for people here?
Most businesses succeed?
It's only now that the self-employed are happy because they have control over
their work and they have a flexible lifestyle?
I see lists like this, generalized assertions with little or no backing
evidence, and tend to think it's near fully bogus.
~~~
DaniFong
I submitted it because I thought it was mostly true. Much of the backing
evidence/arguments are linked too in the article. But mostly I think it's of
worth for some perspective.
You're right that there are a lot of lists of generalized assertions around --
some of these bloggers sound a bit like the next generation of self-help
authors. But sometimes the perspective unique, and valuable, and I think this
is one of those cases.
~~~
DaniFong
I wonder if 'too' here is an ordinary typo, as I'd want to claim it, or it's
genuinely true that my fingers don't understand the distinction late at night.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Manhattan DA: iPhone Crypto Locked Out Cops 74 Times - c0wb0yc0d3r
http://www.wired.com/2015/07/manhattan-da-iphone-crypto-foiled-cops-74-times/
======
chmaynard
I'm not a lawyer, but I guess I don't understand the problem:
1\. DA asks court for an iPhone search warrant because a crime may have been
committed.
2\. If the evidence looks strong, court issues warrant to search phone.
3\. DA serves warrant to phone owner.
4\. If owner doesn't unlock phone voluntarily, owner is in contempt of court
and subject to legal sanctions.
Why does Apple need to get involved?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Chuck Moore's 144-computers chip is now available - blue1
http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/products/index.html
======
gruseom
Moore added this wonderful passage to his blog today. I think it captures
something of the specialness of the man:
_GreenArrays is starting production of its 144-computer chip with an
accompanying evaluation board. Details at greenarrays.com. This is the result
of funding, testing and refinement.
On the lighter side, regarding my Five Fingers shoes: continued delight; more
miles of hiking. My gait is changing: shorter strides, less heel strike, less
toe-out. And I've not experienced any lower back pain. Somehow my soles are
less sensitive and I can walk barefoot more easily. _
<http://colorforth.com/blog.htm>
------
TY
This is a very interesting product from the great Chuck Moore that needs a
"killer app" to take off. I wish I had time to invest in it...
What's interesting is how different this company is from the idea of a startup
that most of us here have in our heads. Just look at the team and try to
figure out what the average age of the company is:
<http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/about/bios.html>
I wonder if this has something to do with the fact that chip design requires a
lot of experience or the fact that these people just happen to be in great
Chuck Moore's professional network. Or likely both.
~~~
nadam
I think both. Plus consumer web applications and consumer smart phone apps and
social media apps are some kind of fashion among young people. (I am 35 years
old and even I feel the generational differences from younger folks a bit.)
Older folks are not so sensitive to fashions.
Edit: or maybe every generation have a love affair with the topic which is the
'next big thing' of their youth? Maybe in 2040 a social media startup will be
founded by old folks, while the young guys will be enhusiastic about something
completely different? My father is a mechanical engineer, I am a programmer,
maybe my son will have the profession regarding the 'next big thing'.
~~~
ebiester
Or, we have the domain experience of social and mobile. Many don't have the
domain experience of... say health care.
------
wazoox
Reminds me of the wonderful connection machines of lore...
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking_Machines_Corporation>
------
Jun8
What, this thing costs $20! As a hardware novice (read dabbled with Arduino a
little), how hard would it be for me to create something useful using this
chip?
~~~
blacksmythe
It would be a significant effort to put a board together to do anything with
this, certainly more than the cost of the eval board if you place a value on
your time (and aren't looking at this just as a hobby).
Most people who might use this in a commercial setting would buy the eval
board first to try it out. That is probably what I would do even if this were
a hobby project.
~~~
GregBuchholz
Of course a student could try to find a QFN 88pin to DIP adapter for like $20
(or make their own), and plug it into a breadboard. I could only find a QFN-72
to DIP adapter with 5 minutes of searching.
[http://www.proto-
advantage.com/store/product_info.php?produc...](http://www.proto-
advantage.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3100034)
------
grogers
This is interesting - each node is tiny and can barely do much (mainly RAM
constraints). But because they are tiny, you can pack tons of them on a
chip/board and coordinate several nodes to do larger work items. Since all
actions are asynchronous (as opposed to clocked) you use very little power
when you aren't actively doing work, and the minimum amount of time required
to actually do the work.
