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can you really game index funds?
| from what i can see, this article is on point, but is missing an important factor: the risk these "front runners" take. as soon as the announcement is made that a company is joining the index, it's public knowledge. in theory, the expected increase, minus a risk premium, should be priced in immediately. there will likely still be money to be made over the following days until the addition is complete, but it's far from guaranteed, and comes at the expense of reduced diversification. (which i suppose is another way to say that you're getting paid for providing liquidity, as the article says.) just because aa went up x% over the 4 days, or whatever, before it joined the index, doesn't mean the next stock will. perhaps its jump will be overestimated by the hfts, and retail investors trying to get in in the days following the announcement will end up losing money. probably not, but it's certainly a significant possibility. so if a person wanted to pursue this active strategy, they would need to manage their risk appropriately. it's not necessarily a bad idea if you enjoy spending your time on that kind of thing, although personally i'd rather index (with a moderate small/value tilt). | matt levine stands out amongst journalists and commentators as someone who actually knows what he's writing about because he's been there, done it, and now wears the t-shirt when he's changing the oil on his car. |
can you really game index funds?
| matt levine stands out amongst journalists and commentators as someone who actually knows what he's writing about because he's been there, done it, and now wears the t-shirt when he's changing the oil on his car. | even if you don't care about the index fund "front-running" "scandal", the section starting at "the value of market-making is hard to see and easy to criticize" is critically important to understanding why the markets work the way they do.as always, levine is fucking fantastic. |
can you really game index funds?
| even if you don't care about the index fund "front-running" "scandal", the section starting at "the value of market-making is hard to see and easy to criticize" is critically important to understanding why the markets work the way they do.as always, levine is fucking fantastic. | this is called the "index rebalancing" trading strategy. prop desks and hedge funds have known about it for decades. a lot of money is passively benchmarked to many popular indices provided by the likes of s&p, dj, nasdaq, etc... one reason people invest in funds that track these indices is because they believe the index provider is a good benchmark for whatever its tracking. for example, the s&p 500 tracks the 500 largest us names. the nasdaq 100 tracks the 100 biggest (mostly tech-related) names that are nasdaq-listed. etc... in addition to being a good benchmark, a set of rules (here are s&ps: <link> are published by the index provider that govern how stocks are added and removed to the index. understanding these rules allows arbitrageurs (aka market-makers) to predict when names are moving before they are announced by the index provider. since a fair amount of capital is already tracking these indices, the passive indexer will be required to buy/sell the names in the index in the right proportion so as to be properly benchmarked.another interesting point is that the volcker rule has more or less caused a massive shift of this type of strategy away from us investment banks and into hedge funds. i don't have real data on this - just my observations. |
can you really game index funds?
| this is called the "index rebalancing" trading strategy. prop desks and hedge funds have known about it for decades. a lot of money is passively benchmarked to many popular indices provided by the likes of s&p, dj, nasdaq, etc... one reason people invest in funds that track these indices is because they believe the index provider is a good benchmark for whatever its tracking. for example, the s&p 500 tracks the 500 largest us names. the nasdaq 100 tracks the 100 biggest (mostly tech-related) names that are nasdaq-listed. etc... in addition to being a good benchmark, a set of rules (here are s&ps: <link> are published by the index provider that govern how stocks are added and removed to the index. understanding these rules allows arbitrageurs (aka market-makers) to predict when names are moving before they are announced by the index provider. since a fair amount of capital is already tracking these indices, the passive indexer will be required to buy/sell the names in the index in the right proportion so as to be properly benchmarked.another interesting point is that the volcker rule has more or less caused a massive shift of this type of strategy away from us investment banks and into hedge funds. i don't have real data on this - just my observations. | order-handling companies pay for "dumb"
flow. vanguard can reduce their outright trading costs to negative by being as dumb about it as possible, and then use these negative costs to artificially lower their reported fees.just because vanguard claims to be smart about it, doesn't mean necessarily they actually are incentivized to be smart about it or actually are in practice. people can still judge them by how close they track the index, but that is reported separately from fees, which are all a lot of current and future retirees look at after having fees fees fees drilled into their heads. and the indexes themselves take a hit, so you need to adjust for that with a much more complicated measure.they can effectively launder bad (or even good) tracking of the index into lower reported fees, by letting the order handlers profit on the inanity (and kickback via order-flow payments), allowing the fund managers to give themselves higher compensation without commiserate alarming fees.to what extent, if any, do they actually do this? do they report their income from paid order-flow in the fund prospectuses? do they break it out by the managed funds, vs retail flow from their clients? do they get major concessions to their retail trading costs in tacit exchange for being dumb with their etfs? |
secure channels over tcp/ip
| the public key operations during setup are clearly useful for authentication against a possibly untrusted peer. what mechanism is used for key distribution? revocation? is the main advantage over tls in its use of a limited set of cryptographic primitives (as provided by nacl), at the expense of flexibility? any other advantages, such as decreased setup time? what about upgradeability -- does the protocol have the ability to roll in additional keys/exchange algos or ciphers as better ones become available?of course, the more of these features you add, the closer you get to tls. that being said, without these features (eg, if you need to basically upgrade your whole fleet just to update to a newer nacl or to add keys as opposed to using a signed certificate mechanism), the advantage starts shifting towards even simpler approaches, such as spiped, which omits all the public-key ceremony in favor of a shared secret key. | "on our production frontend machines, ssl/tls accounts for less than 1% of the cpu load, less than 10 kb of memory per connection and less than 2% of network overhead. many people believe that ssl/tls takes a lot of cpu time and we hope the preceding numbers will help to dispel that." - adam langley, google. |
secure channels over tcp/ip
| "on our production frontend machines, ssl/tls accounts for less than 1% of the cpu load, less than 10 kb of memory per connection and less than 2% of network overhead. many people believe that ssl/tls takes a lot of cpu time and we hope the preceding numbers will help to dispel that." - adam langley, google. | what advantage does this have over spiped[1]? since there's not really a good way to distribute public keys, you really need to just put them on a thumb drive and walk them over to the person that wants them. and if you're doing that, you might as well give the person a shared secret.[1]: <link> |
secure channels over tcp/ip
| what advantage does this have over spiped[1]? since there's not really a good way to distribute public keys, you really need to just put them on a thumb drive and walk them over to the person that wants them. and if you're doing that, you might as well give the person a shared secret.[1]: <link> | interesting. a couple of questions that come to mind:- any rough benchmarks vs. tls? or even just back-of-the-envelope math/reasoning behind the claim in the opening paragraph: "without the overhead of tls".- instead of generating 24 prng bytes for each message to use as the nacl nonce, why not use the sequence number each message is assigned anyway? |
