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How Silicon Valley is Hollowing Out the Economy (And Stealing From You To Boot) - Libertatea
http://business.time.com/2013/05/07/how-silicon-valley-is-hollowing-out-the-economy-and-stealing-from-you-while-theyre-at-it/?xid=rss-topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+time%2Ftopstories+%28TIME%3A+Top+Stories%29
======
opinali
Well, this article is retarded, where shall I begin? Kodak killed by Internet
companies, what a joke, Kodak died of its incompetence to transition from film
to digital tech -- Nikon, Canon & co. are still doing pretty well selling
expensive camera gear. If anything, lots of people are buying these cameras to
shoot their Instagram photos -- or at least, buying expensive smartphones that
contain optics from traditional camera companies (Carl Zeiss is around since
1846... I guess old dogs can learn new tricks when they are smart).
Translation software from Google/Bing "stealing" work from human translators??
That work was paid at some point, and if it was reused and repurposed, that's
because it was made freely available by their copyright owners. For one thing,
many of the training materials used by machine learning-based translation are
official documents, e.g. from the United Nations and EU, because these are
often long, complex, and their translation is both high-quality and focused on
precision (which often doesn't happen with literature -- "traduttore,
traditore").
------
tixocloud
Very interesting discussion and timely in the sense that I spoke with a co-
worker yesterday about how Google is obtaining free market research on
businesses through the Google Online Marketing Challenge. Essentially, it's a
competition where students consult with businesses, produce a report on the
company, industry, etc and implement an Adwords campaign for them. No doubt I
gained a lot of experience from doing this but submitting all the reports to
Google and with them being able to aggregate everything, I'm sure they would
find some value in it.
------
eli_gottlieb
The problem is even deeper: _information is non-scarce_. The marginal cost of
production for any unit of information is _zero_ , and thus the natural market
price for a piece of information is _zero_.
The problem being that while the creation and copying of _new_ information is
_obviously_ massively valuable, we've not yet invented any effective and
sensible way to trade information for physical goods like food and land and
medicine.
The more information-based our economy gets, the more blatantly neo-feudal it
gets, _because our property laws for information are blatantly feudal and have
been for decades._ Popular examples of the problem include patent trolling and
Mickey Mouse's regular copyright-extension bills.
Free Culture was a marginal movement in the past couple decades. It's going to
quickly become the next big question of the world economy. When data is what
makes the world go 'round, how do you compromise between compensating the
original creator of the data, making use and extension of the data as
widespread as possible, and not allowing "intellectual property" to expand
into feudal-style veto or rent on everyone else?
~~~
snowwrestler
> The marginal cost of production for any unit of information is zero, and
> thus the natural market price for a piece of information is zero.
The cost to reproduce an existing piece of information is very low (not zero;
you still need computing technology).
But the cost to produce an original piece of information is often still quite
high. Look at how much it cost to make Star Trek Into Darkness, or for George
RR Martin to write his next "Game of Thrones" novel, or Apple to produce iOS
7. These take huge investments in time and technology.
Even the premier product of free culture, the Linux kernel, receives millions
of dollars of investment every year in salaries and supporting technologies.
~~~
eli_gottlieb
Yeah, but the point is that the resulting product (like the movie, code,
whatever) is a tradeable product. The act of creation itself is not something
we can sensibly trade. People are trying with stuff like Kickstarter, but the
core problem is still there: how much should you pay to _maybe_ get something
later that _might_ match the description you _thought_ you liked?
Market economics doesn't work without excludability.
~~~
snowwrestler
The solution to that core problem is to move your transaction to after the act
of creation, so that you can see the final product before you decide whether
you want to invest in its creation.
And that is where the concept of copyright came from in the first place.
------
unimpressive
Is "stealing" really the right word for this?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fast Iterations: How Napoleon Managed the French Army - mikey_p
http://managingmetrics.com/how-napoleon-managed-the-french-army
======
nl
This article sounds really good at a high level, but it misses an important
point.
Prior to the invention of the radio, lower level commanders _always_ had to
use their initiative when commanding their troops, because there was no
reliable way to quickly communicate with their commanders during a battle.
It's disappointing this was missed, because it's an important point: Control
needs to be proportional to communication.
Also:
_They also were taught to live off the land by hunting and foraging. This
decoupled the soldiers from the slow supply caravans and allowed them to
remain independent for long periods of time._
The author probably should have pointed out that this tactic led to his armies
in the Iberian peninsular being bled by attacks form the local population sick
of having the crops stolen by "foraging" soldiers. It also led to the Russian
disaster - the Russians left nothing for the French armies to forage, and so
when winter came they ~all died.
~~~
hacker-gene
> Control needs to be proportional to communication.
First time I've heard of this, and I'm pretty sure there's good insight here
somewhere (I don't think I've heard it mentioned anywhere), would be great if
you can expand on it.
~~~
nl
Thanks. I just made it up.. but I don't think it's anything complicated.
Control should only be exerted over things where you have sufficient
knowledge. In a rapidly changing environment - be it business or battle -
knowledge can only come via communication.
Strong centralized control can only work well in environments where
communication is strong too. Otherwise decisions must be made with less
knowledge than other parts of the organisation closer to the action the
decision affects.
~~~
davidw
> Thanks. I just made it up.. but I don't think it's anything complicated.
It's a nice phrase and concept. If you could fluff it up a few hundred pages,
you could get a business book of your own out of it...
------
nradov
Military analogies and examples are almost universally terrible when applied
to software development (and business in general). That blog post cherry picks
a few anecdotes from Napoleon's history and ignores his failure to learn from
his mistakes. As his famed opponent Arthur Wellesley (Wellington) said after
defeating Napoleon the final time: "They came on in the same old way and we
defeated them in the same old way."
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Column_%28for...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Column_%28formation%29#Napoleonic_Wars)
Business is not war.
~~~
anonymo
"As his famed opponent Arthur Wellesley (Wellington) said after defeating
Napoleon the final time: "They came on in the same old way and we defeated
them in the same old way.""
Cute, except that Waterloo was Wellington's one and only victory over
Bonaparte. It was the only time they met on the battle field, and even then,
Michel Ney made most of the tactical decisions (and mistakes) on that day.
Remembering Napoleon for Waterloo rather than Austerlitz, Ulm and Jena would
be like remembering Hannibal for Zama. The fact that his name has become
synonymous with his unremarkable defeat on that day, and that Wellington, a
reactionary, anti-democratic, ennobled aristocrat, is somehow looked upon with
favor in this country (America), even more so than his adversary who was an
ally of America, who doubled the size of our country with the Louisiana
Purchase and who actually planned on settling here after his second
abdication, is a testament to the lasting power of the British anti-
Bonapartist propaganda industry. More books were written about Napoleon in the
19th century than about any other man, living or dead, and most English
languages books on him were written by Brits, and most of those books vilified
him as the Corsican Ogre, the Great Usurper and so on. Were it not for this
cottage industry that sprang up during the Napoleonic Era and lingered long
after, most Americans would probably still have a favorable view of Napoleon
as they did during his lifetime.
~~~
nl
_Cute, except that Waterloo was Wellington's one and only victory over
Bonaparte. It was the only time they met on the battle field, and even then,
Michel Ney made most of the tactical decisions (and mistakes) on that day._
That's true, but Wellington defeated French armies numerous times. Indeed, I
think this is why the quote is famous - instead of Napoleon being some magical
fairy dust that made the French army invulnerable, Wellington was making the
point that he'd defeated them before and the actual fighting at Waterloo
unfolded much like it had in all of the other battles Wellington fought (eg,
in the Peninsular campaign).
It also ignore just how close the battle was - indeed, most commentators think
it is likely the French would have won if Napoleon had attacked Wellington
earlier in the morning, instead of parading his army in an attempt to
intimidate the British. (The argument is that he could have beaten the British
before the Prussians arrived instead of having to split his forces). True or
not, it does seem likely this was a mistake by Napoleon.
Wellington was _a reactionary, anti-democratic, ennobled aristocrat_ , but in
many ways he was a better _manager_ of his army than Napoleon was. For
example, he always made sure his armies were supplied with food without having
to steal from the local population. It was Wellington's logistical innovations
in India that allowed the British to subdue the sub-continent - despite French
attempts to stop them.
~~~
Nick_C
Allow me to point out that anti-democratic in the context of the times (and
especially Wellington) really means pro-monarchy. In other words, not for the
oppression of the people that anti-democracy perhaps implies to the modern
reader, but instead that monarchy is a better, more beneficial system for the
people.
~~~
nl
This is true.
But prior to his European campaigns, Wellington served as _Chief Secretary for
Ireland_ and in that position was responsible for policies that would be
considered very oppressive these days.
There is some evidence that he didn't agree with at least some of these
policies (in particular I believe he tried to moderate the treatment on Irish
tenants by English landholders).
But yeah.. attitudes really were different then, and you can't just interpret
things the same way.
------
lmkg
Interesting... he became the most renowned military commander in European
history by relinquishing his command to his subordinates. In effect, he
pioneered not micromanaging.
Of course, there's more to it than just saying "do what you think is best" and
calling it a day. Napoleon still needed to make high-level strategic
decisions, he needed ensure his subordinates' individual initiative was in
line with those strategic objectives (even harder if the officers are French
aristocrats), and as usual he needed to completely re-invent logistics for his
army to be able to take advantage of their flexibility (see also: Kanban). In
a very real sense, he wasn't just a great general but invented an entirely new
way of waging war.
------
ojbyrne
Napoleon was innovative, but only covering his career to 1805 sort of ignores
the final punchline. Over the next ten years he was repeatedly defeated by a
coalition that could field larger armies, and slowly but surely stole (or
improved on) all of his innovations. Thus demonstrating the "innovator's
dilemma."
~~~
nl
That's not true.
Napoleon repeatedly defeated larger coalitions.
Battle of Austerlitz (1805): defeated the combined armies of the Austrian and
Russian empire, which led to the collapse of the Third Coalition
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Coalition>)
Battle of Jena-Auerstedt (1806): defeated the Prussians, which led to the
collapse of the Fourth Coalition
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Fourth_Coalition>)
Battle of Wagram (1809): defeated the Austrian army, which collapsed the Fifth
Coalition (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Fifth_Coalition>)
In conclusion, it wasn't larger coalitions improving on Napoleon's tactics
that beat him. It was firstly the Russian winter, and secondly the superbly
trained and professional British army (which used very _different_
tactics)which first defeated his Marshals in the Peninsular campaign and then
joined with the Prussians to beat him at Waterloo.
~~~
varjag
I like how whoever gets defeated in Russia always blames it on bad weather.
~~~
nl
Except for the Mongols [1][2].
[1] I guess they didn't get defeated, and the "bad Russian weather" was much
better than the Mongolian weather they were used to
[2] And to some extent, the Rus tribe which founded Russia. Being Vikings,
they probably found the "bad Russian weather" quite reasonable, too.
------
spitfire
Napoleon practiced what is now known as Maneuver Warfare. John Boyd - the guy
who originated maneuver warfare formally studied spent his life learning this
stuff. Patterns of conflict was a study of 2500 years of conflict and includes
Napoleons campaigns.
The current startup culture of fast iteration is a very weak version of what
Boyd produced. I'd advise anyone starting or running a business to read up on
the subject Boyds' work will tell you what you can and cannot achieve and how
to go about doing it.
[http://radio-
weblogs.com/0107127/stories/2003/02/08/oodaAndB...](http://radio-
weblogs.com/0107127/stories/2003/02/08/oodaAndBusinesschesterRichardsOnBoyd.html)
~~~
celoyd
“Crew resource management” (there’s a good Wikipedia article on it) is another
interesting application of Boyd’s ideas. In a nutshell, it’s the training that
cockpit crews use to make decisions in quickly-changing environments like
emergencies. It has the advantage of lots and lots of testing, which not all
Boyd’s ideas do.
------
akharris
Fairly interesting, but a bit surprised that he missed one of the most
surprising elements of Napolean's innovations: canned food. Modern war is
largely a question of logistics, and canned goods (over foraging) gave them
the ability to keep food edible longer over greater distance. Of course, not
even canned food could give them victory over the russian winter.
------
jmatt
This is only peripherally related. But since we are on the topic of
Napoleon...
Charles Joseph Minard created and published a flow map of "Napoleon's
disastrous Russian campaign of 1812"[1]. This graphic is way ahead of it's
time. It provides so much information in such a concise and clear form that
it's hard to imagine that it was published in 1869.
Also see more information on Tufte's website[2][3]. That is how I originally
found out about it.
[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Joseph_Minard> and
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Minard.pn...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Minard.png)
[2] <http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/minard>
[3] <http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/minard-obit>
------
cafard
Utter and complete crock. Armies had always requisitioned food. Hunting could
never supply a substantial part of an army's needs. Napoleon drew in part from
lessons learned by the French while assisting the Americans during the
American Revolution. Etc. etc. etc.
But as business publications go, it's above average.
------
kiba
Didn't the Roman general Gaius Marius also introduced the idea of backpack?
His soldiers were called Marius' Mules.
------
HistoryInAction
Also shows the problem of first followers in action.
All of Europe got smacked around for a while by this great disrupter, but
eventually, they learned from Napoleon, found some weaknesses, and then broke
him in the two key battles ending the Napoleonic Wars. He couldn't maintain
his 'first mover' advantage.
~~~
mousa
I would have to think some of his defeat was because France was just depleted.
It had undergone what was probably the most violent couple decades in history
to that point, starting with the revolution, and during his second run, there
wasn't much room for error.
------
krakensden
There are only two posts on that blog, and they're both great. I hope he keeps
it up.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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The Future of Content Management - techdog
http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2009/08/future-of-content-management.html
======
9oliYQjP
Actually, I beg to differ with the author. The problem I've come across with a
lot of CMSes is that they have tried to make content so abstract as to make it
cumbersome to do anything with it. The only thing that really exists with
content is its concrete representation at any given point in time, whether
it's HTML, a database table row, or an audio recording. You can't store
abstract ideas, but that's precisely what CMSes are trying to do. All the
content is broken down into primitive types. Structure and sequence are
removed as much as possible. Then more complex content is assembled from these
smaller pieces. The problem is, this seems like the right approach but it
quickly breaks down.
For instance, I've dealt with CMSes that have tried to remove HTML from their
core content only to be forced to store HTML strings in their data stores and
use an editor like FCKEdit or TinyMCE in later versions of the product. The
problem has never been the extra structure and sequence that HTML lends to the
content. The problem has always been that it has been cumbersome to transform
this structure and sequence. When someone wants to change their website so an
article written on one HTML page is now spread across 5 pages, it shouldn't
require them to have to jump through hoops to accomplish this. Or if somebody
wants to convert a written article into a spoken recording, a CMS should be
able to handle this.
It's alright to store content in its final publishable state of HTML, so long
as you make it easy to transform that content into different representations.
How you store the intermediary data does not matter. It's the transformations
between final content states that are the key. But today's CMSes make it so
difficult to transform content. Think about it. How straightforward is it to
move a website from one CMS to another let alone from say, a website to a
printed book? I honestly think the future of CMSes lies in something that
looks a lot like Yahoo Pipes rather than some centralized repository
enterprise battleship clunker (can you tell I've had to deal with some crappy
CMSes)?
------
itgoon
How long until someone posts that the "future of CMS" is actually a
centralized index, with the data existing wherever it makes sense? Kind of a
personal card catalog.
FWIW, that's exactly what I'm working on.
~~~
mark_h
Please keep us posted. I've had informal discussions with a mate about just
that idea; I'd love to see what you come up with.
~~~
itgoon
I'll answer your question and then engage in some shameless self-promotion. I
wrote about it after posting my comment. Here's the chunk which answers your
question:
Where am I now?
Heh. I mentioned that looking for duplicate files is harder than I thought it
would be. I'm actually on my third try. The first one was when I thought "I
can do this with a script", the second was with .NET, where I aimed bigger,
but found not nearly big enough.
So, I've just completed the work on the file crawler, and the next bit is
submitting the crawl results to the index. I've done this part before, and I
don't expect it to be particularly hard, but I have to find the time for it.
After that, something resembling a UI (I am trying to solve a problem), then
put the whole thing out there with a big fat "alpha" disclaimer (probably
Apache license, since I'm using so much of their stuff).
And that's what I'm doing, and where I'm at.
Hope this helps.
<http://itgoon.blogspot.com/2009/08/wheres-that-file.html>
~~~
thaumaturgy
Along the lines of what you're working on, I think what you really want is a
form of network browser capable of locating files stored redundantly across a
completely decentralized network.
Done correctly, this would make notions like "backups" completely obsolete,
and "my files" would exist on any computer that allowed me to log in to the
appropriate service.
Fast, decentralized, redundant network systems are a beast to engineer though,
but it's do-able.
Bonus points if you figure out how to let users store private data on such a
network, and keep it private, while also allowing them to share specific files
with specific individuals or groups of individuals.
Pull that off, and you'll have the holy grail of data storage.
I've only got some rough notes on this; I don't think I'd start trying to
actually implement it for another two years yet.
Beat me to it! I'd rather take a vacation. :-)
------
Rickasaurus
I've tried to solve this on my own and, while it seems simple, it's hugely
complex. What I want is just a black box that I can stuff data into and have
it be semantically tagged.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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If Half of All Species Go Extinct, Will One of Them Be Us? - hawleyal
http://nautil.us/blog/if-half-of-all-species-go-extinct-will-one-of-them-be-us
======
archgoon
"We know how to not cut down trees; we know how to not hunt animals to
extinction; we know how to reduce our carbon emissions. The question isn’t one
of possibility, but of desire and ethically arduous sacrifice."
Do we now? Ignoring the idea that it's simpler to predict the economic,
political, and ecological consequences of stopping large amounts of economic
activity (which, the article should recognize, is the exact damn problem
they're trying to avoid solving); how DO you actually convince all 7 billion
people that it's in their best interests to stop doing things that will let
them put food on their family's table?
HINT: Non trivial problem.
~~~
Ygg2
The thing is, we kinda can put food on every family table, problem is most
families we don't have an infallible way to do so.
------
waps
If you believe in evolution, then presumably not, assuming humans really are
fit, which our current situation would seem to indicate.
On the other hand, generally what happens is that species grow larger and
heavier (because that allows for increased energy efficiency at the cost of
reduced adaptability), and then disappear. That's why larger animals are
disproportionally likely to go extinct. We are quite large.
So the short answer is : the jury's still out. After all, if we are not in
fact better than other species, why should we survive ?
~~~
PeterWhittaker
Humans are fit, to our current situation. That's the point. We are perhaps
more flexible than many other species, but we are not infinitely flexible.
As the article, in one experiment, removing a top predator caused certain tree
species to die off (the predator controlled the beasts that gobbled the
trees). There are cascading downstream effects.
Removing half of all species might, just might, change the environment so much
we no longer fit it, we can no longer adjust. Or perhaps some of us will
survive.
Note that your last sentence betrays a common misunderstanding about
evolution: some notion of superiority. Evolution isn't about superiority, it
is about goodness of fit, how well various species fit their environment. This
isn't fitness as in strength, it's fitness as in suitability. It's not
optimization, it adequate-ization.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Dopamine API – Turn any app into a habit - tdaltonc
http://usedopamine.com/
======
tkomada
The Dopamine API finally gives developers a tool to reliably and scalably
increase retention and engagement through behavioral reinforcement techniques.
It takes the guesswork out of so much of UX design that dictates an
application's growth and staying power.
------
Abrownn
How did you figure out the optimal reinforcement schedule for behaviors? That
doesn't seem like something you can just brute force with number crunching.
~~~
tdaltonc
Right you are! This can't be bruit forced. We use brain wiring model and
behavioral models to figure out when/how to reward users. We also run a lot of
experiments when we have hunches about ways to improve the system.
------
gingerlime
Looks neat, and we might give you guys a try. I'm wondering about a couple of
things that weren't super-obvious to me from the website and video alone:
* does it work with a web-app? I saw curl examples, so probably it does, but what about those reinforcements?
* speaking of which - apart from two simple popups on the video, is there a "library" of cool reinforcements to use?
* not trying to underestimate the science behind this, and just playing devil's advocate here - did you test the actual difference between your algorithm and a semi-random/ultra-basic reinforcement trigger? (something along the lines of `if reinforcements_today < 3 && rand() > 0.7 then reinforce()`)
~~~
RAB1138
hey @gingerlime, I'm Ramsay, Founder @ Dopamine Thanks for the feedback!
1.) We're releasing our web sdks next week: A PHP version and a Python
version, each with a JS frontend wrapper. If you email me at
[email protected] I can poke you when it's shipped!
2.) We do! To get dev's off the ground we released a library of popups with
different icon images like you saw. You can modify parameters like color,
duration, copy.
AND you can arbitrarily call any UX-updating function from the code that
handles the Dopamine API's response. This lets you map a response we give you
to any function in your app. We're sprinting to deploy a way to do this more
elegantly on the integration dashboard also.
3.) Yes, we did. TL;DR: We outperform alternatives that devs are resorting to
right now. @tdaltonc: care to chime in?
~~~
gingerlime
Thanks for answering all my questions. I'll ping you guys and see about
testing this out. We created a learning platform for anatomy[0], and
gamification and motivation is one of the things we know we can and should
improve. Sounds like dopamine can be a good fit.
p.s. I really like the name!
[0] [https://www.kenhub.com](https://www.kenhub.com)
------
zdkl
Brave New World wasn't supposed to be a product pitch
~~~
tdaltonc
I totally agree.
If you're in to BNW I'd recommend Huxley's little known follow up 'Island'.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_(Huxley_novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_\(Huxley_novel\))
He shows that all the same technologies that the characters of BNW use to
chain people to the state, can also be used to set them free. Habits can be
your best friend or your worst enemy. We can't unlearn what we know about how
to change human behavior. But we can decide that while casinos and gaming
companies are using these insights to numb people, we're going to use the same
insights to help people become their best selves.
We only make production keys available to teams that we're sure are working in
their users' best interests.
~~~
zdkl
Thank you for taking the time to reply, I do hope you'll keep in mind the
ominous aspect your product draws on. I wish you and your team all the best,
but be careful where you go with this please.
Also my concern isn't about habits directly, more that you're selling the
manipulation of those habits in an automated, generalisable way.
------
tshark87
My head is spinning... this is super awesome!
------
android521
have you ever created a successful and engaging app using your own science?
------
waterphone
Disgusting. Stop trying to subversively manipulate people to turn them into
addicts.
~~~
tdaltonc
Obviously, I don't think that our product is subversive. I think that there is
a moral imperative for our product. A huge percent of the world's human
suffering stems from peoples' inability to do the 'simple' behaviors they wish
they could (eat less, go to the gym more, study, relax when they get home from
work).
We’re not stupid: app-based approaches are not silver bullets. But if we’re
going to help people fix some of their major lifestyle-based problems we need
to do so with a rigourized technology of human behavior. Less sophisticated
versions of what we do are already being used - and mostly by gaming
companies. We’re bringing the most powerful technologies for changing human
behavior to bare on some of the biggest problems there are.
For example, medical interventions, (i.e. curative care) involving doctors,
specialized clinics and other health professionals is very expensive and will
only become more so in the future. Preventative care - especially through
mobile devices and apps - is extremely important if we want to lower the cost
of health care over the long term. The most effective approach to prevention
is building better, healthier habits. And apps scale stupidly well.
We only make production keys available to teams that we're sure are working in
their users' best interests.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Hallelujah! CloudPull successfully scrapes "tag" data from Google Reader - tvchurch
http://www.goldenhillsoftware.com/
======
tvchurch
I've been looking everywhere for a way to save all of my tags from Google
Reader. I can verify that CloudPull preserves all tagged data and the links to
the websites that have been tagged.
If you were worried about losing all of your bookmarks through Google Reader,
this should put you at ease.
Now I hope Feedly and OldReader and any other Google Reader replacements
incorporate tags, so that they can eventually re-incorporate my current tagged
data.
------
mike503
Is there a windows (or Linux command line) equivalent that will backup Google-
based data?
~~~
johnsbrayton
The closest thing I know of for other operating systems is BackupGoo.
<http://www.backupgoo.com/> BackupGoo does not back up Google Reader, but it
does back up other Google services.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Go's power is in emergent behavior - bslatkin
http://www.onebigfluke.com/2014/04/gos-power-is-in-emergent-behavior.html
======
eridius
The first example is not emergent behavior. And it has nothing at all to do
with the implicit nature of interfaces. It is in fact a pretty straightforward
consequence of the fact that functions are first-class types. Because they're
types, you can newtype them, and you can implement interfaces on the newtype.
This should work in any language that has interfaces and first-class
functions.
For reference, here's the exact same thing in Rust:
// Define trait Foo, this is the equivalent of an interface
pub trait Foo {
fn foo(&self, x: int) -> int;
}
// Define a newtype called FooFunc
pub struct FooFunc(fn(x:int) -> int);
// Explicitly implement the trait on FooFunc
impl Foo for FooFunc {
fn foo(&self, x: int) -> int {
let &FooFunc(f) = self; // unwrap the newtype
f(x)
}
}
// This is a method that uses a Foo, analogous to http.Handle()
pub fn doFoo<T: Foo>(f: T) {
println!("foo(42) = {}", f.foo(42));
}
// Here's our function that we want to wrap
fn MyFoo(x: int) -> int {
x+1
}
fn main() {
// Call the function, just like http.Handle using http.HandlerFunc
doFoo(FooFunc(MyFoo));
}
And just like Go, this ends up being free at runtime.
~~~
md224
Yeah, it looks like their solution is just creating a function object whose
interface-required method calls the object itself (or at least that's my OOP-
centric interpretation). You could do something like that in Javascript (minus
the interface, obviously):
var f = function(){ console.log('called'); };
f.callMe = function(){ this(); };
I wonder if this is a useful pattern in JS. Can't recall ever seeing it in
practice.
~~~
NateDad
It's useful in go, because it means you can trivially turn a bare function
into a type that fulfills an interface, which makes your function more
flexible - it can easily take either a type with a method or just a method.
------
austinz
I'm not sure I understand why implicit interfaces are better than explicitly
declared interfaces. (This is an honest question.) I do iOS stuff
occasionally, and in that world one of the main purposes of interfaces (in
Objective-C, protocols) is to explicitly declare that some entity adheres to a
contract - it promises to implement some pre-agreed-upon functionality that
other entities can use. What do implicit interfaces buy you? Better static
type checking? Less typing?
/* Also, from the blog:
> Nowhere in this code did we ever declare a relationship between MyType and
> Answer.
"Answer" isn't in the example. Was this something from an earlier draft? */
~~~
latch
With implicit interfaces you're not tied to a specific interface, but rather
the method(s). If you have a type that implements Close() error, your type can
now be used anywhere (include other people's code) which accepts an io.Closer.
Add a MarshalText() (text []byte, err error) function and it can now be used
anywhere that expects a encoding.TextMarshaler.
Furthermore, your type can be used in someone's else code which has defined
its own MarshalTextCloser interface.
I believe this is what the OP means by emergent. You wrote a type that has two
methods, within your own package called "goku.Sayan", and it accidentally
satisfies the interface "picard.MarshalTextCloser" which you'll never know
about. "Sayan" was never built to satisfy _any_ interface. You just needed a
Close and MarshalText function, but none the less, "Sayan" satisfies 3
distinct interface (which could be represented by an unlimited number of
names)
I realise _accidental_ sounds dangerous, but the only real risk is that the
methods don't do what you think they should. But I don't see how that's
different from explicit interfaces; in both cases the intent is only implied
by the name. Overall, as the OP says, it's quite powerful when dealing with
simple 1 or 2 function interfaces. I think most Go developers see this
naturally emerge in their own code: they favor small interfaces specifically
for this type of re-use.
~~~
pcwalton
I think the chances that people independently developing two separate
libraries will accidentally give their methods exactly the same name, with the
same types of their arguments in the same order and with the same return
value, allowing this "emergent behavior" are very low in practice. Rather,
Close() and MarshalText() are really people implementing explicit, well-known
interfaces defined in the standard library. MarshalText() is a good example of
this—I would have named it something like Serialize() if not for the well-
known, named interface I explicitly wanted to conform to.
The primary benefit that structural interfaces give you, IMO, is less typing.
Which has plenty of value, don't get me wrong; it's awesome that Go has
successfully reduced the amount of syntactic overhead needed to implement
interfaces. But I think the benefits of it shouldn't be overstated.
~~~
seanmcdirmid
Cowboys draw their guns; artists draw their pictures; an artist cowboy draws
pictures and guns. It happens more than you think, and name hygiene is a big
deal in programming languages.
The problem goes away with less ambiguous naming conventions (e.g. DrawGun()
and DrawPicture()), but overloading is so gosh darn convenient, and thinking
of unambiguous names is quite difficult. C# is really the only mainstream
language that gets this right with explicit interface implementations.
~~~
stormbrew
I think this is more of a problem in languages that _also_ encourage having
deep class hierarchies with virtual dispatch as their main mechanism of
polymorphism. It's in those languages that you tend to see argument-less
functions like Draw() because the entire concept of what it is for that object
to be drawn as well as where has been baked in to one large composite object.
In languages that place more emphasis on type deduction and composition it's
much more likely you're calling draw to tell it what to draw on, and the
aggregate type information once you introduce an argument or two is actually
quite rich.
Which leaves you with things like Close(), which, let's be honest, we don't
need 30 interfaces that all just have Close in them just because the base
language didn't happen to include one. The concept is simple and relatively
unambiguous and almost always has to do with some kind of disposal of
resource.
~~~
seanmcdirmid
That's just how natural language is; languages based on objects will suffer
since that can't rely on full natural language power even if based on
naturalistic concepts. Any duck typed system simply doesn't care much about
name meaning at all.
------
twic
> That's it: a tiny adaptor that makes a bare function satisfy an interface.
> How is that possible?
No, why is it necessary?
In Java 8:
public interface Handler {
void serveHTTP(ResponseWriter w, Request r);
}
public class MyApplication {
public static void myHandler(ResponseWriter w, Request r) {
w.write("An even easier webserver?");
}
public static void main(String... args) {
Http.handle("/", MyApplication::myHandler);
}
}
No adaptor needed!
Or even:
public class MyApplication {
public static void main(String... args) {
Http.handle("/", (w, r) -> w.write("An even easier webserver?"));
}
}
And please bear in mind that this is Java, the slowest-moving and least
sophisticated of contemporary languages! Why does Go require so much more
boilerplate than Java?
~~~
nnutter
Do you get to use Java 8 in production?
Edit: To clarify I mean if you had a Java X app deployed how hard is it to
upgrade to Java 8? One thing I like, maybe naively, about Go is static
binaries.
~~~
lmm
It's pretty trivial. 1. Upgrade JVM on server (i.e. change 1 line of puppet
config) 2. Build with Java 8 (i.e. change target option in your build file) 3.
Deploy.
I mean sure, you have to install the new JVM, but if you don't have a system
in place for making changes to your servers then you've got bigger problems
than which language you're using. And honestly I think the JVM with its
classpath approach solves the library problem better than most platforms;
upgrading the JVM binary occasionally is no great hardship, and aside from
that everything is just jars, dynamic but not getting in the way of each other
unless you want them to. What happens when security holes are found in Go
libraries, do you have to recompile anything that depends on them?
------
pedrocr
The second one just looks like a hack. You've defined a useless function to
make an interface not implementable. It would look cleaner with a keyword in
the interface definition.
~~~
jdiez17
First of all: I agree. There are many things in Go that feel like a hack. For
example, it is common (and idiomatic) to use a map with empty values when you
want to use a set (unordered and unique values), because the map's keys are a
set. I personally dislike this, and some aspects of Go are like this.
However this blog post is about how good core language design leads to
unplanned patterns that are useful, like HandlerFunc and the private interface
hack.
~~~
Iftheshoefits
One person's "unplanned patterns that are useful" is another's "this is a
potentially dangerous hack that could lead to all manner of headaches in any
non-trivial program with even just a few hundred lines of code, let alone
thousands or millions."
~~~
politician
The sweet spot for Go is in the hundreds to a couple of thousand lines of
code. Unix philosophy and all that. Leave the monolithic MLOC monstrosities to
Java.
~~~
bsdetector
People write MLOC monstrosities in Java _because they can_. You get some
boring financial topic and some sub-par programmers and they'll write as much
garbage as the language can possibly sustain.
These things are a testament to how safe and simple Java is as a language.
Not having massive crappy code bases is a negative sign in terms of how
reliable and easy to understand a language is.
------
mjburgess
I dont know, these feel to me like very simple features ("functions are
objects", "functions take a final-type") .. nothing really "wow". The wow-
factor is, I guess, that Go can actually do it.. which seems to me a little
masochistic. ("Wow my underpowered lang. isnt so bad!").
------
coolsunglasses
There are nicer ways to do structural typing.
Here's just one example:
I have a post here of how you can partially define structure to be filled in
by the consumer of the API: [http://bitemyapp.com/posts/2014-04-11-aeson-and-
user-created...](http://bitemyapp.com/posts/2014-04-11-aeson-and-user-created-
types.html)
Can't do this without polymorphism and higher-kinded types.
~~~
biscarch
I'm using this approach for a library that is currently in development. It
works very well.
------
asuffield
Welcome to the world of languages with type systems that don't suck. It's
going to be a fun ride, and if you think _this_ is cool, you're going to be
really excited by the other languages we've got in here.
It continually amazes me that people are willing to put up with Java.
~~~
zak_mc_kracken
If you are putting Go in the category of languages with a type system that
doesn't suck, you probably need to study more languages.
Go has a few nice things going for it but its type system was clearly designed
by people who stopped paying attention to type theory and compiler design in
the late 90's.
~~~
asuffield
I wouldn't say it's exactly brilliant - but it's just missing all the really
cool stuff, rather than being buggy. It does what it's trying to do, and then
stops. It's a bit like C in that regard (and unlike C++, Java, and C#, which
tried to do something much bigger and didn't get it right).
It's also a bit like working with first-order propositional logic - well-
founded and with its own unique simplicity, but you can't say everything with
it and have alternatives.
So yes, I'd say that the type system of Go doesn't suck. It's not very good,
and there are so many better things out there (rust, I'm looking at you), but
it's a long way from being a disaster.
------
MaysonL
The trouble with implicit interfaces is maintainability: suppose Awesome gets
a func PerformAwesomeness() added to it: what then happens to the code that
thinks myType is Awesome?
Not too bad when it's all in one source file, but get a few megabytes of code
spread through a few thousand source files, and you've got a formula for chaos
and heartburn.
~~~
thrownaway2424
Not sure what you are getting at. If you add something to the interface of
Awesome, then any call site which passes a thing not having a
PerformAwesomeness() method will fail to compile.
~~~
danieldk
Unless you rely on introspection, which happens a lot when your language does
not support generics.
~~~
NateDad
No, it really doesn't happen a lot. If it does, you're doing it wrong.
~~~
danieldk
If you don't have parametric polymorphism, you only have two options to
implement new containers: a new implementation for each type or using
interface{}. The first leads to a lot of duplicate code, the latter requires
you to use introspection to use safely.
So, it does happen a lot, or you are making duplicate code.
~~~
NateDad
Or you just don't need polymorphic containers that often (other than the ones
that go already gives you).
------
skywhopper
So Go has duck-typing, and semantic capitalization, just like many other
languages.
~~~
ryanobjc
for me, the built in goroutines is what moves the needle. The rest of the
stuff is very nice, but built-in concurrency is pretty nice.
Yes I know about Erlang, no I won't touch Erlang again.
~~~
rdtsc
> Yes I know about Erlang, no I won't touch Erlang again.
Curious, what makes you say that?
~~~
ryanobjc
Strings basically. I ended up joining Google back when, and ultimately I
realized that "the web = strings" and Erlang is particularly bad at that. 128
bits for a 7-bit ascii character?
At the time, there was no good binary<->string utf8 libraries, not sure what
the state of the art is now.
------
myg204
Interesting to see surprise usages like that for such a small/simple language
like Go; makes you wonder about the amounts of trickeries available in more
complex languages.
------
NateDad
One of the nicest things about Go interfaces is that they encourage SMALL
interfaces. In explicit interface implementations, you end up throwing
everything including the kitchen sink in the interface, because you might need
it somewhere the type is used.
In Go, interfaces are small, and focused more on the _function_ rather than
the type. The function defines the methods it needs. So you can have a hundred
small interfaces with one or two methods each, and a small handful of types
that implement some percentage of those interfaces. Small interfaces makes
your functions a lot more flexible. If all you need is a Read() method and a
Close() method, instead of a huge number of potentially type-specific methods,
then your method that takes a ReadCloser can be used by a lot more types.
You can do that in languages with explicitly implemented interfaces, but it
means you need to write down that your type implements these 40 interfaces...
and that's a hassle that isn't really needed or useful.
------
shoo
For the second example, the non-implementable public interface, is there a way
to allow implementations when testing?
naively, if i define a non-implementable public interface as described in the
article inside `foo.go` and put some test code next to it in `foo_test.go`
that attempts to implement the interface with a special test version, then as
we might expect, that doesn't work. if i put test code inside `foo.go` itself,
`go test` doesn't appear to collect the test.
(i have no experience with go, apologies if i am missing something very
obvious)
~~~
helper
Your example of `foo.go` and `foo_test.go` would actually work the way you
want. In go, tests are in the same namespace as the code they are testing so
they have access to private members.
~~~
shoo
Ah, thank you. Where i was going wrong was declaring `foo_test.go` to be a
separate package from `foo.go`. When i write `package foo` at the head of both
`foo.go` and `foo_test.go` this works fine.
------
mamcx
As asked in [http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/234900/go-
lik...](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/234900/go-like-
interfaces-multi-methods-make-sense)
I wonder if make sense to merge the julia multi-methods + GO interfaces.
------
lnanek2
Honestly, I feel the version where he defines the struct as usual is clearer,
simpler, and more maintainable. Other programmers will understand it
immediately without thought. Allowing weird fancy ways like he raves about to
save a couple lines of code is really a drawback in enterprise software
development.
------
philsnow
the purpose is to not be able to use the interface outside the module, right?
why wouldn't you just use an interface type with a lowercase name, which
wouldn't be visible outside the module?
~~~
bslatkin
You want to be able to use the interface outside the module, but not allow
anyone else to implement that interface.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How many daily visits to HN? - tmaly
Are there some stats on how many daily users visit Hackernews?
======
mod
This is a starting point, without exact figures:
[http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ycombinator.com](http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ycombinator.com)
~~~
0942v8653
I like how it drops down at the beginning of the year when people make new
year's resolutions but then climbs right back up.