I wonder why they settled on 18 bit words though?
~~~
Jach
From [http://www.yosefk.com/blog/my-history-with-forth-stack-
machi...](http://www.yosefk.com/blog/my-history-with-forth-stack-
machines.html) :
Look at the chips he’s making. 144-core, but the cores (nodes) are tiny - why
would you want them big, if you feel that you can do anything with almost no
resources? And they use 18-bit words. Presumably under the assumption that 18
bits is a good quantity, not too small, not too large. Then they write an
application note about imlpementing the MD5 hash function:
"MD5 presents a few problems for programming a Green Arrays device. For one
thing it depends on modulo 32 bit addition and rotation. Green Arrays chips
deal in 18 bit quantities. For another, MD5 is complicated enough that neither
the code nor the set of constants required to implement the algorithm will fit
into one or even two or three nodes of a Green Arrays computer."
Then they solve these problems by manually implementing 32b addition and
splitting the code across nodes. But if MD5 weren’t a standard, you could
implement your own hash function without going to all this trouble.
In his chip design tools, Chuck Moore naturally did not use the standard
equations:
"Chuck showed me the equations he was using for transistor models in OKAD and
compared them to the SPICE equations that required solving several
differential equations. He also showed how he scaled the values to simplify
the calculation. It is pretty obvious that he has sped up the inner loop a
hundred times by simplifying the calculation. He adds that his calculation is
not only faster but more accurate than the standard SPICE equation. He said,
'I originally chose mV for internal units. But using 6400 mV = 4096 units
replaces a divide with a shift and requires only 2 multiplies per transistor.
... Even the multiplies are optimized to only step through as many bits of
precision as needed.'"
------
_exec
_Export is controlled per US EAR ECCN 3A991A.3._
Could somebody clarify what this means? The only reference to "3A991A" I could
find is www.uptodateregs.com/_eccn/ECCN.asp?ECCN=3A991, however there is
nothing on that page about a .3 subsection.
~~~
adbge
a. “Microprocessor microcircuits ”, “microcomputer microcircuits”, and
microcontroller microcircuits having any of the following:
[...]
a.3 More than one data or instruction bus or serial communication port that
provides a direct external interconnection between parallel “microprocessor
microcircuits” with a transfer rate of 2.5 Mbyte/s.
_www.access.gpo.gov/bis/ear/pdf/ccl3.pdf_
~~~
robin_reala
Exactly 2.5Mb/s?
------
Groxx
Good God, that's cheap. _I_ can buy that evaluation board (and I very well may
some time). Best of luck to them with the sales, that's at a scale and price
that could open up a lot of options.
Compare and contrast to the E-ink evaluation board:
[http://store.nexternal.com/shared/StoreFront/products.asp?CS...](http://store.nexternal.com/shared/StoreFront/products.asp?CS=eink&CategoryID=3&Refresh=True)
6" = $3,000, and not too long ago they were over $8,000. Out of the reach of
many seeking to innovate without a company pushing them to do so.
------
doosra
How does this array do I/O? How does one bring in data (from disk/network)
into the chip? I couldn't find anything demonstrating high throughput I/O on
the eval board...
------
jules
Can you do something useful on this chip? It seems to me that while the total
number of instructions looks good, what can actually be accomplished per
instruction is very bad. Not only do the instructions operate on very small
words, you need a ton of communication between the cores to do anything. E.g.
how fast would this thing realistically be for (integer -- it doesn't even
have floating point) matrix multiplication?
------
steamer25
So if I'm following correctly...
1 ALU / 1.5 ns ≈ 67 MFLOPS * 144 units = 96 GFLOPS
Obviously, a significant percentage of work in the real world would probably
go to distributing instructions amongst the units.
Anyway for comparison, according to the thread here:
<http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=51677>
...an Intel Core 2 Quad QX6850 runs @ 48 GFLOPS.
~~~
ramchip
Isn't a FLOP a "Floating Point Operation"? If the chip has no FP unit, it does
0 FLOPS.
~~~
steamer25
I see... I suppose the efficiency of the presumed software-based floating
point library can be factored along with the parallelization then.
------
metamemetics
"144 computers"=="144 core parallel cpu" ? I'm guessing this is not x86 and
targeted at academic researchers looking to build custom, massively parallel,
computational clusters on the cheap [ computational neuroscience? ]. If anyone
could volunteer additional context or applications for this please do so, I'm
not as familiar with hardware as I'd like to be.