secure channels over tcp/ip
| interesting. a couple of questions that come to mind:- any rough benchmarks vs. tls? or even just back-of-the-envelope math/reasoning behind the claim in the opening paragraph: "without the overhead of tls".- instead of generating 24 prng bytes for each message to use as the nacl nonce, why not use the sequence number each message is assigned anyway? | you wouldn't want to use this. the key exchange is vulnerable to replay and identity misbinding attacks. to fix the replay attack, you also need to sign a nonce from the peer (or its ephemeral public key) to prove that the message is fresh. to fix the identity misbinding attack, you also need to sign the identity of the peer. then it's probably secure, but the protocol would lack identity hiding. you really want a key exchange protocol like sigma, which is secure and provides identity hiding.see the following presentation, which presents insecure key exchange protocols (the key exchange from the article is on page 4) while building up to sigma: <link> you can see, this stuff is hard and you really shouldn't be designing your own. curvezmq (basically, djb's curvecp over tcp) is probably a better choice if you want a nacl-based secure channel. curvezmq also happens to be pretty well documented if you want to learn about what it takes to design a secure protocol: <link> |
berkshire hathaway official home page
| a center tag, a table for layout... majestic in its indifference towards the modern web.and more usable than the majority of web pages i deal with these days. | what can i say? it's responsive. |
berkshire hathaway official home page
| what can i say? it's responsive. | the news release from yesterday is that buffett donated 2.8$b of stock to gates foundation and others, earmarked for operations, not endowment.gates budget is $3.8b per year, i had no idea<link> |
berkshire hathaway official home page
| the news release from yesterday is that buffett donated 2.8$b of stock to gates foundation and others, earmarked for operations, not endowment.gates budget is $3.8b per year, i had no idea<link> | lol - 1997 on the way back machine!<link> |
berkshire hathaway official home page
| lol - 1997 on the way back machine!<link> | the first link is basically an endorsement for geico: <link> |
march 27 and march 4 are the most common days for birth, death on wikipedia
| it took me a while to realize that they are talking about the number of birthdays listed on the page about march 27[1], not actually combed from all wikipedia person pages, as i expected from the title.to anyone who knows even a little about how wikipedia is edited, this shouldn't be a mystery at all; there are no automatic pages or statistics, even for fixed entities like dates, and there is no automatic cross-referencing.so as you'd expect, a person entered every birthday on that page, and there is absolutely no reason to assume that comparable detail has been given to all other days of the year.(i'd hardly call this an easter egg, and i wish more people understood wikipedia enough to make this entirely uninteresting.)[1]: <link> | given that march 27th is my birthday, and my daughter's birthday (my best ever birthday present), i was very interested in this. too bad it's total crap. |
march 27 and march 4 are the most common days for birth, death on wikipedia
| given that march 27th is my birthday, and my daughter's birthday (my best ever birthday present), i was very interested in this. too bad it's total crap. | i thought it was "march comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb." |
march 27 and march 4 are the most common days for birth, death on wikipedia
| i thought it was "march comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb." | alternate theory: march 27th is 38 weeks after july 4th. |
march 27 and march 4 are the most common days for birth, death on wikipedia
| alternate theory: march 27th is 38 weeks after july 4th. | june 21 is the summer solstice, and pregnancy lasts for 280 days. march 27 is exactly 280 days after june 21. |
two months in inner mongolia
| i think this is the static site generator he developed and used for the site: <link> | this is great, i really enjoyed the presentation, photos and descriptions...some of which sent me spiraling off into wikipedia for more information.i hope the author mostly ignores the hn community's incessant need to pretend like any interface that's not a button marked "push for stuff" or doesn't work on some oddball gizmo has something wrong with it.this is beautiful work. |
two months in inner mongolia
| this is great, i really enjoyed the presentation, photos and descriptions...some of which sent me spiraling off into wikipedia for more information.i hope the author mostly ignores the hn community's incessant need to pretend like any interface that's not a button marked "push for stuff" or doesn't work on some oddball gizmo has something wrong with it.this is beautiful work. | this interesting look at the darker side of what is happening in inner mongolia (environmental effect of rare earth mining) was posted on hn two days ago:<link> |
two months in inner mongolia
| this interesting look at the darker side of what is happening in inner mongolia (environmental effect of rare earth mining) was posted on hn two days ago:<link> | i really love the content, the photos are beautiful, but the presentation is terrible. it seems that most like the format, but i don't see it as an efficient way of presenting the content.honestly i would prefer to just wait while all the content loads initially. the scrolling really doesn't work otherwise, i initially scrolled by a couple of images because i didn't think there was suppose to be images or videos to all the images.lovely content, gimmicky presentation. |
two months in inner mongolia
| i really love the content, the photos are beautiful, but the presentation is terrible. it seems that most like the format, but i don't see it as an efficient way of presenting the content.honestly i would prefer to just wait while all the content loads initially. the scrolling really doesn't work otherwise, i initially scrolled by a couple of images because i didn't think there was suppose to be images or videos to all the images.lovely content, gimmicky presentation. | i really like the format and the content jack. it wasn't overly dense as text heavy journals can sometimes be, and it was refreshingly immersive with the short videos.i've also seen this format work to great effect with ny times articles, and i for one enjoy consuming stories this way.i found the seat-belt warning disablers and the local toll booth especially interesting. |
why is finance so complex? (2011)
| fwiw, i'm relatively quick, pick up languages (both cs and natural), frameworks, algorithms, etc. without much trouble.but i've tried again and again to understand how our basic federal reserve system functions - gov't debt, banks, reserve margins, mortgage loans, etc. etc.i've never gotten a basic "this is how it works in 21 days", stack exchange-type-answer. lots of opinions...this itself leads me to believe that finance is corrupt.i believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. if the american people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. the issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.t. jefferson | >the core purpose of status quo finance is to coax people into accepting risks that they would not, if fully informed, consent to bear.that is a pretty loaded statement. that would be like saying the core purpose of the software industry is to destroy jobs and in turn collect part of the salary that those jobs previously paid. it might technically be true, but it is twisting things to make them sound intentionally evil. |
why is finance so complex? (2011)
| >the core purpose of status quo finance is to coax people into accepting risks that they would not, if fully informed, consent to bear.that is a pretty loaded statement. that would be like saying the core purpose of the software industry is to destroy jobs and in turn collect part of the salary that those jobs previously paid. it might technically be true, but it is twisting things to make them sound intentionally evil. | the world of finance makes these aspects of your life function:* allows you to get a mortgage* allows you to protect yourself with