------
ronreiter
[https://www.similarweb.com/website/news.ycombinator.com#over...](https://www.similarweb.com/website/news.ycombinator.com#overview)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Microsoft acquires Metaswitch in telecom push - codegeek
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/14/microsoft-acquires-metaswitch-in-telecom-push.html
======
donclark
My first thought is, didnt they get out of the cellphone biz?
Next, isnt SpaceX going to have the ability to provide similar service? Is
there room to compete?
I then read its related to cloud services and competing with AWS.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Simple MVC Setup in Node.js - travisglines
http://www.travisglines.com/web-coding/a-simple-mvc-setup-in-node-js
======
Detrus
Article is pretty weak on the details.
This guy <http://nodetuts.com/> has video tuts on using Express, Jade and
Mongoose to make a simple web service.
~~~
travisglines
I wanted to gauge interest. I think its pretty clear that people want a way
more in depth tutorial/article and I'll put one together.
I'll try and make it chock full of details this time around.
The tutorials on nodetuts are solid.
~~~
schwabacher
This, along with the JSONloops stuff, inspired me to finally download and play
around with node. I would definitely be interested in a more in depth
tutorial, specifically more on setting up mongodb and connecting mongoose and
on how to break controllers out from the main app.js file.
------
eaxitect
I don't think node.js is a replacement for fully-fledged framework. Rather, i
believe, it's a backend for high-performance parts like real-time streaming
API or something. Although the setup is neat, and obvious, I believe it's way
worse to develop at this stack.
~~~
travisglines
I keep hearing this and am curious:
Why don't you think node.js is a fit for a fully fledged dynamic website? What
things is it missing?
I know its been used as a high performance tool historically but whats holding
it back from becoming more?
~~~
eaxitect
actually, I agree with you, but for now, node.js has to has more features like
templating, UI flow, etc. injected into the way node.js handle requests. I've
asked the same question for Sinatra earlier today, and got my answers.
~~~
travisglines
This is what the add on modules do such as jade. Check out jade-lang.com ...
basically why I wrote the blog post was to show that with the use of a
libraries node can compete with the best web frameworks.
------
lwat
Tell me again why we want to use Javascript server side?
~~~
dstein
The JavaScript language isn't what's nice. What's nice is using one
programming language to write an HTTP server, your server application, server
templates, client-side application, client-side templates, communication code,
database code, and be able to share your libraries and models between all
contexts _simultaneously_. You fix one bug in one place, and you've fixed the
bug in 7 or 8 different contexts immediately. In other words, your
productivity skyrockets.
~~~
Klonoar
You know, I'll just throw this out there: as someone who's written a lot of
code with Node backing it, I've run into maybe _one_ scenario where I've
brought client and server side logic together.
They are two separate models, and will most likely remain as such for the
foreseeable future. While I can only speak for myself, I'd advocate using it
because the language is indeed nice, and much more flexible overall than some
of the alternatives. On top of that, it's got several large companies with a
vested interest in its development, which is far more than can be said for
some of its competition.
Really, the point I'd like to counter here is this: your productivity does
_not_ skyrocket, and it's not necessarily the reason to want to use JS server
side. For example, the JS syntax works incredibly well for event based
programming, and is largely tried and true with its use client side. _That's_
a reason to want JS on the server, and I really wish people would quit
throwing around the reusability claim like they do.
~~~
travisglines
I really just enjoy not having to change languages. Whenever I want to do some
basic syntactic stuff like substring for example, its the same everywhere.
That alone makes it enough for me without its other benefits.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
My startup's first press article - mattculbreth
http://www.techjournalsouth.com/news/article.html?item_id=4399
======
ALee
Congrats Matt. We received a huge amount of press when Fantasy Congress was
first created. You probably already know this, but my advice from the media
cycle world is that you should not get distracted. Just keep on focusing on
your great product and you'll do great!
PG's comments on press help here: <http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html>
------
PStamatiou
Glad to see it getting off the ground Matt. I remember when you told me about
it a few months ago over lunch.
likewise, the first press article for a startup I work for (excluding a pre-
launch techcrunch post):
[http://www.techjournalsouth.com/news/article.html?item_id=42...](http://www.techjournalsouth.com/news/article.html?item_id=4290)
~~~
mattculbreth
Yep, which we'll be using shortly on our blog. Nice work on that.
------
carpal
I'm all for Atlanta-area startups, but...
What the hell does it do? I've read the elevator pitch three times and I can't
figure it out.
~~~
mattculbreth
We're a software company building an on-demand web application to deliver
Business Intelligence Extranets. Most traditional products like Business
Objects or Cognos are primarily focused on internal audiences at a company.
We're doing something that's built for a company's customers and suppliers.
~~~
carpal
This phrase has about as much caloric content as a tic-tac:
"on-demand web application to deliver Business Intelligence Extranets"
What's the problem that you guys are solving? How are you solving it? (And
don't just tell me, put it on your website)
------
Tichy
Very hard to understand what it is about, but good luck anyway!
------
mattmaroon
Did you write this yourself?
~~~
mattculbreth
No, was interviewed by the author.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Twitter/tumblr/etc “in a box” platform? - DanBlake
Hey HN- I am looking at building a service semi similar to a twitter/instagram/tumblr which basically involves people following other people to see their content and vice versa. For the sake of argument, imagine I wanted to build a twitter clone that was purely for cat pictures.<p>Is there a open source system out there which has most of the scaling/distribution issues solved for that type of setup? Im loathe to write my own follower/following system out of fear of the scaling issue.<p>Language agnostic but would prefer PHP or Node
======
DanBlake
The only thing I have found so far is pump.io but unsure of activity or how
scalable it will be
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Rise of 'Facadism' in London - choult
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-50396337
======
ColinWright
Discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21533746](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21533746)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Could this be Facebook's new video ad format? (Concept Video) - DerekMerdinyan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5PMsaY0Tlo
This ad format displays in the news feed like a photo and plays like a video when the device is rotated.
======
camsmoren
Good stuff. I wonder if people would be willing to flip it, but much better
than the annoying ads I see now.
------
ariannaodell
Great vid!
------
curtishowell
I like it!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Birchbox Cuts About 12% of Staff - MattRogish
http://www.wsj.com/articles/birchbox-cuts-about-12-of-staff-1467136592
======
brogrammernot
I've been a subscriber since nearly the beginning but I'm not renewing. The
service itself has become incredibly subpar and they've screwed up quite a few
times. Add in the fact that they force you to use points or they expire and
the products are always overpriced. They had a bunch of customers and I
imagine I'm not the only one who no longer sees the value. This tells me more
about their product no longer holding the same value more so than the current
technology situation.
~~~
colept
Same experience here. I regret buying a yearly subscription as I just received
the same product two months in a row and another one I got a couple months
back.
~~~
grandalf
I got the man box and was pleasantly surprised that I actually ordered some of
the items (after a few boxes not ordering anything).
It's a shame they are losing Liz Crawford, she's top notch. I'll be curious to
see where she ends up next.
------
mrgreenfur
Maybe the 'box' industry will finally tone it down a bit. Who really needs
this kind of stuff so frequently?
~~~
gdilla
"rethink cost structures" \- says the CEO. Well, don't be in manhattan. Go to
Nebraska or Idaho or something.
~~~
princetontiger
I interviewed for a very senior finance role at a public company a few days
ago.
The entire group of analysts and managers is based in a southern US state,
while the executive team resides in NYC. Pretty crazy, but makes sense from a
business stand point.
~~~
Scoundreller
The question is: Could the exec team haved have lived in that state?
~~~
bigdubs
The question is: Could you have hired that exec team if it wasn't going to be
based in NYC?
~~~
xenadu02
The question is: Do most executives actually deliver enough value compared to
their pay? (No)
------
slowandlow
I had a phone interview with them and then checked their glassdoor. Needless
to say I'm not surprised about this.
------
therobot24
these monthly box things are great for xmas gifts, but get old fast
~~~
AznHisoka
I was a member of dollar shave club then realized it took me half a year to
use just 1 box.
I'm quite lazy and the razors are incredibly frustrating to open so I end up
just using 1 as long as possible. So I just quit my subscription and when I
need new razors I sign up again. Funny thing is the first month they always
give you a free shaver with the razors so it works out well for me. I want my
money's worth, damn it.
~~~
loeg
Just buy directly from Dorco on Amazon as needed. Dollar Shave just rebrands
Dorco products and marks them up.
~~~
wp1
I've always been impressed that Dollar Shave Club was able to build a business
around selling a single product available on Amazon for a higher price.
~~~
Scoundreller
I see the humour in it, but Amazon calls it a "reusable" good.
------
programminggeek
"X startup cuts 10-15% of staff" seems to be a meme lately.
------
crisopolis
Why must we always link to Pay Wall articles... :'(
~~~
gortok
For WSJ if you click the 'web' link above you'll get taken to the Google
result page for this article.
~~~
dangoldin
Another way is add /amp/ to the URL before /articles (ie
[http://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/birchbox-cuts-about-12-of-
st...](http://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/birchbox-cuts-about-12-of-
staff-1467136592)).
Sometimes it will do a subscription request but there are ways around that as
well if you look at the network inspector to see what it's requesting..
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Yunduan, Application Virtualization Store for Windows - liuliu
http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&u=http://www.yunduan.cn/index.php%3Foption%3Dcom_swbox%26task%3Dtechn&sl=auto&tl=en
======
liuliu
For those who confused by auto-translate:
Yunduan(Softcloud) is a virtualization layer for applications on Windows.
Basically, it is a shadow system but have a projection in real system which
enables that the software managed by Yunduan can interact with software
managed by real system.
This kind design make the software installed by Yunduan highly portable. You
can hide/activate/uninstall/reinstall with one click and almost instant.
However, the software installed by Yunduan have to downloaded from Yuduan
manager throw P2P method (like an app store).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Could this mean a CDMA iPhone? - pedalpete
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/05/20/new-zealand-telco-seems-to-further-verify-new-iphone-on-twitter/
======
pedalpete
A quick look at the network provider on wikipedia
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecom_New_Zealand>
Points to this being a CDMA provider, meaning this opens the iPhone to many
more carriers in North America.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
End-to-End Analog Chips for AI Computation - beefman
https://www.eetimes.com/research-breakthrough-promises-end-to-end-analog-chips-for-ai-computation/
======
beefman
Paper: [https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.01981](https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.01981)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A military exercise staged 35 years ago almost triggered World War Three - pseudolus
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20181108-the-wargame-that-could-have-ended-the-world
======
michaelt
But because their masters in Moscow wanted to hear there
was potential for a first-strike, to please their bosses,
that’s what the spies delivered.
“These people were close to the West, they lived in the
West and knew there were no plans for a first strike but
they reported what they were told to report,” Jones
explains.
[...]
It was a dangerously vicious circle. “It’s a failure of
the Soviet system,” says Jones, “Soviet intelligence did
not act rationally.”
Modern western governments will do precisely the same thing; the politicians
ask for a dossier saying Iraq has weapons of mass destruction they can launch
in 45 minutes? Then that's what they get.
I always assumed this was seen as a feature rather than a bug - i.e. that
politicians choose and instruct spy agency bosses to be politically compliant,
rather than to produce reports that are unbiased and strictly factual.
~~~
varjag
No, _most_ of the Western governments don't do that. The reason "coalition of
the willing" was so thin is that aside the US and the UK few bought that.
France have threatened veto in the UN, so it was not put to the vote… that's
also how the whole "freedom fries" idiocy took off. And the rest of
continental Europe was immensely sceptical.
~~~
adventured
France had no problem supporting the conflicts in Libya and Syria that sought
to accomplish similar outcomes as in Iraq (remove & replace Gaddafi and al-
Assad). In fact, France has routinely urged Trump and the US to remain engaged
in the Syria conflict.
"Emmanuel Macron to urge Donald Trump to keep US in Syria during White House
talks"
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/23/emmanuel-
macron-...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/23/emmanuel-macron-urge-
donald-trump-keep-us-syria-white-house/)
~~~
varjag
Both Libya and Syria conflicts were started by their respective dictators
massacring people.
~~~
sacado2
Khaddaffi (not sure about spelling) was a friend of France just a few years
before he got killed. He was even invited to put his tent in the gardens of
the Élysée by newly elected president Sarkozy, four years before. And back
then, Khaddaffi was not especially a benevolent dictator.
And there are tons of counter examples. For example, Eritrea is recognized as
one of the worst dictatorship in the world, and we have no troops over here to
free the people of Eritrea.
~~~
mousecorkkey
Are you referring to Gaddafi?
~~~
sacado2
Yep, we call him Kadhafi in French (and this time I checked the spelling).
~~~
mcv
I notice Wikipedia now spells it as Gaddafi. I thought it used to be Khaddafi
in English.
Interestingly, Dutch Wikipedia now calls him al-Qadhafi.
~~~
Koshkin
It's such a mess. We might be better off just _translating_ the damn names
(like they did in the remote past)...
~~~
fapjacks
Yes, but if we did that, the news would get confusing as we tried to sort out
which "Grand King King of the Warrior Kings" they were talking about.
------
mirimir
And then there was Reagan's "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you
today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin
bombing in five minutes."[0] I was in Moscow when that went public. The Soviet
government was _not_ amused.
Edit: Also, Charles Stross' _A Colder War_.[1]
0)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_begin_bombing_in_five_minut...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_begin_bombing_in_five_minutes)
1)
[http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm](http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm)
~~~
exabrial
Removed from that quote is context of course, which is extremely relevant, but
that didn't stop the media from making sure they induced a profiteering panic
among the people that subscribed to them despite the outcome being possible
nuclear death.
~~~
mirimir
Well, of course, he was joking. Just a sound check.
I have no clue who leaked it, in what order. From a reprint of contemporaneous
coverage, I gather that many technicians heard the remark.[0] And eventual
news coverage mainly served to put rumors at rest.
0)
[https://web.archive.org/web/20180917150154/https://www.thegu...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180917150154/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/ronald-
reagan-bombing-russia-joke-archive-1984)
~~~
Rebelgecko
There's some interesting videos on YouTube from people who used satellite
dishes to grab unencrypted transmissions that weren't intended for the public
(although I don't know if that was the case here). Things like reporters
talking shit about guests during a commercial break (since commercials were
spliced in later on), Bill Clinton getting his makeup done, etc. There's an
interesting documentary/compilation at [1] although in my opinion it's a
little overly dramatic.
[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdXtIJNNVZM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdXtIJNNVZM)
~~~
mirimir
No, this was routine setup and testing. You had to actually record something,
and play it back, to make sure that gear was working properly.
Your link reminds me of Cronenberg's _Videodrome_ :)
------
dewyatt
Deutschland 83 is a fantastic show based on these events.
~~~
Steve44
I really enjoyed that too. I was a teenager then and although in the UK I was
very aware of the military and world situation. That series was a very good
reminder of what the world felt like then.
------
trhway
We still have the chance - minor Ukraine/Russia navy conflict yesterday so far
resulted in nation wide martial law in Ukraine triggered on today. I'd not put
it past Putin to not let the crisis go waste and for example "solve" the
Ukraine/Russia Azov sea issues by making the Azov sea outright into an
internal Russian sea which would naturally raise the tensions with the
NATO/Europe/US and others. (Also, given the extremely low rating (barely above
10% on a good day) of the current Ukraine President just 4 months ahead of the
elections, the escalation of the situation with the associated rise of the
nationalistic populism is in his political interests too.)
~~~
pluma
I don't see how an incursion on Ukraine would result in a war with NATO.
Ukraine's problem is precisely that it's a formerly neutral party and not part
of NATO. In fact, from a Russian POV the reason for the annexation of the
Crimean peninsula were fears fueled by Ukraine moving closer to NATO and the
EU, violating its neutrality and jeopardising Russian military operations
within Ukraine.
I'm not justifying the annexation -- it was clearly illegal and the
circumstances of the (also illegal) vote suggest fraud -- but Ukraine is not
part of NATO and even an all-out undeniable Russian invasion wouldn't trigger
a war with NATO.
Is it in NATO's interests if Russia fully invades or goes to war with Ukraine?
No, of course not. Is it a violation of international law? Most likely so. But
would this trigger any international treaties that would result in WW3? Hell
no.
WW1 and WW2 weren't just escalated because The Good Guys were unhappy with the
aggressors. They were escalated because of international treaties _forcing_
nations to declare war in retaliation to the aggressors.
In WW2 the invasion of Poland triggered the defensive pact with Britain and
France who declared war after setting an ultimatum. As for WW1, I think most
people have heard of the complete clusterfuck of international alliances and
naivety that resulted in that escalation[1].
Ukraine is not part of the EU. Ukraine is not part of NATO. Strategic position
aside, there's little reason for NATO to get involved as long as Russia has no
intentions of moving further westwards. Even if the US invaded directly and
declared war on Russia this wouldn't trigger NATO as NATO is a defensive pact,
not an aggressive pact. It would of course result in a lot of diplomatic
tensions with so many US military bases being located in the EU.
[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_Crisis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_Crisis)
~~~
dsfyu404ed
While a war might not be triggered in a WW1-esque "if X then Y" sense it may
very well happen anyway. Ukraine is as entitled to it's sovereignty as any
other nation. Just letting the Russians steamroll Ukraine is not exactly a
good solution either. Germany, France, England, etc. are going to (rightfully)
have a very, very hard time tolerating (i.e. not coming to the aid of Ukraine)
that kind of belligerent behavior in Europe. If there were Russian tanks in
Kiev the NATO states east of Germany would all but demand a military reaction
because of the dangerous to them precedent that allowing an invasion (even if
the invaded nation is not a NATO member) to go unopposed would set.
~~~
pluma
What gives you the idea any military intervention is ever based on protecting
a random country's sovereignty? What incentive would NATO or the EU have to
join Ukraine if this escalates to a direct military confrontation between
Ukraine and Russia?
Yeah, having Ukraine be annexed by Russia would be a pity but if history has
taught us anything a) Russia is too clever to do this without some level of
deniability (see the "secession" of the Crimean prior to its annexation) and
b) other countries are reluctant to get involved as long as the situation is
"self-contained" (i.e. as long as it's just Ukraine and similar post-Soviet
states with no direct ties to NATO members or the EU).
------
m-i-l
Not mentioned in the article, and almost certainly not known to NATO
authorities at the time, but Able Archer 83 came a few weeks after the "1983
Soviet nuclear false alarm incident"[0]. See also "Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet
officer who averted nuclear war, has died"[1].
[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident)
[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15273228](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15273228)
------
krig
I find calling the potential deployment of nuclear missiles at this point
”world war three” slightly misleading. A war has a beginning and an end. There
is no end other than the end of the world as we know it on the other side of
such strikes.
As the exercise concluded in the article, ”Most of the world was destroyed.
Billions were dead. Civilisation ended.”
~~~
jmnicolas
Sadly a nuclear war is "highly" survivable as long as you know to duck and
cover once you see the flash.
I say "sadly" because it's not as big a deterrent as we thought.
You can read how to avoid 90% of the deaths here :
[http://www.ki4u.com/goodnews.htm](http://www.ki4u.com/goodnews.htm)
~~~
TheOtherHobbes
This is misleading nonsense. In a real war most targets would be barraged by
MIRVs, some of which would be ground bursts specifically designed to maximise
the effects of fall out plumes across otherwise survivable areas.
One way or another, your initial duck-and-cover survival won't last long.
~~~
krig
It's also misleading because it's talking about a bomb 1/10th the size of the
Hiroshima nuclear detonation, while today, even just India and Pakistan alone
have nuclear capabilities that are a hundred times beyond that. The
implications not just from the initial strikes but the infrastructural
devastation that would follow are impossible to estimate.
~~~
arethuza
I suspect the kind of civil defence training described on that page _would_
probably help with a small scale terrorist level attack. However, I don't
think it would achieve very much in a full scale attack and certainly not the
scale of attacks likely during the 1980s and on densely populated areas of
Europe.
Where I sit now in Scotland is within range of about 5 different high value
Cold War targets - I don't think Duck and Cover would achieve very much.
------
scottlocklin
One of the best documentaries ever made; "Able Archer: the brink of
apocalypse" conveniently on youtube.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ciy5R-tLiE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ciy5R-tLiE)
And yes, this should be a warning to people in current year.
------
interfixus
1983\. The screaiming height of the nuclear scare. I remember it all to well.
A very clear and present danger, a daily threat we lived under, some of us
aware, most people probably not really. I saw _The Day After_ in a Copenhagen
cinema at what I believe was its European premiere, also exactly 35 years ago
one of these days. Going home, my young impressionable self was even more
spooked than usual: The thing was real, might happen any time, would
presumably be worse than film, worse than imaginable.
To this day, I actually shiver when I read of _Able Archer_ and realize how
closely the shit flew past the fan the very same week.
~~~
pseudolus
If you want to relive the terror I suggest reading the Pulitzer Prize winner
"The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous
Legacy". While its focus is on the Cold War it's still relevant today.
[https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Hand-Untold-Dangerous-
Legacy/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Hand-Untold-Dangerous-
Legacy/dp/0307387844)
------
duxup
Mutually assured destruction makes sense if humans and information is perfect
.... but it's not so it seems more like it is just a matter of time until it
happens.
It is interesting to see how this plays out as the start of an exercise. I
remember growing up in North Dakota and when the air force bases would run
drills the sky would be filled with planes flying in formation .... no way you
could tell if it was real or not (other than there not being any launches from
the local ICBMs...).
~~~
macspoofing
>Mutually assured destruction makes sense if humans and information is perfect
.... but it's not so it seems more like it is just a matter of time until it
happens.
Or not. If it is chance that prevents our self-destruction then you would
expect it to already have happened. Seems like there is 'something' (for lack
of a better word) to prevent it. Whatever it is, it seems to work and we're
still here.
~~~
duxup
I'm not sure the lack of self destruction in a short time frame means much,
the events that have occurred were one decision away from the destruction
part.
------
js8
My takeaway from this is that governments do not always act rationally, and
therefore MAD doctrine, which assumes that the actors are rational, is a
dangerous nonsense.
~~~
graeme
What's the alternative to MAD? We still have it. People have calmed down, but
it remains.
I always took it to be a description of the state of play once nukes exist.
~~~
js8
The alternative to MAD is slow, painstaking process of nuclear disarmament.
Mutually-assured disarmament, if you will.
~~~
graeme
How do you do that though? Whoever doesn't disarm has a massive advantage.
------
mrleiter
On a smaller scale, that is, like michaelt pointed out, party of every
government that has authoritarian figures in it. When you reel the people
around you with fear, you will get inaccurate information. That is one of the
reasons why, if you don't build an extensive surveillance state that works
really well, such governments usually don't last long.
------
orbital-decay
What this article fails to mention, is that Able Archer 83 was a response to
Zapad-81 exercise held 2 years before. [0]
[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_Zapad-81](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_Zapad-81)
------
jdlyga
Everyone really needs to stop with any actions that could be misinterpreted.
This is how World War 1 started, a war which no one wanted.
~~~
ddalex
> a war which no one wanted
History would like a word with you:
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-
history/first...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-
history/first-world-war-centenary-powerful-images-that-capture-the-moment-
cheering-europe-heralded-the-9646821.html)
------
combatentropy
I find it eerie that the movie _War Games_ came out the same year, actually
five months before.
------
stefantalpalaru
> Later that day, the Nato commanders left their building and went home,
> congratulating themselves on another successful – albeit sobering –
> exercise. What Western governments only discovered later is that Able Archer
> 83 came perilously close to instigating a real nuclear war.
You'd think that NATO was just having their quiet simulation and those silly
Soviets misinterpreted, right?
What the article fails to acknowledge is the deliberate provocations targeting
USSR at the same time as the military exercise -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83#Psychological_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83#Psychological_operations)
:
_" Psychological operations (PSYOP) by the United States began in mid-
February 1981 and continued intermittently until 1983. These included a series
of clandestine naval operations that stealthily accessed waters near the
Greenland–Iceland–United Kingdom (GIUK) gap, and the Barents, Norwegian,
Black, and Baltic seas, demonstrating how close NATO ships could get to
critical Soviet military bases. American bombers also flew directly towards
Soviet airspace, peeling off at the last moment, sometimes several times per
week. These near-penetrations were designed to test Soviet radar vulnerability
as well as demonstrate US capabilities in a nuclear war"_
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Gay on Facebook: Nowhere to Hide - edw519
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/02/the-digital-closet.html
======
michael_dorfman
I think the article is missing the point.
It's not that you can't have a secret and be on Facebook-- it's that you can't
have anybody who knows your secret be on Facebook.
Put another way: even if "Joe" (from the article) were not on Facebook, that
wouldn't have stopped someone from posting a comment about his boyfriend.
People talk about other people. You can't control what they say. If these
people are publishing their comments (to their "friends", or on blogs, to the
general public), you're shit out of luck.
~~~
brown9-2
Furthermore, the example outlined in the opening could have just as easily
happened in an overheard real-life conversation rather than online.
_Joe was upset with our friend for sending the tweet, the content of which
was a bit careless but totally benign, and my response to him was a
combination of devil’s advocacy and good old-fashioned tough love._
Joe's friend could have been just as careless (or ignorant about his sexuality
being a secret) by making a comment in front of people who were not aware of
the secret.
The issue isn't being online, or Facebook or Twitter - the issue is keeping a
secret.
edit: whoops, thenduks made the same exact argument I made here, but better
~~~
marcusbooster
It could be mitigated if Facebook offered real privacy controls, mainly
keeping our social circles separate from each other like we do in real life.
I'd like the option: if a member of network X posts on my wall, members from
network Y and Z should not be able to see it.
But that would require real privacy controls and it goes against Facebook's
absurd mission statement to open up the entire world (or whatever that
embroidery is inside that dopey hoodie).
------
tjmaxal
The idea that you can't really keep secrets on the internet shouldn't really
be news to anyone. Especially not here.
That being said, I think most people's privacy is kept because there just
aren't that many people interested in you in general. Unless you do something
to make yourself a target.
~~~
pavel_lishin
I think Scott Adams said something like this in The Dilbert Future; he claimed
that privacy in the future won't be a huge issue because we're all so boring.
------
CodeMage
_Keeping an eagle eye on tagged photos_
This is one of the things that goes beyond Facebook as a platform and
technology and becomes a cultural issue. You can delete your Facebook account
or never get on Facebook in the first place, but that won't stop people from
publishing photos of you on it. I can't help feeling it has become socially
acceptable for your friends or even acquaintances to publish photos of you on
the Internet.
_Facebook is now an integral part of our culture. Its precipitous growth is
owed to the fact that it works only if it’s massive. The more people
participate, the more utility it has, and the more utility it has, the more
compulsory participation becomes._
And _this_ is precisely why so many people are making a fuss about Facebook's
privacy policy and attitude towards privacy. Whether we all like it or not,
Facebook has become a part of our global culture and it influences the way we
think and behave. If part of its influence is to encourage you to stop caring
about your privacy -- or even to simply refrain from reminding you to take
care of it -- then we won't need to worry about anyone taking our privacy
away; we, the society, will give it up on our own.
~~~
JadeNB
> Facebook is now an integral part of our culture. Its precipitous growth is
> owed to the fact that it works only if it’s massive. The more people
> participate, the more utility it has, and the more utility it has, the more
> compulsory participation becomes.
I came to mention exactly this same sentence. Maybe it's just that I'm out of
the loop—but I'm 30, not a complete technological outsider, and I have never
used Facebook or felt any pressure to do so. In what sense is this
participation compulsory? I'd have liked to see some more elaboration on this
principle that seems often to be taken for granted.
(I'd particularly be interested to hear an argument that couldn't also have
been applied to AOL in the early '90's—I really did consider it vital to be
there to communicate with out-of-state friends without enormous phone bills,
but the notion nowadays of participation in AOL being compulsory is
laughable.)
~~~
CodeMage
It's not really compulsory in the sense that someone is making you
participate. It's simply the peer pressure. Here's some "anecdata" to
illustrate the point: I don't have a Facebook account anymore, but my wife
does. Anyone among my friends and family who wants to see my son's photos is
told to go to my wife's photo gallery. Sure, we could use Picasa or Flickr or
even e-mail, but she's already using Facebook and it's easier that way. So if
a friend or family member wants to see the photos and doesn't have a Facebook
account, they have an additional small incentive to get one.
Facebook has become one of those things everyone mentions now and then. You
can use it to keep in touch with high school friends (even those you didn't
like in the first place), to exchange gossip, to kill time (if you think
mindlessly watching TV is the worst you can do with your time, think again),
etc. If everyone around you uses it for something and mentions it often
enough, you'll feel left out of that. Those of us who can say "well, I'm glad
to be left out of _that_ " are a minority.
------
thenduks
I fail to see how a friend posting a comment exposing the relationship on
facebook is any different than that same friend making the same kind of
comment while out for drinks 'IRL'.
This has nothing to do with 'social media'.
~~~
raganwald
When someone comments while out for drinks, three people hear it. They may
tell a few people, and the word will get around within a circle of friends who
know each other.
It may never reach other circles of your friends. In my own case, the circle
of my FB friends that I know from technology do not overlap with the circle of
friends that I know from sports very much. Something could easily go around
one circle and not the other.
But FB merges them: Something on my wall is visible of all of my circles of
friends. That's what I took from the article: Social Media kicks down the
walls between circles of friends.
~~~
thenduks
Of course you are right: There is almost certainly going to be a difference in
the magnitude of a 'breach'.
I still think this is way out of proportion. Let's use the example of your two
circles. Assuming a few/some/most/all of your friends are in the same
geographical area, how common is it to run into people from group A while out
with group B (and thus open the possibility of group A people making comments
you don't want group B to hear)? I know for me situations like this are very
common. Just the other day I was leaving a restaurant with friends and ran
into other completely unrelated friends who were sitting on the patio.
I don't think that just because Facebook is an _easier_ way for your
clueless/inconsiderate friends to let stuff slip is Facebook's problem, is all
I'm saying. Facebook is just the highest profile, most widely used method of
having a persona online. That comes with upsides and downsides -- if you
aren't comfortable with the risks you can simply not partake.
------
psyklic
The article missed perhaps the easiest way to surmise if someone is gay on
Facebook -- mutual friends. If you both are gay, you probably have the same
gay mutual friends.
Ever since I started adding gay people, I started getting friend requests from
other random gay people (I'm assuming who use Facebook for dating).
------
Sam_Odio
This smacks of link bait & bandwagoning. The author's experience with Twitter
is contorted to support a statement about Facebook.
The FUD among the mainstream press is getting a little tiresome and distracts
from the real privacy issues on the site. Instead I'd prefer to see a concrete
discussion of exactly what controls/features are broken - that's much more
actionable on my end.
Disclaimer: I work for Facebook, but don't speak on their behalf.
~~~
meh2themeh
I think you just misunderstood the article. This isn't FUD, mostly because it
wasn't an attack on Facebook, not even slightly, and also is entirely true.
I am gay and have noticed exactly what the author is talking about with myself
and many others. I don't write anything ever on Facebook (sorry, it bores me
to tears, I don't hold Facebook use against anyone though :), but it is
completely obvious from my mutual friends, from the fact that my profile says
who my boyfriend is, etc, that I am gay.
It is a simple fact that Facebook (and other social networks to a lesser
extent), blur together social circles that otherwise never would have blended.
For example, both sides of my extended family in totally different areas of
the country friend me. These are people who I never bothered to formally come
out to (because we aren't in reality that close). Simply accepting their
invite is also an act of uncloseting. For someone who actually _is_ in the
closet, that degree of uncloseting is possibly very uncomfortable, and hard to
know if you are even doing it (is it obvious or not from my mutual friends
that I'm gay?). This absolutely is not a kind of thing that happened in the
pre-social network world.
But, this also is not, in any way, because of Facebook privacy problems or
controls or whatever. It is an inherent property of the kind of very
transparent, mixed "all social circles are one social circle" model that
Facebook (and other social network sites) have. Maybe other people don't
notice this as much because a lot of gay people (especially closeted gay
people) were more used to having extremely disjoint social groups which the
online world suddenly makes dramatically less disjoint.
Anyway, if you actually read the whole article, the author writes about this
as a positive thing, because it makes the closet much harder to choose, since
the traditional problem of policing your life to your closet door closed
becomes so much harder. The author interprets this in the end as being a
social positive since coming out is in a way a political and socially
influential act.
------
CapitalistCartr
Why on Earth do people have only one Facebook profile? If the software doesn't
provide for better separation automatically, do it manually. Imagine it's a
CLI and you have to write the commands yourself.
~~~
vsync
Because Facebook only allows you to have one profile and requires you to use
your real name.
~~~
lotharbot
Facebook's terms of service say that, but I haven't seen any indication that
they enforce it.
~~~
noarchy
I don't think they would enforce it, unless someone went out of their way to
rat someone out for doing it. I personally know a few folks who have multiple
Facebook accounts, and have long-considered doing it, too.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Coding Interview - rs
http://blog.palantirtech.com/2011/10/03/the-coding-interview/
======
mapleoin
The best job application process I've been through was when the employer asked
for a small program to be submitted with the CV. The program had to use their
infrastructure and existing products, which gave me a quick tour of their
processes, the tools they use and the quality of their existing code base. I
assume that in turn, my code gave them a clear view of the way my code looks
in real life, the tests, the comments, the docs etc. This was followed by a
short mostly non-technical interview.
I wish more companies would do this.
~~~
ap22213
Recently, I tried something similar with my interviews.
In the past, I've had lackluster success with the brain teaser, CS theory, and
'FizzBuzz' interviews. Plus, most motivated candidates had already mastered
and memorized the 'Google interview secrets'. So, I wasn't getting the right
people.
My goal is to recruit productive, engaged software engineers who care about
the craft of software and who can learn things relatively well and are
resourceful. I want collaborative team players, with passion for software, not
necessarily geniuses.
So, I concocted an interview process that required new candidates to develop a
small program using all of our current tools. I also gave them an existing,
relatively poor code base to work with, and also asked them to recommend
refactorings. I also gave them access to some of my current team members to
ask questions.
It was a great process. But, here was the major problem: 75% of the candidates
dropped out of the interview process instantly. I'm guessing that they had
better opportunities with quicker yield.
~~~
mapleoin
That's really cool.
It depends on the way you look at it I think. The 75% who dropped out were
probably not that interested in your company/products anyway. Sure, they might
have been computer programming aces, but in the end I think this is a good
filter for people who are actually with you for the mission/job as well as the
money.
------
synnik
Maybe it is because I have been stuck working with .NET environments so much,
but they seem to be focusing on stuff that is too complicated.
The basic FizzBuzz test is about the right level of complexity. It weeds out
those people who cannot even do as simple loop while still giving real coders
enough rope to work with to show their stuff.
To be honest, the more advanced concepts in programming can be mentored and
corrected if the basics are in place. In my experience, once they pass a basic
coding test, you are interviewing for culture, to determine if they are a
junior or senior coder, and whether or not they know they are a junior coder
and will therefore be open to improving.
~~~
achompas
This is an interesting idea: why not use FizzBuzz to show off your
understanding of different paradigms?
Someone who barely scrapes out an imperative-style FizzBuzz might not be
ideal. On the other hand, someone who can write FizzBuzz in functional and OOP
would be better.
Even better would be someone who writes FizzBuzz with a poor order of growth,
then explains _why_ the order of growth sucks. That would demonstrate an
understanding of algorithmic complexity.
I wonder if anyone looks for this when hiring.
~~~
georgieporgie
_someone who can write FizzBuzz in functional and OOP would be better._
How would you write an OOP implementation of FizzBuzz? I genuinely don't see
how this would be done, short of something really contrived like fizz.Print(),
buzz.print().
~~~
achompas
It would definitely be contrived. Let's see how contrived! ;)
class FizzBuzzer():
def __init__(self, num):
self.mod3 = num % 3 == 0
self.mod5 = num % 5 == 0
def check(self):
s = ""
if self.mod3:
s += "Fizz"
if self.mod5:
s += "Buzz"
print s
def main():
buzzer = FizzBuzzer(n)
buzzer.check()
Yeah, that's really contrived. Still, you display a familiarity with
encapsulation, objects & their attributes/methods, etc.
~~~
Harkins
Sorry to nitpick, but it fails to give "FizzBuzz" for 15 and other multiples
of 3 and 5.
------
philparsons
Asking people to write code on a whiteboard in the pressure of the interview
environment doesn't seem very reflective of how they work day to day to me.
Perhaps judging them on previous projects or open source work they have
contributed to would be a better approach. If someone gave me a pen and a
whiteboard and asked me to draw code I think I would likely say thanks but no
thanks and walk out of the interview.
~~~
thaumaturgy
Yeah, I'm not sure I'd walk out -- depends on how bad I wanted it I guess --
but I would point out that I tend to write marginal code first and then go
back and make it pretty in a second (or sometimes third) go-round, later. It's
like that funny old saying, "I apologize for the length of this letter; I
didn't have time to make it shorter."
But, if they're just trying to get an idea of your abilities and critical
thinking skills and coding style, it's really not that big of a deal.
~~~
sukuriant
That's more than likely what they're intending. They're coders too. They know
what sort of code can he pushed out in 5 minutes.
------
SoftwarePatent
I'm currently preparing for my first coding interviews, using a blog post
about interviewing at Google as my guide. [1] In addition to studying the
subjects in the post (algorithms, data structures, discrete math), I'm taking
the three public Stanford classes and writing an iOS app that I will put in my
github. Any advice re this approach? My career goal is to program useful stuff
people use, with smart people.
[1] [http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-
goog...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-google.html)
~~~
mapleoin
You should find a better career goal for yourself; _program useful stuff
people use, with smart people_ is about as generic as you can get.
~~~
llambda
Maybe the way you worded that is a little harsh: I think that's a fine goal
but when you approach an employer you might want to put that goal in the
context of the company you're interviewing with. So in effect, you want to use
your career goals as an angle by which you might sell yourself to the
prospective company.
------
grecy
Can't submit comments on the site. I wanted to submit: \----
Instead of coding on the whiteboard, have you ever tried setting up a work
station / projector combination ? (I'd even consider dual projectors for a
dual-head setup).
I think it's much more realistic to watch how a potential candidate actually
"types" the solution. They may stub things out, then go back and fill it in,
they may write one version from top to bottom, or they might continually copy
and paste code around the place. There are a thousand possibles.
I think actually watching them type and interact with the IDE will give you a
lot of understanding that watching them struggle to draw a coherent "}" on the
whiteboard will not.