~~~
thesz
It has 64 words of RAM and 64 words of ROM. It has 18-bit word for ALU
operations and commands.
I think it has more than one MISC command in a word, I think count is about 3
(six-bit commands).
I cannot wrap my head around how to program that... not a beast, more like a
field of tiny windmills. One of the designers of preceding chips once wrote
about using it as a systolic engine, but the area of systolic algorithms is
quite narrow, AFAIK.
I cannot find any C/Fortran compiler or compiler for any other high-level
language.
My overall impression is that this looks like all bad ideas from Cell BE were
ported to Forth language.
MISC:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimal_instruction_set_compute...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimal_instruction_set_computer)
John Sokol on early GreenArray alike designs:
[http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=274687&cid=...](http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=274687&cid=20297751)
~~~
metamemetics
My initial thought was: high density, asynchronous cores -> brain modeling.
You treat each asynchronous core as a neuron.
Reading up on Charles Moore this may indeed be the intended case:
<http://www.pcai.com/web/ai_info/pcai_forth.html>
> _Charles Moore created Forth in the 1960s and 1970s to give computers real-
> time control over astronomical equipment. A number of Forth's features (such
> as its interactive style) make it a useful language for AI programming, and
> devoted adherents have developed Forth-based expert systems and neural
> networks._
Still, 100 billion neurons in brain / 144 cores * $20 per chip = ~$13 billion
. Also I would guess most modern researchers in this area don't know Forth and
are doing high-level programming and virtualizing neurons rather than taking a
low-level hardware approach.
~~~
thesz
Forth was used in AI in a pretty non-linear way.
I have a book where authors developed Lisp on Forth and then proceed
developing Prolog on newly created Lisp. Then they demonstrated how to use
that Prolog in the development of rule-based expert system.
There was a saying that Forth amplify programmers' ability to develop programs
and to make mistakes. If you a need an AI tool, but do not need your mistakes
to be amplified, stay away from Forth. I think that apply to other areas of
domain-specific development as well.
While I adore Forth, I cannot recommend it to anyone. Especially to simulate
brain - what if you introduce an error, Forth amplifies it and we'll get a
hidden psychopath? ;)
~~~
silentbicycle
What book is it? You can't just mention a book that has Forth, Lisp, AND
Prolog and not give the title. :)
PAIP and a couple others have Lisp and Prolog, LOL has Lisp and Forth, HOPL 2
has all three (but separately), but it doesn't sound like any of those.
~~~
TY
I think he probably spoke about "Designing and Programming Personal Expert
Systems" by Carl Townsend that dates back to 1986.
From <http://www.faqs.org/faqs/computer-lang/forth-faq/part5/>
Contains LISP and Prolog emulations in Forth,
including a unification algorithm. It also has some
minimum distance classifier code.
The application is fault diagnosis in locomotives.
~~~
silentbicycle
Salute!
------
Keyframe
Great to hear stuff like this, and I just asked this several days ago:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1797124> but it went nowhere.
------
mbeihoffer
At first I thought it said Chuck Norris and I was like BAHAA!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Plate tectonics not needed to sustain life - dnetesn
https://phys.org/news/2018-07-plate-tectonics-sustain-life.html
======
jerf
Based on some unverifiable computer models.
I think I'm just going to start flagging all the science stories that are
press releases about someone's unverifiable computer models.
~~~
Luc
It is indeed a press release so that's not great, but why wouldn't their model
be verifiable? We know the applicable laws of physics, someone else can code
up a simulation and verify the results.
~~~
lordnacho
A simulation is a prediction, not a verification. Verification would be going
out to a load of planets and seeing if they look the way the simulations say.
~~~
jerf
In fact there's been several news stories about extraterrestrial planets over
the past few years, since we're finding more of them now. But the ones we hear
about focus on things like "can they support life". There is nothing per se
wrong with playing with the math and playing with models and trying to get a
sense of the space of possibilities.
Where I get crabby is when the whole process is condensed down to the level
the title is at: "Plate tectonics not needed to sustain life". No. The level
of confidence expressed in those words is _utterly_ unjustified. We have
perhaps a trace more than absolutely no idea. That trace is scientifically
valid and I do not begrudge some planetary scientists fiddling around. But we
must not place excessive confidence in the results.