health/car/life/home/title/etc insurance* pays for your highways/stadiums/schools and other public works* protects your deposits* pays for your retirement* funds the college fund that paid for your school* ... or the student loans that allowed you to attend school* supports the global supply chain that brings you your
iphone, stocks the grocery store/your favorite restaurants with food, and puts the clothes on your back.* funds the growth of corporations large and small, giving you the job that allows you to buy an iphone* funds the massive philanthropy expenditures that help those
in need everyday* pays the pensions of the elderlyfinancial innovation make our lives more predictable and less sensitive to chance. one could argue a huge amount of human progress is owed to modern-day financial institutions.like a software system, it's extremely naive to think that complexity is a sign that a system is rotten. finance is an art, not a science. sometimes we make products that we don't always completely understand until later. but the vast majority of financial innovations are deeply ingrained in the good life that you get to enjoy every day. |
why is finance so complex? (2011)
| the world of finance makes these aspects of your life function:* allows you to get a mortgage* allows you to protect yourself with
health/car/life/home/title/etc insurance* pays for your highways/stadiums/schools and other public works* protects your deposits* pays for your retirement* funds the college fund that paid for your school* ... or the student loans that allowed you to attend school* supports the global supply chain that brings you your
iphone, stocks the grocery store/your favorite restaurants with food, and puts the clothes on your back.* funds the growth of corporations large and small, giving you the job that allows you to buy an iphone* funds the massive philanthropy expenditures that help those
in need everyday* pays the pensions of the elderlyfinancial innovation make our lives more predictable and less sensitive to chance. one could argue a huge amount of human progress is owed to modern-day financial institutions.like a software system, it's extremely naive to think that complexity is a sign that a system is rotten. finance is an art, not a science. sometimes we make products that we don't always completely understand until later. but the vast majority of financial innovations are deeply ingrained in the good life that you get to enjoy every day. | article appears to answer the question why does finance exist, not why is it so complex.i think the answer for why is it so complex is that it is a human domain that rewards complexity.first, humans that turn their full brain power on something inevitably make complicated structures. if you think about it, this becomes clear that it's true, even if there's absolutely nothing there. for instance, it's almost worth picking up a practitioner's book on numerology or astrology, a really "good" book that goes deep into the details and history, not just a superficial "intro" jobber, to witness the incredible complexity humans bring into a field that 90%+ of the readers of this comment will agree there is virtually no reason for it to possess, because there's no "there" there.how much more complexity and richness we can bring to an already complex field!and as others are pointing out already, finance also rewards complexity, both because people can hide things in the complexity and because people can fool themselves into thinking they understand the complex things, and because the interaction of all these complex things is even more complex.you want another domain that works much like that? consider any ol' pile of code that a software company runs on. it's bad enough that all software companies of any size are trying to solve a non-trivial problem, but throw a few hundred random developers at it and before you know it the "simple billing system" has 100-line buggy sorting functions sitting next to the double-booking accounting algorithms and all the other endless monstrosities we sometimes swap stories about on hn or various reddits. and then one day a trivial quirk in that sorting algorithm accidentally erases all the data in your customer database when it accidentally decided everybody had failed to pay their balances for over a thousand years or something. computing is complicated even before humans start humaning the place up, but then it gets even worse. |
why is finance so complex? (2011)
| article appears to answer the question why does finance exist, not why is it so complex.i think the answer for why is it so complex is that it is a human domain that rewards complexity.first, humans that turn their full brain power on something inevitably make complicated structures. if you think about it, this becomes clear that it's true, even if there's absolutely nothing there. for instance, it's almost worth picking up a practitioner's book on numerology or astrology, a really "good" book that goes deep into the details and history, not just a superficial "intro" jobber, to witness the incredible complexity humans bring into a field that 90%+ of the readers of this comment will agree there is virtually no reason for it to possess, because there's no "there" there.how much more complexity and richness we can bring to an already complex field!and as others are pointing out already, finance also rewards complexity, both because people can hide things in the complexity and because people can fool themselves into thinking they understand the complex things, and because the interaction of all these complex things is even more complex.you want another domain that works much like that? consider any ol' pile of code that a software company runs on. it's bad enough that all software companies of any size are trying to solve a non-trivial problem, but throw a few hundred random developers at it and before you know it the "simple billing system" has 100-line buggy sorting functions sitting next to the double-booking accounting algorithms and all the other endless monstrosities we sometimes swap stories about on hn or various reddits. and then one day a trivial quirk in that sorting algorithm accidentally erases all the data in your customer database when it accidentally decided everybody had failed to pay their balances for over a thousand years or something. computing is complicated even before humans start humaning the place up, but then it gets even worse. | finance is complex because:1. if a transaction is complex, it's easy to sucker people into buying. why would anyone buy a structured product?2. if a transaction is complex, both sides can claim an immediate profit based on their idea of how it should be valued.3. a lot of complexity in finance is driven by the fact that big banks can borrow at 0% while true inflation is higher. via various derivatives, this government interest rate subsidy is packaged and sold. for example, i can't borrow at 0% to buy stock, but if i buy a call option, the bank can borrow at 0% to finance their hedge.4. because different people have different interest rates (banks borrow at 0%, large corporations borrow at 5%), banks can price a derivative at 3%, and both sides can legitimately claim an immediate profit on the trade. (bank borrows at 0% and lends at 3% to finance the derivative hedge. the corporation is borrowing at 3% instead of the 5% they normally would pay.) |
contributor by google
| at first blush, this is exactly what we need. companies monetize. they monetize by selling you. the exchange occurs with ads. what you browse through google? google sells that information by selling ads. twitter? spare change. your facebook photos of your kids? congratulations, you just sold your first born son.so the idea of replacing the ads, cutting out the ad and the purchase with a transaction i control is immediately appealing... i reach for the enroll button... but wait.this is google we are talking about. the company that invented surveillance on the web. they have perfected it on a scale that the mere thought of reduces the nsa to to homer simpson dreaming of donuts. google has to make payments based on your browser history - which gives them to browser history too mine, which they then can then use to sell more ads with, and monetize you.well played google. well played. | i really hope people will continue to turn to <link> instead... |