-Dan
------
pavelkaroukin
It depends a lot on what company actually do, but lets be honest - not so many
companies out there need some tricky algo implemented. Most stuff already
invented and you, as programmer, have to know when to use what, how it should
work together and what is approximate complexity of two or more algos, which
could be used in particular situation..
Why I am saying this... In most cases (unless someone interviewing me for
position where I will be developing "nanobots to build house on Mars"), if
interviewer will ask me to write actual code on real white board.. i will pass
this position no matter how big or cool or both this company is.
My memory and attention have better use then memorizing particular syntax of
particular language, particular code of particular sorting algorithm, etc.
------
Osiris
I'm starting to do some job hunting for a professional programming position
and I'm a bit nervous about these types of interviews. I think I have the
skills, but having been a solo programmer for a long time, I'm nervous about
people looking over my shoulder and watching while I try to think through a
problem. It's probably more a lack of experience with these types of
interviews than anything else.
As someone hiring a developer, can't the submission of previously written code
provide good insight into the type of person you're interviewing, or is there
concern that the code is not really theirs?
~~~
wnight
Part of the job is being able to do your job in a meeting, or with a client.
You don't need to be perfect, just don't freeze.
------
foolinator
I've also found that having a laptop with you with your preferred IDE ready to
go is a great idea. I suck at hand writing but type like a champ, and feel
that "whiteboard" coding is more of an exercise for those who were TAs in
college than someone who can show how to really code in person.
About 1/2 the time my suggestion to write live code was shot down. I do fine
on the whiteboard, just hate it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I'm working on developing a Product, uncertain of success. Am I wasting time? - bjoe_lewis
I'm developing a product which puts an Interactive Restuarant Menu on a Tablet Screen, expecting it to be bought by hotel firms.
Almost complete, I'm starting to feel as if I'm wasting time on building something unsure of its success. Is it normal? or should I switch project?
P.S I'm a yet to pass out college hacker
======
bcambel
Develop customer then the product. Take a look at Lean startup by Eric Ries,
search for Customer Development, read Steve Blank, read Start slow & Stay
Small by Rob Walling. Talk to businesses. Get out of your computer screen. Ask
their opinion. Ask them to pay you.
------
saluki
I would approach some hotels and restaurants now since you indicated it's
almost completed and see what their feedback is, what features they like and
would like added, how much value does this bring their hotel/restaurant.
If you have a friend in the restaurant business or become friends with one
during your initial demos get some feedback on pricing as well.
Consider a setup fee and a monthly maintenance fee that includes improvements
to the product and making up to once monthly updates to the menu on an ongoing
basis.
Good luck in 2013.
------
orangethirty
Have you talked to your market? Done any type of research? Did you one day
decide this would be a great thing to build?
If you answered no any of the first two questions and/or yes to the third one,
then go ahead and stop wasting your time. you need to realize one thing:
Products are not born because you think there is a need. Products are born
because you found a need and want to cater to it.
------
xoail
If it's almost complete, then finish it. Load it on your tablet and start
marketing yourself. Talk to local restaurants and ask then to try it out on 1
or 2 devices. Give it off for free and just collect feedback. It is a decent
idea and has potential.
------
jyu
There is still value in a completed product, even if you never get a single
paying customer. Taking something from basic idea to completion on your own is
a positive signal, giving you a lot more career and business options down the
line.
------
timjahn
Find out if anybody needs or wants it first. The worst thing that can happen
is that you spend X amount of time building something that you never
determined anybody needed or wanted in the first place.
~~~
Chris_X
Do that by getting businesses to PAY you (even if it's not finished yet).
Sometimes people say that they would like a solution for X, but when it comes
to paying for it they back out.
------
coryl
Have you done any presales stuff? Have you talked to customers, drummed up
business yet? Have any of them seen your prototypes?
If you haven't, you may be shocked once it comes time to sell.
------
shail
I will suggest keep building.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
We're Halfway to Encrypting the Entire Web - Garbage
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/02/were-halfway-encrypting-entire-web
======
squarefoot
While it's surely good that so many people started getting the importance of
security, I find this news a bit depressing and miss so much the pre 2K web
when we didn't protect anything probably because of ignorance. Or maybe the
online world then was a bit nicer than it is now.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Which words originated in your birth year? - Ashuu
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/12/oed-birthday-words/
======
ryanbrunner
I was shocked to see "text messaging" and "smartphone" as words introduced in
the 80's. I would have thought those were 90's words at least (for
"smartphone" i would have guessed the 00's in fact.)
~~~
jaredsohn
via some wikipedia research on "smart phone":
The first smartphone (available in 1994) was the Simon
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Simon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Simon)),
although the term was coined a little later.
It could send and receive faxes, e-mails and cellular pages through its touch
screen display and included many applications such as address book, calendar,
appointment scheduler, calculator, world time clock, games, electronic note
pad, handwritten annotations and standard and predictive touchscreen
keyboards.
It had exactly one third-party app (which cost $3K). :)
------
A1kmm
It looks like some of them are only the way the word was used in that
particular part of speech. For example, orbit is listed as 1946 as a verb -
but the word was used for much longer as a noun.
------
arocks
Wouldn't a table have been a much better way of presenting this information?
Also the user interface is a horrible timeline that gives no feedback while
you mouse-over.
------
NAFV_P
What, nobody take a _chill pill_ till '81?
------
leif
beatbox
couldn't be more thrilled by that
~~~
solistice
you beatbox?
------
colinbartlett
1982: "downloadable". This word already seems dead. Who says that?
~~~
taspeotis
Parents of kids born in 1982.
------
ArekDymalski
"gazillion" well, that explains a lot of things in my life ;)
------
DrewRWx
Woo, crowd-surfing!
------
kroger
Geez I'm old. My word is "Internet".
~~~
pge
I was surprised to see that in 1974 - earlier than I expected.
------
bhrgunatha
I'm a computernik, my wife is a megastar.
------
adventured
Foodie - 1980
------
Angostura
Cyberculture - 1963, amazingly.
------
protomyth
laugh-out-loud for 1970
Yep, that explains quite a bit.
------
scotty79
First! ... I mean: bagsy!
1979
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ethereum: Chain of Liars and Thieves - kushti
https://medium.com/@WhalePanda/ethereum-chain-of-liars-thieves-b04aaa0762cb#.p8ar3h8n5
======
splintercell
I understand that author is trying to make a point about something, but the
vitriol which pours out from every sentence of that article is very off
putting.
I have seen this attitude quite common among ETC forums.
> .. was part of the Slockit scam… sorry meant to type “team”.
> Stephan “The Tool” Tual:
In fact even when the author was making a good point, he writes this:
> Those Ethtards like to use the “code is law”-argument but they just don’t
> get it or don’t want to get it.
~~~
anonbanker
Every time you see an article on HN's front page debasing Bitcoin or Ethereum,
it's a good time to invest. The last two times (Bitcoins first "Crash", and
Ethereum's DAO hand-wringing) I made a considerable profit by doing so.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Style Transfer - gsurma
https://github.com/gsurma/style_transfer
======
graylien
really cool! What do you plan to do with it?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Best platform for developer portfolio site? - deniz
I've got a growing list of mobile apps that I'm working on (Android/iOS) and I'm looking for a good way to present them. At the moment I've got a Posterous blog with "Posterous pages" for each project, but this is kind of backwards as the work is hidden behind the blog.<p>Requirements are for it it to look good, be mostly up, and not cost too much.<p>Is Wordpress the way to go for these things or is there a more new-school alternative? If there's nothing out there I'll have to hand-roll one by I don't have too much time at the moment.<p>The current setup is here http://themodernink.com
======
lien
I still think Wordpress is the best way to go.
You can use Woothemes with Wordpress so it takes very little customization.
It's got everything and a pretty comprehensive framework and you don't have to
download any Wordpress plugins to get a full site going!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Top Basic Income Articles of 2017 - mooreds
http://www.scottsantens.com/top-10-basic-income-articles-of-2017
======
econ_tho
it will be OK in beginning and then inflation will be ridiculous
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Sim-To-Real: Learning Agile Locomotion for Quadruped Robots - dsr12
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf_UXK0OTIk
======
Faur
Do you have a paper link?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Service I want: "Report websites that suck" - gustaf
Hey,<p>I was just going to pay my monthly bill on PG&E. For some reason the "Pay" button doesn't work in Firefox 3. Of all the functions on that websites the "Pay-button" is likely to be the most important one. Sad they had to fuck that up.<p>So, here is my idea in response. Build a service called "Websites that suck". It could be a firefox plugin or just a website. People can sign in and report sites that constantly suck or break. It can be a very simple tools where thousands of users together figure out which sites that REALLY suck.<p>Once a month a report is created, very similar to Technorati's "State of the blogsphere" that lists the websites that suck the most and how the top 50 has changed month by month.<p>What do you guys think? Big opportunity for a startup. Say I work for PG&E and 10,000 people report every month that our website suck but I don't know why. I then buy all the comments from the startup for say $1000/month. It's a cheap way of getting rid of bad PR.<p>Gustaf
======
juzmcmuz
I think this has legs. Could be positioned and designed something along the
lines of <http://www.shoulddothis.com/> or even
<http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/> (but this service would be
'doesthissitesuckorisitjustme.com). It's not 'extortion' to companies
subscribing. It's valuable and a cheap form of research. Has to be presented
'nicely' of course!
------
akkartik
Another way to think about this: take the "site x doesn't work with browser y"
bugs out of all the different browser bugzillas and give them a more coherent
home. This will help mitigate the martian headsets problem
(<http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/03/17.html>)
Heh, browserzilla.com is available.
~~~
gustaf
that's a very technical way of looking at it. i'm not only talking about how a
site works in a particular browser but if it's actually good or not.
mainly the sites i have in my mind are sites where you don't choose the
service based on the web-service and you end up with a really sucky service
that you can't leave. for example: \- banks \- utilites companies \- cellphone
carriers \- government sites \- ecommerce sites (where you're a customer in
the physical store)
etc
~~~
akkartik
Yeah, I didn't phrase it right. What I suggested wasn't exactly the same
thing, but it seemed more actionable.
What constitutes 'sucky' is often subjective and open to interpretation. You
risk ending up as just another review site.
Defining sucks as 'broken', however, means focussing on things like "why the
heck doesn't submit work here?" and so on. These websites have all been
tested, even at the most monopolistic places. They just haven't been tested on
some combination of browser and platform.
So that's how I made the subconscious transition from your idea to mine :)
------
josefresco
How about a website where corporations can submit information on unreasonable-
sucky users/customers. They could then share that data and deny you service
based on your unreasonable expectations (like compatibility with BETA software
used by <1% of the population) and proven history of alarmist posts on elitist
websites like Hacker News.
I'd build that.
------
ryanmahoski
Good luck, but if PG&E et. al ever get caught paying to unransom published
comments they'll face a worse PR nightmare than mere reports of bad
javascript.
~~~
gustaf
The idea was that PG&E would pay to even be able to see the comments. The
comments would be hidden
~~~
gustaf
not that great idea after all. Comments shoul be open
------
mynameishere
Stupidest idea I've heard in a long time.
_Extortion, outwresting, or exaction is a criminal offense, which occurs when
a person either unlawfully obtains money, property or services from a person,
entity, or institution through coercion or intimidation or threatens a person,
entity, or institution with physical or reputational harm unless he is paid
money or property._
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extortion>
~~~
mynameishere
Quit downmodding me, shitheads. I'm trying to keep this numbskull out of
bankruptcy court or prison.
EDIT: No, really. I want ONE person to admit having downmodded me. Seriously.
You've got some potential criminal posting shit here and he needs corrected.
~~~
astine
I didn't downmod you but I think that the reason people did wasn't the legal
warning (which is certainly valid and relevant,) but the tone. Insulting
people just doesn't get them to listen.
------
prakash
SiteAdvisor does something similar \- <http://www.siteadvisor.com/>
------
hbien
It might be SSL that's broken on the new Firefox. I can't visit any https
sites using Firefox 3 beta on the Mac.
------
xenoterracide
<http://search.wikia.com/wiki/Search_Wikia>
I don't know how it's coming but wikia search should be able to allow users to
modify whether search returns are good and valuable.
------
menloparkbum
Michael Arrington already does a good enough job with this sort of reporting.
------
andr
delicious tag?
------
socmoth
bookmarklet
~~~
gustaf
even better idea. works in both IE and FF right?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What should I do with HamsterDance.app? - hamsterdance
Hi!<p>I am the new proud owner of hamsterdance.app
Ideas for what I should do with it?
======
chewzerita
May I ask why?
~~~
hamsterdance
Just for fun
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Art and Code Example by Joe Hewitt - AbeEstrada
https://medium.com/@joehewitt/art-code-example-type-design-c55a413ac2fe
======
AbeEstrada
Art and Code, Part 1 - [https://medium.com/@joehewitt/art-and-code-
part-1-2f785dd007...](https://medium.com/@joehewitt/art-and-code-
part-1-2f785dd007fd)
Art and Code, Part 2 - [https://medium.com/@joehewitt/art-and-code-
part-2-e0cba298a0...](https://medium.com/@joehewitt/art-and-code-
part-2-e0cba298a029)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How VC funding works? - pewpew
Hey HN,
i am totally clueless about vc money and funding, maybe you can enlighten me.<p>For example, TC reported that Kicksend got $1.8m funding. They are a some sort of a file sharing service. Even if they charge 10$/month, they would need 15,000 paying costumers that will subscribe for whole YEAR to just get the money back.<p>How does it make sense? How much revenue is expected from a company that raises $1M?<p>I see a lot of companies getting funded, where it would take years to just get their first 1M in revenue.<p>Thanks.
======
craigmc
If you look at the numbers of a service like Dropbox (which I know is not a
direct comparison, but is at least in an approximate neighbourhood), then you
can see why an $1.8m investment in this sort of service would make sense - it
can theoretically be useful to tens, if not hundreds, of millions of users.
Yes the odd terrible company gets funded, but if you cannot see where the
value in a new service lies then it might be down to a number of other
factors:
1\. You are not being shown the complete product (i.e. you are seeing a v1 or
even an MVP, but internally the company is demoing a killer app)
2\. You are applying your own tastes/needs when evaluating a service. A famous
ad exec once said (roughly): "We are not our target market". Don't assume a
new product is being marketed toward you, try to think who it is really for
and whether or not they might think differently.
3\. Your ability to forecast user numbers / revenue for a new service might
not be as good as you think.
------
dirkdeman
Generally speaking, VC's aren't interested in getting their money back with
revenues from the company they're funding. They aim for a 'big exit', in the
form of an IPO or acquisition by another company.
------
petervandijck
Imagine Kicksend gets to 10,000,000 paying customers in a few years. And you
own 20% of that.
That's how VC's think.
------
known
The best way to understand how VC funding works is try to become one.
------
davidhansen
We are currently in a huge bubble. I wouldn't try to ascribe rational
valuations to _anything_ investors do in the middle of a bubble.
When a company like GRPN, who lies about its own revenue in its own S1 filing,
loses money on every deal, and whose idea of scaling is "just add more sales
people", pops off a wildly successful IPO in the middle of a very volatile
public market, that's when you throw your hands in the air and stop trying to
see rational behavior where there is none.
If you're old enough, you would remember this story from 1996-2001 repeating
itself.
Of course, there's no end to the supply of twenty-something startup hipsters
who will breathlessly inform you that this time it's different. Sure it is,
kid. Sure it is.
------
HilbertSpace
At least in the US, nearly all the money invested by VCs is from 'limited
partners', and the usual suspects are employee pension funds, university
endowments, life insurance companies, hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds
(think a fund with Mideast state oil money), and wealthy individuals.
The VCs and/or LPs need some 'criteria' on how to invest the money. That is,
one venture partner, at least before he has an astoundingly good track record,
who has some very different ideas about how to invest money will likely fail
to get approval from his other partners or the LPs. So, if you will, there is
a 'herd'.
Here are some of the main points about the 'criteria':
(1) The Sexy Sectors.
The two biggest sectors for VC investing are 'information technology' (IT) and
biomedical technology. There is also a little for 'clean tech', and then
everything else is in the 'single digits' or the roundoff error. In IT, the
sector splits into hardware and software. In software, the biggies now are the
Web 2.0 and mobile.
(2) The Traction Thing.
It is fair to say that VC is just 'early stage private equity' (PE) investing.
Well, in later stage PE, audited financial statements are important. Since in
early stage asking for audited finacials is usually asking for nothing
significant, the 'herd' likes to see a near substitute and that is the
somewhat ill-defined but still quantitative 'traction'.
'Good traction' is, for say a Web 2.0 site, the number of 'unique users'
('uniques') per month significant, say, over 100,000 and growing rapidly. For
a mobile app, 'traction' might be number of monthly downloads significant and
growing rapidly.
Of course, 'traction' the accountants can count is better, e.g., revenue, and,
of course, best of all, earnings.
(3) The Market Thing.
If do some arithmetic on how VC money flows, then can see that VC needs
surprisingly big 'exits'. For that a good first guess is that an entrepreneur
should be attacking a relatively large 'market'.
Hopefully that market already exists, but, of course, the entrepreneurs may be
creating the market they are attacking. Or, e.g., well before the first
iPhone, what was the 'market' for such a device? Well, that 'market' is big
enough NOW, but Apple, with help from Nokia, RIM, Motorola, etc., created it.
The joke goes: The entrepreneur proposes building a toll bridge across the
river. The skeptical investor notes that there is no traffic across the river
at the entrepreneur's proposed location and, thus, concludes that there is no
'market'.
There is an old saying: "Selling new technology is hard. Attacking a new
market is hard. Selling new technology for a new market is too hard.". This
saying is mostly a joke but does describe some common, real concerns.
(4) The Money Thing.
A common assumption in IT VC is that a lot of 'traction' is very significant
even if there is so far no revenue. So commonly it is assumed that if can get
100 million people a month to aim their eyeballs, then somehow there will be a
way to extract money, that is, to execute 'monetization'.
(5) The UI/UX.
A definition of art is "the communication, interpretation of human experience,
emotion". A lot of 'pop culture' art seeks to create an 'engaging user
experience'. So, a Web 2.0 project might emphasize a good 'user interface'
(UI) and 'user experience' (UX). Some VCs will 'play with' the product and
evaluate how well millions of users might like the UI/UX.
(6) A Buffett 'Moat'.
Of course, W. Buffett likes each of his investments to have a 'moat' that
keeps out competition like a medieval castle had a moat that kept out the
roving barbarians, hungry peasants, greedy neighbors, etc.
Coveted moats used to be (A) crucial, core, technical 'secret sauce' that was
powerful, gave especially valuable results, and was difficult to duplicate or
equal, (B) patents for crucial, core, technical secret sauce, (C) user 'lock
in', e.g., high user 'switching costs', (D) 'network effects', (E) deals for
'distribution channels', etc.
Now more popular is just, from F. Wilson at USV, "large networks of engaged
users", and there one approach can be to create a 'fad' among the 'A-list'
people!
(7) Some Other Things.
Some VCs believe it can help if (A) there is a good 'team', (B) the team has
good 'passion', (C) the team has some people who concentrate on the 'tech' and
others who concentrate on the 'market' and/or 'management'. (D) the team is
young and understands the 'vibe' of the youth market, and (E) the CEO of the
team, to paraphrase a movie, "has always made money for his investors".
New Theme.
There is now a new 'theme' in IT VC which might be called the 'lean startup'.
So, over the past few years, there have been some big changes that make
startups much cheaper, faster, and easier to do:
(A) Bandwidth.
A T-1 line was 1.5 million bits per second (Mbps) and cost over $1000 a month.
Now commonly can get 15 Mbps upload bandwidth for less than $100 a month.
(B) Computing.
For $100 or so each can buy a 4 core processor with a 3.0 GHz clock, a
motherboard, 16 GB of main memory, a power supply a case and keyboard, and a 2
TB hard disk drive. Net, if just plug together some parts, $1000 will buy one
heck of a computer that not so long ago could cost 1000 times more.
(C) Infrastructure Software.
In either the Linux world or the Microsoft world, there is a LOT of powerful
'infrastructure' software -- operating systems, programming languages,
software libraries, data base systems -- available for free.
So, the 'bottom line' for this 'new theme' is: If half fill 15 Mbps 24 x 7
with simple Web pages with simple ads, then have a good shot at making $1
million in pre-tax earnings in one year.
New Approach.
So, a new approach to startup investing is just to back a lot of promising
teams with, say, $25,000 to $200,000 each and see what they can build.
So, don't spend a lot of time or effort evaluating a 'business plan' and,
instead, just let the team try.
Old Theme.
An old theme in 'innovation' was (A) pick a problem where a much better
solution would be valuable (B) do some difficult, advanced (Buffett moat) R&D
to find a much better solution, (C) sell the solution.
Here there are two challenges, the entrepreneur doing the R&D and the investor
evaluating the R&D.
This old theme is likely still important in biomedical investing but has
fallen out of favor in IT investing.
One assumption is that research has nothing to contribute to IT or Web 2.0.
While there may be some exceptions to this assumption, for now clearly the
exceptions are rare.
The Rarity Problem.
IT VC has a big, huge problem: It needs big exits, essentially 'home runs'. As
in some blog posts of VC Mark Suster, for the past 10 years on average VC
returns have been poor; often returns have been negative. So, there is a
'return problem', or the needed 'home runs' have been too rare.
If look at a good list of the home runs of the past -- GroupOn, Zynga,
Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Oracle, HP, Seagate,
Cisco, Microsoft, Intel -- then (A) it is difficult to see a single pattern
and (B) the world has changed a lot over the decades of these home runs with
only a few home runs per decade to use as a 'pattern' for that decade.
So, home runs are 'rare', and finding them in 'early stage' investing is a
'rarity' problem.
As the US DoD has known and exploited well for about 70 years now, with more
examples from academic research in applied science and engineering, especially
biomedical technology, one approach to this 'rarity' problem is some good R&D.
For such work, it is common for, say, DARPA, NSF, or NIH to evaluate proposals
just on paper and for the funded proposals to have a nicely high 'batting
average'.
It would appear that IT VC could do better by borrowing this solution to the
rarity problem. Maybe biomedical VC does, but in IT VC it may be that the
entrepreneurs are doing too little 'research' to make this solution effective.
Still, the coveted home runs are so rare that there is still a chance that
good R&D, even if also rare, could significantly increase the rate of home
runs.
If such R&D is being neglected by the VCs, then the 'flip side' of this
problem should be an opportunity for any entrepreneur who can do some such
research!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What it takes to win an Oscar? - shabirgilkar
======
medymed
Step 1 is having a remote connection to film making. It appears very different
than optimizing LLVM or modifying the TF code base. After step 1, there's
probably a step 2.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ten Commandments of Startup Success with Reid Hoffman - ignoramous
https://tim.blog/2017/06/26/10-commandments-startup-success/
======
techslave
7a. If you take VC money and require network effect, be prepared to turn into
that which you loathe. leave your principles at the door.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Here’s Woz, Waiting in Line for His New iPad - shawndumas
http://gizmodo.com/5893839/heres-woz-waiting-in-line-for-his-new-ipad
======
NameNickHN
People are still waiting in lines to buy Apple products? After all those
years? I could understand it (if I really, really tried) when the first iPhone
came out. But for the iPad III. People have way too much time on their hands.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Best marketing/branding books? - foundertrouble
Hi -- my partner and I have a recently funded startup and one of the "money guys" is very bottom line focused, challenging nearly every expense. We are trying to build the case that its worth it in the long run to have nice marketing materials, to have good design that taps into the 'cool' zetigeist and develop something that people will want to be a part of. Does anyone know of some good books on the subject that we can read and then use to bolster our case in the board room?
thx
======
binarray2000
Your "money guy" is right for being very bottom line focused.
Respect his money: Don't (DON'T!) even think to invest A DIME into logo or any
other 'cool' marketing materials that you see big (and not so big) companies
have. Invest EVERY minute and some money to FIND OUT what your customers WANT,
sell it, if they want to buy it, build it, THEN invest money into marketing
that WORKS.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Operating systems are huge pile of technical debt - luca89
http://luca3m.me/2016/09/01/operating-systems.html
======
ankurdhama
What about saying your tool didn't handle all the edge cases? The only reason
a kernel is technical debt is coz of all the variety of apps people want to
run on top of it.
------
chmaynard
click·bait (on the Internet): A headline or an article of a sensational or
provocative nature whose main purpose is to attract attention and draw
visitors to a particular web page.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Worthwhile ad networks? - foxpc
Hey HN!<p>Our website was recently blocked from an ad network for because "all" of our clicks were fraudulent. While we do know that we did not do anything of such sort, we doubt that any resolution will be found to this problem. We just hope to land on a more decent ad network than we did.<p>What ad networks are used by fellow hackers?<p>We assume that AdSense is usually the best option but it does not look like they want to give us a chance and rejected our application.<p>Thank you for your inputs :)
======
jimbobob
Hi foxpc- that is a hard question to answer without knowing more specifics.
Here are some of the questions that I can use to point you in the right
direction.
\- What kind of site(s) do you have traffic for?
\- Are they in a specific niche, or is the traffic more general?
\- Which ad units do you support?
\- What is your estimated volume (impressions/month)?
\- What is your geo breakdown?
Feel free to reach out to me directly if you don't want to share this info
publicly. I would love to help!
~~~
foxpc
Hey! I've sent you an email with all the specifics that I could think off.
~~~
jimbobob
Responded to your email. Hopefully you find that helpful.
Best of luck getting started!
------
logn
I've always thought [http://solvemedia.com/](http://solvemedia.com/) looked
nice. It's captcha via advertising. E.g., "Please type 'Just Do It'"
Not sure if it's applicable to your use case though.
------
jsonne
What are you working on? I run a digital agency, and I'd be more than happy to
help if I can.
~~~
foxpc
Hi, you can find the website in my submission history. Sorry, I don't want to
let google have too much fun caching the link on their search.
~~~
jsonne
I would look at AppNexus as a possible alternative.
------
stephancoral
Have you looked into AppNexus?
~~~
foxpc
Hey, well, I've looked at it. But I can't seem to find any clues how to send
an application/register on the site.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Any Reviews on Design Pickle? - poojaa_vermaa
Has anyone ever tried one of those unlimited graphic design services like Design Pickle or Kappa99?
======
rman666
I haven’t but I’ve wondered about them, too. Thanks for posting!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Thanks goes out to the YC community for all the help... - twism
http://www.theother9to5.com/
======
ph0rque
please, please, PLEASE write you as you, not u. That's a definite turn-off for
me.
~~~
twism
Sorry, changed copy in a rush.
------
mhidalgo
You definitely should include some geo-location, google maps.... Would be cool
to type in your zip code and see nearby events and integrate the voting
feature you have already made. Keep up the good work.
~~~
twism
oh those are coming... i wanted to make it simple and to the point... so i
have to find out a way to incorporate that and not get in the way of users
~~~
mhidalgo
Cool man...I think your approach is right, traffic is irrelevant right now,
just get it up, get feedback, and keep on improving it. Looking forward to see
what you come up with.
------
twism
I bumped up the font... better search.. a little bit higher contrast.. no
registration required to post or vote (events only)... not just limited to
boston anymore...
~~~
ralph
Contrast still not enough. See my recent comment on your other thread.
<http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=23231>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google's IPv6 Statistics - bensummers
http://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics/
======
lenni
That is depressing, isn't it?
On the other hand, I'm still wondering why Google hasn't switched away from
the Flash-based graphing tool seen Analytics and Finance.
~~~
pedrokost
Has anyone had any issues with it? I think it is very robust and integrates so
seamlessly one doesn't notice it's Flash unless you have Flash disabled. This
is one of the 'appropriate and well implemented' Flash products. It's not
broken in any way, so why fix it?
~~~
navyrain
I know I've disabled flash myself; my browsing experience is more often hurt
by flash than it is helped, so it is a net gain.
------
zaphar
There are times when I wonder if we will ever actually switch over to IPv6.
The rate of adoption is super slow and yet at some point surely we'll hit some
sort of critical mass right?
~~~
SystemOut
Hurricane Electric has a nice little widget that shows how many IPv4 addresses
are left for allocation.
The site is <http://ipv6.he.net/>
I was reading somewhere that there are still a pretty decent number of
allocated but unused addresses available out there that will still need to be
used but that can't go on forever.
It's hard to say what will actually happen when we do start to run short,
though. I doubt it will have any noticeable impact on the average consumer,
though.
~~~
bigfudge
I find these examples of scarcity and cost really interesting and wonder if
economists do too... IP4 is like a miniature version of the energy crisis — at
some point the cost of not switching _to someone_ become greater than those of
switching. I'd be interested to know how it works in this situation? Who will
be, in actuality, faced with the headache of not enough addresses, and will
they be sufficiently powerful to motivate others who don't directly experience
the pain to transition?
------
troymc
I wonder why there's a spike every Monday?
~~~
jjcm
Unless the graph changed, the spikes are showing up on Sundays on my end. My
guess is simply from weekend use - people going home and using their ipv6
connected computers, then using their ipv4 work computers during the week.
------
mike-cardwell
Are there actually any residential ISPs that do native IPv6? I'd switch in a
heart beat if there were...
~~~
nl
Where do you live?
My ISP does[1]. It's not trivial to switch over though - for example, most
home ADSL devices won't support it[2].
[1] <http://ipv6.internode.on.net/>
[2] <http://ipv6.internode.on.net/access/adsl/>
~~~
mike-cardwell
I should have mentioned. I'm in the UK. The East Midlands to be precise.
------
InclinedPlane
Here's the problem, I only ever hear about the advantages of IPv6 in terms of
its much larger address space, and thus as a solution to the limited address
space of IPv4. If the only reason to expend all the effort necessary to move
away from IPv4 merely to avoid the problem of running out of addresses then of
course it's going to be a slow process, and may not be started in earnest
until there's really a crisis.
------
nl
This article is worth reading:
[http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/09/there-is-no-
pla...](http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/09/there-is-no-plan-b-why-
the-ipv4-to-ipv6-transition-will-be-ugly.ars)
It explains things like why having a IPv6 capable computer doesn't solve the
problem, why we can't just use the class A address space etc etc.
------
beaumartinez
Over 99.7% of hosts hitting Google.com are _IPv4 only_. That's _insane_! Some
estimates say that IPv4 addresses will run out _in under a year_. And still
under 0.3% of all hosts have IPv6 capability. Long live ISP-side NAT.
However, I think the reason for this is obvious. Had IPv6 not been designed as
forcefully backwards-incompatible...
~~~
cosmicray
> Over 99.7% of hosts hitting Google.com are IPv4 only.
Is it the hosts, or is it the mid-span links ? I'm sitting here in a fast-food
place with a Macbook is certainly IPv6 capable, but I suspect the cable-modem
and/or the AP they use here isn't. How many last mile providers are IPv6
capable today ?
~~~
ismarc
Your computer being IPv6 compatible is incidental to the actual transition to
IPv6. IPv4 to IPv6 NAT will be used as the circuit that's provided has IPv6
only connectivity in order to support older clients. And then, in order to
talk to any hosts that don't have IPv6 support (a large number of them, as in,
insanely large number), you'll need an IPv6 to IPv4 bridge (provided by the
ISP, transparent to the end user). If done properly, hosts that support IPv6
will start getting traffic as the onsite CPEs and gateways start getting IPv6
addresses rolled out to them (likely to be starting on date X new customers
get IPv6 IPs and existing customers maintain IPv4 for the transition period).
------
maxklein
So what about all the organisations that were assigned class A address blocks?
Should they not do something and give up these classes, come 2011? We
certainly don't have 2^32 devices out there.
~~~
zokier
Because I hate downvoting without explanation: This question arises every time
when exhaustion of IPv4 is discussed.
Reallocating class A blocks would only delay the inevitable by few months
(less than a year for sure).
~~~
maxklein
Are 50% of all IPv4 addresses not class A? Can you explain a bit more in-depth
why it would not make a significant difference?
~~~
wmf
Talking about "class A" is a red herring. There are used addresses and unused
addresses. It's not clear how many allocated-but-unused addresses exist
because the audits necessary to find them would be expensive, but people have
made estimates and those estimates are not that large. At any rate, the
transfer market should flush out some of these "dark" addresses once they are
needed.
------
zokier
I wonder how they collect this data. Maybe by having a list of IPv6 capable
ISPs
~~~
wmf
The typical way to do this is to include a 1x1 pixel image from an IPv6-only
server, and use JS to detect whether it loads or not.
------
ecaradec
Can't we just make a backward compatible IPV6 bis, move on and forget this
fiasco ?
~~~
wmf
No. Even if some new protocol was _finalized_ today, it couldn't be widely
deployed until 2015, which is after the end of the world. Also, there's no way
to create a protocol which has larger addresses and is completely backwards-
compatible; IPv6+NAT64+DNS64 already exists and is as backwards-compatible as
you're going to get.
~~~
ecaradec
To the rate at ipv6 is installing we are still nowhere today, we have been
there for more than 5 years, and we could still be there 5 years from now. I
have read several times that it ipv6 had been designed non backward
compatible, so I suppose there was a backward compatible way to design it. It
seems that it would be possible to use 0 0 0 0 prefix as a special case for
ipv6 and truncate it for ipv4.
I suppose there is a reason that prevent that because this is way too much of
an evidence, so someone certainly has though about it : what's prevent us to
do that ?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Changing branch alignment causes swings in performance - luu
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.compilers.llvm.devel/86742
======
rayiner
A fuller description of the post-decode uop cache (with pictures!) is here:
[http://www.realworldtech.com/haswell-
cpu/2](http://www.realworldtech.com/haswell-cpu/2).
Note that there are two paths for instructions: one, from the L1 icache
through the traditional decoders into the instruction queue, and another a
post-decode cache directly into the instruction queue. There are numerous
advantages to the cache, such as power saved by idling the decode logic, as
well as bypassing the 16-byte fetch restriction (which has been a feature of
the architecture since the Pentium Pro days).
The gist of the surprising behavior is that the processor cannot execute out
of the uop cache if a given 32-byte (naturally aligned) section of code
decodes to more than 3 lines of 6 uops each (with the catch being that a
branch ends any given line). In that case it falls back to the traditional
instruction fetch/decode. Depending on the alignment of branches, you may or
may not run into this limitation on an otherwise identical sequence of
instructions.
------
kentonv
This caused me a lot of grief back when I was working on Protobufs and doing
lots of microbenchmarking. I'd often make a change and find it affected the
performance of test cases that didn't even execute the changed code, sometimes
by double-digit percentages.
Another problem that can cause a lot of noise between two executions of the
same executable is positioning of _data_. For instance, two objects on the
heap can alias in the TLB cache. If you run your microbenchmark in a loop
reusing the same data structure over and over (as my benchmarks tended to do),
then there can be a huge difference in performance depending where those
structures landed in the heap. I ended up fixing this one by allocating 100
different copies of the structure and cycling through them.
Ultimately, though, I came to the conclusion that microbenchmarks have almost
nothing to do with real-world performance, and I was just wasting my time all
along. :/
------
userbinator
I would be wary of microbenchmarks like this, especially when the faster
sequence is bigger - keeping as much in cache as possible is more important
for newer processors, and fetching NOPs wastes bandwidth without doing any
useful work. A faster sequence of code won't be anymore if, upon exiting it,
something _else_ has to stall due to a cache miss. Pushing the function to the
next alignment boundary might move the one _after_ it as well, causing a
cascade effect. If you can rearrange the code to spread out the jumps
_without_ making it bigger, that would be the best way to go.
------
nhaehnle
If anybody else is having trouble accessing the presentation linked as an
attachment: the download from the original LLVM bug at
[https://llvm.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=5615](https://llvm.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=5615)
appears to be okay.
------
abc_lisper
Instruction alignment is very important for performance. I remember a similar
slow down when working on a VM for Itanium. The architecture manuals for
processors usually describe this in detail.
~~~
userbinator
The Itanium was a somewhat special case. It was very difficult to optimise
for, which is why it performed so poorly in practice. In general x86 is far
less sensitive to alignment than other architectures, and has been becoming
more so with each new generation.
~~~
m_mueller
by "becoming more so" so do you mean "becoming less so"?
~~~
userbinator
I see that doubled-modifier could be a bit confusing: "more less sensitive"; I
meant that newer processors are becoming less sensitive to alignment.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why I gave up on static types - mathgladiator
http://blog.mathgladiator.com/2010/12/why-i-gave-up-on-static-types.html
======
dstein
Context? The website contains no information about who this person is or what
type of project he is working on.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Who is using Google Checkout for their product? - techiferous
I've heard someone suggest using Google Checkout for a SaaS product. I've never heard of this before. Is anyone using Google Checkout for SaaS?
======
sorenbs
What i have heard from people is that using Google Checkout as the only option
is significantly worse than using paypal as the only option. Providing the
option between the two gives a marginally better conversion rate.
Check the discussion here [http://www.invesp.com/blog/ecommerce/paypal-vs-
google-checko...](http://www.invesp.com/blog/ecommerce/paypal-vs-google-
checkout-and-why-you-should-offer-both.html)
~~~
patrickaljord
That will change though with the webstore being released in a few days now.
The webstore is based on google checkout, just like the android market.
<https://chrome.google.com/webstore>
~~~
qeorge
Incidentally, they're going to allow PayPal on Andriod Market shortly:
[http://www.thestreet.com/story/10880639/1/google-paypal-
set-...](http://www.thestreet.com/story/10880639/1/google-paypal-set-on-
android-deal.html)
But I do agree: Google Checkout needs an eBay to subsidize its growth.
------
edge17
We had google checkout and paypal as payment options. The difference was
easily 10:1 in favor of paypal. People paying from overseas prefer paypal
significantly.
~~~
jmelloy
We receive next to no support from Google for Checkout, too. It's more of a
pain than it's worth, IMHO.
------
absconditus
"Google Checkout is an alternative checkout flow you can use to process sales.
While Checkout is designed primarily for transactions involving tangible and
digital goods, you may also process transactions for services, subscriptions,
and donations (if your organization is 501c3 tax-exempt). All transactions
must abide by our content policies. Google Checkout cannot be used as a person
to person money transfer service at this time."
[http://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?answer...](http://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?answer=134420&cbid=-1lhlln0fe1x5t&src=cb&lev=%20index)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
SoundCloud Preparing to Block All DJ Mixes - yuddidit
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/05/16/soundcloud-preparing-massive-restrictions-dj-uploads/
======
api
"Let's block one of our major use cases..."