The inability to practically proof the correctness of a computer model does
not mean it is scientifically valid to then just assume they are correct!
To put it in local terms, that's exactly as valid as expecting a programmer to
just type a few thousand lines of code into an editor, compile, and deploy to
production with no further testing required. Because, in a fairly real way,
this isn't even a metaphor, this is _precisely_ what making such concrete
predictions off of an unproofed computer model is doing. Being unable to test
the correctness of the code does not therefore render it correct. I am
reminded of the classic quote "On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray,
Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers
come out?" In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the
Lower, House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of
confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." by Babbage. I am not
able to apprehend the confusion of ideas that produces this concept that if we
can't test the model, we are justified in assuming it is correct. To my
understanding of science, exactly and precisely the opposite is true.
(Incidentally, I _also_ consider the phrase "Plate tectonics are necessary to
support life" to be completely unjustified! Our one sample of life-supporting
planet has plate tectonics. Our own solar system is at least suggestive of the
possibility that plate tectonics across a long time period may be rare, but no
more than "suggestive" without a lot more data. Given the very-slowly-
increasing evidence that life may be rare in the cosmos, it is suggestive that
rare characteristics of our planet and the rare characteristic of "life" may
be connected. We have some plausible-sounding theories as to why plate
tectonics may be helpful. But we can not say absolutely "they are necessary
for life" by any means.)
------
bena
I was not aware that Earth was the only planet to have confirmed tectonics.
That seems really weird. I wonder what the percentage winds up being between
planets with and without tectonics.
~~~
throwaway5752
If you have a rotating spherical body with a (sufficiently) heterogeneous
fluid composition, it seems like you'll get plate tectonics. When you realize
it's just a fluid with convection currents and the surface of the fluid
"freezing", you realize it should be relatively common for across planets for
a portion of their existence.
ps - if any actual physicists out there are reading, I've been curious about
the case of Mars and if tectonics there could have been halted by whatever
caused the hemispheric dichotomony for a long time, in case there's any good
reading/research on that out there to pass along...
~~~
jofer
"Plate tectonics" means something a bit more specific than "convection
currents with the surface of the fluid freezing". In particular, it implies 1)
relatively large stable plates, 2) organized regions where crust is
created/destroyed, and 3) large horizontal movement of those plates relative
to each other.
Prior to ~2 billion years ago, Earth didn't have plate tectonics. You had
large vertical motion (not horizontal), and creation+destruction of crust, but
no organized centers where this was occurring. In other words, you didn't have
large plates and what plates there were did not move long distances
horizontally.
As another example, Venus has tectonic activity (it's periodically resurfaced
and has volcanoes), but it doesn't have plate tectonics. You see regions of
compression and extension, but no subduction zones and spreading ridges.
It's likely that what we call plate tectonics requires abundant water, at
least on "rocky" planets. Hydrous phases of silicate minerals are required for
the very weak faults and localized weak mantle required to have subduction.
Without subduction, you don't have plate tectonics.
~~~
reubenswartz
> Prior to ~2 billion years ago, Earth didn't have plate tectonics. You had
> large vertical motion, and creation+destruction of crust, but no organized
> centers where this was occurring. In other words, you didn't have plates.
Well that would be great evidence that you don't need plate tectonics to
sustain life. ;-)
~~~
jofer
Yeah, the exact start of plate tectonics on Earth is very hard to pin down,
but it's almost definitely after the start of life.
On the other hand, even when Earth didn't have plate tectonics, it probably
never had a stagnant lid, which is what this article is modeling.
------
okket
This is 1:1 identical with the press release from the Penn State University.
Maybe link to the original?
[https://news.psu.edu/story/529527/2018/07/30/research/plate-...](https://news.psu.edu/story/529527/2018/07/30/research/plate-
tectonics-not-needed-sustain-life)
------
megamindbrian2
Revolving around a sun and rotating at the same time needed?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple's iTunes LP "TuneKit" format uses HTML/CSS/JS targeted to HDTV - mbrubeck
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/09/14/new-itunes-lp-and-extras-built-using-tunekit-framework-aimed-at-apple-tv/
======
Readmore
A great article but I wonder if it's actually aimed in the wrong direction.