contributor by google
| i really hope people will continue to turn to <link> instead... | ianal, but it occurred to me that this might be a push to delegitimize ad blockers in the eyes of the law. not that i'm that cynical; like most of what google does, this is probably seen by them as valuable and beneficial on its own. but if ad "blocking" (in the most general sense) is a service, aren't you stealing that service by doing it yourself? i think no, but to the user and court who don't understand the mechanics, it might seem so. |
contributor by google
| ianal, but it occurred to me that this might be a push to delegitimize ad blockers in the eyes of the law. not that i'm that cynical; like most of what google does, this is probably seen by them as valuable and beneficial on its own. but if ad "blocking" (in the most general sense) is a service, aren't you stealing that service by doing it yourself? i think no, but to the user and court who don't understand the mechanics, it might seem so. | how is this different than patreon? |
contributor by google
| how is this different than patreon? | i wonder how this will fare. coming from a company that generates most of its revenue from ads, it's a great indicator that companies will need to find alternate forms of monetization for free services. |
om next – david nolen [video]
| > 41:15pretty sure apple won't approve of being able to update ios apps outside of their regular release cycle. if they don't care, i should be doing that now with my html5 app. | clojurescript in clojurescript is demoed in the last 5-6 minutes of the video. i think this is an awesome way to ship a repl with applications. |
om next – david nolen [video]
| clojurescript in clojurescript is demoed in the last 5-6 minutes of the video. i think this is an awesome way to ship a repl with applications. | he mentions getting rid of cursors, but i'm not clear how he would replace the modification side of cursors. i.e. i can see how a system like he describes supports nicely querying data, how do it help a component that needs to trigger modifying data? |
om next – david nolen [video]
| he mentions getting rid of cursors, but i'm not clear how he would replace the modification side of cursors. i.e. i can see how a system like he describes supports nicely querying data, how do it help a component that needs to trigger modifying data? | swannodette never disappoints. if you're interested in this approach, you should check out re-frame: <link> the readme is a great resource, regardless of whether or not you intend to use the framework. |
om next – david nolen [video]
| swannodette never disappoints. if you're interested in this approach, you should check out re-frame: <link> the readme is a great resource, regardless of whether or not you intend to use the framework. | quite amazing. this talk is not just about om next - its also about clojurescript.next. featuring: 1. amd, commonjs, es6 module support
2. cljs in cljs (yup, that works - including the standalone nodejs based repl)
thise in combination are especially huge.with core.typed being an option as well (once your system starts growing and the design solidifies) looks like the clojure ecosystem is really positioned to be one of the technically strongest available for web development.and of course, replacing that awkward rest mess seems painfully obvious now (except for duplicated data which seems like something that might yet need solving). hindsight is 20/20 |
girard in silicon valley: notes from a lecture by peter thiel
| interestingly this kind of progression is mirrored in a previous link today about the "clock like nature" of technology press - nothing > glowing > skeptical > sacrificial.i think it's just something in human nature to want to raise and nurture something successful - but past a threshold you become too much and are now something to vilify and despise. seems like a good way to put it is that for successful people, the public says "we think you are a god, but as soon as you believe you are, we will kill you to prove that you aren't"[1] <link> | mirror (it was sporadically down for me): <link> |
girard in silicon valley: notes from a lecture by peter thiel
| mirror (it was sporadically down for me): <link> | glosses over the role of dynastic succession as a primary motivation to institute what we now call monarchic control over subjects.as much as i dig ontological psycho-historical speculation i find myself beginning to realize just how different we moderns are from the ancients. i fear that any resemblance between our own systems and those that existed several millennia ago would, like "business secrets of the pharaohs", be purely coincidental.it just so happened on this moist summer eve that as i stumbled upon this link i happened to be perusing tagore's sādhanā.in "the relation of the individual to the universe" he indeed speculates about what caused the ancient forest-dwellers to acquire wealth, build cities and become kings. after failing to become one with nature, the ancient sadhus sought to emulate the wider cosmos in a controllable microverse, in which they could achieve a limited all-consciousness.perhaps somewhat analogously to the way mathematicians in the 1930's, stymied by gödel's proof that axiomatic formalism would always remain necessarily incomplete, created their own artificial oasis of finite and deterministic binary logic in the form of early computing. |
girard in silicon valley: notes from a lecture by peter thiel
| glosses over the role of dynastic succession as a primary motivation to institute what we now call monarchic control over subjects.as much as i dig ontological psycho-historical speculation i find myself beginning to realize just how different we moderns are from the ancients. i fear that any resemblance between our own systems and those that existed several millennia ago would, like "business secrets of the pharaohs", be purely coincidental.it just so happened on this moist summer eve that as i stumbled upon this link i happened to be perusing tagore's sādhanā.in "the relation of the individual to the universe" he indeed speculates about what caused the ancient forest-dwellers to acquire wealth, build cities and become kings. after failing to become one with nature, the ancient sadhus sought to emulate the wider cosmos in a controllable microverse, in which they could achieve a limited all-consciousness.perhaps somewhat analogously to the way mathematicians in the 1930's, stymied by gödel's proof that axiomatic formalism would always remain necessarily incomplete, created their own artificial oasis of finite and deterministic binary logic in the form of early computing. | it's got graphs so it's definitely scientific. |
girard in silicon valley: notes from a lecture by peter thiel
| it's got graphs so it's definitely scientific. | what a self-absorbed article. |
eric holder: the justice department could strike deal with edward snowden
| but can the usg be trusted to keep their word? | am i the only person who welcomes this? obama could come out tomorrow and admit he was wrong and people would still think there is some ulterior motive there. of course, the government has lied before, but holder isn't even part of the administration anymore. the fact that anyone, even someone no longer in the loop at least acknowledge that the leaks might have had a positive effect is a concession from the hardline conservative, snowden-was-wrong side, if anything. |
eric holder: the justice department could strike deal with edward snowden
| am i the only person who welcomes this? obama could come out tomorrow and admit he was wrong and people would still think there is some ulterior motive there. of course, the government has lied before, but holder isn't even part of the administration anymore. the fact that anyone, even someone no longer in the loop at least acknowledge that the leaks might have had a positive effect is a concession from the hardline conservative, snowden-was-wrong side, if anything. | if you make a martyr out of snowden you'll bring a lot of negative attention to the issue of mass-surveillance. so the best outcome from the usg's perspective is for snowden to go through some level of punishment that will act as a deterrent for other would-be whistle-blowers while not rustling the feathers of anti mass-surveillance proponents.makes you wonder, does the usg feel a sense of relief now that all this mass-surveillance stuff is out there and the general public doesn't care that much? |