------
herbst
Goodby Soundcloud.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The “C” in VC Doesn’t Stand for Corporation – But Maybe it Should - robbiea
http://technori.com/2012/10/2647-the-c-in-vc-doesnt-stand-for-corporation-but-maybe-it-should/
======
davestheraves
It's a much easier decision in the UK. You incorporate.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Entity Component Systems and Data Oriented Design [pdf] - magoghm
http://aras-p.info/texts/files/2018Academy%20-%20ECS-DoD.pdf
======
twtw
A response to the OOP part of this:
[https://www.gamedev.net/blogs/entry/2265481-oop-is-dead-
long...](https://www.gamedev.net/blogs/entry/2265481-oop-is-dead-long-live-
oop/)
I have no preference here, just posting it as an interesting further reading.
~~~
platz
I agree that ECS is at its most fundamental a relational scheme. Not sure why
that is controversial though..
------
zimablue
There are some parallels here with data engineering/science I think, at least
on the surface of "array of structs" => "struct of arrays" is another view on
"row oriented" vs "column oriented" data. Killing the object hierarchy and
moving to a more relational style (indexed dataframes). OO -> Systems, Systems
seem like seperated functional programming.
~~~
_pmf_
I wonder why ECS is completely absent in non-game systems. It seems like a
natural way for non-invasive extension.
------
plopz
In ECS I don't understand where you put the collections (scene graphs, quad
trees, etc) or what manages them. Does anyone have insight in this?
~~~
osaariki
Like kvark said, they don't really fit the ECS model well. The standard answer
would be to encapsulate them into a system (i.e. go outside the ECS).
The way I see ECSs is that they are in-memory relational databases that only
support equijoins (look up component matching entity ID) and optimize for
table scans. The typical choice of an index structure is a contiguous ordered
array, making for very fast lookups and scans. If insertion/deletion
performance becomes an issue you can add one level of indirection and only
keep a list of pointers to components ordered. However, like you indicated,
games also need other kinds of queries, so scene graphs and quad trees should
be supported as indices on the same level as the arrays and hash tables that
are traditional for ECSs.
I would love to see an in-memory database with all the features required by
games. There are some very different tradeoffs to be made than in typical in-
memory databases:
\- The most important queries are known up-front, since the
simulation/rendering loop is fairly defined.
\- Transactions don't need to be durable. Just need to be able to checkpoint
once in a while.
\- Lots of bulk updates from the simulation.
\- Query language needs to be well integrated into the application language to
avoid overheads.
------
ryanmarsh
I really wish there was a video of this talk, I like this deck but I'm missing
the color commentary.
~~~
aras_p
There was a video, but since I talked in Lithuanian, I doubt if it would be
useful to many people :)
------
platz
jonathan blow is not a big fan of ECS
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t1K66dMhWk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t1K66dMhWk)
~~~
Impossible
Jonathan Blow's commentary isn't anti-ECS. It's more skeptical of Rust's
borrow checker, more specifically he's pointing out how the original talk ends
with bypassing the borrow checker and copying a pattern that would have equal
safety in C or C++.
~~~
platz
That is true + there is an offhand quote he makes about ECS in general, but
99% is about the issue you mention
------
netgusto
An ECS for Go, with a TypeScript port:
[https://github.com/ByteArena/ecs](https://github.com/ByteArena/ecs)
~~~
lytedev
For the past few days I've been messing with an ECS module for Elixir! My fork
is here: [https://github.com/lytedev/ecs](https://github.com/lytedev/ecs)
Really simple with Elixir, but the naive implementation has some potential
performance issues methinks.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Finding the Point of Human Leverage - hunglee2
https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2019/4/8/mechanical-turks
======
tshoaib
Can't seem to understand the phrase “mechanical Turk“. Especially the use of
the word Turk. Can anyone explain?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Plan for Résumé Spam - raganwald
http://raganwald.posterous.com/a-plan-for-resume-spam
======
tptacek
I wouldn't be OK with you sharing with other people the fact that I
interviewed with you, especially if it was on a formalized routinized basis
and most especially if it was to drive some service that computed my value as
a candidate.
Things - 'tptacek - is - OK - with is a _very_ poor measurement of how good an
idea is or isn't (unless it involves Javascript crypto in which case I am
right), but I thought you might want the data point. I like to think of myself
as an A-player (or at least an A- player), and I'd skip talking to your
company if I knew it did something like this.
For what it's worth, I think a better way to supply talent to your team is not
to depend on a steady inflow of resumes to begin with, but to actively
recruit. We do classes, we give talks, and I yell at people on Hacker News;
all of these things have outperformed job reqs for us on recruiting.
~~~
btilly
_I wouldn't be OK with you sharing with other people the fact that I
interviewed with you..._
PARTICULARLY not if through those other people there is a reasonably high
chance of it getting back to my employer.
You could avoid that by having the service not provide any level of detail,
just a "yes/no, this person passed threshold X requests in time T." But if
that got popular then I guarantee that craptastic employers would get the
bright idea of, after hiring people, having lots of fake companies report
interviewing them. This would make their current employees have trouble
getting interviewed elsewhere.
~~~
joe_the_user
By your own line of reasoning, then, this could not be successful.
~~~
btilly
Not quite.
The initial idea, as presented, would likely fail to succeed once people were
aware of the risk. The amended version could succeed, but there are high odds
of some abuse.
The pertinent question then is whether the abused version is worse than the
current reality. My gut says that most employers won't abuse it, and it would
prove to be at least a somewhat useful filter. So despite my negative tone, it
at least has a chance.
------
edw519
_There's a huge inefficiency in the hiring market, and someone is going to
make some money solving the problem._
There are huge inefficiencies in _everything_. That doesn't necessarily mean
there's a problem. The only ones who think that hiring is a problem are those
who haven't solved it.
Think of it as a bell curve (what a surprise). Some companies suck. Most are
mediocre. But a few have it figured out.
I've been on both sides of this process more times than I can count and I've
noticed that the companies that do it well have a lot in common:
\- They rely on up front third party aptitude and personality screening to
eliminate 95% to 98%. They pay, but it's a bargain.
\- They use interview quantity (lots of them, by phone and in person).
\- They use interview quality (peers, supervisors, customers getting well
below the "surface").
\- They use variety (interviews, testing, get-togethers).
\- They check references without a canned checklist (logic path driven, in-
depth).
\- They use HR primarily for formalities.
\- They take their time.
\- They "solve a long term problem" for all parties involved.
I admire your desire to solve a problem that affects so many, but I wonder if
your approach is the best way. Maybe it's better for the mediocre to do what
already works by copying the excellent. Then they wouldn't have such a big
problem to solve.
~~~
lsc
the only time I've ever even seen a third party aptitude or personality test
before an interview was when I was 15 and I worked for some temp agency moving
things around in a warehouse. In the 15 years hence, working as a programmer
or SysAdmin, I've never seen such a thing. Coincidentally, that was also my
last drug test.
Now, I don't use illegal drugs; Hell, I could easily pass one of those 'hair
tests' that see if you have used marijuana in the last few years. Still, as an
employee, my assumption is that if you require a drug test or similar, you are
not a company that will respect me as an employee. My assumption if you made
me take a 'personality test' would be that your company is run by idiots.
The rest seems to be pretty good advice, assuming that you are a company that
can't just hire people as a contractor, and then let them go if they don't
work out.
this is what I do at my company: If someone looks good, I hire them for a
short project. If they don't do well, they get paid for their time and sent on
their way. Personally, I think it's more respectful than grilling someone for
4 or 8 hours without pay, and it probably gives me a better idea of how good
they are.
~~~
megablast
You make a good point, but as for telling how a company will respect you,
because they ask for a drug test, you may be a little off.
If it is a big company, HR practices will have nothing to do with anything
else in the company, so don't judge the department you will be working in by
what HR makes you do. On the other hand, a company that lets HR have free
reign to do anything, may cause endless suffering as HR feel the need to make
themselves more "integrated".
I recently interviewed for a developer in a government position, and decided
that the people doing the interview are the ones are out of their depth, and
should be unemployed. They clearly had to technical understanding where it was
required for their job, and got very confused by the simplest question.
~~~
buro9
HR practices disconnected from a respectful approach to the individuals
involved can certainly reflect on the general approach of a large company.
HR is one of those neglected things, if they've gotten that right then they
tend to have other things right. It's also something that you hope will be
invisible and will "just work" when you're there... you want it to be
friendly, respectful, and efficient.
I would say that if HR appears from the outset to be burdened by needless
bureaucracy (an aptitude test when you acknowledge the
position/department/legislature may not require it) definitely checks the box
of reflecting a corporate culture that allows such crud to creep in.
I don't go for any positions that: 1) Require me to jump through silly hoops
when there is no benefit from anyone to doing so. 2) Bog me down in
bureaucracy before I've even begun. 3) Require me to give access to any
personal data that they do not have the legal right to ask for.
On that last one, I'm talking about social networking credentials, overly
invasive background checks that don't relate to the position and so on. I was
fine with the Home Office and GCHQ asking questions about my finances, running
criminal record checks and contacting friends and family as part of a security
vetting process that they have the legal mandate to perform... but I wouldn't
be fine with a large company performing such things.
------
harpastum
What if someone set up an "almost hired" list? That is, after a company
finishes its job search, it can send a few names (with applicant approval) to
the service.
Other employers can enter names from resumés they have received, and find out
if that applicant made it to the final lap on any recent interviews.
There's no direct benefit to companies putting the names in, but it could be
seen as a 'pay it forward' sort of service -- if you benefitted from this,
please put your finalists in after you choose your hire.
One important distinction the service would have to make is not allow
_browsing_ of names, only specific name-lookup, so job-seekers can only be
found by companies they're applying to.
~~~
joe_the_user
There are dicey and unpleasant issues involved in sharing information about
your hiring process.
_... especially if you're going to be talking to people who are presently
employed..._
------
crux_
There's a bunch of obvious problems, off the top of my head: People should be
able to to look for a job without necessarily tipping of their current
employer. Ambition and hard work, unless expressed very carefully, could well
become an endless trap. Those who work in industries with terrible
unemployment will continue to be stigmatized even after they abandon their
search in their old field and strike out into new ones. There's potential for
abuse, e.g. Apple could falsely report all its current employees as submitting
bajillions of resumes and thus prevent them finding other jobs. There's the
problem of recruiters who submit resumes indiscriminately on a job seeker's
behalf, sometimes without permission or even the seeker's knowledge.
------
ig1
An interesting idea (I'm sort of involved in this space), but I'd be a bit
worried about the legalities involved.
A few years back there was a case where a group of companies (I think in the
construction sector) were prosecuted for operating a cartel because they co-
operated in developing a blacklist of "trouble-maker" employees (as a do-not-
hire list).
~~~
raganwald
I have also thought of lots of problems with this business that need to be
solved... But that's ok, that's why we always say the execution is more
important than the idea: "Execution" is often a blanket term for "Negotiating
all the hurdles and picking the right trade-offs and which problems to solve
to make it a reality."
One that would keep me up at night is an employer who 'tastes' their
employee's resume by sending it to a fake job ad. If it has a positive spray
score of any magnitude, they have just learned that the employee is job
seeking. Bad!
------
ismarc
The main problem with hiring/resumes isn't just volume. Volume has become a
problem with the ease of sending the resume. We removed a barrier(fax, mail,
drop off) and naturally the flood started. Businesses compensated by listing
arbitrary values for hard skills/experience, which in turn applicants sent
resumes to places they were even more unqualified for on paper.
The crux of the problem is that there isn't a way to directly quantify what is
absolutely needed for a job position, and in turn, there isn't a way for an
applicant to demonstrate they meet those qualifications, short of the person
doing the job. The need for human interpretation is too ingrained in the
current process, even with the filtering mechanisms in place
~~~
cabalamat
> _The crux of the problem is that there isn't a way to directly quantify what
> is absolutely needed for a job position, and in turn, there isn't a way for
> an applicant to demonstrate they meet those qualifications, short of the
> person doing the job._
This varies according to job. E.g. for a programming job, the employer could
ask applicants to solve a programming problem, such as FizzBuzz (or something
harder).
~~~
ismarc
But even that doesn't provide any quantitative judgement of what the job
requires or what the applicant can do. It says they can write code that does
X. I've never been a part of or seen a job where the only real skills needed
were syntax knowledge and basic familiarity with common algorithms. There's
things like interpreting requirements, time/task/priority management, bug
diagnosis, impact assessment, domain knowledge. How do you quantify "Can
figure out why we keep getting kernel panics after the kernel upgrade on only
some machines? Oh, the thing the machines have in common are they are the
multi-core/multi-processor boxes. Is it a bug in our code or the kernel? Are
they still acceptable for the position if they can't identify the problem, but
can identify that rolling the kernel back is a viable short-term alternative?"
The ideal scenario is the applicant mashes a button and gets a list of job
they're truly qualified and a good fit for (as in, highly likely to get a
phone screen on) and the hiring company can mash the same button. Everyone
keeps trying to find new ways to invent or improve the button. No filter or
screen is going to work until companies can definitively measure the quality
of applicants between two postings for the same job (e.g., A/B test job
position listings) and candidates determine if they are qualified based on
that.
There's a lot of problems to solve, but the biggest by far is the fact that
90% of the jobs out there have only "can breath, assistance to breath is ok"
and "can show up" as the hard skills that are required. I'm not kidding, go
spend a couple of hours on Monster, or Craigslist...at least programmer jobs
have <arbitrary number of years> in <technology X>...most jobs don't.
------
WillyF
I think that a much simpler solution is to charge people to apply for jobs.
That's what colleges do.
There are certainly some complications that would come along with this, but
there would be far fewer than with keeping a database of everyone who has ever
applied for any job.
I don't love the idea, and I know quite a few people have tried making it work
unsuccessfully, but I still think it's far more realistic.
~~~
cj
Colleges charge fees more to make money than to screen candidates. We don't
want to have the job market profiting from the unemployed.
Stanford University, for example: $90 fee X 20,000 applicants = $1,800,000
~~~
pwim
The first goal of universities charging to cover their costs. Stanford isn't
pocketing that 1.8 million.
~~~
cj
Maybe my opinions are a bit baised as a student who spent over $400 in fees
applying to colleges.
I would have assumed that my universities' costs would be offset by the
$40,000 I'm paying _every year_ for the next four years, rather than erroneous
fees that aren't tallied in the advertised total cost of attendance.
~~~
irrelative
The point of the fee isn't to make money. Imagine how many people would have
applied if it were free? They still need employees to read all of those
applications and they need to keep the quality of student up as high as
possible (so they can't just outsource it, or use a lottery).
Basically, your tuition could be even higher if they dropped the fee to apply.
------
colinprince
/This policy is, of course, roughly equivalent to only dating married people/
Doesn't make that much sense, since we're all prolly gnna change jobs 5 maybe
10 times. I hope I don't get married 5 or 10 times.
Maybe job applicants could put a note on their resumés saying what they want
to be doing in 3 to 5 years.
~~~
raganwald
Ok, this feels like we're quibbling. Would you accept a more liberal
definition of marriage such as common law?
_This policy is, of course, roughly equivalent to only dating people who are
living with someone else._
Slightly more accurate but you know.... I'm going to claim poetic license. The
underlying sentiment seems to be correct even if there is some room to argue
the simile isn't 100% isomorphic to reality.
~~~
modoc
Great way to select people who can be lived with, aren't terrified of
commitment, etc... Although there may be fidelity issues... :)
~~~
Periodic
I've heard people say, when speaking of potential partners, that there's
nothing better than a widow/widower. They've already proven they aren't afraid
of commitment, that they can get along with someone, and they are single
through no fault of their own.
The equivalent in this case would be people who did good work, but at a
company that went under for reasons out of their control.
~~~
mkramlich
Therefore a two-time widow is even better. And a three-time widow. Wait, now
I'm getting suspicious...
------
riffer
First off, I want to congratulate you, reg, on coming up with such a fantastic
idea. With Joel's post, and the no-job-hoppers-wanted fracas from several
weeks ago, this is something that was in the air, and you were able to pick up
on that, and put it into words. Even better, you don't appear to be trying to
figure it all out on your own in a vacuum.
One approach to getting started would be to provide resume screening services
to employers. I'm sure there are a bunch of service businesses like that
today, but if you solve the problem like it is an NLP problem rather than an
HR problem, that could be a differentiator.
At a large enough enterprise, I'm sure there are people who are applying for a
bunch of different positions over an extended period of time, and just being
able to solve that problem intelligently for that one enterprise is something
that must be useful for some big firm out there. So I don't think you need to
have a bunch of employers on the system to get started.
But that doesn't address the real challenge, which seems to be that your
service provides clear benefits to the employer, but not for the employee. The
employer gets better candidates, more efficiently, and almost every business
that's hiring acknowledges that they have trouble finding enough good
candidates.
What about the potential employee? Why would they want to participate in this
sort of system vs. the status quo? That seems like the challenge to me, more
than legal issues, or the employer side of the equation.
There is definitely terrific potential here, exactly because hiring is
currently so inefficient: it'll be really interesting see how this idea
develops.
------
brc
Hiring and firing people means there are many laws implemented to protect the
guilt and the innocent. Where there are laws, there are lawyers. There's also
no clear place for monetisation.
Avoid ye, for here be dragons.
------
wglb
Perhaps I am too much of a simple country boy to be fully into the social
media online thing, but there is a whole aspect of job hunting/employee
finding scenario that is missing from our thinking here. Quite after the fact,
I realized that I had been an unconscious networker and that in my multi-
decade career that there had been a very low number of non-networked job
landings. The rest, including the consulting/contracting that I have done were
from the network I had grown into from previous professional relationships.
Being in a profession that automates things, we (self included) tend to try to
automate things that don't automate well, or do things by remote control that
should be done in person. One case in point was my son when he was in grade
school. There was a lot of difficulty for all involved for him to focus on his
homework. Finally, I hit on a pretty simple and essentially zero-technology
solution. I would sit in his room with him, not supervising him so much as
being there for him to ask whatever question he wanted. Many interesting
questions came up, and some were even related to his homework, but his grades
skyrocketed. This was about support and not about being the other room and
loudly saying "get back to your homework".
So if you have a mental bias towards automatability, this method sounds
"inefficient", but perhaps that is a false efficiency.
Similarly, successful hiring is forming a relationship. A relevant book is
"Confessions of a Headhunter" in which the author tells of tracking executives
for quite some time before an actual approach is made. Now that is
particularly expensive as executives are a smaller percentage of a population
than startup dudes and dudettes, but that seems to be a better direction to go
than trying to do this by remote control.
Incidentally, the introduction to that book tells of the author's sailing
experience in which he nearly won a race against severely better boats, and
failed to do so simply because he didn't happen to think that he could.
------
strlen
What exactly is wrong with Fizz-buzz as a 'spam reduction' technique?
Raganwald's method has several issues: it's unfair to people who are very
picky and are only looking for the best jobs themselves. Very often they're
the best people, for whom the search for a position that will fully use their
talent is much harder: they apply to companies that have a long hiring cycle
and high "false negative" rates, while they will reject offers they dislike.
Second, there's the obvious problem of privacy: it's a huge problem for
passive candidates (again, who are often -- but not always -- best of the
best) and a problem for candidates who apply for tough-to-get positions, have
a bad day (or the person interviewing them has a bad day) and now become
"damaged goods" by the virtue of a publicly known rejection (which could be no
indication of their lack of competence).
------
catch23
how would it solve the problem of recruiters sending the same resume to a few
hundred places? I know that there's a really old resume of mine that has been
forever circulating from a firm I used years ago.
~~~
raganwald
Most algorithms that work with real world data have a simple core but end up
covered with warts and exceptions because of stuff like this. No doubt a
company that does a good job with this has some special rule sor scoring
weights for resumes sent out by recruiters.
------
TeHCrAzY
Couldn't a large proportion of resume spam be filtered just by asking the
applicant for something specific, and ignoring anyone who doesn't comply? IE.
Add a specific phrase to the subject of the email. You could embed this in the
middle of the job spec; people whom don't read it carefully are likely not
worth interviewing anyway.
------
someone_here
This has a chicken and egg problem. You can only get companies to use this if
employees use it, and you can only get employees to use it if there are
employers. Employees would not want to limit themselves for no reason, either.
~~~
raganwald
One implementation would be a service where a job ads includes a submisison
mailbox like [email protected]. The service company collects
statistics about who is spraying their email everywhere and provides employers
with a "spray score" for each resume collected.
No employee involvement would be required.
~~~
m_eiman
Don't use an external domain, just forward [email protected] to
[email protected] and have it forward only the approved
applications to [email protected]. Fully automated and transparent. Store the
rejected applicants and send them an automated "thanks for your time" when the
position is filled.
------
tjmaxal
Even though it's not perfect our current system has a lot of advantages over
previous systems like hiring only relatives, or making everyone contract
labor.
------
known
In IT field, latest technology is still considered as greatest.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How Secure is Bitcoin? - aosmith
http://alexsmith.io/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/btc-sun.jpg
======
Aqueous
We already know that the encryption behind BitCoin is sound. But every time
encryption has been challenged in recent days it's been because of a bug in
the implementation of that encryption. It is never due to some ingenious brute
force algorithm that actually breaks the key.
The question we really need to be asking is - have all the major
vulnerabilities in the _implementation_ of BitCoin - the ones that could
actually threaten its existence - been discovered? Are we sure?
I say this as someone who has been evangelizing to everyone he knows about
BitCoin.
~~~
aosmith
I agree with you but for those who understand the concept behind bitcoin but
not encryption this graphic really helps to explain that the majority of
problems are not encryption related.
------
krapp
This tells me how secure the algorithm is. Great.
This doesn't really answer the question "how secure is bitcoin" though, at
least not the way I imagine most people would ask - which is "how secure is
_using_ bitcoin?"
~~~
aosmith
A great point. Your wallet is only as secure as you make it. I would guess the
vast majority thefts will be a result of other things.
~~~
kordless
Yes. For example: sweep, don't import private keys.
------
kordless
Now imagine what that system looks like from the outside. It's dark and cold,
yet still has mass to implement gravity and emits neutrinos (presumably).
If you want to explain dark matter, no need to go further than this.
~~~
aosmith
Exactly =)
~~~
kordless
I did some digging and evidently there are many assumptions defining the
search for Dyson spheres. One is that the output of the sphere would still
equal the output of the star it surrounds, just at a lower frequency. The
other has something to do with the ratio of Helium and Hydrogen and the makeup
of 'normal' matter ratios in the universe. I don't understand it, but it
sounds like it might be a checkmark against the likelihood of massive numbers
of spheres.
Not knowing something is not proof something else exists. Time will bear out
the truth - hopefully in my lifetime.
------
officialjunk
this is going to need a lot more context for people that aren't too familiar
with bitcoin, i think.
~~~
aosmith
This was the first thing that helped my 62 year old mother understand just how
secure a private key is. I agree it needs more context for those who are
completely unfamiliar. It does however help those one the fringes who
understand bitcoin but not encryption.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Samsung next-generation smartwatch will support a wider flexible display - anigbrowl
http://www.patentlymobile.com/2015/04/samsung-slowly-advances-their-next-gen-smartwatch-that-will-support-a-much-wider-flexible-display.html
======
anigbrowl
Another source suggested product launches as soon as 2016.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Coroutines are brittle and buggy - willvarfar
http://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/31725920676/explicitly-async-apis-vs-coroutines
======
klodolph
Coroutines are not the same thing as green threads, which the author seems to
half acknowledge but then really screws up the terminology for the rest of the
article. Green threads are things that can be implemented using coroutines, or
they can be implemented without coroutines.
Python generators are coroutines, a specific kind of coroutine. And you don't
see anyone calling them brittle or buggy.
The author's real complaint here is that the traditional shared-memory-plus-
locks model of concurrent programming is hard, and that's absolutely true. I
don't see how using a cooperative scheduler makes writing correct programs any
easier or harder.
------
redbad
Well, his example code demonstrating the "bug" is definitely broken. But not
because of any flaw in coroutines, rather in his understanding of them.
session = sessions.get_session(cookie);
if(!session)
session = sessions.create_session(user_id);
Concurrent access to a global sessions object is obviously unsafe, even in a
coroutine environment where "You know [the above methods] don’t yield to the
scheduler." I'm not sure that anyone advocating for coroutines over async APIs
is arguing that coroutines somehow magically absolve the programmer from
considering race conditions. Only that coroutines, used idiomatically, remove
classes of bugs _like this one_. And that snippet is not idiomatic.
One "coroutine way" of handling concurrent access to shared data is by piping
requests to it through a synchronization point. For example, in pseudo-Go, it
may look like
// public, synchronous API method
func (s *Sessions) GetSession(cookie string) Session {
// return s.dataStructure[cookie] // bad, obviously
responseChannel := make(chan Session)
s.requests <- getSessionRequest{cookie, responseChannel}
return <-responseChannel
}
func (s *Sessions) loop() {
for {
select {
. . .
case req := <-s.requests:
req.responseChannel <- s.dataStructure[req.cookie]
. . .
}
}
}
(Another way is explicit locking, of course.)
~~~
StavrosK
Exactly. If you're relying on coroutines not yielding for your
synchronization, you're going to get bitten hard. Use per-coroutine data
structures and lock when accessing shared structures.
I tend to think about coroutines as threads, never relying on their
determinism, as that's not something you can count on, and it's not advertised
as one of their features.
------
DanWaterworth
This article has succeeded in convincing me that both ways are equally bad.
------
stevedekorte
His only complaint seems to be race conditions, but callbacks have these too.
In fact, coroutine based i/o use callbacks underneath just as while and for
loops use gotos (jump instructions) underneath.
The difference with both is that the abstraction allows your code to be more
understandable and easily changed.
For example, try making randomly selected locations in your code async using
callbacks - painfully difficult. Now try it with coroutines - easy.
There is a reason why we use stacks.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Blackberry Curve outsells iPhone in Q1 - stcredzero
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10232697-62.html
======
mattyb
As someone who owns a Curve (and whose girlfriend has an iPhone 3G), I must
say that I'm very happy with my choice. I definitely prefer the physical
keyboard, one inbox for SMS/email, a bright flash for the camera (although
picture quality is markedly worse), and I much prefer navigating with the
trackball in most applications, including the browser. The iPhone has much
better media features (some would say the Curve essentially has none) and
complete web rendering is damn nice, but I find the BlackBerry experience
satisfactory, and I haven't even seen a Bold in action. HN renders just fine,
thankfully.
The App Store is a huge thorn in RIM's side. The Maps app is much better
suited for the iPhone than the BlackBerry. Just a few months ago, my gf and I
were trying to navigate around Boston (in a car) and her iPhone came to the
rescue. It tears me up that AT&T has both the Bold and the iPhone, but if
Verizon gets the (full-featured) iPhone, I might not defect.
------
swlevy
Another factor is simply price: the Curve on T-mobile (US) with equivalent
voice/data service can be $20-$30 cheaper per month than iPhone on AT&T, even
though the devices both retail for about $200 initially.
~~~
mattyb
Very true. Best Buy is selling the 8330 (Verizon's Curve) for $39 this week
(at least in NY); even on an off week, it's normally $100 there, which is a
comparatively low barrier to entry into the smartphone market. I've seen 5 of
my friends get Curves in the last 6 months.
------
stcredzero
I predicted it!
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=264246>
~~~
jcl
Well, it's probably not an influx of disappointed iPhone users so much as
Blackberry grabbing a greater share of non-smartphone (dumbphone?) users than
iPhone.
If you're a happy T-Mobile user, for instance, and you want to upgrade without
switching to AT&T, iPhone isn't an option.
~~~
josefresco
Not the dumbphone market, it's the business market. This phone only eats into
Apple's iPhone business from the biz side, it's not a head-to-head.
Exclusive AT&T deal hurts Apple in this case but that will change soon.
~~~
codeodor
It's not been just the business market in my experience. I know two people
within the last two months who opted for the Curve over the iPhone.
------
gsiener
As someone living in a foreign country, T-mobile's UMA feature is a huge win.
Their international bberry data rates are great as well.
~~~
madh
The UMA feature is underrated. Being able to SMS and make and receive phone
calls wherever there is free Wi-Fi (now lots of places) or a T-Mobile HotSpot
is fantastic. Definitely has a 'the future is here now' effect, for me at
least.
~~~
lallysingh
I get that feeling from wireless printing.
------
tsally
More importantly, RIM has 3 of the top 5 spots.
------
codeodor
Because AT&T charge Apple prices for service for the iPhone.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Requesting a Few Hackers to Volunteer - nh
I think I found a quick and easy solution to distribute food to needy individuals during this covid pandemic.<p>I need a few hackers to volunteer their time to help me code and throw something up online.<p>I will provide funding for servers.<p>Skills desired: Geocoding/image manipulation/twilio api/etc<p>This is purely a nonprofit social project. If you are able, please contact me at p2pfoodproject at google's email service.<p>I will post an update to HN community once we have an MVP up and going.
======
smoyer
I did some geo-coding a while ago but anything large scale is going to be
costly as all the APIs have non-trivial fees for > hobbiest usage. Have you
asked any geo-coding companies for free access? I bookmarked this site a few
days ago because I still have a few itches I'd scratch if it didn't cost me an
arm and a leg ... it should give you some idea of what a large-scale
deployment of your application would cost -
[https://getlon.lat/](https://getlon.lat/).
I'd be interested in helping with your effort but I think you should describe
your architecture and technology choices a bit. How do I know if I'll fit in?
(and if you want to launch quickly, now isn't the time to have engineers
learning on-the-job).
~~~
nh
Thank you for the feedback. Sent you an email.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Rep. Johnson worries loading too many people onto Guam could capsize the island - wooter
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/03/hank-johnson-guam-.html
... really?
======
anamax
Johnson's response is
“I wasn’t suggesting that the island of Guam would literally tip over I was
using a metaphor to say that with the addition of 8,000 Marines and their
dependents an additional 80,000 people during peak construction on the tiny
island with a population of 180,000 could be a tipping point which could
adversely affect the island’s fragile ecosystem and could overburden its
stressed infrastructure. Having traveled to Guam last year, I saw firsthand
how this beautiful but vulnerable island could easily become overburdened, and
I was simply voicing my concerns that the addition of that many people could
tip the delicate balance and do permanent harm to Guam."
quoted on
[http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWRlZjY5MDRjYzY3NTB...](http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWRlZjY5MDRjYzY3NTBjMGFhOGI0OWIwZjI1MWFhM2U=)
but without a source.
Also
"The subtle humor of this obviously metaphorical reference to a ship capsizing
illustrated my concern about the impact of the planned military buildup on
this small tropical island."
[http://hankjohnson.house.gov/2010/04/rep-johnsons-
statement-...](http://hankjohnson.house.gov/2010/04/rep-johnsons-statement-on-
guam-comments-in-an-armed-services-committee-hearing.shtml)
~~~
cryptnoob
What a wonderfully well written peace of prose. I think we can be pretty
certain that the man who wrote it was not the man in that video. As for
whether he actually believed an island could tip over, I give him the benefit
of the doubt that he didn't, I suppose, although listening to his entire
dialog, it's almost enough to discount him to the point of believing that he
did believe it. Bottom line, based on this dialog, I think he'd be overpaid if
his salary were reduced to a quarter of the salary he's enjoying.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How Chainlink is the missing piece to the GOD protocol - lww515
https://blog.goodaudience.com/chainlink-the-missing-piece-to-the-god-protocol-fd455dde92ab
======
lww515
Really excited about this project. Nothing else solves the centralized Oracle
problem quite like ChainLink has. I think this will be the project that gives
crypto a lot more mainstream adoption. Most exciting thing to come out of
crypto since Dai (in my opinion, more exciting).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How we built a Smart Office system based on Raspberry Pi - dragonbonheur
http://monterail.com/blog/2016/how-we-built-a-truly-smart-office-system-based-on-raspberry-pi/
======
detaro
Good to see in a DIY-solution:
> _The light control set up is fail-safe. If something with the RPi goes
> terribly wrong, we could still operate the lights in the “classic” analog
> way._
(I wish they'd explained how they do it, but I assume they use latching relays
to switch the actual lights, so RPis and light switches can work in parallel)
Using the chrome debugging protocol for the remote screens is also quite
clever.
~~~
existencebox
I have Rpis controlling my various plant-grow-lamps around the house; the
relays they switch are set to fail-open so if they fall over I can go back to
manual control; so you probably assume correctly. Now if the relays themselves
get sad I'd probably be in for a bad time but fixing that seems like a
reduction problem? (I speak as someone clueless about actual EE beyond
treating it like legos)
~~~
analog31
I don't know what kind of relays you're using, but most relays tend to fail in
a closed position, so it's worth considering what happens if a light is turned
on continuously. Also, hardware or software failure in the RPi could turn on
all of the lights in your house, e.g., if the same software running on every
unit encounters a bug.
~~~
kamil_gorski
And for those cases I decided to place wall switches in parallel. As
automation fails you can still operate all lights with classic, wall switch,
way.
Also, solution for jamming relays are SSRs. In practice there were issues only
with two biggest light zones with multiple lamps switched at the same time.
~~~
analog31
I've had SSR's stuck shut too.
------
Loic
A DIY-solution is nice (and as engineers something really fun to do) but they
will have to maintain it in the future and this is not necessarily "future
proof". They would have simply put some KNX[0] compatible components in the
system, they would have had control of everything using an open standard. They
could have connect light, security cams, door locks, the power plugs, etc...
and because this is a standard, the day they move out of the office, they will
be able to resell the system to the next users.
[0]: [https://knx.org](https://knx.org)
~~~
eveningcoffee
KNX would be definitely a choice but you have to be careful and shop around as
many KNX manufactures are known to be incredibly greedy. The situation has
improved a lot in recent years though.
Also the term _open_ is very relative here (you have to pay a fee (1000 euro +
VAT last time I checked) to access the standard, naturally there are no
redistribution rights, KNX certification process is order of magnitude more
expensive.
You need a closed source configuration software to be able to configure the
devices. Runs only on Windows (XP did it last time but things may have been
changed). A single licence costs 1000 euro + VAT, unless you use limited
version that works up to 20 devices and costs 100 euro + VAT (in many small
cases that would be enough as the limitation is project based).
PS. It is rather an attempt to put things into a contexts than a criticism.
Minimum setup:
1) KNX power supply (provides power for the KNX bus),
2) KNX actuator (relay or dimmer or special (say LED stripe)),
3) KNX switch (or an input device (can use standard wall spring switches)),
4) KNX bus connector for programming (USB tongle, KNX/IP router, there are
many options),
5) KNX configuration software,
6) Windows machine (VM works too).
This setup allows to map the actuator and switch in the configuration software
and upload the configuration into the devices.
Please also note that encrypted communication between KNX devices is commonly
not supported (but so is it also for a simple pulse signal from the wall
switch to the relay).
~~~
Renaud
Thank you for this clarification. I was interested when the parent mentioned
KNX as a standard for these types of setup, but quite disappointed to realise
it was another of these "open standards with high barrier of entry".
Took me a little while to find out what is was actually about on the website,
most pages contains just marketing speak.
I wonder if there is any other (really) open standard that could be useful to
follow in DIY systems.
~~~
eveningcoffee
Unfortunately this is the best there is to offer. Worse that could happen is
that Google enters into this market.
------
kimburgess
Yay, this is my world! Looks like a super nice homebrew solution.
I don't think I've ever used or worked on a project with PLC's handling any
sort of core logic though. Sure they'll occasionally run small components of
simple edge systems (HVAC, lift motor control, physical access etc) but the
overwhelming majority of systems are built with a network of embedded
controllers. Any systems rolling out today will (or at least should) then
combine this with some server side backend for analytics and shifting
interaction logic away from the the edge systems to somewhere it's a little
easier to change and adapt to the needs of the building.
There's some pretty established, older players (Crestron, AMX et al) that make
full programmable solutions, but by all modern standards their development
tools are atrocious - you'd need to be a complete and utter masochist to want
to enter that world today.
The good thing about this is a bunch of amazing people building well designed,
open source and non-proprietary solutions to make this world suck less.
My two favourites are [http://nodel.io/](http://nodel.io/), which runs a fully
distributed architecture (and can even have the nodes running of RPi's) and
[http://www.acaprojects.com/](http://www.acaprojects.com/) which is a keeps
all the system logic server side.
~~~
jasoncchild
Yeah, even stuff like Niagra is a pain. Most solutions are configurable more
so than programmable (in the scripting sense). I've done a fair amount of
modbus and bacnet with "standard" systems and more pi-style systems and agree
that for a developer-minded user it can be like gazing into the mouth of
madness to work with.
------
jasoncchild
I'm surprised all they found were PLC based solutions. I worked in lighting
and building controls for years and most products used embedded systems and
not PLCs.
~~~
g_hajdukiewicz
Hey, you're totally right. Actually we would normally use some embedded
solution for that (preferably STM32 or ESP8266 if wireless was needed),
however, in this case we were focusing on designing it in a way so that it's
easy to maintain by web-development agency, which we are. Not everyone here
knows how to change and flash low-level code into a uC but almost everyone
would be able to fix a bug in python code on the RPi :)
------
revelation
That's like saying "How we built a Smart Office system based on Electricity",
the RPi is just any old single board computer here with some GPIOs.
In any case, I sure hope they have mounted their SD cards as read-only,
because otherwise they might find their keycard system not working one early
morning in approximately a year or 2-3 random power off events. Theres a
reason for these PLC systems after all.
~~~
rcaught
Are you suggesting that they will reach the flash memory's write cycle limit
within a year? Or something else here?
Also, I would not have thought that random power off events would affect
modern file systems as poorly as you're suggesting.
Interesting thoughts though.
~~~
analog31
There's something else. The RPi is prone to failure if it's writing to the SD
card when power goes down. Articles that I've read suggest moving most of the
RPi's files to some other form of storage, for instance:
[https://learn.adafruit.com/external-drive-as-raspberry-pi-
ro...](https://learn.adafruit.com/external-drive-as-raspberry-pi-
root/overview)
I've thought about the idea of having some super-capacitor based temporary
power storage, and an interrupt that triggers a graceful shutdown if the power
input goes down. I think it could be done with fairly basic circuitry.
~~~
shabble
such things exist (such as the pico from
[http://pimodules.com/](http://pimodules.com/)) but I've had nothing but grief
from its firmware using v1 and v2. There appears to be a new version, and I
suppose it might be better now.
For most <1 day outages, a simple USB power-bank with passthrough capability
(output whilst also possibly charging) will happily keep the pi going, but
without some frankenbodging there's no 'power lost' signal that the pi can
sense. I've idly toyed with the idea of a phototransistor on the powerbank
status LED and an attiny or something.