While I own an AppleTV, and enjoy it, from the rumors it seems like the new
Apple Tablet is aimed at being a portable media center, isn't it possible that
these LP albums are actually made for that, to be viewed on the go or output
to an HDTV through a dock connector?
I would love to see a great 3.0 AppleTV update, especially with the HTTP
Streaming mentioned, but as time passes it seems less and less likely that
Apple is going to overhaul the product again.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What are some psychological pricing tips when pricing products or services? - aarkfeld
I know there's an incredible amount of psychology behind pricing products and services.<p>We've all seen the $x.99 method our entire lives and I recently read about not pricing services as a round number such as $10,000. Apparently more specific numbers like $10,350 seem more legitimate, calculated and personalized.<p>Are there any other pricing tips and strategies that people have found effective in practice or through research? What's the thought process behind them?
======
tlb
See [http://www.nickkolenda.com/psychological-pricing-
strategies/](http://www.nickkolenda.com/psychological-pricing-strategies/),
recently discussed at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9501892](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9501892)
~~~
aarkfeld
Thank you! I didn't see that thread.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Make your bootstrapped startup work - Lessons from the trenches - ibagrak
http://codercofounder.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/make-your-bootstrapped-startup-work/
======
fookyong
Sorry to sound confrontational but:
Why should we listen to startup advice from a startup that is still just a
landing page and a mailing list signup?
You talk about MVPs and getting to launch, but you yourself have not
launched... I'm confused.
~~~
ibagrak
Look, I am just reflecting on what things could have been done differently,
and those that would have maximized the delta with our current status. You
don't have to listen to advice, but if you are building something and you are
in those first few months of bootstrapping, I do believe the advice is still
sound.
When we started out I had a notion of what the primary obstacles to launch
would be. I now have a completely different notion of what those obstacles
are, and I think it's perfectly fine for me to share what I've learned myself.
~~~
delano
Reflecting on something while working through it is interesting to me b/c it's
less prone to revisionism. Maybe just refer to it less as advice and more as
an experience.
~~~
ibagrak
Agreed. I should have stayed away from advisory tone.
------
nopassrecover
Off topic, but you're building a like-system (I have a part-time hobby one
I've been sort of working on too) and I just wanted to wonder how you decided
to go ahead?
The biggest concern I had was that the market is saturated with solutions that
don't work because of disinterest, and anything I made could be beaten well-
enough by Facebook in a good week's work. Sure I had a couple of edges but I
couldn't spot _the_ edge that would fix everything, and when I found a local
competitor (I live in a pretty small city with minimal startups) I was
convinced that everyone must be working on this.
So.. long story short I'd love to hear how you decided this was the thing to
work on and how (without giving too much away) you hope to overcome the
problems for your product's sector.
------
edw519
Hard to argue with anything in this post except one thing: the fact that you
made it in the first place. I really don't mean to be negative, but you should
be building when you are blogging.
For the record:
as soon as possible != after you blog about it
a landing page != a MVP
lessons from the trenches != yet-to-be-launched
Please practice what you're preaching and get your MVP out there. Then blog
about it. That's something I would want to read about.
~~~
ibagrak
Admittedly I got a little carried away with this one, so thanks for bringing
me down to earth. I think some of the frustration having to do with our
current status is turning into these long winded tirades on my blog. I'll keep
them more toned down and private in the future.
I do hope to write something that you will enjoy reading about soon.
------
atomical
"We are building an online social app that lets you stay on top of and enjoy
anything that your friends find interesting, good, likable, cool, irresistible
and noteworthy, or things they just liked for no reason. Of course, it's also
a way for you to tell your friends what you like."
This description reminds me of Facebook.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Free SSL/TLS Certificates at DreamHost with Let’s Encrypt - unicornporn
https://dreamhost.com/blog/2016/01/20/free-ssltls-certificates-at-dreamhost-with-lets-encrypt
======
herbst
Like any other host already has since a few weeks. Yay!
~~~
unicornporn
AFAIK Dreamhost is the first major provider to make it an easy control panel
switch for their shared hosting customers, but I might be uninformed.
~~~
herbst
There have been guides and even plugins for hosting panels long before the
official launch, i even saw some before the beta launch.
The hosting providers i work with, had it pretty much ready at launch time:
Cyon.ch, Novatrend.ch, Gandi ...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Subsets and Splits