eric holder: the justice department could strike deal with edward snowden
| if you make a martyr out of snowden you'll bring a lot of negative attention to the issue of mass-surveillance. so the best outcome from the usg's perspective is for snowden to go through some level of punishment that will act as a deterrent for other would-be whistle-blowers while not rustling the feathers of anti mass-surveillance proponents.makes you wonder, does the usg feel a sense of relief now that all this mass-surveillance stuff is out there and the general public doesn't care that much? | > holder said “we are in a different place as a result of the snowden disclosures” and that “his actions spurred a necessary debate” that prompted president obama and congress to change policies on the bulk collection of phone records of american citizens.hmm. "we stepped up and fixed all the problems, so there is no need to continue the debate." i guess at face value it's kind of nice to say, but it doesn't carry a lot of weight since it's not an official statement. the current ag spokesperson is quoted, "i can say our position regarding bringing edward snowden back to the united states to face charges has not changed." it doesn't exactly contradict striking a deal, but it doesn't sound very open to doing so.> informal discussions of... a plea bargain in which snowden returns to the united states, pleads guilty to one felony count and receives a prison sentence of three to five years in exchange for full cooperation with the government.seems problematic. what is "full cooperation" -- enumerating all docs? what if they say they don't believe him and the deal is off? does he have to agree to discrediting himself in order to get people to put less stock in anything attributed to the "snowden disclosures"? publicly thank them for the aforementioned policy changes and shed tears saying it's exactly what he set out to do -- we can stop pushing for more change? |
eric holder: the justice department could strike deal with edward snowden
| > holder said “we are in a different place as a result of the snowden disclosures” and that “his actions spurred a necessary debate” that prompted president obama and congress to change policies on the bulk collection of phone records of american citizens.hmm. "we stepped up and fixed all the problems, so there is no need to continue the debate." i guess at face value it's kind of nice to say, but it doesn't carry a lot of weight since it's not an official statement. the current ag spokesperson is quoted, "i can say our position regarding bringing edward snowden back to the united states to face charges has not changed." it doesn't exactly contradict striking a deal, but it doesn't sound very open to doing so.> informal discussions of... a plea bargain in which snowden returns to the united states, pleads guilty to one felony count and receives a prison sentence of three to five years in exchange for full cooperation with the government.seems problematic. what is "full cooperation" -- enumerating all docs? what if they say they don't believe him and the deal is off? does he have to agree to discrediting himself in order to get people to put less stock in anything attributed to the "snowden disclosures"? publicly thank them for the aforementioned policy changes and shed tears saying it's exactly what he set out to do -- we can stop pushing for more change? | a full unconditional pardon from obama would be more appropriate. |
rperl – optimizing compiler for perl 5
| glad to see some new cool stuff about perl on hacker news. the community is still very active, and a lot of very smart people are doing quite interesting things with it. | is this something like <link> for python? |
rperl – optimizing compiler for perl 5
| is this something like <link> for python? | """
the input to the rperl compiler is low-magic perl 5 source code. rperl converts the low-magic perl 5 source code into c++ source code using perl and/or c++ data structures. inline::cpp converts the c++ source code into xs source code. perl's xs tools and a standard c++ compiler convert the xs source code into machine-readable binary code, which can be directly linked back into normal high-magic perl 5 source code.
"""that is some magic right there. similar kinds of craziness (like the inline module itself) is some of what gives perl so much charm :) |
rperl – optimizing compiler for perl 5
| """
the input to the rperl compiler is low-magic perl 5 source code. rperl converts the low-magic perl 5 source code into c++ source code using perl and/or c++ data structures. inline::cpp converts the c++ source code into xs source code. perl's xs tools and a standard c++ compiler convert the xs source code into machine-readable binary code, which can be directly linked back into normal high-magic perl 5 source code.
"""that is some magic right there. similar kinds of craziness (like the inline module itself) is some of what gives perl so much charm :) | interesting. as someone who works with biologists this might rekindle some interest in perl in bioinformatics which seems to be waning.the "r" in the name is unfortunate as it might confuse a population that thinks of "r" as a language. |
rperl – optimizing compiler for perl 5
| interesting. as someone who works with biologists this might rekindle some interest in perl in bioinformatics which seems to be waning.the "r" in the name is unfortunate as it might confuse a population that thinks of "r" as a language. | are there any benchmarks to be posted beyond this tidbit i found in the faq?"a: early tests show the potential to run rperl apps about 7x faster than normal perl 5 when using perl data structures, and up to 170x-350x faster when using c++ data structures. this does not include any fancy optimization techniques which could add even more speed in the future."on the damper side, i'd caution against too much "fast" (usually in the "as c" context) excitement. there have now been many different efforts to speed up the 1990s-dynamic-scripting languages now, most notably javascript but they all have fairly similar issues when running at speed, and as near as i can tell, on general code all of them have plateaued at roughly 6-10x slower than c. "just compile it as c++" has been done.on the "get excited" side, it's about time somebody may have some success at getting perl to this performance level. perl's really been left out in the cold by its fellow 1990s-dynamic-scripting brethren lately, between pypy, all the js efforts, all the various php engines and hack.... it and ruby have been left out of all the action, and there's a ton of code out there that could use the improvement. |
ask hn: what are your favorite interview questions?
i've interviewed at a bunch of startups recently, and overall i've been unimpressed by the interview questions.<p>many of you have hired for both technical and nontechnical roles - how do you approach the interview? do you have a set of questions that you ask every candidate? or do you just wing it?<p>what are your favorite questions?<p>i haven't found many resources online for interviewers. i'm thinking about putting together a handbook that includes great sets of questions and advice about hiring based on potential, from this awesome hbr article <link> | regarding the actual questions, i just like to talk about the actual cv / past. there's got to be something exciting in their previous job. or outside of job. or during studies. if there isn't... depends if you look for someone with creative solutions, or you're ok with average coder to type out standard crud.otherwise, i really like small tasks without limits. for python job it was something like "read csv, write to database". it can be a 3-liner and take 10 minutes. but if you say "no limits, make it production quality code", there's so much you can learn about the candidate.it can have error reporting. it can have documentation. it can be a proper module. it can handle encoding issues correctly. it can care about sql injection or not. it can have configurable paths and backends. it can support py2/py3/both. | > what are your favorite questions?i like to probe for curiosity.q: you've read the position summary, company profile, and met with other members of the team. what questions do you have now? what more would you like to know about us?on this subject of questions, andrew sobel has a good read> <link> |
ask hn: what are your favorite interview questions?