Now that I think about it, there was someone trying to make a supercap idea,
but I don't think it went anywhere:
[https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/juice4halt-
supercapacitor...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/juice4halt-
supercapacitor-ups-for-raspberry-pi#/)
~~~
mountaineer22
Could you not simply have a 5V DC power adapter on the same mains line, and
detect if it is on or off via one of the GPIO pins? Is that considered
frankenbodging?
~~~
analog31
That's what I would do. The loss of 5 V on the GPIO pin triggers a interrupt,
which forces a graceful shutdown. As I understand it, there's a command which
halts disk access, which is mainly what's needed for a graceful shutdown.
~~~
washadjeffmad
You can use "systemctl poweroff", /sbin/shutdown, "shutdown -Ph now" (in case
of wonky ACPI), and a few others to gracefully halt.
You can also echo a magic sysrq key (eg-"b") to /proc/sysrq-trigger. "e i s u
o" would do the full graceful shutdown. This nicely asks processes to quit,
kills (almost) everything, halts the system, syncs disks, and remounts fs ro
before going down.
Or you could create a service with systemd to (run a script to) check when
dbus gets a particular signal, like a network device being added or removed if
an SSID disappearing was your indicator of power loss, then halt.
I'd probably just plug them into a UPS, though. Just have it send one of the
shutdowns to the "master" when running battery power for longer than a few
minutes.
------
rem1313
Some more technical implementation info - hardware, software and how it is all
connected would be much appreciated!
~~~
g_hajdukiewicz
Thanks for asking! I can explain you how the lighting unit works since I was
taking part in designing it (better than nothing :) ). Since we didn't have
enough GPIOs on the Raspberry which is controlling the lights, we used a GPIO
expanders (MCP23017 [https://goo.gl/S4i9Gw](https://goo.gl/S4i9Gw)). RPi sends
commands over I2C interface to switch their outputs on and off. MCPs outputs
are driving optocouplers (on the same PCBs designed by us) to provide a proper
level of isolation. Then the optocouplers' outputs drive the relays working in
a "stair case" configuration with analog switches on the walls (see a my
comment above and here [https://goo.gl/sJw9F1](https://goo.gl/sJw9F1)). All
the "low-level" software is written in python using ready to go libraries and
exposing API to a web-app which is basically a user interface for the system.
If you need more details, just shoot!
~~~
SpikedCola
Love your use of wire duct to keep things organized, and small attention to
detail like ferrules on each wire going into the terminal blocks.
To my eyes this shows really you care about what you build.
Nice job!
~~~
g_hajdukiewicz
Many thanks! It's always good to design your system like that. The same with
software :) Makes it easier to maintain.
------
joshu
Anyone know what hardware they are actually using other than the RPis?
~~~
kamil_gorski
Relay modules from finder, custom pcb modules with current outputs for
switching relays and optoisolators for voltage detecion, some custom expansion
module for all signals interconnection. I will prepare some appendix to the
blog-post with more technical data.
~~~
tga
I'd love to see more details on that. The RPi is the easy choice for putting
together a DIY system at home, but finding good and affordable remote I/O
modules to run the show has not been that straightforward.
------
cerved
Fun to see someone do this with the pi.
I wonder how they handle security. Especially since it also controls access to
the facility.
Also, would be pretty funny if the RPis went all Hall one day.
~~~
kamil_gorski
RPi is only accessible in separate local network. Doors also has regular locks
which are used after working hours.
In case of sytem failure almost all parts has alternative working conditions:
lights can be controlled with wall switches, rfid lock can be programmed
separatly, etc.
------
chj
Last time I tried, webkit for RPi leaks memory after playing audio for a few
hours. It would be great to have a follow up post after the system is in
production use for a while.
~~~
tuukkah
"Now, after a year from launching our smart office system based on 7 Raspberry
Pis we know there is nothing to be afraid of!"
------
amelius
We've seen projects like these in DIY magazines since the 70s. But Nest took
off, and thus so could this.
------
ubercow
Anyone know what boards they are using for their relay controllers?
~~~
g_hajdukiewicz
We designed our own, simple ones having MCP23017
([https://goo.gl/S4i9Gw](https://goo.gl/S4i9Gw)) as the GPIO expanders and
some popular optocouplers to provide proper isolation level. I can't remember
which exact part was chosen for the isolator, but this one should work like a
charm [https://goo.gl/GS6twt](https://goo.gl/GS6twt).
------
jcoffland
You could do most of this with the X10 system.
~~~
mountaineer22
Yes, and a TRS-80.
~~~
jcoffland
I don't think the Trash 80 came with network over power lines or wireless
communication.
~~~
Sanddancer
Radio Shack had a control module you plugged into the cassette port that
interfaced with the X10 bus.
[http://www.trs-80.org/plug-n-power/](http://www.trs-80.org/plug-n-power/)
~~~
jcoffland
Now that's retro.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Inncubator (Hacker Home) Invitation Open - ddimon
http://www.inncubator.net
======
ddimon
Hey we are in Palo Alto, and have hosted and currently live with many Y
combinator startups and engineers. We all live together in this awesome
community near Stanford and University Ave. We want to invite more like minded
people!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Banksy's Fake Store Is an Attempt to Abuse Trademark Law to Avoid Copyright Law - kreinba
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191007/17291443141/banksys-fake-store-is-attempt-to-abuse-trademark-law-to-avoid-copyright-law.shtml
======
gkoberger
I had two problems.
First, I really didn't like the tone of the card company. They're selling
someone else's work (whether legal or not), and then were condescending toward
the person who made it. They say they're just trying to honor Banksy, but they
paint him as an out-of-touch rich asshole.
Second, it's hard to know for sure, but I think this analysis misses the
bigger point... I feel like opening a small shop that isn't real is very
Banksy-esque, and likely is more of a statement on trademark than him actually
trying to enforce a trademark. This is clearly just an exhibit + marketing.
(It's a glass storefront, after all)
~~~
jtbayly
> they paint him as an out-of-touch rich asshole.
That’s because that’s how he has treated them. Lying about them and what they
are doing is nasty. That’s what Banksy did.
~~~
bertan
Banksy doesn’t want anyone to be profiting from his own work and he has every
right to do so if copyright is used. Why would that mean he should accept
their royalty offer? They can just stick to nature photos on their cards. How
rich Banksy is nothing to do with this.
What the card company is doing is to take advantage of his desire to be
anonymous and make money from his work.
~~~
jtbayly
I think you mean Banksy doesn’t want anybody but himself profiting off his
work. Agreed, that’s his right through copyright. But he refuses to use it.
That’s the whole point of the article.
The other point is that Banksy is _lying_ about this small business and what
they are doing. This is an objective fact. He claims they sued him. They
didn’t. He claims they are a big corporation. They aren’t.
------
dangus
The whole situation is interesting at the very least.
The only comment I have is that I have to fault the article for making a lot
of assumptions and leaps to conclusions on Banksy’s intentions, it sort of
unilaterally declares that Banksy is selling out and cheating the system.
But what they want is far simpler: they don’t want other people claiming
they’re Banksy, and they want to remain anonymous.
The article gets upset at Banksy as a corporate sellout as if they opened up a
line of art pieces for sale at Walmart or Target. What Banksy did is more akin
to opening up a UPS Store mailbox in order to have an address on file.
~~~
jtbayly
> they don’t want other people claiming they’re Banksy
No. This is obviously not the problem. Nobody at that greeting card company
was claiming to be Banksy. The problem is that they are making _money_ off of
a Banksy work of art without his permission.
His behavior is quite clearly protecting his financial interests in his own
work. That’s actually the only explanation that makes sense. The other option
being that he’s opposed to anybody making money off his art, including
himself. Nothing he has done in the last year has indicated the latter to be
the case.
~~~
djmips
Banksy making money or not is moot. He probably just didn't want some grubbers
making money from his work.
------
weinzierl
>> Having once claimed that copyright is for losers, Banksy has been ramping
up his legal position for several months now. At the end of 2018, the artist’s
handling service Pest Control took action against an Italian company that
organised an exhibition, The Art of Banksy—A Visual Protest, for Milan’s Mudec
Museum.
>> In February this year, the judge ruled in favour of Banksy’s request for
all merchandise bearing his name to be removed from the museum’s shop, but
promotional materials using his name were allowed to remain. The judge noted
that the documents filed in the proceedings showed a limited use of the Banksy
brand.
Banksy should have GPL'd his works. Seriously.
Everyone creating artwork derived from Banksy's works, including merchandise
articles, would be required to provide the sources. So if for example an
Italian Museum decides to sell flower bomber T-shirts everyone could just use
the design files to order at CafePress. This would promote the unrestricted
dissemination of his works while putting natural limits on the
commercialization by others.
~~~
aritmo
You probably mean "Creative Commons", not GPL. GPL is for code.
But in either case, both CC and GPL are based on copyright, therefore cannot
use.
~~~
kabacha
> GPL is for code.
Citation needed. GPL can work for anything.
~~~
duskwuff
The text of the GPL describes the subject of the license as a "Program" and
refers to it as having "machine-readable source code" (or "Corresponding
Source" in GPLv3) and an "object code or executable form". It's difficult to
interpret what any of this would mean in the context of an artistic work.
------
cookie_monsta
I can kind of get this. He wants to remain anonymous but he doesn't want to
see his work on every shonky piece of merch in every dollar store in town.
Both of those seem like reasonable desires. Nobody's disputing that he's the
creator after all. It looks to me like copyright law is broken, but I guess
parliament won't be rushing to fix it to plug gaps for edge cases involving
anonymous street artists.
What surprises me more is that there isn't a wave of faux Banksys flooding the
market - sure the artist has a style but it's not absolutely unreproducible.
And if, in legal terms, nobody's Banksy doesn't that mean that we're all
Banksy?
~~~
WilliamEdward
How is banksy going to protect their work if they cannot even prove they made
it? I don't even believe all the 'banksy' originals over the years came from
one person, it's more likely a group.
Honestly it's frustrating to watch an anonymous entity decorate the city while
still expecting people not to use their work. The way banksy has established
themself as a figure would indicate they want the art to be free and open for
all to use. You cannot have your cake and eat it too, which is to say you
cannot be anonymous and trademark your artwork.
~~~
celticninja
For the same reason that Satoshi Nakamoto is likely one person and not a
group, so is Banksy. too hard to keep a secret like that for as long as it has
been. I'm surprised we haven't seen more people claim to be Banksy, as we have
with Satoshi but perhaps it's easier to profit from pretending to be SN than
it is by pretending to be Banksy.
Three may keep a Secret, if two of them are dead
------
ummwhat
The article implicitly suggests Banksy is making money off his artwork with
word choice like "won't let anyone else profit off it". The idea being to
paint him as a sellout and a hypocrite.
But is it true? By everyone's admission he isn't selling shoddy kitsch like
post cards and fridge magnets. All that's left to sell is the original works,
and to the best of my knowledge the people who can actually sell those are
usually the owner of the wall itself. He pulled that stunt with the Sotheby's
auction. Did he actually get any money after that self destructed? Does anyone
anywhere actually have an estimate on how profitable the Banksy operation is?
~~~
TomMckenny
Indeed. And if we assume he does not want money to be made from his works by
him _or other people either_ then it is all pretty consistent.
Indeed it's a strange world if he, on principle, refuses to profit by his work
but other people must be allowed to.
~~~
loons2
> Indeed it's a strange world if he, on principle, refuses > to profit by his
> work but other people must be allowed to.
That exact situation exists in many free software situations... doesn't it?
------
makomk
The website attached to the store is astoundingly corporate. For example, it
contains a long and clearly custom-written TOS with classic gems like this:
"Our site must not be framed on any other site, nor may you create a link to
any part of our site other than the home page."
~~~
unilynx
That's just a copy paste from someone else's TOS.
~~~
celticninja
Good artists borrow, great artists steal -- Pablo Picasso
~~~
fortran77
Here's the story on that quote. It's not Picasso
[https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/06/artists-
steal/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/06/artists-steal/)
~~~
celticninja
To be fair I saw it at a Banksy exhibition where Picasso was crossed out and
replaced with Banksy.
------
nullc
Huh.
The potential non-copyrightability of graffiti I understand but I am failing
to understand the anonymous ownership issue. Why he cannot transfer the
copyright for the work to a corporation which enforces the copyright? -- it
isn't like he needs to register the work before transferring it to the
company, the berne convention assures that.
~~~
droithomme
Graffitti is copyrightable.
In the US copyrightable works can be copyrighted by an anonymous or
pseudononymous creator. There's even a box to check if the creator is
anonymous.
[https://www.copyright.gov/eco/help-
author.html](https://www.copyright.gov/eco/help-author.html)
Perhaps in the EU anonymous works can not be copyrighted?
~~~
anticensor
They can, but you cannot remain anonymous before a court in Europe.
~~~
nullc
You can't in the US either, but the creator wouldn't need to appear before a
court, the copyright holder would.
~~~
beerandt
The copyright holder needs to prove he's the copyright holder, which is
difficult to do without a paper trail to the creator.
------
stanfordkid
Banksy pretty much ripped off Blek Le Rat — so much of his work is completely
derivative. Plus you could argue he did much of his work in the public domain.
If I graffiti an image in a public place, haven’t I kind of given away
copyright to it?
Given Banksy’s anti-capitalist, semi-anarchist stance, and utilization of
public property for his own fame, I can’t think of any better means for him to
honor himself than to allow people to rip off his work freely.
I certainly can see the case against those who misappropriate bad work to his
name — artistic integrity is important. There is also nothing wrong with him
wanting to make money. But I see no moral problem with selling knick knacks
with banksy imagery on it.
FWIW I love his art and his moral stance. Just can’t have your cake and eat
it.
------
bufferoverflow
> _We legally photograph public graffiti and make it available to you_
Is that how the copyright works in the UK??? Like I can photograph anybody's
art and just sell prints? That doesn't sound right.
~~~
Doctor_Fegg
No, it isn't.
The closest that UK copyright law gets is that there's an exemption for
photographs of "sculptures, models for buildings and works of artistic
craftsmanship, if permanently situated in a public place or in premises open
to the public". (See section 62 at
[https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/308729/cdpa1988-unofficial.pdf)
.)
But Banksy's pictures are just straight "artistic works". There's no need to
class them as "works of artistic craftsmanship" and I don't believe any court
would do so.
The infringers are either deliberately misreading copyright law or simply
ignorant of it. I suspect the latter.
~~~
jtbayly
What is the difference between works Of artistic craftsmanship and artistic
works?
His works are generally permanently situated in a public place. I would think
that taking a picture of any random public wall with graffiti on it is legal.
But you seem to be saying that there are two kinds of art, and that the kind
that is “worse” gets protection, but the better kind didn’t get protection.
Very odd.
------
tinus_hn
Pretty cheesy. You can’t use trademark law like this which clearly is the
reason they didn’t try this against a company that would have the resources to
handle a baseless lawsuit.
------
BenGosub
I have always been suspicious at Banksy, it always seemed to me like corporate
plot to generate hype. This article really aligns with my intuition. I am very
surprised of all the responses here. I expected that this of all places will
look through the fake.
------
minermansion
FYI just another take on Banksy Fake Store
Hacking a Banksy with Bash and Varanid:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21368691](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21368691)
------
rossdavidh
If this article was intended to make the card company look good, and Banksy
look corporate and bad, it has failed.
------
noja
Eh? Someone else is selling his art.
~~~
gohbgl
Nobody stole his million pound painting and sold it.
~~~
cookie_monsta
If you're talking about the one with the monkeys at Sotheby's he didn't own it
at the time either
------
krsdcbl
Tldr; this article seems highly biased and tries to paint Banksy as an evil
corporate mastermind who tries to damage a small home business by ways of
shady litigation - while the issue at hand looks more to be that said business
tries to make profit off pictures he won't print as merch and prohibiting this
is complicated legally without disclosing one's true name.
The article plays on sympathy for the "poor little home run shop" versus
Banksy ressorting to "evil lawyers". Feel like it's grossly misrepresenting
the matter on purpose.
~~~
jtbayly
But which one has a big corporation? The article clearly and seemingly
correctly points out that Banksy is a much bigger corporation and that
corporation is lying through its teeth about what is happening.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What's the best AMI for a 10k visits/day Wordpress Blog - diegogomes
I'm using my own AMI, and having lot of trouble. I'm on a small, ubuntu instance, and the blog crashes almost everyday.
======
sadfasdfads
Maybe: <http://bitnami.org/stack/wordpress#cloudImage> I'd lean toward 32-bit
Ubuntu if you want to avoid issues, but 64-bit if you are thinking long-term
maintenance. Even though 64-bit should work, in my experience dealing with
64-bit for simple stuff ends up being more of a pain than it is worth. Of
course, I'll probably get downmodded for saying this.
See also: <http://aws.amazon.com/amis>
------
sadfasdfads
Some more:
[http://aws.amazon.com/search?searchPath=amis&searchQuery...](http://aws.amazon.com/search?searchPath=amis&searchQuery=wordpress&x=0&y=0)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A database to prevent the resale of stolen cameras, lenses & video equipment. - telepoiss
http://www.lenstag.com
======
gcb0
and what happens after the owner uses the thing for 5 years and completely
forget to update the site when he sells.. or forgot his login?
now he just have a $3k lens that is permanently marked as stolen?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Sugesst me some pet projects - aryamaan
I am learning a new language (Go) for my work and I liked in the first week I was given to make a chat server to get familiar with it. I enjoyed working on that.<p>I am looking for similar projects which are not too easy but not too challenging either (like making a text editor). And I also want to work on something I would use rather than just build it and park it.<p>Looking for some ideas from the community or I want to know what are you working on.
======
sova
So you've made a chat server, that's great. I think you could take it farther
and still have it be functional for you for casual use. Make a small
bookmarking site or a site for tagging elements. What are some things you want
to keep track of in your life? Dreams? My friend made his own dream journaling
software, that's an idea.
In general, since you've made something 'realtime' and 'bidirectional' (like
chat) then you may want to branch into making annotations (like tagging and
tag suggestions) for elements {links, notes, sound files, photos you took,
whatever}
Mull it over some :)
------
patrics123
What about a simple game clone, add multiplayer for added complexity. Forget
about Performance at first ;)
~~~
rhlkmth
Multiplayer flappy bird would be great imo
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: People working in Canada, how do you like it? - couldi
How do you find the quality of life?<p>Healthcare costs and quality, raising children etc are of special importance.<p>Any special things to keep in mind?<p>Personal experiences welcome, thank you.
======
Slaul
You are going to get different answers depending on where in Canada you are
interested in.
Personally, I live in New Brunswick and am very happy. There is a decent tech
sector (nothing compared to Toronto/SV/etc obviously). Housing costs are
relatively low, I purchased a two story 4 bedroom home in a nice neighborhood
for <200K.
I make more money where I live than I would in Toronto at an equivalent job
when you factor in cost of living. There is absolutely no way I would have the
standard of living I do now in a big city.
My healthcare costs are low as I have good insurance through my employer.
I do not have children so I can't really comment on that but I did grow up in
the area and had an excellent childhood in my opinion. I will be raising my
own kids here someday.
Public transit where I live is not very good. Bike lanes are also limited.
Most places outside of major cities in Canada will require that you own a
vehicle.
I can probably help answer any other questions if you are interested in
anything more specific.
~~~
couldi
Thank you for that detailed response.
What are one's options if you don't have decent healthcare through your
employer?
Any idea about the schools?
Also, is the 'it's always cold', true for that region?
~~~
Slaul
The employer healthcare mostly helps with things like dental and glasses,
things above and beyond the basic healthcare coverage from the government.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Canada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Canada)
might have some valuable information for you. Also, most employers usually
offer some form of additional coverage. Even minimum wage, part time jobs
often do.
My experiences with the schools were good. I feel like I got a good education
growing up.
As far as temperature goes, it kind of depends on what you are used to. If you
are coming from somewhere that doesnt see sub zero (Celsius) temperatures
you'll probably find it chilly and it could take some time to be comfortable.
Where I live, a really cold winters day might hit -25 _C before the windchill
and a really hot summers day might hit 30_ C. The summers where I live are
fairly humid though.
Something else people interested in moving to Canada sometimes ask is whether
or not there are dangerous wildlife all over the place or anything. I've seen
a wild bear once in my life. The most dangerous animals around me are probably
deer and moose at night while driving.
~~~
couldi
Thank you for all that information, this thread didn't get much attention but
I do appreciate your responses, they do help. :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Pirates of Silicon Valley (Full movie) - sharpshoot
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7941901498664355924&q=pirates+of+silicon+valley&hl=en
======
brezina
Adam and I watched 30 minute segments of this movie over dinners during our
summer in Cambridge. Over the 3 months we probably watched the whole movie 6
times. They did a great job with the characters and it is really inspiring to
anyone who is trying to building a truly big company. It also really makes you
love Woz.
------
rms
Information wants to be free!
Don't delete this, a link isn't illegal. It's up to Google to police their
site for hosting a video, all that news.yc is doing is linking.
------
sharpshoot
What was really fascinating was just how badly Bill Gates wanted to win.
If you also read Startup by Jerry Kaplan, you'll note that Bill was very keen
to copy the pen OS that GO created and on seeing a demo as soon. In the end
windows mobile won out though.
What did u find interesting about the characters?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
We hire Data Scientists so you don’t have to - weirdedhimself
http://www.sumologic.com/blog/company/we-hire-data-scientists-so-our-customers-dont-have-to
======
andyjsong
Wait, so Sumo Logic is assuming companies will pay them to analyze their data?
Isn't data the secret sauce of any company? Why would companies lift up their
skirts? Are they really too lazy/cheap to hire a data scientist?
~~~
weirdedhimself
Sumo Logic provides easy tools that allow data analysts (vs. data scientists)
of it's customers analyze the data. Sumo Logic never sees the data.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I Hate My Role Models: 1 Min Read - jrometty
https://medium.com/@JumpComet/i-hate-my-role-models-ba04be71d9ef
======
valarauca1
You look at role models as competitors. Which ultimately while they may one
day become. The purpose of a role model is not to compete with you but to give
you a different lens which you may view a problem.
The ultimate failure of these people is irrelevant, nor implies a glass
ceiling. Since as with most error checking models. The more agreement between
yourself and your role models, the greater the chance you'll execute that
decision.
What I'm saying is who you set up as a role model, should be somebody who
academically and morally challenges your opinions. Makes you question your own
convictions and yourself. Ultimately a role model doesn't have to exist in
this role.
The role model, simply exists as a unit test on your decisions. To check if
your reasoning is sound enough. Your emotional relation to a unit test is
irrelevant.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: gifyourself.in - A site for putting your face on GIFs - fjania
http://gifyourself.in
======
fjania
Some technical points of interest, perhaps.
The gif explosion / creation is done server-side using python Wand, Pillow and
the excellent images2gif script. Exploding the gif into frames was a giant
pain in the ass until I checked out StackOverflow, and the source for Wand,
and found the coalesce function a bit hidden. (There are _many_ ways to
recreate a gif from it’s exploded frames - coalesce handles all the
permutations as far as I can tell.)
For the creation tool specifically I tried out several of the Javascript only
gif creation libraries and wasn’t crazy about the colors they produced, and
was concerned about browser support, which in the end ended up being gated by
lack of support for either the Blob object, or webcam/getUserMedia on all but
Chrome and Firefox.
I haven’t given up on using the JS libraries entirely, but I wanted to get
this out there first and see what people thought. The requests to create a gif
a put on a celery queue and handled by worker nodes to keep the web app from
hanging on creation requests.
The live preview in the creation tool fakes a gif by drawing each frame to a
canvas, compositing the cropped/erased image to it, and just using a JS timer
set to the gif’s frame delay to flip-book through them.
All the gifs have been masked over with details of where, on each frame, the
face should be placed, how big it should be, and how much it should be
rotated.
That’s a part of the site that you don’t see which makes that not-so-magic
happen - the masking tool. This is a tool that uses the same cropping
interface as the creation tool to generate the set of coords/size/rotation for
the face on each frame. There’s some usability stuff there to help make
masking a (relatively) quick process too. The masking tool uses the same live
preview technique to see how the mask is coming along. Right now only myself
and some of the other people I work with have access to the masker, but we’re
considering how to give more people access. After masking a couple hundred
gifs, we’ve realized there is a craft to it, and that takes a little learning.
In the meantime we’re taking suggestions for new gifs to mask on twitter
@gifyourselfin.
We’ll also support multiple masks soon, so you could have a mask for anyone in
the scene if there is more than one person to put your face over.
------
abhayv
ImageMagick has some good tools for manipulating GIFs. We have an iPhone app
called Blippy which uses ImageMagick on the server side
~~~
fjania
Wand ([http://docs.wand-py.org/en/0.3.5/](http://docs.wand-py.org/en/0.3.5/))
is a set of python bindings for ImageMagick that was super easy to get set up.
In my experience with this project, it exploded the GIFs lightning fast, but
when it came to creating GIFs, it was about 3x slower than the images2gif.py
script that I ended up using. (Although those numbers were on a Mac
development machine and this runs on Ubuntu in EC2 - I have a to-do to try out
Wand/ImageMagick there and see if the performance issue carries over)
------
baratunde
w00t
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Canal Defence Light - vinnyglennon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_Defence_Light
======
arethuza
The UK was very fond of making specialised of tanks in WW2 - notably "Hobart's
Funnies":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobart's_Funnies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobart's_Funnies)
The Soviets also used searchlights to dazzle enemies during attacks -
particularly that attack on Seelow Heights:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Seelow_Heights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Seelow_Heights)
------
argumentum
"The idea is credited to a _Greek citizen_ , Marcel Mitzakis, who devised the
system for the de Thoren Syndicate in the 1930s; they were advised by J F C
Fuller."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes#Heat_ray](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes#Heat_ray)
Putting his heritage to good use it seems :)
------
kitd
I remember seeing one of these at the Tank Museum in Dorset, UK. If you're in
the area, it's worth a visit. The weird contraptions mounted on some WW2 tanks
must be seen to be believed.
~~~
swang
According to Wikipedia, you saw the only one in existence with its original
tank model/structure.
------
ceejayoz
Can't imagine driving one of these into battle. Seems like it'd be a giant
"shoot me first!" announcement.
~~~
hopeless
I thought that too but, if it's too bright to look at, you can't hit it. Or
maybe you have retreat beyond your weapons effective range just so you aim at
it.
Though I'm sure the enemy would have eventually found some welding glass or
even oil-smeared glass
~~~
creshal
> Though I'm sure the enemy would have eventually found some welding glass or
> even oil-smeared glass
You don't exactly carry either for an amphibious assault. And once beaten
back, there likely wouldn't be a second attempt.
------
rgbrgb
"Curiously, the actual use of the system resembled its name, which was
intended to be spurious."
Names are important.
------
Avalaxy
So why is it no longer in use? Seems to me that emitting an extremely bright
flashing light is a great way to disorientate enemy infantry in close quarter
combat scenarios.
~~~
Tuna-Fish
Blinding flashes of light are widely used by infantry forces of several
states, including the US, in the form of flashbangs[1]. They are much smaller
and cheaper than a searchlight system mounted on a tank, and being deployed as
a hand grenade allows their use indoors.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stun_grenade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stun_grenade)
~~~
Avalaxy
I'm aware. I was specifically talking about vehicles, but I see that I didn't
include that information in my previous post. I think with present day
technology the lights could be a lot smaller than searchlights no?
~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
I think now the preference is to use night vision, IR sensors or the like and
remain as concealed as possible.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Gravity waves from Big Bang detected - tjaerv
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gravity-waves-cmb-b-mode-polarization/
======
Tarrosion
As an outsider (PhD student in a quantitative field, no relation to physics),
the experimental physics community really strikes me as a class act. High
standards for statistical significance, vigorously working to rule out mundane
explanations before publishing data, outlining which statistical tests will be
performed _before_ data is collected...I'm a fan.
"In fact, the researchers were so startled to see such a blaring signal in the
data that they held off on publishing it for more than a year, looking for all
possible alternative explanations for the pattern they found." That's pretty
amazing; as far as I can tell, such caution is less typical in e.g. the brain
sciences.
~~~
tibbon
The popular media really like to grab any neuroscience paper and twist the
hell out of it. Talk to most neuroscientists and they are much more
conservative in their leaps and jumps... in reality its moving slowly, but the
media wants to portray a Ray Kurzweil reading of every finding.
~~~
dragonwriter
> The popular media really like to grab any neuroscience paper and twist the
> hell out of it.
This is true, but a specialized case of the equally true:
"The popular media really like to grab any science paper and twist the hell
out of it."
Which is just a specialized case of the also equally true:
"The popular media really like to grab anything and twist the hell out of it."
~~~
andrewflnr
I can believe, however, that neuroscience gets it worse, because it has more
obvious applications in the lives of readers/viewers etc.
------
DangerousPie
They made a nice video of the researcher surprising Prof Linde with the news:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlfIVEy_YOA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlfIVEy_YOA)
The reaction of the couple is great!
~~~
cromwellian
I love the humility, skepticism of belief Linde professes at the end. Despite
a deep desire to believe in the beautiful, he is well aware of how you can be
seduced into believing things because you want to, not because the universe is
that way.
~~~
LeoNatan25
This is what separates the scientists from ... others.
~~~
Balgair
We can only wish that is true, we are all just humans in the end:
[http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists-t...](http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists-
think-science-self-correcting-alarming-degree-it-not-trouble)
Also, I vaguely remember a study in 'some journal' that looked at all it's P
values[0] and found an alarming number of them parked right at the limit of
acceptance (.05), more so than chance could assume. If anyone remembers this
study and can provide actual proof (not my terrible memory), I would be very
thankful.
[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-value](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-value)
~~~
betenoire
I don't think he's commenting on statistical analysis, but rather saying that
a scientist should follow the clues where ever it may take them, instead of
looking for the clues that will get them where they want to be. And of course
they fuck up, too.
------
swatkat
Guardian has a nice and simple article explaining gravity, gravitational wave,
and about this detection:
[http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/mar/17/gravitational...](http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/mar/17/gravitational-
waves-bicep-inflation-big-bang)
------
wozniacki
Here's an excellent explanation on cosmic inflation from Sean Carroll:
[http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/03/16/gravitat...](http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/03/16/gravitational-
waves-in-the-cosmic-microwave-background/)
~~~
mcguire
...which seems to be unreachable for me at the moment. I'll have to check it
out later. In the mean time....
Cosmic inflation has always bothered me. I just don't get it. I'm not a
physicist at all, though. I get _why_ it's postulated. (The uniformity of the
universe requires it to all be in close proximity and the time scales don't
have enough time for that part, IIUC.)
But the expansion of inflation is significantly faster than the speed of
light. What's up with that? I know, spacetime is expanding rather than things
moving within spacetime, but still, during inflation, this particle _here_ is
watching that particle _there_ recede at >> C. I doan geddit.
( _Grump._ )
~~~
GeneralMayhem
The way I understand it is that the problem is with the definition of
velocity. If you want to measure speed, you have to measure distance, which
eventually comes down to the magnitude of the vector between two points -
subtract the X's, subtract the Y's, subtract the Z's. Problem is, at cosmic
scales, expansion means that those two points aren't in the same reference
frame, because more space has appeared between them. You can try to measure
it, but by the time you do the axes themselves have stretched again. The two
X's can't be subtracted directly anymore, because they're on different
reference frames. You get a result of >>C only by assuming that the relevant
bits of space are relatively well-behaved Euclidean R^3, but that's not the
case.
------
slacka
So just to clarify, this is only the measurement of an artifact most likely
caused by gravity waves during the period of inflation. We still have not
directly measured gravity waves in our current universe, right? I think the
fact that gravity can't be measured is a subtle clue about one piece of the
puzzle for a unifying theory of everything.
~~~
andrelaszlo
I find this concept of "directly measuring" things confusing. My theoretical
knowledge is very weak though, maybe someone can explain.
It seems to me like we never measure things _directly_. For example: To
measure the temperature of something in everyday life, we use a tiny glass
cylinder filled with some kind of liquid. The liquid expands or contracts,
roughly linearly, because of the temperature exchange with its surroundings.
We then compare the current level of the liquid to a little ruler inscribed in
the cylinder, maybe the markings form a shape similar to "100°C". The photons
that bounce off this little ruler into our eyes causes impulses in some
neurons and so on and our brains compare the shape "100°C" to yet another
reference point, boiling water. It's hardly direct¤, in any sense of the word.
If we measure gravitational waves by observing "ripples in background
radiation"¤¤, isn't that kind of the same thing? I've seen several people here
mention that it's not "measured directly" \- does it mean something else in
this case?
¤ If you stick your hand into the boiling water to measure its temperature,
it's a bit more direct but not as accurate.
¤¤ I'm just a programmer, this is kind of how I understood it. :D
~~~
jessriedel
There's a good philosophy of science argument to be made that there's no
_precise_ and _discrete_ distinction between direct and indirect measurement.
In our model of the universe, there are always multiple physical steps that
link the phenomena under investigation to our conscious perception. Therefore,
any conclusions we draw from a perception are conditional on our confidence in
the entire causal chain performing reliably (e.g. a gravitational wave induces
a B-mode in the CMB, which propagates as a photon to our detectors, which
heats up a transition-edge sensor, which increases the resistivity of the
circuit, which flips a bit in the flash memory, which is read out to a
monitor, which emits photons to our eye, which change the nerves firing in our
brain). "Direct" measurements, then, are just ones that rely on a _small
number_ of _reliable_ inferences, while "indirect" measurements rely on a
_large number_ of _less reliable_ inferences.
Nonetheless, in practice there is a rather clear distinction which declares
"direct" measurements to be those that take place _locally_ (in space) using
_well-characterized_ equipment that we can (importantly) _manipulate_ , and
which is conditional only on physical laws which are very strongly
established. All other measurements are called "indirect", generally because
they are observational (i.e. no manipulation of the experimental parameters),
are conditional on tenuous ideas (i.e. naturalness arguments as indirect
evidence for supersymmetry), and/or involve intermediary systems that are not
well understood (e.g. galactic dynamics).
The classic example is dark matter detection. A detector built in your
laboratory that produces clear evidence of a local interaction between the
dark matter partice and the atoms composing the detector would be "direct
detection". Seeing an anomalous excess of gamma rays from the center of the
galaxy whose energy and distribution is consistent with some theories which
predict dark matter annihilation would be "indirect detection".
Naturally, direct measurements have a much larger impact on your Bayesian
credences than indirect ones. If someone says "I don't trust that indirect
measurement" they mean "one or more steps in the inference chain which
connects the phenomena to our perceptions is unreliable".
EDIT: Oh, it's worth replying more directly (ha!) to your comment by noting
that both pulsar slow downs
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_wave#Using_pulsa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_wave#Using_pulsar_timing_arrays)
and the CMB measurements by BICEPS are indisputably indirect. Gravitational
wave detectors
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_wave_detector](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_wave_detector)
like the LISA proposal
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Interferometer_Space_Ant...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Interferometer_Space_Antenna)
are direct.
------
sanxiyn
From the horse's mouth: [http://bicepkeck.org/](http://bicepkeck.org/)
------
sixothree
Nothing bugs me more than when a supposedly scientific magazine uses
thumbnails of important images without actually linking to the full size. I
just wanted to see the black lines in the image the article refers to.
~~~
d0mine
Google search by image
[http://www.google.com/insidesearch/features/images/searchbyi...](http://www.google.com/insidesearch/features/images/searchbyimage.html)
returns
[http://bicep.rc.fas.harvard.edu/bicep1_3yr/](http://bicep.rc.fas.harvard.edu/bicep1_3yr/)
------
yukichan
> The finding is direct proof of the theory of inflation, the idea that the
> universe expanded extremely quickly in the first fraction of a second after
> it was born.
Small nitpick, but wouldn't the use of the words "evidence for" instead of
"proof of" have been better? Not that I am in any way trying to take anything
away from the discovery. Just from a science perspective, the word "proof" has
always bugged me.
~~~
kremlin
It's kinda a pet peeve of mine as well, having to switch between 'proof'
meaning a conclusion that logically necessarily follow from premises, to proof
meaning "really strong evidence".
But, as harshreality was getting at, if we used 'proof' that strictly, nothing
outside of pure math and logic would be a 'proof'.
~~~
wfn
> But, as harshreality was getting at, if we used 'proof' that strictly,
> nothing outside of pure math and logic would be a 'proof'.
True that. But isn't that an important part of the scientific method (at least
in the karl-popper-scientific-method sense), and part of the point of science,
really? Strictly speaking, you can't prove anything using the scientific
method; only 'falsify' it (hence Popper's 'falsificationism', 'science as
falsification', etc.) To 'kinda-sorta-prove' something in science, you
formulate a null hypothesis, and then attempt to falsify it. But strictly
speaking, one is not able to 'prove' anything (only provide weak/strong
evidence for/against something.)
------
piratebroadcast
I'm very curious of how, if we now presume this to be true, if and how that
may effect the "Are we living in a simulation?" question.
~~~
benched
I think there exist potential implementations of virtualization that are not
detectable from inside the virtualization.
~~~
eru
Especially if you are willing to sacrifice speed.
------
sosuke
Is gravity a wave then, like light? I thought the jury was still out on that.
~~~
miralabs
Light is both a particle and a wave
~~~
gnaritas
Or, light is neither a particle nor a wave, but a distinct thing that seems to
behave like both under various circumstances.
~~~
lnanek2
There are some cases in quantum mechanics where you just have to accept that a
value can be two different things at once, not that is was really one thing.
Like it or not, superposition is a real thing, so it is inarguable that
assuming something has to have one value at any one time is wrong.
Wave-particle duality is a lot like that as well, where it is tough to come up
with some distinct thing that could possibly act like a particle, but still
diffract like a wave.
~~~
Double_Cast
> _where it is tough to come up with some distinct thing that could possibly
> act like a particle, but still diffract like a wave._
Armchairing here. But as I understood, objects in quantum-land are known as
"amplitudes in the complex plane". They behave like this all the time and
under all circumstances, and should be understood on their own terms. E.g.
squaring the height of pond ripples doesn't return a probability distribution.
The "sometimes it's a wave, but other times it's a particle" idea is a
historical artifact, like how humanity uses a base ten number system.
------
AnimalMuppet
> This pattern, basically a curling in the polarization, or orientation, of
> the light, can be created only by gravitational waves produced by inflation.
I call BS. "Within our current theories, this pattern can be created only
by..." would be a more accurate statement. The arrogance that "with this
theory, we understand it all" has been shot down over and over in the history
of science.
[Edit: tarrosion noted the caution of experimenters in making sure that the
data could not be caused by something else. This is appropriate, and it's good
that they have it. You now have one, and only one, theoretical explanation for
the data. But the statement in the article that I quoted is still a step too
far. It presumes that our existing theories are the only possible ones.]
~~~
carbocation
Usually publications are understood within the context of their field. It
would be exhausting to list each limitation of your field in every paper, and
the limitations are understood by the intended audience.
~~~
mcguire
A friend-of-a-friend has the "science religion"\---he seems to try to claim
that what we "know" now is the closest to absolute truth that we could
possibly get, and would therefore make the claim from the article with a
straight face. (He seems unfazed by comments that some new discovery tomorrow
might invalidate what we "know" now and seems to think that what we would
learn would simply be more absolutely true.)
Me, I'm of the opposite philosophy and understand that everything I think I
know now is probably wrong. It's just slightly not-as-wrong as last week.
~~~
Locke1689
On the whole of it, your friend is probably more correct than you are:
[http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm](http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm)
~~~
acqq
As an illustration, around 2200 years ago, 200 years before Jesus, a Greek
scientist actually _measured_ the curvature of Earth not moving from his
town(!) only by observing the shadow of the Sun and cleverly thinking, giving
the circumference as "50 times distance between Alexandria and Siena." He
didn't have the exact distance then, but knowing that distance today, he
measured the circumference of the Earth with the error of less than 0.2%.
[http://todaslascosasdeanthony.com/2012/07/03/eratosthenes-
ea...](http://todaslascosasdeanthony.com/2012/07/03/eratosthenes-earth-
circumference/)
150 years later, still before Jesus, another scientist, Posidonius, repeated
the experiment.
Most of the things we confirmed today survived a lot of checks. As Asimov
writes it's not that there's much "wrong" in what science knows today, it just
that is "incomplete" in the smaller (from the perspective of the common
experience) details.
~~~
mcguire
The difference to me is that "incomplete" means you are missing something:
more precise measurements, better calculations, more information. But that is
not necessarily the case. You may be able to measure the size of the Earth
relatively precisely, but if your theory puts that Earth at the center of the
universe, more measurements are going to do little but cause you headaches.
Take the ever-popular conflict between relativity and quantum mechanics. For
all intensive purposes [sic], I believe they both work out to about Newtonian
mechanics at scales I can easily observe and they both work very well for
their different appropriate tasks. But they don't mesh well together, which is
another requirement for science. "Incomplete" doesn't begin to describe that
situation because I suspect that whatever is going to unify both is going to
be as different from either as they are from classical physics.
[As an aside, I've seen Asimov's essay before and while I usually don't have a
problem with his writing, in this essay's case I can't get past the fact that
it is either very poorly written (if I'm feeling charitable) or a rather silly
ad hominem (if I'm not).]
~~~
acqq
My example is totally orthogonal to the subject of the position of the Earth
in the universe, I don't understand what can benefit from bringing the
confusion in the discussion.
Your other argument is what scientists are well aware of for decades, so it's
a good example of the science knowing its current limits, which again means
_we can 't be wrong_ if we know the exact limits. We have unmapped terrains
that span only first 1e−32 part of the first second! Can you even imagine how
small that time is? There were 1e49 such time intervals since then! What's
that when not a small "incompleteness" of our knowledge. That people who work
on that call it "a big thing to unify" doesn't change the fact that it's
something small to the vastness of the time we already cover with the present
equations.
------
encoderer
Reminds me of the way Einstein, not being an experimental physicist himself,
would conclude his famous papers with suggestions for experiments to confirm
them. Awesome for this research team to have the opportunity to confirm this
discovery in Linde's lifetime.
------
estebanrules
How would you folks rate the significance of this, let's say as far as
scientific discoveries / realizations go in the last 100 years? Yes, of course
this is completely subjective. I would say in the top three.
~~~
sanxiyn
Assuming it's real, I think it's up there with T ~ 3 K (cosmic microwave
background itself, Nobel 1978) and Λ > 0 (accelerating universe, Nobel 2011).
------
Hypx
A little bit of caution from here:
[http://profmattstrassler.com/2014/03/17/bicep2-new-
evidence-...](http://profmattstrassler.com/2014/03/17/bicep2-new-evidence-of-
cosmic-inflation/)
Very interesting result, potentially game-changing, but it also could be
nothing too. Wait for more experiments before we can say for sure.
~~~
trhway
interesting that BICEP2 polarization from gravitation waves as they describe
it [http://bicepkeck.org/faq.html](http://bicepkeck.org/faq.html):
"strong B-mode polarization at the much larger angular scales--2 to 4 degrees
on the sky--where lensing is a tiny effect but where inflationary
gravitational waves are expected to peak. "
is of about the same scale as 500 million light years period of Baryon
acoustic oscillations period (ie. baryonic (gravitating) matter density
period):
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryon_acoustic_oscillations#BA...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryon_acoustic_oscillations#BAO_Signal_in_the_Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey)
------
yeukhon
Is this the same as graviton in string theory? Or could this be used to
further justify the existence of graviton?
~~~
acjohnson55
I'm not a physicist, but I would think the answer has to be yes, since
everything we know of with wave nature also has particle nature on some scale.
But I can't even imagine what kind of experiment would detect one.
Wikipedia has some interesting things to say about this:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton#Experimental_observati...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton#Experimental_observation)
------
cellover
This page allowed me to have an idea of the concepts underlying this discovery
(CMB light, B-mode polarization):
[http://cosmology.berkeley.edu/~yuki/CMBpol/CMBpol.htm](http://cosmology.berkeley.edu/~yuki/CMBpol/CMBpol.htm)
------
platz
Interesting that they succeeded in detecting gravity waves where LIGO failed?
~~~
sanxiyn
They are using a different method. In their own words: "The presence of a
water wave can be detected by feeling its up-and-down motion or by taking a
picture of it. We are doing the latter." LIGO is doing the former.
[http://bicepkeck.org/faq.html](http://bicepkeck.org/faq.html)
------
snickell
Is there a way from this data to calculate the frequency of the wave(s)?
Bandwidth? Or otherwise characterize the signal that is causing the
polarization? Is that even a meaningful question in this case?
~~~
lutusp
Not really. What's being observed are remnant polarizations from gravitational
waves that had their effect long ago, under very different circumstances and
mass-energy densities.
What's interesting is that the present measurements can be interpreted as
evidence for gravitational waves to the exclusion of other explanations to a
high degree of certainty.
Until now, evidence for gravitational waves was rather indirect and
circumstantial, for example orbiting pulsars (very dense collapsed stars that
emit periodic radio pulses) were observed to slow their pulse repetition rate
over time in a way that suggested they were losing potential energy by
radiating gravitational waves. Unfortunately those waves could not be detected
directly.
In principle, a gravity wave could have nearly any frequency/wavelength
consistent with its source. The pulsars discussed above were thought to
produce gravitational waves of relatively high frequency / short wavelength,
proportional to their pulse repetition rates. A so-called "millisecond pulsar"
would have a possible gravitational wave frequency of one kilohertz and a
wavelength of 3 x 10^8 / f meters or 3,000,000 meters (3,000 kilometers).
That's hardly short compared to a radio broadcasting station's wavelength, but
for gravitational waves, it's remarkable.
------
watson
Another HN post from earlier today about the same discovery:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7411341](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7411341)
------
philip1209
They have evidence of gravity waves, but cannot prove causation (i.e. big
bang), right?
~~~
marcosdumay
We already have overhealming evidence of the Big Bang, this is yet more
evidence. But we have only a relatively small amount of evidence of Inflation
and gravitational waves, and this is evidence of both (even better, it's
evidence against several theories of Inflation - including the current
prefered ones).
Correlations are evidence of causation, and quite strong evidence if you foud
them because of a causal theory.
~~~
npizzolato
As someone who doesn't have a very good grasp of these things, can you explain
the difference between the Big Bang and inflation to me? It seems like the Big
Bang is the explosion of all matter that would be in our universe, and
inflation is the rapid expansion of the universe itself. And inflation is
believed to have taken place almost immediately after the Big Bang. Is that
sort of accurate?
~~~
wbhart
The Big Bang theory is not about the "explosion" of our universe from a point.
Firstly, the universe may have always been infinite in size. It's just that
every small piece of that infinite universe has been expanding since about 14
billion years ago.
Secondly, "explosion" is a misnomer. The universe is expanding, not exploding.
As a theory, the Big Bang theory makes various predictions, such as the cosmic
microwave background radiation, the relative abundance of elements in the
universe and of course the expansion of the universe.
But it doesn't predict that the universe will be the same in all directions.
There just isn't time for energy fluctuations to have evened themselves out
due to the transfer of energy from hot spots to cold spots. That process can
only happen at the speed of light (energy is transferred at the speed of
light).
Because of the way space is expanding, the speed two points move away from
each other depends on how far apart they are. Thus, very distant points on
opposite sides of the sky are actually moving apart faster than the speed of
light. What this implies is that there's no way they can have had time to
reach thermal equilibrium (i.e. have reached the same temperature)!
But satellite observations tell us the observable universe is very nearly the
same temperature in every direction!
The problem is resolved by the Theory of Inflation. This is a time of
exceedingly(!!) rapid expansion which occurred before the time described by
the Big Bang theory (remember the Big Bang theory is not about the "explosion"
of the universe from a point, but about the subsequent expansion of the
universe _after_ inflation).
The reason inflation solves the problem is that a very, very tiny region of
space (subatomic scale) expanded exceedingly rapidly in a tiny fraction of a
second, smoothing out any temperature fluctuations. What we see as our
observable universe is just the temperature fluctuations in a subatomic sized
piece of universe from before inflation happened.
After that tiny fraction of a second, inflation stopped, and normal Big Bang
physics took over.
Moreover, inflation explains the formation of galaxies. Tiny quantum
fluctuations became the seeds of galaxies, clusters, superclusters and giant
strings of clusters that make up our universe today.
Note that almost everything written in the current Slashdot summary of the
breakthrough is completely wrong!
------
OOvsuOO
Wow.. that's sweet but really come on only supporting mavericks OS. And
already.. if you have a iPad the notes app automatically synchronizes with the
mail server (I use web based email service mostly.) I didn't even set it up or
should I say allow the iPad to do so.
~~~
splawn
Gravity waves work fine for me under ubuntu.
------
3327
Just 5 sigma confidence...
------
namelezz
Congratulation!
------
kimonos
Interesting info! Thanks for sharing!
------
notastartup
can someone explain the significance of this, for those that are not familiar
with this area?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
4,400 year old Egyptian tomb discovered in the Saqqara pyramid complex - open-source-ux
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-46580264
======
Hoasi
Letting a horde of journalists rush to photograph the tomb at once seems like
a terrible idea. That goes against the most basic precaution you could take to
protect archeological artifacts. What kind of professional archeologist would
let that happen?
~~~
canada_dry
I don't think I'm being overly dramatic to say that the antiquities governance
in Egypt is a bloated, top heavy and mostly useless bureaucracy which - in the
end - only has a cursory interest in archeology - aside from keeping the money
rolling in.
It's all about giving high paying, long term jobs to political allies and
family members and less about preserving one of the most fascinating cultures
the world has ever seen.
~~~
LyndsySimon
So... ironically very similar to the ancient Egyptian priesthood they
nominally protect?
~~~
shard972
I'm not an ancient Egyptian expert but considering their culture was obsessed
about the past to the point they created these ancient tombs, i would imagine
they had maybe just a little more respect for their ancestors.
~~~
Retric
Cultures change over 4,000+ years enough to be unrecognizable.
~~~
shard972
A few rounds of immigration from the romans and subsequent conquerers tends to
change your culture. Doesn't dismiss the fact that ancient Egyptians had a
culturural context that anchored to the past as opposed to the present/future.
------
richardknop
I'm still wondering about the secret tunnel in the Great Pyramid of Giza with
double false door that was found with a robot. They never further researched
what's on the other side of the second false door.
Also it is known based on radar screenings there are some empty spaces under
the Sphinx, quite likely very ancient chambers. I wish they would dig bellow
the Sphinx to find out what's actually there.
I guess it would cost a lot of money and be time consuming and risky so they
won't do it (in both cases). Pity that we might not know what may be there.
~~~
brett40324
Checkout The Pyramid Code series. They bring to light research and theories
that tell quite a different story about what Giza may of been and was used
for.
------
dandare
Shouldn't we keep a couple of these unopened for the future? Maybe open one
every time we make a radical progress in some measurement technique?
Is this already a thing?
~~~
JorgeGT
The inner part of the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, said to contain
rivers of mercury depicting the rivers of China, etc., is still unopened:
[https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Mausoleum_of_the_First_Qin_Emper...](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Mausoleum_of_the_First_Qin_Emperor)
~~~
CamperBob2
Wow, that's a really interesting page. One of the most surreal photos I've
seen in a long time:
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7a/Xi...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7a/Xian_museum.jpg/1920px-
Xian_museum.jpg?1544997864428)
~~~
realo
... yes, surreal indeed. Even more so when you learn that no two statue is the
same. Each has a unique face, hair, etc...
------
cambaceres
If you are interested in learning about the ancient Egyptian civilization, I
recommend this book that I just finished (with basically no prior knowledge on
the subject)
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8536070-the-rise-and-
fal...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8536070-the-rise-and-fall-of-
ancient-egypt)
[https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-Ancient-
Egypt/dp/0553384902](https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-Ancient-
Egypt/dp/0553384902)
------
limeblack
In college and high school I was taught they used radar years ago to find what
was thought to be all of the remaining tombs. Anyone know why this one hadn't
been found yet?
~~~
gammateam
My experience with “found” in egypt means “hasnt been completely sacked by
raiders 200 years ago”
I would love to be proven wrong this time
~~~
privong
The article states that the tomb has been, "untouched for 4,400 years". Other
articles (e.g., [0]) have explicitly stated that the tomb has not been looted.
[0] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-
archaeology/egypt-u...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-
archaeology/egypt-unveils-one-of-a-kind-ancient-tomb-expects-more-finds-
idUSKBN1OE0HD)
------
muratgozel
I felt like looking to google drive of an ancient man. I really would like to
read about the meanings of the objects found in those walls.
~~~
xaedes
It really looks in good shape (and color)!
Regarding the meaning of objects found I want to share this humorous story in
which future archaeologists find a motel room and they believe to have found a
great tomb similar to that of Tutankhamun:
"Motel of the Mysteries"
[http://sultanaeducation.org/wp-
content/uploads/2014/06/Motel...](http://sultanaeducation.org/wp-
content/uploads/2014/06/Motel-of-the-Mysteries-Macaulay.pdf)
~~~
muratgozel
haha, great example :) I generally think in the way the story points to. the
reason we tend to give sacred meanings to ancient findings is because of our
search for the meaning of life, I think. Finding details about their daily
life would be more interesting and useful, however.
------
harshulpandav
'The tomb was found in a buried ridge'
It is commendable how researchers do not give up digging, quite literally. I
also understand this is intensely a resource (time and money) consuming
process. However I wonder why and how this was not discovered until now. Can't
we disperse autonomous devices/robots that discover hollow spaces deep
underground using SONAR or other vibration techniques?
------
onetimemanytime
4400 years ago and we are rightfully in awe. What a way to leave a history.
Will my Geocities page be there 4400 years from now ? ;)
~~~
geuis
Doubtful your geocities page is around even now unless you backed it up or it
got slurped by neocities.
~~~
ZeikJT
Might already be on The Wayback Machine.
------
ryanmercer
Aziz, LIGHT!
------
EGreg
How do they possibly know the age of this tomb with certainty?
~~~
geuis
Often it’s a combination of radiocarbon dating and historical records. Though
probably not in this instance, there are sometimes records found in other
places that say this or that person lived at the same time as another, so that
can help to date things like this. Radiocarbon dating is highly accurate and
4400 years isn’t that long ago, so it’s generally accurate at dating organic
remains to within a few decades. It gets less accurate over longer periods of
time, but 4400 years is well within that window.
------
Alex3917
The YouTube channel Ancient Architects is pretty good at covering the latest
ancient history news:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9UGStJHZZM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9UGStJHZZM)
~~~
vatueil
From a cursory glance at the channel's descriptions and video titles it looks
sort of sketchy, to be honest. Is that impression wrong?
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCscI4NOggNSN-
Si5QgErNCw/abo...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCscI4NOggNSN-
Si5QgErNCw/about)
> _Ancient history and civilisations channel brought to you by Matt Sibson,
> offering alternative interpretations on the most well-known ancient sites in
> the world. History isn 't always as it seems._
[https://www.patreon.com/ancientarchitects](https://www.patreon.com/ancientarchitects)
> _I find that most mainstream historical interpretations are full of holes,
> both historically and scientifically and I intend to look at all of the
> evidence and offer my own unique interpretation on ancient history and the
> countless ancient mysteries._
~~~
Alex3917
> From a cursory glance at the channel's descriptions and video titles it
> looks sort of sketchy, to be honest. Is that impression wrong?
I mean he's mostly looking for interesting stuff on Google Maps, then reading
whatever information exists about whatever he's finding. So what he thinks
things are sometimes changes from week to week as he reads new stuff. I
wouldn't say it's sketchy per se, you just need to understand what it is and
what it isn't. I think his own area of expertise is neolithic British
monuments, so he isn't an expert in most of the things he's talking about,
he's just an insanely smart guy who is very well read.
~~~
vatueil
Thanks for the response. Would it be correct though to say the channel does
not reflect mainstream academic views?
The creator of the YouTube channel describes himself on his Facebook profile
as a geologist with an interest in Neolithic sites, but he does not appear to
be an archaeologist, anthropologist, or any sort of professional historian:
[https://www.facebook.com/pg/MattSibsonAuthor/about/](https://www.facebook.com/pg/MattSibsonAuthor/about/)
> _Ancient history writer, geologist, currently re-writing the history of the
> Stonehenge landscape with new interpretations of Neolithic monuments._
While amateurs are capable of good work, and scientific consensus can change,
eccentric ideas are more often wrong than right. Matt Sibson may mean well,
but I would not consider his YouTube channel a reliable source given that the
videos appear to diverge from the scientific establishment on a wide range of
topics.
~~~
Alex3917
> I would not consider his YouTube channel a reliable source
I mean that's like saying Star Wars isn't a reliable source; you're judging
something on the basis of something it isn't meant to be in the first place.
Like when something like this tomb is discovered then he'll report what the
discovery is. And when someone proposes a possible location for Atlantis,
he'll report what that person is proposing. But saying that his channel is
unreliable become mainstream academics don't think Atlantis existed is
disingenuous.
~~~
albedoa
> I mean that's like saying Star Wars isn't a reliable source; you're judging
> something on the basis of something it isn't meant to be in the first place.
You described the channel as "pretty good at covering the latest ancient
history news". It is being judged in part on the description that you gave.
Unless you also describe Star Wars as pretty good ancient space news, then
your comparison is extremely weak.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Saying Goodbye to a Sister - felipebueno
http://brianbailey.me/saying-goodbye-to-a-sister/
======
sgpl
Losing someone close is really hard. I am not good at eulogies, but I lost my
grandfather to cancer earlier this year and for some reason I wasn't able to
function at all for the coming few weeks. I grew up in a joint family and he
was a constant positive presence in my life growing up; but after moving away
for school/college, I hadn't had much real-life interaction with him except
for phone calls/holidays. As a recent college graduate, who was a few weeks
into a new entry level job, I had to take a break because this was the single
most depressing period in my life. I had never experienced death of a close
relative or friend before this, and for some reason I never thought death
could be that painful. I had imagining it akin to a really bad breakup, but it
was much uglier and painful.
I think the single worst thing is coming to the realization that they are just
gone. I can never again hug him, hear his him laughing, talk to him about the
n number of awesome shared experiences, or just enjoy another moment with him.
I still haven't fully dealt with this as I am not sure there is a protocol for
dealing with such events except picking yourself up and keeping your mind
engaged other stuff till you don't feel that much grief. I guess another
approach is to push grief into the background and celebrate the life lived.
Good luck to the OP dealing with this loss.
~~~
eddieroger
I know this pain, and mine comes from a similar place. My grandma lived with
my family for my entire life, and she was always there for me, sometimes
before my parents. I didn't call her as frequently as I would have liked
during college (or my parents, for that matter), but I have atoned for those
sins, and got better as I finished school and started my adult, not-living-at-
home life. After her first heart attack, I called her twice a day until she
was home, then nightly since, with rare exception. We were both the night owls
of the family, so talking to her was how I ended my day. She passed just over
a year ago, and I still get overwhelmingly sad when I consider that every day
is one longer than the the longest since I've talked to her. Saying I miss my
grandma puts it in too easy a light. I keep an alarm set on my phone for the
time of the night when I would call her. It's not the same, obviously, but
it's a little time set aside to think of her.
I honestly don't know how to deal with it, either. I think being 29 before
losing your first really close loved one is a double-edged sword. On the one
hand, I got nearly 30 years with my grandma - time I wouldn't trade for
anything. On the other hand, I'm a grown man who can't deal with death. I
think you're right - a big part of it is just continuing to move forward.
Because, like it or not, the world doesn't stop spinning, even though it feels
like it just did. One last anecdote - when we knew grandma was in the hospital
and probably never leaving, I went to pick up my cousins and take them to say
goodbye. We stopped to get some flowers, and I remember looking at everyone at
the store and thinking how could normal the rest of the world felt, whereas I
felt like my world was ending. Alas, it doesn't. Sometimes you cry. Sometimes
you laugh. But you never stop.
------
herdrick
Quick tips:
\- You should choose when and where to talk about her and her death. See,
people who know you will want to know how you are doing and how it all
happened, or why you are not yourself lately. Or you hear from someone who
doesn't know about your sister who says, "What's up with you these days".
You'll feel like you have to tell them, including how you are doing with it.
But you don't have to tell them. "I don't want to talk about that" is a
perfectly good response. Pick and choose when to talk about it or you are
allowing anyone you interact with the power to send you into a tailspin.
\- People will want to show empathy with you by telling you about the time
they went through what they think was something similar. And yes, when the
loss is similar, it can be a source of much increased mutual understanding and
friendship with him/her. But usually it's more like, 'My grandmother died at
age 87 so I know what you are feeling'. As you know, they do not (usually).
They are just inexperienced in life. They mean well though. Again, I'd
recommend "I don't want to talk about it". Feel free to interrupt early in
their story.
------
goldfeld
I've always wished I had had a sister. Most times I picture her younger, but
Brian makes me reconsider. I wish I had had a sister like Brian's, and my best
wishes go to him and family, this was a powerful piece and like a good movie
it made me feel a part of it. Laura is exactly the name I have always wanted
for my first daughter. I wonder if she'll cry on my shoulder when boys break
her heart.
Relevant song[1], from the Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin album cited exactly
here on HN on a previous thread for an article regarding the loss of a father.
Coincidentally it was at the time my dad had a motorcycle accident of which
he's still recovering. The feeling of being close to loss was real, and this
song, and album, is now loaded with feeling for me.
[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzU6vinZwhc>
------
marvwhere
first of all: i am so so so so sorry for you!!!
i have a older sister, and i guess i love her more then my parents, it would
be the worth if she was gone. we are separated by five years, and we both in
totally different things, but there is this connection between brothers and
sisters which are stronger then everything else.
but there is a bad part about my comment, and that was more the intention i
make this comment, and i already know i will get a lot of down votes, but:
what the fuck has this do to on "HACKER NEWS"? it's not against you
personally, but in the last weeks a lot of personal storys filling this page
more and more, and i do not like this trend. i'm very ver sorry for this part
of my comment! but it is bothering me since weeks.
but in the end i want to say again: i'm sorry for you i have a kind of an idea
what it feels like, after my grandma past away 3 years ago.
~~~
smoyer
It doesn't appear that Brian Bailey actually posted this here ... and we do
occasionally support our fellow hackers here.
~~~
felipebueno
You're right. I posted it here because I feel really sorry for Brian and
wanted to share his words.
------
harrygold
I'm really sorry about your sister. Reminds me how "right now" is so
important. I'm going to call my sister to say hello.
------
Filligree
<http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html>
~~~
felipebueno
What is that?
~~~
Filligree
A fairly obvious analogy, I thought.
------
adefa
I also lost a sister very recently. If you ever want to talk, my email is:
trevor (at) strieber (dot) org.
~~~
joering2
Does anyone else see an interesting idea for a start-up here??
~~~
biot
I could see a volunteer, side project. But a startup? Monetization is going to
be rather awkward.
"Get support and share with others who have suffered a loss.
Several plans available to support your level of grief:
* Grief Lite: email one person, FREE!
* Grief Pro: email and chat with 5 people, $19.95/month
* Grief Enterprise: unlimited email, chat, and phone
with up to 50 other people: $99.95/month
Developers: REST (in peace) API also available."
~~~
robryan
Could work as a non profit like Watsi, people could donate to keep the site
going if it helps them.
------
psycr
You might find the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius to be helpful in dealing
with the grief and pain of dying, or at least confronting it. They Hays
translation is worth reading: [http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Translation-
Modern-Library...](http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Translation-Modern-
Library-ebook/dp/B000FC1JAI)
Good luck.
~~~
incision
I just happened upon this via HN Store [1].
I own several translations and have to recommend "The Emperor's Handbook: A
New Translation of The Meditations" [2] most highly.
1: <http://www.hnstore.co/> 2:
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/0743233832/ref=cm_sw_su_dp>
------
codezero
I was the youngest in my family and my older sister (2 years older) died
suddenly when I was 16. Thanks for sharing this.
I still imagine that I'll bump into her one day, as if she never died and she
had just gone off to college and gone on an adventure. It sucks, but talking
about it, at least for me, does help.
------
89vision
Sorry for your loss. That was a beautiful tribute. I think I'll go spend some
time with my brothers.
------
TWAndrews
I lost my brother almost 3 years ago now. I still think about him every day.
~~~
orangethirty
I lost mine about 4 years ago. So sorry you had to deal with the pain.
~~~
TWAndrews
Likewise. It's not something I'd wish on anyone, though seeing how bad it was
for my parents put my own pain in perspective.
------
lgleason
I lost my sister a little over a year ago from cancer and can relate.
------
KANYEWEST
RIP Laura, God bless her soul. May I ask how she passed?
~~~
cosmotron
The medical expense fundraising site he set up [1] mentions that she "passed
away on March 29, 2013 after living with cancer for more than a year."
[1] [http://www.youcaring.com/medical-fundraiser/in-memory-of-
lau...](http://www.youcaring.com/medical-fundraiser/in-memory-of-laura-
bailey/50339)
------
quizotic
Achingly sweet. Thank you for posting.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Where are all the Apple Watch apps? - personlurking
I've done several searches and can't seem to locate a list of available apps.<p>After buying the Series 5, as a first-time AW user who also doesn't use activity/health apps, I've become very interested to find all the apps I can choose from. Aside from tech publications showing "our top 20" style lists, and a limited showing on the AW App Store itself, there seems to be no large lists nor, seemingly, a whole lot of interest in the growth of the AW app ecosystem.<p>Am I missing something or is there only so much that the AW can do, and thus few apps on offer?
======
machello13
I think there are a couple reasons for this.
First, historically, Apple Watch development was difficult and very
constrained. The framework had a lot of limitations and, on early watch
models, third party apps were very slow compared to native apps (which
themselves were not very speedy).[1]
This is changing now as the hardware gets better and Apple is opening up more
powerful and easier APIs to third-party developers, but it will take a while
for third party apps to catch up. And the situation is still not as good as it
is on iOS.
The other reason is that there's a small number of app concepts that even make
sense on the watch. The watch is very good at a few things: quick, glanceable
interactions (like notifications) and fitness tracking. Apple suggests that
apps should "support fast interactions and focus on the content that users
care about most", and that "interactions with the Apple Watch are measured in
seconds." [2]
A great deal of apps simply don't fit this category at all. Many existing iOS
apps expose some basic watch functionality, but many won't, because it just
doesn't make sense. Consider how willing you would be to hold your wrist up in
front of you for 30+ seconds.
[1] [https://marco.org/2018/02/26/watchkit-baby-
apps](https://marco.org/2018/02/26/watchkit-baby-apps) [2]
[https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-
guideline...](https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-
guidelines/watchos/overview/themes/)
~~~
personlurking
>Consider how willing you would be to hold your wrist up in front of you for
30+ seconds.
I'm likely an outlier as I keep it in front of my face for 2-3 minutes at a
time when playing games, but I admit that it's a limited use scope, and my
raised arm is usually supported in some way.
After a week of inital usage, the more quick interactions I discover, the more
I like the watch. But when that fades, I'll at least be left with the ability
to read full Wikipedia articles and browse Reddit, thanks to 3rd party apps.
------
runjake
I've played with the new Watch frameworks a little. Aside from the most basic
toy apps, the Apple Watch app frameworks really aren't ready or stable enough
for prime time.
It will take another year or two, depending on how much effort Apple puts into
improving the APIs.
The most recent episode of the Under The Radar podcast goes into this a bit:
[https://www.relay.fm/radar/174](https://www.relay.fm/radar/174)
------
CM30
Well, it may first be worth asking how many Apple Watches have been sold
overall. I haven't found any good stats for that, but it seems like it's
around 30 million, and sales may have slowed down since then.
Meanwhile the iPhone's sales are in the hundreds of millions, and more are
sold per year than there are Apple Watches sold since launch.
So it's quite probable many developers don't see the need to make apps for the
device. The market isn't large enough compared to other places they could be
focusing their resources.
Outside of that, as people have said, Apple Watch development was difficult
early on, there are fairly few concepts that make sense for apps on a watch
compared to on a smartphone, and it's more challenging working within the
constaints of a watch than a phone overall.
So it seems like more work for a more limited set of concepts on a device that
may not have a market large enough to justify the effort.
------
ryanmercer
I haven't been on iOS for years but I had a first gen watch, aside from
glancing at my wrist when driving or doing something with my hands to see what
a text message said, I couldn't see any practical use for the watch, which is
why I ended up selling it after 5-6 months. I did use it a couple of times to
take a call when I was doing garden work and didn't want to fish my dirt-
covered hand into my pocket but obviously that was a subpar experience and not
something you'd likely do often.
I love the idea of devices like this but if it's something that requires you
to look at, and manipulate things on, the screen... I'd rather just use my
phone. I imagine many people buy them purely as a "hey look at me, I gots me
an Apple watch!" and some people might buy them so they can glance at their
watch (pretending no one notices) to check incoming text messages in
environments where it would be rude or not allowed to pop out their phone, but
from my own experience I just can't see them being practical enough to really
have enough interest to spur development aside from "here's the most important
data from our app mirrored on your wrist!"
~~~
brianwawok
I think the main use case is activity tracking. If you already have an
activity tracking watch and it breaks, hey an Apple Watch let’s you activity
tracking and maybe vibrates during navigation so you don’t miss your turn. But
I have never seen much use past that.
Currently rocking a garmin 735 for activity tracking / run gps. When it breaks
maybe I will get an Apple Watch? Or maybe a newer garmin. Nothing else the
Apple Watch does really interests me. Also my watch goes 7-10 days between
charges.
~~~
ryanmercer
I forgot about the map notification, that was somewhat useful the few times I
had to drive somewhere new (unless on the interstate/highway as it would
vibrate with 1-2 seconds of notice, at least back then on gen1).
~~~
personlurking
Sometimes it's through reading comments on how others use the apps that I
discover a new way to use it. I thought Maps was restricted to looking at a
map and zooming in and out.
------
dave84
In my experience, 2 years with the Apple Watch, it is primarily used for
notifications and fitness related activities. It does those very well, for
everything else it’s easier just to take the phone out of my pocket.
------
2rsf
I have an AW for a few years now and was somewhat following the Apps trend, to
my best understanding it's not about HW limitations, ease of development or
number of users but simply the lack of usability.
Companies pulled out of AW because they found out that there is no reason for
a watch-app. The screen is too small, feedback is limited by nature etc.
~~~
Nextgrid
> Companies pulled out of AW because they found out that there is no reason
> for a watch-app.
There just isn't enough screen real-estate for ads and it's hard/impossible to
embed creepy analytics SDKs in Watch apps.
~~~
2rsf
on the older AWs everything went through the phone, and AFAIK even today for
most things you still need the an application on the phone to do the heavy
lifting- so analytics still looks possible
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do I get a job at a SV startup as an international? - applepi
I am CS student approaching graduation and I would love to work in Silicon Valley and get inspired by the environment and the energy there is around. So I wanted to ask you how to best achieve this goal of mine.
I will be getting my MSc in CS in Italy in April and in May I will be defending my MSc thesis in the US (kind of a double degree), so I thought I'd stay a week in San Francisco to do some interviews with startups. I know H-1B visas are only issued once every year and there's only a limited amount, so how those hiring international usually work? Also, when is the best time to apply for open positions if I will be in SF in the second week of May?
Thank you in advance for any help!
======
mtmail
There is no short-cut around getting a work visa. The company needs to spend
time and money to even start the visa process and it can take months to years
to get all cleared. The company also has to prove to the government they
weren't able to find a US person to do the same job. That's much easier if you
are some kind of expert in your field or the job description matches almost
only you.
Alternatives are the yearly Greencard lottery or getting hired by a subsidiary
of US company in Italy and then do an internal transfer after a year. That
rules out most startups.
May I suggest moving to Berlin instead? Inside Europe you can move and work in
any country.
~~~
neumino
There are alternatives like F1, J1 etc. You can get transferred with a L1 one
year after moving.
It also doesn't take years to get a H1-B...
~~~
asdasdasdwtf
F1 is for students AFAIK,which does not apply to the OP since (s)he's
graduating. Aldo J1 I think is for internships, which could be a temporary
"fix", but in the long run (s)he will need an actual work visa.. I'm
interested too,what's the process for a work visa, once the company decides
you're a good fit?
------
sylvainkalache
I would suggest you to follow TechMeAbroad. They are working on a platform to
connect SV companies and candidates from abroad. It's not live yet, but soon
to from what I heard.
[https://twitter.com/techmeabroad](https://twitter.com/techmeabroad)
[https://www.facebook.com/techmeabroad](https://www.facebook.com/techmeabroad)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
TSA compton backscattering exposes body to non-negligible radiation (2010) - hovden
http://www.public.asu.edu/~atppr/bodyscan.html
======
bonzini
This article is from 2010. These days the TSA is using millimeter wave
scanners (with frequencies around 30 GHz).
~~~
djsumdog
Yea I was thinking that. The back-scatter xrays are all gone, but they were
not as safe as this article is trying to make. There were a lot of
radiologists who were concerned.
The millimeter wave machines are less dangerous, but they also don't really
work well at all and have a high false positive rate. They're pretty much
security theater, which we're seeing a lot of again now.
~~~
m0zg
> There were a lot of radiologists who were concerned.
Would those be the same group of people who are "concerned" about 5G towers
today? You can always find a small group of people who are "concerned" about
anything you like. The press uses this for nearly every such story they
publish. Without statistics quantifying that "a lot" the statement is
meaningless. And even if you have the statistics, there being "a lot" of them
is not a guarantee that they were right. One would need to present evidence
for their concern as well to be treated seriously. Such evidence does not
exist, since airplane flights themselves are a source of radiation exposure.
[https://cdn.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/DZqWhneDEMxElDzz7ZiUk0Jv93w=...](https://cdn.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/DZqWhneDEMxElDzz7ZiUk0Jv93w=/0x0:1599x7185/1520x0/filters:focal\(0x0:1599x7185\):format\(webp\):no_upscale\(\)/cdn.vox-
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/4030924/RADIATION-FLIGHT-DOSES.jpg)
~~~
TeMPOraL
A very reasonable heuristic for life is: you should not be concerned about
non-ionizing radiation (like 5G), unless in doses that could burn your face
off. You should, by default, be concerned about ionizing radiation (like
x-rays) in any dose above the natural background.
~~~
acidburnNSA
That's been the heuristic since the 1950s. Now we have much more data on low-
dose ionizing radiation. Regulations still assume linear no-threshold, yet no
one has definitively shown that anything below 100 mSv causes harm or good
using vast amounts of data (c.f. US natural background of 3 mSv/yr). Thus, my
rule of thumb is to start worrying only if I get more than 100 mSv either
acutely or integrated over a year.
I worry a lot more about eating hamburgers than anything less than 100 mSv.
~~~
TeMPOraL
I agree, and didn't mean to imply otherwise. I was focusing more on the point
about ionizing vs. non-ionizing radiation, which I swear to god had to drill
into random people's heads in every imaginable way and combination.
I assume this chart is still good to show to people:
[https://xkcd.com/radiation/](https://xkcd.com/radiation/)?
~~~
acidburnNSA
Gotcha. Yeah lots of people don't get that.
Yeah I still love this chart!
------
acidburnNSA
With radiation, I always recommend people study page 6 of this DOE radiation
dose range pdf [1] to put dose rates in context. The spectrum of radiation
doses spans many orders of magnitude and a single atom decaying is readily
detectable.
Note in particular that there are places on Earth like Ramsar, Iran that have
natural background dose rates above 50 mSv/year and no one has been able to
show definitively that dose rates at or below that level do or do not cause
harm (or benefit!).
[1] [https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2018/01/f46/doe-
ioni...](https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2018/01/f46/doe-ionizing-
radiation-dose-ranges-jan-2018.pdf)
Another fun data point is the longitudinal studies of flight crew who spend a
good part of their career exposed to higher-than-normal natural cosmic
radiation (while flying they are above much of the Earth's protective
atmosphere) [2]. We should compare how much dose we get from the scanners at
airports to how much we get from intergalactic protons raining down from the
cosmos while we're up in the air.
[2]
[https://www.bmj.com/content/325/7364/567](https://www.bmj.com/content/325/7364/567)
One time I took a geiger counter on a flight just for fun [3]. It really was
clickin'!
[3] [https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2014-05-17-radiation-on-
fligh...](https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2014-05-17-radiation-on-flights.html)
~~~
hammock
I don't get why a full year's worth of background radiation is always compared
to an acute 5-sec (or less) exposure from an x-ray machine.
If the background rate is 50msv/year, and a machine doses that much (50msv) in
5 seconds, that's 6.3 MILLION TIMES greater than the background dose.
~~~
sizzle
This is an excellent point, does an acute dose of radiation in a short
timespan cause more cellular damage than long-term exposure?
~~~
acidburnNSA
Absolutely yes. But acute low-dose below 100,000 μSv has never been shown to
cause or not cause harm.
------
toufka
The open letter from biophysicists at UCSF _at the time_ outlined many of
these concerns [1]. It was clear that the way these machines were being
assessed was not scientifically rigorous, and were likely dangerous. The DHS
Secretary Michael Chertoff had an interest in the company selling the scanners
[2]. The damage done to the public’s trust and the public’s DNA by forcing
these machines on people was awful.