i've interviewed at a bunch of startups recently, and overall i've been unimpressed by the interview questions.<p>many of you have hired for both technical and nontechnical roles - how do you approach the interview? do you have a set of questions that you ask every candidate? or do you just wing it?<p>what are your favorite questions?<p>i haven't found many resources online for interviewers. i'm thinking about putting together a handbook that includes great sets of questions and advice about hiring based on potential, from this awesome hbr article <link> | > what are your favorite questions?i like to probe for curiosity.q: you've read the position summary, company profile, and met with other members of the team. what questions do you have now? what more would you like to know about us?on this subject of questions, andrew sobel has a good read> <link> | when you're small (startup), hiring is a reflection of founders' values. when you grow big, it's a reflection of your company's values.first hence, be clear about what your values are. it's not easy to figure those out. you have to interview several candidates and introspect after each interview, to narrow down on what you want. it's a bit unfair to first few candidates, but overall it works out better. once you arrive at a nugget of values you can cohesively describe, you design your interview process and questions based on what you've arrived at.also realize that you cannot design direct questions to probe for values you want. you have to demonstrate that value yourself first and see if they get excited with it. e.g. if one of your values is transparency, you can't ask "are you transparent in your interaction with people"? you have to tell them some things about your company or the role that they are not expecting you to disclose and see if they value that.if coming up with core values is too hard or too vague for you, then start with these three: curiosity, humility and hard work. you won't go wrong with these. most high performing people demonstrate these values.in order to probe for these values, you can ask pretty much any reasonable question, and then pick up on cues. e.g. if it's a programmer interview, you can ask them a difficult coding question/assignment based on their background. then see, if they ask good questions (curiosity)? do they test their code (humility)? do they give up, or continue to push through (hard work)? don't expect precise answers to your question, but look for these signals.when picking questions, you should prefer questions that are "peeling the onion" type questions. i.e. start with a simple question, let them answer it and then add constraints. keep adding constraints/twisting until they are able to answer it. that will give you great insights into how they think and how they value.hope this helps.[about me: founder of <link> i've interviewed an obscene number of people in my career. have been in the valley for a number of years. i have to think about this for a living] |
ask hn: what are your favorite interview questions?
i've interviewed at a bunch of startups recently, and overall i've been unimpressed by the interview questions.<p>many of you have hired for both technical and nontechnical roles - how do you approach the interview? do you have a set of questions that you ask every candidate? or do you just wing it?<p>what are your favorite questions?<p>i haven't found many resources online for interviewers. i'm thinking about putting together a handbook that includes great sets of questions and advice about hiring based on potential, from this awesome hbr article <link> | when you're small (startup), hiring is a reflection of founders' values. when you grow big, it's a reflection of your company's values.first hence, be clear about what your values are. it's not easy to figure those out. you have to interview several candidates and introspect after each interview, to narrow down on what you want. it's a bit unfair to first few candidates, but overall it works out better. once you arrive at a nugget of values you can cohesively describe, you design your interview process and questions based on what you've arrived at.also realize that you cannot design direct questions to probe for values you want. you have to demonstrate that value yourself first and see if they get excited with it. e.g. if one of your values is transparency, you can't ask "are you transparent in your interaction with people"? you have to tell them some things about your company or the role that they are not expecting you to disclose and see if they value that.if coming up with core values is too hard or too vague for you, then start with these three: curiosity, humility and hard work. you won't go wrong with these. most high performing people demonstrate these values.in order to probe for these values, you can ask pretty much any reasonable question, and then pick up on cues. e.g. if it's a programmer interview, you can ask them a difficult coding question/assignment based on their background. then see, if they ask good questions (curiosity)? do they test their code (humility)? do they give up, or continue to push through (hard work)? don't expect precise answers to your question, but look for these signals.when picking questions, you should prefer questions that are "peeling the onion" type questions. i.e. start with a simple question, let them answer it and then add constraints. keep adding constraints/twisting until they are able to answer it. that will give you great insights into how they think and how they value.hope this helps.[about me: founder of <link> i've interviewed an obscene number of people in my career. have been in the valley for a number of years. i have to think about this for a living] | i have hired hundreds of people throughout my career - both for startups hiring employee number 2 and also for big corporates. also, i am normally hiring in europe. some of the stuff i mention below may be totally illegal in the u.s.the questions you ask differ a bit depending on where you are in the company life cycle.
as you mentioned interviewing for start ups above, let's focus on that.
when hiring employee number 2 to 10 i tend to focus on personality and cultural fit. instead of the typical job interview, i tend to take long lunches, dinners and walks with the people to find out if we would get along. after all, in a startup you tend to spend more time with your co-workers than with your spouse. so hiring at this stage is more like dating. of course i ask about their past but some common questions i am interest in are:- why do you want to join a startup? what is your main goal? this is to find out if they have hopes for lots of stock options and to make it big or if they have been frustrated in their old job for not being able to make decisions. money focus usually is fine but they need at least one more key motivation as most startups will hit a rough patch where money becomes tight. if they join because they want to have big influence, only hire them if you are willing to give up control.- are you willing to work very long hours and give up weekends if needed? how does your family life fit into this and how will you make sure that your family life does not suffer and in return impact your work performance.- i tend to throw in a random question to test their problem solving skills like "how many bakeries are in new york". even though i find these kind of questions pretty common, they throw of most people. if they answer too fast, you know they have faced this kind of question before and you can ignore the answer. if they stall and look at you like you are crazy, then the answer is important. i tend to give them one or two hints and then just watch how they attempt to solve the problem.- lastly, depending on the role i hire for, i give them some real life examples and ask them to provide answers. for a coder this will be a coding test for a sales guy i will describe a difficult sales situation etc.hope this helps :) |
ask hn: what are your favorite interview questions?