[1]
[https://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2010/11/17/129...](https://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2010/11/17/1290049297-ucsf-
jph-letter.pdf)
[2]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Chertoff](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Chertoff)
~~~
javert
DHS is a far bigger threat to our freedom than terrorism.
In "policing" work, there is a line where you become a bigger threat than the
bad guys, and you become the bad guys.
Many DHS agencies don't care. They are self-perpetuating institutions that act
in their own "institutional" interest.
Note to DHS language parser: this comment should be classified into your "big"
database ("normal patriotic American complaining about gub'ment"), not your
"small" one ("actual threats").
------
georgeburdell
Has anyone seen these recently? I saw one in Boston many years ago, but every
airport I've been through since uses the mm-wave ones, distinguishable by
their rotating action
~~~
armitron
It boggles my mind that people accept to be treated as lab rats with unknown
consequences to their health decades down the line, just so an utterly useless
bureaucracy can justify its existence and certain political goals can be met.
Of course the TSA is just the tip of the spear. As James Duane so powerfully
demonstrates in his talk and book [1], the number of gun&badge toting Federal
agencies with the power to ruin one's life, sometimes even making up crimes to
do so, has been steadily increasing. As has the number of nonsensical criminal
statutes and regulations in the books.
[1] [https://www.cato.org/events/you-have-right-remain-
innocent](https://www.cato.org/events/you-have-right-remain-innocent)
~~~
minaguib
Since their introduction, I've had no issues telling the agent "I'd like to
opt out of the scanner". This adds ~10 minutes as I have to wait and perform a
manual pat-down, but personally that's not something I mind. Others obviously
may feel otherwise for varying reasons.
I've found this article (10 years old now, :
[https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-
conditions/are-f...](https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-
conditions/are-full-body-airport-scanners-safe) ) to be fairly well-rounded. I
wonder if, since then, there has been a better analysis of actual/measured
results of these technologies.
~~~
cgearhart
I have always opted out of these scanners as a matter of principle. (To wit, I
think it’s an erosion of privacy.) But you should know that the TSA changed
their guidelines such that granting a request to opt out is effectively up to
the discretion of the TSA agent at security. Their new guidance says:
>While passengers may generally decline AIT screening in favor of physical
screening, TSA may direct mandatory AIT screening for some passengers.
I found out about the change as I was going through security and opted out.
The folks in line behind me said “I didn’t know you could do that” and a queue
formed of folks opting out. They made everyone else behind me go through the
scanner, saying that it was a security risk to have folks queueing to opt out.
(It’s a security risk to form a queue inside a long security screening queue?)
The reality is that this rule change was needed so that they could avoid the
screening process grinding to a halt if everyone requests a manual screening.
[https://onemileatatime.com/tsa-scanner-opt-
out/](https://onemileatatime.com/tsa-scanner-opt-out/)
~~~
kilo_bravo_3
The nudie-scanners have been gone for over six years and the current scanners
are nothing more than (at a high level) low-resolution "difference" detectors.
The only way they'll invade your privacy is if your genitals are made out of
metal. And no, genital piercings don't trigger them.
With ATR (automated target recognition) scanners it is literally, definitely,
assuredly, irrefutably impossible to reconstruct any image or representation
of the human body in any capacity approaching useful or attributable using
2020 scanners.
What are the privacy ramifications of 2020 airport scanners?
Not 2014 scanners. I do not care about something that does not used anymore.
I would assert that a patdown is an infinitely greater "erosion" of privacy
than the post-feature and contour extraction comparison of phase history data
to a generalized model of the human form.
~~~
catalogia
Who cares if there aren't privacy implications? It's still security theater
and should be opposed on principle. Anything beyond metal detectors is
pointless. You can't hijack airplanes anymore because the other passengers
won't comply with hijackers anymore; that was proven on 9/11, long before any
fearmongering bureaucrats imposed any of their corrupt theatrical horseshit.
~~~
kilo_bravo_3
In what way is it security theater?
It’s real and it works better than the technology it replaced.
~~~
catalogia
Would you be interested in purchasing a tiger-repellent rock from me? I can
guarantee that if you purchase one of my rocks, no tigers will eat you.
They're real rocks, I assure you.
------
appleflaxen
If everyone opted out of the scanners, they would quickly disappear.
~~~
Someone1234
I opted out of backscatter back in the day (and looking at the facts
retrospectively I feel validated in doing so, for example the miscalibrated
units found to be spitting out 20x more radiation than designed).
I don't opt out of Millimeter Wave today, as I'm yet to see convincing
scientific arguments or evidence that they're unsafe, or what the mechanism
would be outside of mild tissue heating. I do choose to close my eyes when
scanned though, take that as you will.
~~~
cosmotic
Have you seen any convincing scientific evidence that they are effective? I
mean... Do they stop terrorism? They may not give you cancer but those
machines aren't free.
~~~
Someone1234
Beyond the scope of opt-outs. This is more a political question masquerading
as a scientific inquiry.
------
latchkey
I really don't worry about the low levels of radiation or not.
What I worry about is trusting the TSA to keep these machines operating
correctly and within spec. The care they give the machines cannot be greater
than the care they give to the employees, and we know how well they treat
employees.
------
godelski
This article is a little absurd. They are talking about uSv (10^-6) than give
the big warning
> Scary thing, what happens if scan jams and fail-safe mechanism fails --
> local dose very high of order a few Sv
We can do this with anything. I'm not so concerned about these machines
failing in a region that typically has radiation monitors. Sure, we should be
concerned with machinery failing, but the amount one should worry isn't
proportional.
------
settsu
It’d be fascinating to know how many products, or entire businesses, are able
to exist or even thrive through broad ignorance (whether willful or naïve) of
their true nature.
------
johnklos
.emf files on a web site?
There's a reason that the scanner manufacturers got exemptions so they
wouldn't have to report measured radiation.
------
javert
Needs to be retitled (2010)
------
ryanmarsh
Looking forward to the epistemological study in my 70’s after I’ve had my
prostate ripped out, wherein we find men who traveled frequently post 9/11
were at increased prostate cancer risk from millimeter wave tech.
------
madengr
I can’t recall the name of the principle, or the exact dose, but isn’t 1 Sv
enough to cause a 50% death probability from radiation sickness, and 3 Sv
enough to cause a cancer? There is a good youtube series (IIRC nuclear policy
course at MIT) I was watching when the Chernobyl show was on last year.
So 0.25 mSv is enough to cause a cancer for every 12,000 people they scan.
That’s a lot of people considering the throughput of airports. Lovely. I’m
glad this was shit-canned.
~~~
vkou
You have 4 litres of blood in your body.
You will die if you lose 2 of them.
A typical lab blood draw is ~10 ml.
Does this mean that for every two hundred people who get their blood drawn,
one is killed?
~~~
madengr
Of course not, but if I inject you with 2 L of peanut oil, it will kill you.
If I do the same at 1 ml to 2000 people, maybe the statistics work out so a
single, hyper-allergic person is dead. That’s all the linear approximation is
saying, and that lecture series says it has held true. The interesting thing
about it, is the dose for a single cancer is above the lethal dosage.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
23andMe Is Monetizing Your DNA the Way Facebook Monetizes 'Likes' - chmars
http://climateerinvest.blogspot.com/2016/07/23andme-is-monetizing-your-dna-way.html
======
aub3bhat
So on one side journalists lament lack of new drug development & just the
shoddy state of healthcare tech, while as soon as any new data that can
potentially unlock new drug targets (23andMe) or provider better support
(Google DeepMind Health) is introduced, Such efforts are quickly demonized
with spread of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.
Rather than asking important questions such as at which level the "aggregate"
data is shared, or what safeguards exists, the blog post and source "Gizmodo"
article is quick to jump gun and spread fear (You are the product / you are
being sold!!!). These posts are targeted to derive same emotional response
that drive anti-vaxxers / anti-GMO nuts.
~~~
krisdol
I just want to pay for a service or product and have that be the end of my
interaction with the company as well as the end of the company's use,
possession, and monetization of my data. When I buy a stick of gum I deprive
the store of that stick of gum in exchange for money. On the Internet I'm
purchasing something but the company gets to hold on to and share it
indefinitely. It not only benefits from the money exchange but also continues
to use the very product they sold me to continue to beef up their profit.
Taking my money is apparently just a nice bonus but not what they're really
after. I wish the privacy cost was stated in as clear terms at transaction
time as the monetary cost, and I believe that users should receive royalties
when their data is used for any continued access.
~~~
biomcgary
Your genetic data is nearly worthless, even to you, unless the aggregated
database exists. The real cost is in the analysis and interpretation not the
collection of the data. Thus, for your own benefit (i.e., clear knowledge of
your genetic risks), they must monetize your data (i.e., find someone to pay
them to perform the analysis, whether drug company or charity, e.g., American
Heart Association). As long as they are up front about what they are doing and
protecting your identity, your interests and theirs are fairly aligned. I know
a study funded by a famous non-profit (you have heard of them, I am sure) that
advances the field of study substantially, but it is not yet published (and I
am not directly involved).
~~~
coldtea
> _Your genetic data is nearly worthless, even to you, unless the aggregated
> database exists._
It's not about stealing from X or Y individual -- it's about privatizing and
locking down an immensely useful and valuable global resource -- that
"aggregated database".
------
gwern
This is really not surprising. Media coverage of 23andMe all the way back to
its founding has said that it was offering SNP testing at-cost to build a big
database which can be used for all sorts of things (although they were
probably too optimistic about the usefulness of it). The real scandal is how
23andMe has published appallingly little research based on it. When I signed
up with 23andMe, I was totally fine with them selling my genetic data; because
I expected them to be participating in research. Instead, what we get is
occasional cutesy stuff, occasional contribution of a cohort to other
researchers, and a few papers a year on not particularly interesting topics
like coffee consumption (some hits, naturally, since everything is heritable,
but not an important topic). Contrast this to the UK Biobank which has been -
with a fraction of the 23andMe sample size - releasing blockbuster paper after
blockbuster paper over the past year alone!
~~~
biomcgary
I think it may just be taking time for scientists to start working with their
pipeline, which is somewhat cumbersome simply due to their privacy controls. I
predict we will start seeing more studies soon. See my other comment on this
thread for details about one of those studies.
~~~
gwern
That seems highly unlikely. 23andMe has been in operation since 200 _6_. They
hit UK Biobank sample size sometime around 2010. The Biobank researchers have
been managing to pump out paper after paper (check out Bioxiv!) over the past
half-year even though as far as I can tell, their genetics pipeline only
started yielding data back around October 2015. How long are we supposed to
wait on 23andMe before concluding that they just aren't making very good use
of their data from the perspective of the public interest and have focused on
commercialization?
------
stevecalifornia
The pros of using 23andMe has vastly outweighed any cons, real or
hypothetical.
Here is a pro: I was able to print out a 3 page report to give to my new
doctor that described what medications I had a low / high tolerance for and
what medical conditions to look out for as I grow older. My doctor was
floored-- and as a result we do a few extra tests every year to keep track of
a potential eye condition I am at a higher risk for.
So what is the potential cons? Perhaps my DNA data is used to help make drugs
to help other people? Even if it's wasn't aggregated and my data wasn't
anonymous I'm still unsure what I am supposed to be afraid of.
~~~
mmcconnell1618
23andme doesn't provide this data. I'm assuming you exported your data to a
3rd party service. Could you share which one?
~~~
legaultm
23andme does provide health data in other countries like Canada.
~~~
burfog
I wonder what it would take to convince them that you are in Canada.
------
jacquesm
It's fairly obvious by now that 23andme is just a collector of data, not a
source of useful research or actual results.
The best bit: you pay to give them your data.
In that sense Google and Facebook are more fair, they give a free service and
you pay with your data.
For their customers (the ones who give them samples) 23andme is expensive
infotainment, which will worse case lead to a whole pile of un-necessary tests
done by a generation of empowered hypochondriacs.
~~~
biomcgary
I am friends with some academic researchers that recently completed a study
with 23andMe. My friends designed the experiment, 24andMe researches applied
their design to the data and reported the statistical outcome. For their
field, the results had the most significance seen yet for the phenotype
studied. The genetic variants identified in the study will now go into further
testing to understand the mechanisms by which they are acting, which will take
time. Nonetheless, this will be a substantial step forward for the field.
~~~
jacquesm
Link to the paper?
~~~
biomcgary
Sorry, the paper is not yet published, which is why I have been a little vague
in describing it.
------
JulianMorrison
It's ridiculous to be stingy with your DNA information. You're dropping that
stuff all over any sofa you sit on. It's not you (any more than your twin is
you) and it's not yours in any proprietorial sense, it's just data. Chill and
let the nice scientists study it.
So far as I'm concerned, if they can use my information to help study medical
stuff, it's entirely cool by me.
~~~
jomamaxx
That's great, but it's your choice.
Also - that my DNA is on my sofa does not mean it's being published, sold, and
used for purposes beyond my expectations.
~~~
eggie
You're forgetting the other point that the poster made, that your DNA is no
more yours than your grandparents', or cousins, or any other ancestor or
distant relative that shares bits of their genome with you.
By the way, we are all related, and virtually everything in you is not unique.
There are maybe 50-100 point mutations out of 6 billion that are unique to
you.
And anyway, what's the point of your genome unless you can compare it to
others. So, share already. We're all just remixes of each other.
~~~
jomamaxx
"You're forgetting the other point that the poster made, that your DNA is no
more yours than your grandparents', or cousins, or any other ancestor or
distant relative that shares bits of their genome with you."
No, my DNA is distinct from theirs, and it's 'mine'. :)
Those 50-100 points identify me, uniquely.
~~~
JulianMorrison
They identify you and all your clones and twins, who are separate people.
Which you may currently have none of, but that might not continue to be so.
------
a13n
The data is anonymized, who cares?
Good for 23andMe. We could learn very important things from that data in
aggregate. We need more aggregated data in healthcare.
~~~
krick
What do you mean "anonymized"? It's your DNA, it basically is _you_. Much more
than your name, email address, or whatever you consider de-anonimization.
~~~
avree
It's not you until you tie it to your identity. I leave "DNA" all over; people
cannot match it to me unless they have an existing sample that is definitely
from me.
~~~
DanBC
They can get close if they have your relative's DNA.
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-
somerset-36245888](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-36245888)
A man killed a girl. His DNA was gathered at the scene. 26 years later his
daughter committed a minor crime, and had her DNA taken as part of her arrest,
which led them back to him.
------
binaryanomaly
Would be better to link directly to the original article/source?
[http://gizmodo.com/of-course-23andmes-business-plan-has-
been...](http://gizmodo.com/of-course-23andmes-business-plan-has-been-to-sell-
your-1677810999)
~~~
nolepointer
Yeah, and that article was published last year ...
~~~
binaryanomaly
Right. But still makes it to the top ;)
------
Symmetry
When I signed up for 23andMe at least half of my motive was to help them
discover new things about people's genomes including the development of new
drugs. So good for them, basically.
------
eli
What wrong with using aggregate dna data to help target cures for Parkinson's?
~~~
dd9990
Even with the best of intentions things can go wrong and there are lots of
unanswered questions in this emerging field. I'm sure the medical
organizations involved are very aware of these problems, like protecting the
privacy of those in the datasets. We've seen medical data de-anonymised in the
past - it's not a trivial problem to solve. Likewise there are moral issues.
What happens if you discover X% of people in the study have an extremely high
risk of developing Parkinson's? Do you contact them? Do they have the right to
know? Do you have the right to tell them? Would they even want to know? These
are questions we're only starting to think about now.
~~~
corecoder
> Do you have the right to tell them?
This I don't understand: what does it mean? What is the right to warn people
of dangers? How do you earn such a right? How do you lose it?
Have someone else tell them if you think you haven't the right somehow.
------
j2kun
23andme has a very clear privacy policy on their landing page. So what's this
all about?
~~~
pdkl95
A privacy policy is not informed consent. Nobody would have a problem if they
_asked first_. The tech industry likes to act as if they have a right to use
any data they get their hands on for any purpose; why wouldn't you expect a
hostile reaction when people see their data being used without their explicit
permission?
A common response is that nobody would participate with a proper opt-in
system. That lack of participation is sending a clear message.
~~~
ig1
IIRC 23andme gives you a very specific "agree for this data to be used for
medical research" consent prompt.
------
Kequc
As a 23andme customer I guess this means that drugs that suit my DNA are
therefore as a result of this study going to benefit me before anyone else. I
don't mind if my DNA is used for scientific research and I don't call that a
moral grey area in any way. It's data.
Good for them and for me.
------
gettingbored
I'm sad to see such poorly written blog post with a clickbait title get all
these points.
I'd suggest that you instead read this well thought out (and rather complete)
paper about the biomedical ethics at play within 23andMe's two-sided market
business model.
(no paywall to download the paper)
[https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s129...](https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12910-016-0101-9)
------
Fishman343
This sort of data is exactly what I would not want to entrust to any
organisation in the midst of all of the leaks and hacks we are seeing in the
news. Let alone having them sell it legally to god knows who...
I remember reading about a hack/leak of, I think around 20,000 people's
fingerprint data from the US government, and thinking to myself about the
consequences of this biological data falling into the wrong hands. If there
are any spies in that list and any country, say China, gets a hold of it,
there is no way to update that spy's security, you can't change their
fingerprints the same way I can think of a new password after a hack.
I might not be worried about anyone seeing my DNA profile at the moment, but
maybe I will be in the future, and once the data is out there it can't be
taken back or changed on my end.
~~~
toomuchtodo
My entire genome is publicly available through Harvard's Personal Genome
Project. I weighed the pros and cons, and settled on helping contribute to
progress was more important than my fear of the unknown future.
~~~
dekhn
Me too! [https://my.pgp-hms.org/profile/hu80855C](https://my.pgp-
hms.org/profile/hu80855C)
let me know if you find anything interesting. When I had it sequenced, the
genetic counsellors said I had none of the common disease risk factors, which
seemed a bit surprising.
I have a background in biology, have done extensive work with genomic data,
and weighed the future risks pretty carefully. Ultimately I didn't see any
real problem with posting my raw BAM files and I assume a dedicated person
could identify me if they tried.
------
chillingeffect
Most people are missing that by only making this info available at market
rates, rather than as a non-profit, it doesn't benefit the general good/public
equally. It benefits incumbents asymmetrically.
Furthermore, by only collecting data from those with excess income,
afflictions of the poor will remain less diagnosable.
There will be some trickle-down into poorer people, but if you think it
"doesn't hurt to help people get healthier," try to see you're mainly helping
wealthy people get wealthy people better. It's a slow-motion form of eugenics.
We all know how well trickle-down theories work.
------
dominotw
I have had 23andme for last 7-8 years; I've also paid for all their upgrades
over the ye.ars
I've not gotten a single useful information out of it and I don't hope to in
near future. It got a bunch of useless information like ear wax type, hair
color ect right but overall its waste of time and money.
Privacy concerns over ppl exploiting raw data are overblown given its
impossible to draw any useful conclusions from just raw data.
You can find bunch of raw 23andme exports on github.
------
ageofwant
Very presumptuous article, not that that's new. When I paid my $100 several
years ago I hoped and expected that my data would be sold of as many times as
possible. So much more good can come of it than bad.
Insurance companies can and do insist on health checks before they insure you,
unless prevented by legislation. This is not new.
------
phkahler
Does 23 and me actually sequence your DNA? I thought they just looked for a
whole bunch of specific gene variants with known effects or associations.
------
palmdeezy
Is it anonymized? I do wonder if the costs are or will one day be worth the
personal gain?
------
kjenkins
If you're interested in personal DNA sequencing but don't want your genetic
data shared (or you want to be able to analyze your entire genome, not just
the small bit 23andMe does), check out Guardiome. This is their entire mission
statement as a company.
------
dgcoffman
Happy to participate. You're welcome, whoever benefits.
------
__a__
Is your DNA is now the "intellectual property" of a company?
The company sells rights to access sequence infromation from your DNA, i.e.,
their intellectual property, for up to 60 million.
Do you get any of that "up to 60 million"?
And why should you?
It's not like it's your DNA.
You sold it.
Well, actually you paid a fee to some company -- that has been threatened with
being shut down by the FDA -- to take your DNA.
Who started this company? Ex-wife of Google founder.
According to Wikipedia the fee has jumped from $999 down to 99 then to 199.
So what's the service worth?
I don't know but I have a feeling it ends in 9.
Personal genomics is a great idea that has been around for a long time. Well
before Google and Facebook.
But this company, applying "the Google approach" to biotech, was never a good
idea.
That's only my opinion.
It's quite possible each of the 1 million or so donors was happy to donate
their DNA "to science".
The issue I have with "the Google approach" is that the company is not doing
much except collecting data and running cheap tests -- and of course
marketing.
There's no world class research at 23andme. God only knows what they'll do
with the money they get from selling people's personal information.
They are just middlemen, selling off people's personal information for a easy
profit.
Very innovative.
------
mevile
Nobody is forcing anyone to use 23andme. If this bothers you don't use this
service?
~~~
civilian
We didn't know they would do this when we signed up and gave them our DNA
years ago?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The SK8 Multimedia Authoring Environment - ingve
http://sk8.dreamhosters.com/sk8site/sk8.html
======
brudgers
Wikipedia:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SK8](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SK8)
------
ingve
Someone archived the code on GitHub:
[https://github.com/waywardmonkeys/apple_sk8/](https://github.com/waywardmonkeys/apple_sk8/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The most amazing natural arrow in neg space – photo is Not edited - andrewfromx
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/t31.0-8/12418910_10103716194877567_4797997363792666329_o.jpg
======
andrewfromx
you see the arrow right side center? It's like the fedex logo. it's amazing
and occurred in real life, no image editing.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) - vezycash
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journal-plague-year-180965222/
======
js2
While doing ancestry research years ago, I learned I had a great uncle who
immigrated to America from Romania aboard the RMS Carpathia in 1904. (Eight
years later in 1912, this would be the first ship to come to the Titanic’s
rescue, and six years after that would itself be sunk by a U-Boat.) My great
uncle had left Romania likely to escape anti-semitism. He’d eventually find
his way out to Denver. Sadly, he’d die in 1918 (the same year the Carpathia
was sunk) at the age of 25, very probably from the flu.
This is a picture of him, along with his headstone and declaration of intent
to become a citizen:
[https://www.dropbox.com/sh/l16p7esag82jibs/AADTWigk7acJSrK25...](https://www.dropbox.com/sh/l16p7esag82jibs/AADTWigk7acJSrK2596qAatba?dl=0)
Google Streetview of his Denver, CO address:
[https://goo.gl/maps/DEgz5WWai822](https://goo.gl/maps/DEgz5WWai822)
~~~
JKCalhoun
Doing genealogy, I found I also have a relative that died in 1918 from the flu
pandemic. This was in fact in Kansas (surprised to see Kansas mentioned in the
article).
[https://imgur.com/dKvAf3V](https://imgur.com/dKvAf3V)
This photo was her high school graduation photo. Within a year she would be 1)
married, 2) have a daughter, 3) die from the influenza pandemic one day after
her husband.
Her daughter would be raised by her grandparents, and go on to have a large
family....
~~~
js2
She appears to be wearing a wedding band in the photo already.
~~~
JKCalhoun
Yes, I think she was married shortly after graduating.
------
duxup
"The age of the victims was also striking. Normally, elderly people account
for the overwhelming number of influenza deaths; in 1918, that was reversed,
with young adults killed in the highest numbers. This effect was heightened
within certain subgroups. For instance, a Metropolitan Life Insurance Company
study of people aged 25 to 45 found that 3.26 percent of all industrial
workers and 6 percent of all coal miners died. Other studies found that for
pregnant women, fatality rates ranged from 23 percent to 71 percent."
That's really one of the most scary aspects. Fair or not when the very young
or old die of a disease we often think of it differently.
But when the healthiest people start dropping it really drives home how
serious the situation is.
------
harias
New York city fined or jailed people for not covering their cough during the
1918 Influenza Pandemic
source : [https://www.cdc.gov/features/1918-flu-
pandemic/index.html](https://www.cdc.gov/features/1918-flu-
pandemic/index.html)
------
Aloha
This is a fantastic book on the topic: [https://www.amazon.com/Great-
Influenza-Deadliest-Pandemic-Hi...](https://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-
Deadliest-Pandemic-History-ebook/dp/B000OCXFWE/)
~~~
ruytlm
The author of the linked article is also the author of that book (John M.
Barry).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask pg: What's up with the randomly [dead] comments? - pygy_
Every day I see articulate, polite and relevant posts being flagged dead for no apparent reason. One of these posts was by jashkenas in a thread about CoffeeScript (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2503653) I've added other examples below.<p>Is this a misbehaving bot or a rogue moderator with an happy trigger?<p>http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2582372<p>http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2566826<p>http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2566797
======
wladimir
Another example:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2567191>
------
pygy_
See also: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2598559> =>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=brudgers>.
BTW, none of these people are dead banned. All of these cases are one shot
dead posts.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Happy City and Our $20 Trillion Opportunity - hcho3
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2017/02/10/the-happy-city/
======
ccvannorman
The problem with complicated "call to action" pieces like this is that they
make great points but amount to nothing. To make a real change is going to
come from big business leaders who pursue wealth and a market opportunity
(like Uber, not to say that I support them.)
It's simply not going to happen if a few hundred (or hundred thousand) people
read this article and try to "ride their bike more" or "vote against that new
highway". The system has too much momentum. Your best bet to make a real
impact is to found or be a part of a team that is founding a brand new city
with this new mentality. You're not going to change Orlando in the next 50
years with wishful thinking and good points.
~~~
LoonyBalloony
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change
something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
― R. Buckminster Fuller
~~~
khrbrt
I'm a big fan of the guy, but did any of his ideas actually catch on in a big
way? They seem to mostly be techno-historical curiosities.
------
m0llusk
How we design cities is indeed important. As such it is important to focus on
design performance and to get the history right when that is used for
reference.
Car and tire companies did not plot to shut down the streetcars. Streetcars
were disliked by their patrons and wore out. In many ways the failure to
rebuilt the streetcar system when it reached end of life is similar to the
problems with our bridges deteriorating faster than they can be rebuilt. All
transportation systems need to be embraced by customers and to be efficient
enough to be rebuilt as necessary.
It is important to understand that what happened with streetcars does not
change any of the basic points made in this piece.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Essential Coding Theory [pdf] - noch
https://cse.buffalo.edu/faculty/atri/courses/coding-theory/book/web-coding-book.pdf
======
ivan_ah
Error correcting codes are one of the coolest things you can do with math. In
general learning math is important for the _knowledge buzz_ moments and the
general "tooling for thought" but all of these are a little abstract and hard
to "sell." With coding theory, we have much more practical selling points:
learn math so you can understant GSM, 3G, LTE, 5G, 6G,... Wifi, ..., satellite
comms, storage like CDs, DVDs, BlueRay, HDs, etc.
The linked book is pretty good with lots of nice explanations and good
examples.
For a short, blog-post-like intro to the subject check out this 9-page PDF:
[https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/error_correcting_c...](https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/error_correcting_codes.pdf)
Read the linked book for the full details.
~~~
triyambakam
I really appreciate you sharing this. After a few years in the industry but
without a CS degree I've been going through the teachyourselfcs curriculum. I
hadn't come across coding theory yet. Where should I start if a lot of the
math symbols in your link are lost on me? I know I've used them years ago but
I've forgotten.
~~~
ivan_ah
Here is the Notation appendix from my LA book
[https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/notation_appendix....](https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/notation_appendix.pdf)
for your reference, and another excerpt with basic info about about using set
notation
[https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/set_notation.pdf](https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/set_notation.pdf)
If you plan to read the book by Guruswami, Rudra1, and Sudan you should
consult their notation: [https://cse.buffalo.edu/faculty/atri/courses/coding-
theory/b...](https://cse.buffalo.edu/faculty/atri/courses/coding-
theory/book/web-coding-book.pdf#page=343) For most types of symbols you can
figure out what they mean intuitively, but these two are really important, and
not obvious at all:
(n,k,d) ≝ code with block length n, dimension k, distance d
[n,k,d] ≝ a linear code with block length n, dimension k, distance d
~~~
triyambakam
Thank you, that's a huge help!
------
damnruskie
a typical hn post of esoteric theory that ppl likely upvote due to 'essential
coding' buzzwords and stuff they cant understand. While there's some good
content in here, posting a pdf of a some teachers lecture notes without
additional context is just the HN equivalent of reddit karma whoring. At least
provide a sentence saying why this is better than some other resource
~~~
bitdizzy
I don't think coding theory is that esoteric. I would expect many, but perhaps
not a majority, of people with a computer science or mathematics education to
have studied its basics. Its prerequisites are not too steep and of course it
is absolutely ubiquitous in digital technology.
I read the table of contents because I was curious what they considered
"essential" to compare it to my own opinion. I think it's an interesting
submission.
~~~
eru
> I would expect many, but perhaps not a majority, of people with a computer
> science or mathematics education to have studied its basics.
Or at least have heard about it on a pop-sci or Wikipedia level.
------
hexwab
I can highly recommend the late David Mackay's _Information Theory, Inference
and Learning Algorithms_. To my mind it's a much easier read than the above
book.
[http://www.inference.org.uk/mackay/itila/book.html](http://www.inference.org.uk/mackay/itila/book.html)
Associated lecture series:
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLruBu5BI5n4aFpG32iMbd...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLruBu5BI5n4aFpG32iMbdWoRVAA-
Vcso6)
------
ponderingfish
Madhu Sudan's books and papers are practically required reading when you are
working on a grad-level course on Coding theory. Just in case you think this
is a course on programming, its far from it. Coding Theory describes the math
behind the algorithms used to transmit data from point A to B. If you are
interested, jump to the Error Correcting Codes section for some fun times :)
------
sasaf5
The book could really do with a subchapter on convolutional codes and the
Viterbi algorithm. Those are the stepping stones to understand turbo decoders,
used in LTE.
------
balthasar
Seems like a lot just to learn web coding.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
China dominates generation 3+ nuclear reactors - mariushn
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/08/china-dominates-generation-3-nuclear-reactors.html
======
mariushn
Here's hoping that USA will start investing more in nuclear, not because it's
cleaner than coal, but at least for fears of having China take the lead.
Best of luck & thanks to startups already working on nuclear!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
US and UK Zipcode Boundaries API Is Online - boundaries
https://market.mashape.com/vanitysoft/boundaries-io
======
DrScump
Does the data reflect true geographic boundaries or just USPS boundary
definitions?
USPS addresses are based on delivery convenience and may not accurately
reflect underlying political boundaries.
For example, in the San Jose area, there are many Los Gatos addresses that are
actually in Saratoga (or unincorporated land) and vice-versa. There are even
properties with Los Gatos mailing addresses that are actually _outside of
Santa Clara County altogether_ (in Santa Cruz).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Most Widely Read Magazine in the World (2010) - Tomte
http://archives.jrn.columbia.edu/2010/nyrm.org/2010/05/13/the-most-widely-read-magazine-in-the-world/index.html
======
JoelMcCracken
One of the members of the faith here, if anyone has any questions.
~~~
Tomte
How important is the magazine to members?
Is it something you mostly hand out and don't care much otherwise? Is it
important to the faith in practical terms? Do you get information/doctrine
there you haven't already got from services?
~~~
JoelMcCracken
Doctrinal changes often come through the magazine, specifically the "study
edition". At the time of the writing of this article, there were not two
editions. Now, there is a public edition (used for placing with the public)
and a private one.
Some people might wonder if the study edition stuff is secret, it isn't. Its
just "optimized" for the different audiences. You can find them all here:
[https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/?contentLanguag...](https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/?contentLanguageFilter=en&pubFilter=w&yearFilter=)
At the weekly weekend meetings (typically Sunday mornings), the study articles
are studied, so this information also comes through services, eventually.
Edited: for clarity around the link to the study editions.
~~~
JoelMcCracken
For example, there was some updates to understanding in article studied
yesterday and last week:
[http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2016844](http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2016844)
------
sjbr
One ex-member of the faith here, if anyone has any questions.
~~~
JoelMcCracken
How do you feel about it now?
~~~
sjbr
I'm critical of the faith now (and all religion), so I feel good
~~~
JoelMcCracken
Understood. I considered myself an atheist for a time, and it is very common
in the programmer community.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
London riots / UK riots: verified areas - otherwise
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msid=207192798388318292131.0004aa01af6748773e8f7&msa=0&ll=51.558503,-0.055275&spn=0.114195,0.298691
======
Fargren
I'm almost embarrassed to ask, but why is this happening? I read that this
started saturday as a protest against a policeman who shot someone, but that
doesn't seem to be what the protests is about now. The sources I checked don't
reach any kind of consensus.
~~~
reader5000
It's not native Britons rioting, largely it is young members of immigrant
communities. However, given the apparent youth of the rioters I doubt racial
politics is a significant issue here. It appears to indeed be rioting for the
sake of rioting.
~~~
polshaw
I disagree that we are seeing any significant number of _first generation_
immigrants here.
~~~
nkassis
I think by immigrant communities he was also including immigrants children
(1st 2nd generation or more). I've seen this used as to visible minorities in
many places around the world. Including country that are mostly immigrants
like Canada (where I'm from).
What has been reported is that it's youth from poor neighborhoods. Considering
the population composition of those neighborhoods, I'm going to guess that
it's probable the groups are composed of a majority of people from those
immigrant communities. It still doesn't mean it's a immigrant riot. I bet poor
non-immigrant (as in their family always been there) are also participating.
~~~
electrichead
Everyone in Canada is an immigrant of some type - unless you are native
~~~
Fargren
Everyone everywhere except maybe in Africa is an immigrant of some type. At
some point we just stop calling them immigrants, though.
------
SandB0x
I'm in my flat in NW2 and I can hear police cars going down the Edgware Road.
Fucking terrifying. The police can't keep up, according to the news they're
showing up hours late to everything and they don't have any water cannons. Bad
times.
Edit: #riotcleanup tomorrow morning all over town:
<http://twitter.com/#!/search/riotcleanup>
~~~
temphn
The fundamental problem is that the police are not free to use the force
necessary to put down the riot. If rioters knew they would be shot on sight,
they would stop rioting.
As it is, police are afraid to crack down for fear that they'll be brought up
on charges of "police brutality".
Ultimately it will only end when the military is called in and can brandish
actual firearms.
EDIT: Amazed that someone downvoted this. Just proves the point that those who
would actually use force to restore order will be called out as "committing
police brutality."
~~~
Mz
_Ultimately it will only end when the military is called in and can brandish
actual firearms._
My ex was career military. I don't know about the UK, but he always said "You
really don't want to bring in the military (for stuff like this). Police are
trained to wound and bring them in alive. We are trained to shoot to kill."
~~~
hartror
This reminds me of the 1998 movie The Siege. Terrorists are bombing New York
and the politicians are discussing bringing in the army to hunt them down.
Bruce Willis is a hard ass general and this is what he has to say on the
subject:
_"Make no mistake, Senator. We will hunt down the enemy, we will find the
enemy, and we will kill the enemy. And no card-carrying member of the ACLU is
more dead set against it than I am. Which is why I urge you - I implore you.
Do not consider this as an option."_
_"There is historically nothing more corrosive to the morale of a population
than policing its own citizens."_
~~~
tvon
Another line that is spot on, IMO, from Battlestar Galactica:
> " _There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the
> enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the
> military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the
> people._ "
So, I guess the screenwriters guild gets it...
~~~
corin_
Lefties in Hollywood? There's a shocker! :D
------
LoonyPandora
I'm a Londoner near some of the affected areas. The sky is not falling, London
is not degenerating into lawlessness, and from what I can see from my flat
window, police are responding quickly.
Other areas may be different, but London is a very large city - commenters
should remember that in discussions.
~~~
abcd_f
So what was the trigger that started the riots?
~~~
pbhjpbhj
It appears a known criminal (gangs, drug-dealing) with a loaded handgun was
shot by police while resisting arrest; he may or may not have shot a police
officer [first] at the time of his arrest ...
[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/a-dead-man-a-
cruc...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/a-dead-man-a-crucial-
question-should-police-have-shot-mark-duggan-2334133.html)
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-
order/8687403...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-
order/8687403/London-riots-Dead-man-Mark-Duggan-was-a-known-gangster-who-
lived-by-the-gun.html)
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/08/mark-duggan-
profile...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/08/mark-duggan-profile-
tottenham-shooting)
~~~
polshaw
relevant to note that subsequent rioting has had little to do with this. (more
general) anger towards the police, along with opportunistic looting.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _(more general) anger towards the police_
So if it's not gangs trying to violent show their power then what is the
motivation in your opinion? Why sudden anger towards the police _from the
general populus_?
FWIW the buzz appears to be "send in the troops" rather than this being in any
way justified demonstration (like maybe G8 demonstrations).
------
vii
Seems to me that this would be a huge opportunity for some well co-ordinated
use of social media by the MET: many people have seen looters return to their
home with their swag and would probably be delighted to report it anonymously
- along with all photos taken by people of the actual looting. The refugees
seem to have no clear contact number let alone website to go to on their
smartphones. These people surely are motivated to inform on the rioters and
quite probably have useful knowledge.
And finally, phone location records - even without call history and text
messages - could be data-mined to give leads on the rioters - when they go
home to sleep pick them up with the loot, and you have an easier case than two
weeks later with it all squirrelled away.
~~~
tintin
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/metropolitanpolice/>
Looter archive.
------
jsmcgd
For me this is simple opportunism. The authorities have clearly been
overwhelmed and people are able to do what they like with impunity. I really
think the state response needs to escalate.
~~~
viraptor
True, I was scanning reports for some serious police/military actions but
found nothing. Vehicles and buildings are on fire, rioters are aggressive and
don't care about the police, random people are injured... I really find it
hard to come up with an explanation for not using force necessary to stop it
right now. That's a third day now - each adding damage to completely unrelated
people and property.
I work in Bristol and wouldn't be surprised if riots started happening in some
areas there, unless London ones are dealt with straight away.
Edit: Just read reports of police stations being set on fire. Now I'm really
curious what exactly is the official plan for dealing with the situation.
------
nsimplex
Hearing the accounts from some commuters returning home of what they witnessed
on their commute; it struck me as the first time I hear a use case where Color
would actually add some value. ;)
Also it is amusing to see the looters use BBM, which has been the corporate
-type favoured mean of communication to loot the economy for years.