i've interviewed at a bunch of startups recently, and overall i've been unimpressed by the interview questions.<p>many of you have hired for both technical and nontechnical roles - how do you approach the interview? do you have a set of questions that you ask every candidate? or do you just wing it?<p>what are your favorite questions?<p>i haven't found many resources online for interviewers. i'm thinking about putting together a handbook that includes great sets of questions and advice about hiring based on potential, from this awesome hbr article <link> | i have hired hundreds of people throughout my career - both for startups hiring employee number 2 and also for big corporates. also, i am normally hiring in europe. some of the stuff i mention below may be totally illegal in the u.s.the questions you ask differ a bit depending on where you are in the company life cycle.
as you mentioned interviewing for start ups above, let's focus on that.
when hiring employee number 2 to 10 i tend to focus on personality and cultural fit. instead of the typical job interview, i tend to take long lunches, dinners and walks with the people to find out if we would get along. after all, in a startup you tend to spend more time with your co-workers than with your spouse. so hiring at this stage is more like dating. of course i ask about their past but some common questions i am interest in are:- why do you want to join a startup? what is your main goal? this is to find out if they have hopes for lots of stock options and to make it big or if they have been frustrated in their old job for not being able to make decisions. money focus usually is fine but they need at least one more key motivation as most startups will hit a rough patch where money becomes tight. if they join because they want to have big influence, only hire them if you are willing to give up control.- are you willing to work very long hours and give up weekends if needed? how does your family life fit into this and how will you make sure that your family life does not suffer and in return impact your work performance.- i tend to throw in a random question to test their problem solving skills like "how many bakeries are in new york". even though i find these kind of questions pretty common, they throw of most people. if they answer too fast, you know they have faced this kind of question before and you can ignore the answer. if they stall and look at you like you are crazy, then the answer is important. i tend to give them one or two hints and then just watch how they attempt to solve the problem.- lastly, depending on the role i hire for, i give them some real life examples and ask them to provide answers. for a coder this will be a coding test for a sales guy i will describe a difficult sales situation etc.hope this helps :) | i use a mix of asking about what's on your resume (chronological works nicely, so i understand why you switched jobs and how your skills evolved) and a set of standard technical questions (so i can compare candidates over time). i'll usually dig deeper technically until you give up. giving up doesn't mean failing, on the contrary. |
os x bsd system calls reference
| linux's syscalls: <link> have learned a lot by just going to that page and randomly clicking on things.) | seeing all of the syscalls in one place really puts things in perspective. the #ifdef markers are a nice touch, too.this makes me wonder, what would this look like for plan9? just fs-related syscalls, and that's it? curious... |
os x bsd system calls reference
| seeing all of the syscalls in one place really puts things in perspective. the #ifdef markers are a nice touch, too.this makes me wonder, what would this look like for plan9? just fs-related syscalls, and that's it? curious... | note that the bsd system calls do not cover the full functionality of osx, and the mach interfaces are necessary. for example, sleep() needs to use the mach message interfaces. |
os x bsd system calls reference
| note that the bsd system calls do not cover the full functionality of osx, and the mach interfaces are necessary. for example, sleep() needs to use the mach message interfaces. | i heard from somewhere that technically, os x does not preserve backward compatibility for system calls, so you should use libc function's instead, otherwise it is an undefined behavior. whereas linux keeps a hard compatibility guarantee. is that true? i guess apple will really hesitate before commiting breaking changes, but i'm genuinely curious if they reserve the rights in thoery. |
os x bsd system calls reference
| i heard from somewhere that technically, os x does not preserve backward compatibility for system calls, so you should use libc function's instead, otherwise it is an undefined behavior. whereas linux keeps a hard compatibility guarantee. is that true? i guess apple will really hesitate before commiting breaking changes, but i'm genuinely curious if they reserve the rights in thoery. | why so many duplicates?
for expample int nosys() is listed 185 times, each pointing to bsd/kern/subr_xxx.c |
running a dark web pedophile honeypot
| maybe it's just me but i don't really like the tendency to treat pedophiles as if they are the devils themselves.let there be no doubt. i have two kids and there is probably no limit to what i would do to someone who did anything to my kids. but it's not as simply as just condemning pedophiles for being that and i ultimately think there is something morally or ethically questionable about this approach.it's fairly well established that many pedophiles where in fact victims of pedophilia in their childhood themselves and so i would like to see a less hysteric and more balanced response to the issue.just because he is helping catching the bad guys does not give him the moral upper hand as he seem to think he has. too bad such a complex issue gets treated with such brushing generalizations.maybe i am reading too much into what he writes, but these honeypots to hit random people just feels wrong to me. like snooping on someone else life. | it seems like the author is emotionally invested in this topic:> given my circumstances, i have seen first-hand, the psychological damage a pedophile’s actions cause. the damage done to these children is permanent and no matter how much counseling and assistance they seek – the experience is forever embedded into their self, shaping (and sometimes limiting) what they become as adults.i can't pretend like i really get this because i've never dealt with pedophiles or pedophilia first-hand but i can agree, however, that people that hurt children are doing something morally wrong. with that said, this kinds of vigilante-esque behavior can be (and often times is) the absolute antithesis of justice.> on two different occasions i contacted the fbi about the project and offered to provide full sets of data that i had collected.since op tried to approach the fbi on two different occasions, it doesn't really seem to me like this was merely an innocuous "security" experiment (like this one: <link>,news-...). it seems like op really feels a deep hatred towards pedophiles and was, in a sense, out to get them.thankfully, we have the justice system that handles this for us. these are people that try to be impartial, fair, and just. when accused, we have the court system -- a system that values innocence until proven guilt. i hope i won't be taken out of context here. i'm not defending pedophilia (or drug trafficking or murder -- a few other tor commodities). do you really feel compelled to "get the bad guys?" great. go to a police academy or go to law school. real life isn't like a superhero graphic novel. the law, for the most part, works. more importantly, it provides some boundaries for those that enforce it.i had to read mill's on liberty in a philosophy of law class i took a few years ago and chapter iv, of the limits to the authority of society over the individual, really stuck with me. i would strongly suggest op give it a good read: <link> |
running a dark web pedophile honeypot