On a serious note, just heard a devastating interview with a 6th generation
furniture store manager, while witnessing his family store go up in flames
(you will see the pic tomorrow in most of the frontages).
It is extraordinarily terrifying to consider the implications if the thugs
were a bit more organised, a bit more dispersed, a bit more armed; how much
more havoc they could cause.
For example consider the implication to the economy if they start targeting
more affluent locations, such the central London high streets (Oxford street,
Knightsbridge...). The insurance industry has already been wiped out this
year, it will be a deadly blow. To say nothing of the recently depressed UK
retail performance which fuels a lot of the London economy.
Or the implications to house prices and thousands of stretched mortgage
holders (London housing bubble is perhaps the only housing bubble in the world
that hasn't quite popped in the last two years, and if it does at this time it
will be cataclysmic) .
No doubt they already wrecked immeasurable damage to the economy, except they
bankrupt the already bankrupt councils, which is the core tragedy in all of
this.
------
reinhardt
Can't help but compare this to the uprising in the Middle East over the last
months. Sure, the motivation is different, or even incomprehensible in the
case of London. Still, they're both begging the question "why now?" and they
exhibit characteristics of a highly contagious epidemic, where the original
reasons are almost irrelevant. People frustrated for all sorts of different
reasons find the opportunity to express violently their anger with much less
fear of repercussions than usual, mostly thanks to their sheer number and
decentralization. It's fascinating (or scary, depending how close you are).
~~~
mkr-hn
Scary absolutely, no matter your location. The factors that seem to be setting
them off exist in most technically wealthy countries. This should be troubling
for anyone who lives in an area with masses of unemployed young people.
That's probably most people on HN.
------
ColinWright
What would be really useful would be to have this colour coded by day so we
could see the evolution through time.
~~~
ColinWright
This page has a colour-coded map: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-
london-14450248>
Not a good one, but at least it's something.
------
viraptor
I found this page pretty good:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/aug/08/london-
riots-t...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/aug/08/london-riots-third-
night-live) Updated every couple of minutes with reports from various sources.
Also according to the latest updates, there are some incidents in Birmingham
and Liverpool.
------
willyt
Apparently the rioters are organising using blackberry messenger. Seems like
the police are about 2 hours behind what's happening.
~~~
teyc
BBM. Doesn't the government have access to these?
~~~
willyt
Aren't they encrypted somehow? What was the thing in Saudi Arabia (might have
been different middle east country) where the gov't banned blackberry because
they couldn't snoop?
------
FrojoS
So much for all that video camera surveillance (CCTV) in London.
------
ctdonath
And now for something completely insensitive: <http://wondermark.com/743/>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Launch HN: PostEra (YC W20) Medicinal Chemistry-as-a-Service and Covid Moonshot - morraa
Hey everyone! We’re Alpha, Matt and Aaron, co-founders of PostEra (<a href="https://postera.ai/" rel="nofollow">https://postera.ai/</a>). The title above is quite a mouthful (we used all 80 characters) so we'll begin by breaking down what it means.<p>What is medicinal chemistry? It’s part of discovering new drugs. A drug hunter decides what disease to focus on and then selects ‘targets’: usually proteins whose activity is key to the disease. Then they look for a molecule that can ‘hit’ that target and stimulate a response which will hopefully have beneficial effects. Developing such a molecule that is potent and safe is medicinal chemistry.<p>Despite it being a crucial part of drug development, this field has relied on trial-and-error approaches—a very expensive way to muddle toward a drug. Where computational tools have been used, they have emphasized the 'best' designs without any awareness of what it would take to physically make the drug in a lab and test it. Our approach is to apply computational methods that know how to make these designs.<p>We’ve been working on developing machine learning tools to advance the field for the last 3 years. Alpha formed a lab at Cambridge in 2017 to apply machine learning to drug discovery. Matt joined the group and soon some exciting results began to emerge, particularly in the area of how to make molecules. We published the first model to outperform trained human chemists in predicting the outcomes of chemical reactions. Alpha then got Aaron, his former mathematics classmate and debate partner at Oxford to leave his job for the world of drug discovery.<p>We decided to focus on the one challenge that exists at almost every step: molecules need to be made. No matter how clever it looks on paper, a molecule is worthless unless it can be tested in a lab. The task of actually making molecules, known as chemical synthesis, is often a challenging problem, involving the combinatorial explosion of games like Go with moves that can’t be defined in a simple rulebook.<p>You start with a set of simple molecules which can be combined through chemical reactions (a ‘move’) to form more and more complex molecules, known as the ‘route’, until you arrive at your desired drug candidate. But how to combine these molecules? Trial and error is not an option, given the enormous cost of doing chemistry, and just enumerating all options to a client is unhelpful given that your average molecule can have hundreds of theoretically-possible routes. Searching this tree of routes and scoring the viability of such routes is where ML becomes very powerful.<p>We developed a machine-translation approach which takes in reactants and outputs the product of a reaction; an approach very similar to how Google Translate operates. This allows us to score the viability of each move. We combine this with fast tree search algorithms, used in models like AlphaGo to efficiently search the large combinatorial space of possible reactions.<p>To get this technology in front of users, we're building a cloud-based platform. Clients input the molecule they want to be made, our system designs a route for how to make it, and then the client can order this molecule through our platform. We don’t own a lab, but we partner with chemical manufacturers around the world who execute the routes we design. Combining automated chemical synthesis with compound ordering creates a better experience for the drug hunter who wants to focus on their science and just wants a vial with their compound without the cumbersome process of figuring out how to make it and where to get it from.<p>All that is what we were working on until the pandemic hit... and now we can answer the second part of the title: COVID Moonshot.<p>We had just finished YC W20 when a tweet from a team of scientists quickly changed our travel (and company) trajectory. A team of scientists at Diamond Light Source in the UK had shown that a selection of chemical fragments were effective at binding to a key part of the COVID virus. We realised there were hundreds of chemists sitting at home, with their projects on hold, who could help take these fragments and turn them into genuine drug candidates—an open-science approach to crowdsourcing a new drug. We created a platform where designs could be submitted and hoped for maybe 50 to 100 submissions. In the first few weeks, we’ve received over 4000 submissions from 200 scientists around the world.<p>This was the start of a COVID Moonshot initiative that we are now helping lead. It is an international consortium of scientists drawn from academia, biotechs, and pharma, all working pro bono or at cost with no IP claims on any resulting drug candidates. The aim is to find an antiviral candidate for COVID-19 by the end of the year—a ‘moonshot’ of a time frame compared with the standard drug discovery paradigm.<p>That standard paradigm is unfortunately broken when it comes to pandemic-related diseases. Biology and chemistry are hard enough, but things become even intractable when there are little or no commercial incentives to develop new therapies. Sadly, this explains why promising antibiotic companies like Achaogen go bankrupt and why, even after SARS-CoV brought the Far East to a halt in 2003, we still didn’t invest in coronavirus therapies during the last 17 years. For therapies that only become critical once every few decades, we need a new approach to developing drugs.<p>We think that drug hunters can learn something from the CS community and its embrace of open source. Similarly to open-source software development, someone has to manage the roadmap and triage suggestions. For Moonshot, the candidate drug submissions are great but we obviously can’t make and test all of them, so how do you pick the most promising ones? Here is where our technology comes in: it can identify which candidates can be <i>synthesized</i> easily. Since in a pandemic you need to move quickly, prioritizing compounds that can be synthesized easily is a natural triaging mechanism. Where a human chemist would take 3-4 weeks, we were able to design synthetic routes for all submissions within 48 hours. The top route designs were then passed on to our chemical manufacturing partner for synthesis. We’ve now experimentally tested over 500 compounds and found several promising candidates which we are now testing further. All data is publicly available on the site: <a href="https://postera.ai/covid" rel="nofollow">https://postera.ai/covid</a><p>Inspired by open-source software, we’re seeing advantages of open-science collaboration in areas where market incentives are lacking. We started with the opportunity to connect drug hunters with the latest ML, but have expanded this into a platform that helps connect scientists with each other. This is particularly needed when it comes to drug discovery logistics—the fragment screens are conducted in Oxford and The Weizmann Institute in Israel, computational methods are done by PostEra in California and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and chemical synthesis is carried out across several countries. Many of the features we are rolling out, such as automated alerts on suggested drug designs, open forum discussions, and live data uploads, feel very akin to a ‘GitHub for drug development’.<p>Identifying biological mechanisms of diseases and forecasting clinical outcomes are huge problems, but we believe that the chemistry stage of drug discovery can become a reliable industry rather than an artisanal craft. Machine learning tech is a key part and we're still working on it, but our clients have been constantly reminding us that just the logistical aspects of drug discovery are a great source of pain. Science software is also notoriously hard to use so we've learned that combining good UI with good ML should be our ambition. Our current mantra is: ordering a molecule through PostEra should be as easy as ordering a pizza!<p>We need more researchers, coders and chemists to help us on this journey and we’d love to hear from you if our vision sounds like something you could get on board with! Here are the open positions within the company we are now actively hiring for: <a href="https://www.workatastartup.com/companies/13332" rel="nofollow">https://www.workatastartup.com/companies/13332</a><p>Over to you, HN! We're eager to hear your feedback, questions, ideas and experiences in this area.
======
kayhi
Great idea! If I have a list of drug candidates and your software can apply a
confidence level on the best route to synthesize a product that is better than
chemists you're company is very valuable.
Inital thoughts - defining easy of synthetic pathway seems hard. If I'm an
organic chemist and the recommended molecule involves a cost, technique or
equipment that's inaccessible then I'd be stuck. However, if your network of
manufactures can make it then labs may consider outsourcing it. I commonly see
10 to 1000x pricing differences in custom synthesis so there's also a risk of
one vendor quoting too high and development prematurely stopping. For context
and those that maybe outside this field, you can get a quote for over a
million dollars for scaling up a product such as 100mg to 10g (not even a new
route). You may need large amounts of the molecule for assay, animal testing,
humans trials and going to market. Technique and equipment may not be an issue
if your network is large enough, It will be interesting to see if you charge
the drug companies as like a SaaS play and/or percent of sale from
manufacturers like the YC company Science Exchange. Another idea is offering
the software for free and make a percentage on the patent (IP) related the
pathway.
~~~
morraa
Yes absolutely, the variance of pricing across different custom synthesis
providers can be surprising. This we think though is actually an opportunity
to serve our end users (drug hunters) better. Generally the cost of synthesis
is a function of raw material costs and the labor time (translates to number
of synthetic steps and risk of each step). All these parameters are datapoints
we have access to or can model through ML. As such we've found that the
ability to search large chemical databases is a huge saving when many clients
may often just default to use a single CRO provider who may not be the best
provider for their synthesis request. We are aiming to build a good network of
reliable CRO providers to address the shortcoming and work with them to
improve algorithms to optimize for reaction conditions etc.
Regarding pricing model this is something we are still working on. And yes
you've hit the nail on the head -- We could charge the drug hunter (SaaS or
IP) or we could charge the CROs that we send the custom synthesis to. Love to
hear your thoughts here.
~~~
kayhi
In my experience, cost is not related to materials and labor. For example,
CROs know if they're likely the only company that can make a product and will
charge accordingly. Often and to me sadly, a bidding processes is needed to
determine market value of production. I've seen CROs instantly cut pricing in
half if you present another option.
I would be cautious with chemical database (unsure which you are using) as
there are companies that post chemicals as lead generation and cannot make
them.
If you solve the selection of the best route, helping with sourcing the
product may not be worth your resources. In other words, just that piece
alone, if done well, is very valuable and hope the market sees it.
~~~
morraa
Yes I guess I was referring to more robust, standard chemistry for which we
would expect the pricing to be a little more formulaic.
And you make a great point. We've been constantly reminded that virtual spaces
created by CROs are not always executable. As such we can actually constrain
our algorithms to require very high probability of reaction success to remove
false positives. We then tell the CRO what building blocks they need and the
route design. We're still figuring how much of the lifecycle of making
molecules is worth going after or, if indeed as you say, the route itself is
the key solution.
------
JunkDNA
A few random thoughts I'm curious about (full disclosure: I worked in anti-
infectives R&D as a bioinformatician early in my career for a major pharma)
1) One big challenge in synthesis is ensuring compound purity. Even when I was
working in pharma, it was often the case that some of the compounds in the
screening library could be contaminated with intermediates. This is murder for
any kind of anti-infectives research because you end up with false-positives
for toxic intermediates. Since your assay is often, "does the compound kill
the bug?" the answer for most chemicals is, "yes!". How do you ensure the
purity of what you deliver to your customers? If I'm a medicinal chemist
wanting to try this, I want to know that I'm not getting a vial of brick dust
back.
2) Just because you have a mechanism to synthesize, doesn't mean the yield is
going to be great. Does your algorithm factor in yield when selecting the
route?
3) When I started reading your post I thought, "Hats off to these folks, this
is a super hard problem that no shortage of extremely smart people have spent
years trying to solve." Then I got to the moonshot section! The number of
small molecule antiviral drugs with efficacy is vanishingly small. I
understand why you would try to tackle this, but it truly is a moonshot.
4) I can't help but wonder what Derek Lowe
([https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/](https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/))
thinks of all this, have you guys tried to reach out to him?
~~~
morraa
1\. We ensure that the compound is pure using analytical methods like NMR and
LC/MS. In our Moonshot project, the assay cascade comprises biochemical assays
against the main protease (2 different assay methodologies, run in Oxford and
Weizmann Institute) and live virus assays, thus we should be able to infer
whether the activity is caused by impurities killing the virus. In addition,
we also perform high-throughput x-ray crystallography to determine the
structures of all the protein-ligand complexes, which serves an an orthogonal
assay.
2\. Yes, our algorithm does factor in the yield when it decides which reaction
to use.
3\. You're absolutely right. It is very ambitious but we've realized that even
if we don't get our compounds into human trials (currently aiming for in-vivo
testing in next few weeks) that we will still have generated a lot of useful
data that is there in the open for when the next pandemic comes around. This
has been a real weakness from prior pandemic where research wasn't continued
and certainly wasn't stored in clean accessible ways. As I'm sure you know
SARS has super high genetic similarity to current COV-2 so having prior data
accessible and cleaned would have given researchers a real head start.
4\. Yes Derek is aware of COVID Moonshot and is also of the opinion that is it
both ambitious but sadly necessary. We continue to follow his posts as healthy
skepticism particularly in the area of AI for drug discovery is always
helpful.
~~~
JunkDNA
It didn't come across in my post in retrospect, but just want to say clearly I
love this idea and the ambitious nature of it. I think when someone works in
drug discovery, it's hard to escape this feeling that there has to be a
better, faster, cheaper way. But at the same time, the reality of seeing how
little we actually understand about biological systems on display each and
every day tends to be quite a downer! The world sorely needs more of this kind
of thinking.
------
nlh
This is an EXCELLENT write-up. Thank you for both doing what you’re doing and
for explaining it so well. I’m a software guy and have always found
biosciences to be a mysterious black box, and you’ve cracked it open it in a
wonderfully enlightening way.
Best of luck to your team and the project!
~~~
coding123
Definitely an excellent write up if not one of the best Launch HN write ups I
have seen.
~~~
lukevp
Agreed. I don’t think I can really help with this but I know exactly what
they’re doing and wish them luck. The copy was very clear and immediately
lends confidence to the team.
------
101008
Wow, this seems very interesting. As someone who did his CS Master thesis with
vaccines, medicinal chemistry is something that I always enjoy, so I chcked
your open positions. Sadly, I saw that even for Remote positions you are
asking for a VISA. Can I ask why? Thank you!
~~~
morraa
Ah thanks for pointing this out; it is slightly misleading. Visa is only
required if applicants want to work with us in our in-person office in the Bay
Area, CA. If they are a non-US citizen we sadly can't sponsor a visa. Though
certainly for remote work we wouldn't require it.
------
lend000
I love the idea: in particular, the arbitrary molecule generation. I've been
thinking about is using the mechanical structures already provided by DNA to
generate antibodies by reading the DNA tape in the same way that human cells
assemble proteins. But it would be great to find a more general solution based
on chemical computation that doesn't rely on and isn't limited by organic
chemistry.
~~~
morraa
Yes, certainly an interesting idea. For now our models are trained on large
corpora of organic chemistry reactions so our tech has some way to go before
extrapolating outside this space.
------
voicedYoda
Kudos on the launch!
If I read this correctly, your team isn't discovering new drugs, but
addressing the logistical need of building new compounds to make drugs, using
ML to circumnavigate the most efficacious route to generate said compounds.
Once complete, you actually outsource to manufacturers to build the compound
molecules using your ML generated map.
Is that close?
~~~
morraa
That's a great description. For now we are focused on helping others discover
novel drugs (rather than developing our own) and we think using ML to design
'recipes', while solving logistical challenges of shipping molecules around
the globe, is a really key part of that process. And yes the manufacturers do
use our ML generated recipes to make the compounds.
Outside of this we also engage clients on more in-depth partnerships where we
help design, make and test new drug candidates but again our real value-
add/USP here is the 'make' stage.
------
figo22
This is incredibly cool. As someone looking to try out some ideas around
applied ML, can I ask what your stack looks like?
~~~
mwcvitkovic
Employee here.
React/Django/Postgres on AWS for APIs and websites. Terraform to manage the
infrastructure. cortex.dev for serving some ML models, AWS Lambda for serving
others. ML models are all PyTorch at the moment, with RDKit doing the
chemistry heavy lifting. Data obtained through various means, including some
tools from nextmovesoftware.com
There's a bunch more tech involved in supporting the scientists in the COVID
moonshot, but that's basically everything ML-related.
Any particular part of the stack you were curious about?
------
selimthegrim
Alpha, you had a nice arxiv preprint on spin glasses and ML. The Wales lab
strikes again!
~~~
alphaalee
Thanks! That was a fun project to work on! We’re also doing some work now to
map out how the energy landscape changes as a function of network depth, and
it appears that the landscapes of DNNs look dissimilar to typical structural
glasses.
------
drc007
Sounds interesting and I'll be following you with interest. That said in my
experience deciding how to make a compound is not really the challenge, the
real challenge is deciding what to make.
~~~
morraa
Certainly we can appreciate that better designs are important though we chose
to focus on synthesis as there is an oversupply of algorithms in
literature/industry that can suggest designs ideas (we published a few of our
own) while the synthesis space was less explored and we think provides the
biggest leverage point to speed up cycle times.
Ultimately when partnering with drug hunters, outside of our cloud-based
platform, we offer the integration of molecular design with chemical synthesis
as we believe computational approaches are at their most useful when these two
aspects are coupled.
------
1996
When/how will this be exploited by the "designer drugs"/"research chemicals"
community to start a drop-shipping psychoactives business?
~~~
morraa
As a company we certainly work hard to ensure our technology is used for
approved drug development. We have internal alerts as a company as to the risk
of compounds being entered into our system and certainly suppliers and
chemical manufacturers have high regulatory oversight. But yes there is always
such an unfortunate risk but something we do spend time thinking about.
~~~
1996
Maybe I should have phrased my question differently - your startup being
exploited by a large group of people with disposable cash and unmet demands is
one of the best possible outcomes.
What is an "approved" drug development? Who gets to decide, when the
substances are not restricted or scheduled? This means making them is not
illegal. So I fail to see how it is an "unfortunate risk", except a risk of
making money- which would be fortunate :)
You are missing opportunities just due to your specific moral stance. Drop-
shipping is an excellent way to have new customer acquisition pipelines
without having to pay for them.
~~~
morraa
This could be my misunderstanding of the definition of "designer drugs" but I
interpreted this as substances which mimic controlled substances but don't
trigger drug classification or testing. Assuming this definition then this is
something we wouldn't feel comfortable supporting regardless of the cash or
demand. My understanding is that these substances are not tested in animal and
human trials or approved by governing bodies like the FDA which are critical
for the safety and efficacy of use.
Though please do correct me if I'm missing the use case you are referring to.
~~~
1996
No correction needed, it is mostly correct - however, a lot of these
substances have been tested and do not even mimic controlled substances: MK667
is a good example.
I think you may be throwing the baby with the bathwater, as designing and
improving designer drugs is an untapped market with far more potential upsides
than downsides.
------
adsodemelk
Would PostEra be interested in using their platform to cure a neglected
disease? [https://deeplearningindaba.com/grand-
challenges/leishmaniasi...](https://deeplearningindaba.com/grand-
challenges/leishmaniasis/)
~~~
morraa
This looks very similar to our Moonshot open-science initiative and we love
the idea of using crowdsourcing when such diseases lack commercial funding. If
you know the folks who are organising this we'd be very happy to discuss with
them.
------
panabee
this is an awesome idea and a very lucid explanation. good luck!
apologies if this is wildly inaccurate, but is it fair to characterize your
startup as helping people create custom drugs the same way ARM helped people
create custom chips? from the outside, it seems like there could be intriguing
parallels.
~~~
mc-robinson
Thanks, really interesting parallel -- though I can't say I'm intimately
familiar with how ARM's model works. I'll definitely do some reading.
But yes, we are very interested in helping people get made what they want to
get made. It often falls into two situations:
(1) If the customer knows exactly the custom design they want to get made, we
can help them find the best way to purchase or synthesize it. In many cases,
customers may have trouble coordinating with CROs themselves, finding the best
building blocks and route to the molecule, and dealing with logistics. We try
to help ease that pain.
(2) The customer has a specific target they want to hit and they need just the
right small molecule to "fit" in it. We also help with this, mainly through
partnerships. And our thinking is that good design of small molecule
inhibitors (such as one targeting the COVID main protease) involves expert
knowledge of what can be quickly made and tested to help guide further design.
Lastly, we also work on suggesting molecules that may be slightly different
from what the customer thinks they want, but may show similar activity -- and
will be much easier to make.
~~~
panabee
if the comparison is accurate, the world you're enabling is one where custom
drugs are as prevalent as custom chips and chem labs act as "foundries" to
produce drugs. the role you play is to help customers with the design layer of
the drug stack. if the parallels between the drug and semiconductor industries
hold true, this framing would make it easier for investors to grasp the
(massive) potential.
in the end, if your value tilts more toward logistics than IP, you may want to
mine chemistry.com (?) for lessons, a startup from the dot-com boom funded by
john doerr and kleiner perkins. the grand vision was to disrupt and streamline
the logistics of the chemical industry.
~~~
morraa
Thanks for this. Always keen to learn from older startups but I was unable to
find the company you're referring to -- any idea as to the name?
~~~
panabee
Sorry, the startup was named Chemdex (later Ventro). One article summarizing
its downfall: [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-
xpm-2001-jun-24-fi-14133...](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-
xpm-2001-jun-24-fi-14133-story.html). There were others like ChemConnect, but
Chemdex was the most high-profile.
If the article is correct, high costs for building and maintaining the "Amazon
for chemicals" were the primary cause of failure.
Many great ideas are a matter of when, not if. Knowing when to launch is as
critical for entrepreneurs as is knowing when to buy for investors.
A modern Chemdex might thrive like the modern Webvan (ie Instacart) because if
costs were the cause of death, a cloud infrastructure would address this
issue.
Obviously, this is a very different model from the ARM model.
Hopefully one of these comparisons can offer helpful insights.
------
poroppo
Nice!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
36 Hours is Not a Proper Response Time - Shenglong
http://shenglong.posterous.com/36-hours-is-not-a-proper-response-time
======
MaskedStranger
While I generally agree with this sentiment: "if it's important, I'll probably
call you before I text you, and text you before I email you."
The combination of the 2-2-2 rule and this sentence - "Needless to say, I've
been told to screw off on many occasions :)" - leads me to believe that the
author needs a little advice on human interaction. If you're the only one who
DOESN'T think that you're an a--hole, then maybe you should get used to the
fact that you're an a--hole.
~~~
Shenglong
It's meant to be a bit of humor, and a little entertaining. My human
interaction is very much fine.
------
drivebyacct2
I'm sorry, but 2-2-2 is absurd. I can't get my phone out of my pocket in 2
seconds to answer it, I can't get texts reliably enough to respond in 2
minutes, and quite frankly, despite spending 90% of my time in front of a
computer, 2 hours is neither enough to formulate a complete response to (some)
emails, nor is it sufficient time to get to a computer to type such a
response.
~~~
sixtofour
2-2-2 is fine or not fine. As a practical matter, if anyone is counting
minutes to response for a text, it doesn't always work. There are often
minutes of delay between transmission and reception.
It's like trying to count rings and hang up, as some sort of free, coded
message transmission. The thing that makes rings on your end is independent of
the thing that makes rings on their end.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Experiments in NES JIT Compilation - david_parrott
https://bheisler.github.io/post/experiments-in-nes-jit-compilation/
======
gravypod
For anyone who hasn't written a JIT I'd recommend writing a Brainfuck runtime
one day. It's a tractable and strait forward project that will teach you how
to do all of this. Start with implementing a direct interpreter and think of
ways to make it faster.
~~~
userbinator
Studying this amazing work of art is also recommended:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8746054](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8746054)
------
emerged
I've been meaning to do something similar, except by generating C code which
is compiled JIT. This way the compiler can optimize blocks of 6502 in more
efficient ways than just a direct mapping between opcodes and registers. Of
course there's no real purpose to doing this, but it's on my backlog of
"projects to do if I'm ever really bored" \- one of my first ever C++ projects
was writing a dynamic recompiler for 6502, nearly 20 years ago.
~~~
Gaelan
I think the common way to do something like this these days would be to
generate LLVM IR.
------
smegel
> Broadly speaking, a JIT (or just-in-time) compiler is a piece of code that
> translates some kind of program code into machine instructions for the host
> CPU.
No, that's a compiler.
~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
The author goes on to clarify right in the next sentence...
~~~
adwhit
I love the idea that someone got this far into the article, then stopped in a
furious rage to fire off a missive to the HN collective. If only they had read
on just One. More. Line!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A job ad: "Senior Lisp Developer" - parenthesis
http://seeker.dice.com/jobsearch/servlet/JobSearch?op=101&dockey=xml/c/5/c5a3833d4768e81f7e276c9f574d52c1@endecaindex&c=1&source=20
======
tlrobinson
Are Lisp jobs so rare that they're Hacker News worthy?
------
jsmcgd
It's as if a previously thought extinct animal has just been spotted alive
again.
------
byrneseyeview
<http://lispjobs.wordpress.com/> for more.
------
eznet
What am I missing that lands a dice.com link on the front page of HN?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Snapchat CEO's Warning About a Tech Crash and a Brutal Fall for Facebook - radmuzom
http://www.businessinsider.com/Leaked-2013-Email-Shows-Snapchat-CEOs-Warning-About-A-Tech-Crash-And-A-Brutal-Fall-For-Facebook/articleshow/45554862.cms
======
DodgyEggplant
[http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-ceo-on-tech-
bubble-a...](http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-ceo-on-tech-bubble-and-
facebook-overvaluation-2014-12)
------
rajlalwani
is it sore grapes for him? Although, in some cases the valuation might have
been higher but largely the businesses where longterm revenue opportunities
and promising sustainability are financed.
------
vonklaus
Broken Link.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The future of PCs and Macs looks expensive - gyre007
http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/28/13452084/microsoft-apple-new-pc-surface-macbook-prices-expensive-exclusive
======
emp_zealoth
Or, you know, don't extrapolate riddiculous bullshit over entire market?
Surface Studio is pretty much a niche, specialist tool (or at least thats what
the marketing seems to be aiming for) and macs, are well, macs, overpriced
(although the new pricing went from hilarious to just confusing)
------
t_fatus
That's sad, because I don't see what the equivalent of the smartphone is in
this case... VR? I would have love a more powerful 13 inches MBP instead of a
very good looking touchbar
------
yuhong
I was wondering what would happen if Intel bought Compaq back in 1991 (when
Rod Canion and Jim Harris was still at Compaq) for a while now. Intel has a
high profit margin too, and Compaq had higher profit margin back in 1991. Even
back in the late 1990s laptops still had a higher profit margin, and laptop
theft was more common in these days. Anyone remember the Apple price increases
in 1988? Particularly for the Mac II it was worse.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Schrödinger’s Tcl – Values that differ if you look at them - networked
https://github.com/aidanhs/schrotcl
======
nickodell
This is an impressively bad idea. Good work.
~~~
myrandomcomment
+1, up thumb or whatever the current thing is.
Having spent my life in networking tech, Tcl...please die.
~~~
ptero
I am primarily working on algorithms and _love_ Tcl for building simple,
robust prototypes. It is not perfect (I wish UDP support was a part of a core
language or standard library), but I use it surprisingly often. YMMV
------
zwischenzug
This guy's done many impressive things:
[https://aidanhs.com/](https://aidanhs.com/)
------
tyingq
Somewhat related, for Perl:
[http://search.cpan.org/~dconway/Quantum-
Superpositions-1.03/...](http://search.cpan.org/~dconway/Quantum-
Superpositions-1.03/lib/Quantum/Superpositions.pm)
~~~
forinti
I used this for my Quantum Countdown Sort:
[http://alquerubim.blogspot.com.br/2011/10/quantum-
countdown-...](http://alquerubim.blogspot.com.br/2011/10/quantum-countdown-
sort.html)
------
zerr
If I understand correctly, that looks like a cheating. I'd expect this to be
done purely in Tcl, without diving to C-level.
~~~
aidanhs
Author here: doing this in any language is probably going to depend on some
implementation details of the language repl, which may require dropping down
to a level where you have access to these internals - for example, I can't
think of a way you could achieve it in strict mode JS.
Python may well be able to do it with just the stdlib since it has excellent
debugging capabilities, but Tcl is relatively weak. You _might_ be able to do
something with `tcl::unsupported::getbytecode` and checking the frame level,
but this was just a throw-away novelty so I'm not particularly motivated to
find out.
~~~
Darkenetor
Alas, for JS function.caller on a getter isn't standard but will work
everywhere and should do it.
~~~
tyingq
I don't think it's that easy. If the context is making javascript output
something different in it's REPL for just "foo" vs "console.log(foo)", there's
other pieces you would need.
Like overriding a built-in type and getting function.caller into valueOf(). As
far as I can tell, JS doesn't let you just tweak valueOf(), you would have to
re-implement all of, for example, the String class.
~~~
Darkenetor
Reimplementing whole classes wouldn't have been a problem, just replace the
original ones with a proxy to a copy.
Luckily console.log calls are actually excluded from the callers stack, so the
only way is to change console itself. Just as evil if you also intercept
console methods logging and return the original ones, but less of a mess at
least.
------
yodsanklai
Unrelated but genuine question: what's the appeal of Tcl nowadays? are there
applications where it'd make sense to use Tcl?
~~~
tyingq
When it was popular, the 2 big drivers were:
\- The cross platform UI, Tk. Even if you didn't like Tcl, it was, for a
while, one of very few open source ways to get a UI that worked on a variety
of platforms. Many things, mostly the web, killed this need. Also, there are
Tk bindings for other languages now.
\- Dead simple, lightweight, way to embed a user facing scripting engine into
your application. Especially when the end user might be "technical", but not a
developer by trade. This is still a need, but it looks like people are turning
to Lua, Javascript, etc. Tcl is still embedded in a lot of hardware devices
though...cisco routers, F5 load balancers, etc.
Edit: Related trivia. TCL's inventor, John Ousterhout, was also one of the co-
creators of the raft consensus algorithm.
~~~
moomin
The thing is: I know what I think of TCL now, and I know what I thought of it
at the time. They're pretty different.
I think ultimately we've come the conclusion that whole design space isn't
that productive. Pervasive string expansion in an era of untrusted input
probably killed it for the web before it even began.
------
devdoomari
wow this is a super troll idea...
getters that change value... muahahaha
------
jamesdutc
I can do this in Python with my `rwatch` module.
>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> x = lambda: f'{datetime.now()}'
>>> x
<function <lambda> at 0x7f9f435e4510>
>>> x()
'2017-09-17 02:14:12.834957'
>>> from sys import setrwatch
>>> setrwatch({id(x): lambda f, o: o()})
>>> x # look, ma: no parens!
'2017-09-17 02:14:16.306198'
>>> x
'2017-09-17 02:14:17.734965'
~~~
aidanhs
One thing that may be non-obvious to people unfamiliar with Tcl is that it's
syntactically a shell-like language, i.e. functions are invoked with a space-
separated list of arguments and no parens. So `schro` on a line by itself
executes the function and `[schro]` is equivalent to `$(schro)` in shell.
~~~
tyingq
Only when you're using the REPL. They call it "interactive mode". [ls], for
example, will generate an error if you put that in a tcl script run non-
interactively.
_Another common cause can be the difference between interactive and command
modes for Tcl. When you start up a Tcl interpreter, get a prompt, and type in
commands to Tcl, this is called interactive mode. In this mode, Tcl does a few
extra things for you. For instance, if you type ls, and you have no proc
called ls defined, Tcl will try to exec a command called ls. This sometimes
misleads a new Tcl user into thinking that Tcl has ls defined. "_ [1]
[1] [https://wiki.tcl.tk/1630](https://wiki.tcl.tk/1630)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Chess Stockfish 12 released: 130 elo increase over 11 - galkk
https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/releases
======
galkk
Adding neural network evaluation allowed crazy elo increase
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Trambar, a social space around your GitLab project - chung-leong
https://trambar.io/
======
chung-leong
The project website of Trambar is rather oddball. I couldn’t come up with
something more conventional. You see, it’s hard to write promotional materials
for a tool that doesn’t solve any particular pressing problem. “A place of
programmers to hang out when they got nothing better to do” isn’t much of a
pitch. But that’s what Trambar basically is. It combines the GitLab activity
log with—well, random stuff that users submit.
Here’s how I imagine the typical usage scenario: A programmer is on a train,
returning home after a hard day at work. He opens the Trambar app on his phone
and quickly flips through the events of the day…
“I check these fixes into git. Yay me.”
“Tom did something to the backend code. Okay.”
“Oh, my manager liked my push! That’s nice.”
“Look what Kate had for lunch...”
“Here’s the TODO list I made this morning. Let’s see...check...check...”
“CAT VIDEO!”
Trambar is sort of modeled after Facebook. The critical difference is that you
run the software. You’re in control of your data. No one’s going to monitor
what your team is saying and then bombard with targeted adverts.
The aim of Trambar is modest: to make the lives of programmers slightly
happier. For the price of a pizza (the cost of hosting the app at a cloud
provider), you can raise your work morale by just a little bit. That’s the
bottom line.
I hope the website manages to convey the idea behind the software. My apology
in advance if anyone is offended by my strange sense of humor. The whole thing
was put together under the influence. I blame the beer.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Major new bill mandating open access introduced in Congress - michael_nielsen
https://plus.google.com/109377556796183035206/posts/FZFvDhBLTzE
======
michael_nielsen
See, in particular, the Call to Action from the Alliance for Taxpayer Access
(ATA):
[http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/action/FASTR_calltoaction.shtm...](http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/action/FASTR_calltoaction.shtml)
The ATA were closely involved in the passage of the NIH Public Access Policy
(2008), which makes all NIH-funded research openly accessible within 6 months
of being published.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Colonel Edward A. Deeds–An able man who made things work - erdifr
http://www.daytoninnovationlegacy.org/deeds.html
======
erdifr
After reading this I was left wondering if there are still people like this
today? I do not deny that we do have inventors, innovators, engineers, leaders
and other professionals today, but to me it seems like now people are more
singular in what they excel in. Colonel Deeds, in my opinion, was adept at
multiple different skill sets, the best of which was realizing when someone
else was better suited to the job and then providing them with everything they
needed.
Some further reading is available at Wikipedia :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Andrew_Deeds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Andrew_Deeds)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
When source code reveals an emotional life. - jldailey
I really liked a recent post about the ASETNIOP keyboard layout. TLDR; it's a chording key layout with an iPad app and a javascript demo.<p>http://asetniop.com/Tutorial1.html<p>The basic method for building a good chording keyboard is to identify frequently used strings/words and map them to short key combos.<p>While the code is a horror to read (I assume it's human-transpiled from C to JS), the frequency data collected by the developer shows some interesting, and sad, patterns in their life. Patterns that I am sure are familiar to lots of people on HN.<p>Take this selection of frequent words:
wChars[231]="walked";
wChars[232]="took";
wChars[233]="talk";
wChars[234]="stock";
wChars[235]="lack";
wChars[238]="period";
wChars[239]="work";
wChars[241]="human";
wChars[243]="small";
wChars[244]="home";
wChars[245]="example";
wChars[246]="simply";
wChars[247]="played";
wChars[248]="book";
wChars[249]="taking";
wChars[250]="much";
wChars[251]="almost";
wChars[252]="problem";
wChars[253]="family";
wChars[254]="economic";<p>"economic problems"... "family problems"... "book taking much"... "almost [done]"... "took stock"...
======
MojoJolo
May I know where and how the data collected? And what is the first word in the
array?
~~~
jldailey
I am not certain how/where it was collected (I am not the developer).
Also, the first word in the array won't be directly meaningful, because this
is an array that represents a whole keyboard layout (so the first element is
"a", the second "s", etc). The first real "word" is actually "and", which is
not an interesting word. And it's first-ness is even less interesting because
the order in this array is determined by the keys you press to select an item,
not the frequency of that word ("a" has a low bit value, so "and" comes before
"the", another uninteresting but very frequent word).
But, in later sections of the array (where you are pressing 5+ keys at a time
to produce a longer word), you can choose from nearly any english word, and so
it makes sense to choose ones that you use frequently, and so it makes sense
to analyze a corpus of text to find the frequent words. The words ultimately
chosen lead me to believe it was the developer's personal emails that were
scanned.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The next Big One at Cascadia will spell the worst natural disaster in America - Earth_Change
http://strangesounds.org/2016/07/the-really-big-one-cascadia-worst-disaster-history-continent-video.html
======
ThrowawayR2
Warning: this is a (unauthorized?) copy of a New Yorker article. The original
is at [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-
big...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one)
------
oldmancoyote
As a geologist trained at Stanford in natural hazards, I can say that
everything I have read here is perfectly plausible. It is not sensational
journalism. I have lived long enough to believe that little or nothing will be
done about it. Indeed few here will even read this.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Italy to China in driverless vehicles - mattsouth
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_ITALY_DRIVERLESS_ODYSSEY
======
GiraffeNecktie
A link that works:
[http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100720/ap_on_hi_te/eu_italy_dri...](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100720/ap_on_hi_te/eu_italy_driverless_odyssey)
~~~
mattsouth
oops, my intended link was
[http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_ITALY_DRIVERLESS_O...](http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_ITALY_DRIVERLESS_ODYSSEY?SITE=FLPEJ&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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