| it seems like the author is emotionally invested in this topic:> given my circumstances, i have seen first-hand, the psychological damage a pedophile’s actions cause. the damage done to these children is permanent and no matter how much counseling and assistance they seek – the experience is forever embedded into their self, shaping (and sometimes limiting) what they become as adults.i can't pretend like i really get this because i've never dealt with pedophiles or pedophilia first-hand but i can agree, however, that people that hurt children are doing something morally wrong. with that said, this kinds of vigilante-esque behavior can be (and often times is) the absolute antithesis of justice.> on two different occasions i contacted the fbi about the project and offered to provide full sets of data that i had collected.since op tried to approach the fbi on two different occasions, it doesn't really seem to me like this was merely an innocuous "security" experiment (like this one: <link>,news-...). it seems like op really feels a deep hatred towards pedophiles and was, in a sense, out to get them.thankfully, we have the justice system that handles this for us. these are people that try to be impartial, fair, and just. when accused, we have the court system -- a system that values innocence until proven guilt. i hope i won't be taken out of context here. i'm not defending pedophilia (or drug trafficking or murder -- a few other tor commodities). do you really feel compelled to "get the bad guys?" great. go to a police academy or go to law school. real life isn't like a superhero graphic novel. the law, for the most part, works. more importantly, it provides some boundaries for those that enforce it.i had to read mill's on liberty in a philosophy of law class i took a few years ago and chapter iv, of the limits to the authority of society over the individual, really stuck with me. i would strongly suggest op give it a good read: <link> | some of the technical points of this article are simply wrong...> the exit node ip address of the user was easily obtained using the two different methods discussed briefly above.this is really not a vulnerability but simply how tor, and the internet at large, works - hidden services by design protect the service not the user (the user is protected by tor by default) - what the author actually did here was "leak" their non-hidden services ip.> and true external ip address (see partial data example to the above). and to answer the second question, “no”, this did not involve the placement of malicious malware. read on…the author then goes on to state that they gave the users malicious malware to run which revealed their ip address. they justify that this was not malware by stating:> it should be noted that this was not malware per se. it did not replicate and was run voluntarily by the user. the user was notified that a “security scan” was going to be run on their machine and they freely chose to run the scan.the author then goes on to publish a list of tor exit nodes with tor user agents...which they could have gotten directly from the tor directory services...and, as pointed out by others, the author never really goes on to state why they think tor is the devil - they built a honeypot and were disgusted by the flies it attracted....i'm not really sure what they were expecting... |
running a dark web pedophile honeypot
| some of the technical points of this article are simply wrong...> the exit node ip address of the user was easily obtained using the two different methods discussed briefly above.this is really not a vulnerability but simply how tor, and the internet at large, works - hidden services by design protect the service not the user (the user is protected by tor by default) - what the author actually did here was "leak" their non-hidden services ip.> and true external ip address (see partial data example to the above). and to answer the second question, “no”, this did not involve the placement of malicious malware. read on…the author then goes on to state that they gave the users malicious malware to run which revealed their ip address. they justify that this was not malware by stating:> it should be noted that this was not malware per se. it did not replicate and was run voluntarily by the user. the user was notified that a “security scan” was going to be run on their machine and they freely chose to run the scan.the author then goes on to publish a list of tor exit nodes with tor user agents...which they could have gotten directly from the tor directory services...and, as pointed out by others, the author never really goes on to state why they think tor is the devil - they built a honeypot and were disgusted by the flies it attracted....i'm not really sure what they were expecting... | is it just me, or the rhetorical question in the title ("why i now think tor is the devil") never got answered?also not clear whether the dark web spider project was just to later seed the honeypot sites to appear legit, or was it a project on its own? the quote "the reports are published nightly on a hacker-related dark web site that i am involved with" hints at the latter, and then i'd double don't understand why tor would be the devil, if for other uses (hackers) the author is happy to take advantage of it?i'm a bit confused about what good does it do to reveal the exit node addresses? it has nothing to do with the actual tor user, and could be even considered "public info" the way tor is used, doesn't it? |
running a dark web pedophile honeypot
| is it just me, or the rhetorical question in the title ("why i now think tor is the devil") never got answered?also not clear whether the dark web spider project was just to later seed the honeypot sites to appear legit, or was it a project on its own? the quote "the reports are published nightly on a hacker-related dark web site that i am involved with" hints at the latter, and then i'd double don't understand why tor would be the devil, if for other uses (hackers) the author is happy to take advantage of it?i'm a bit confused about what good does it do to reveal the exit node addresses? it has nothing to do with the actual tor user, and could be even considered "public info" the way tor is used, doesn't it? | "pedophiles use encryption, so encryption is the devil." seems to be where this is going. that's a slippery slope and a bit unethical to use pedophiles to push an authoritarian political agenda. i bet it's fun to call all his critics pedophile sympathizers and sit upon a moral high-horse of self-righteousness while pushing his authoritarian ideology under the guise of social justice.. that's the thing about these people, they take on social issues for which they can't be criticized without the criticizer looking like a pedophile, racist, or a misogynist. i guess it gives them a sense of power. |
rtail – terminal output to the browser using unix pipes
| wow! this is really cool! i would love to use this at my workplace. i had a small problem, though: it seems the clients don't keep very much data.for example, i filtered based on an expression that matched about 1-2 lines per second. the lines appeared, but disappeared almost as quickly. i suspect there is some small client-side buffer that i'm overrunning almost instantly; the log stream i used produces about 500 lines per second. is this too much for the tool? can i tune it to work with that load? | is there a xss exploit in this? i just clicked on the 'alert' stream, and it displayed two alert dialogs. |
rtail – terminal output to the browser using unix pipes
| is there a xss exploit in this? i just clicked on the 'alert' stream, and it displayed two alert dialogs. | i got rick rolled :(. probably an exploit in there. |
rtail – terminal output to the browser using unix pipes
| i got rick rolled :(. probably an exploit in there. | why does it have to be a custom network protocol when using syslog would not only suffice, but also allow for devices that don't run custom code (e.g., switches or routers) to be monitored? |
rtail – terminal output to the browser using unix pipes
| why does it have to be a custom network protocol when using syslog would not only suffice, but also allow for devices that don't run custom code (e.g., switches or routers) to be monitored? | nicely done - the design is amazing. i had to solve a similar problem a while ago and wrote tailon:
<link> |
china trade halts locks up $2.2 trillion of shares, freezing market
| given that chinese investors have been buying significant amounts of real estate abroad (<link>, does anyone have any idea what this will mean for housing in other countries?higher house prices? (chinese bears fleeing to overseas property like american bears flee to gold)lower house prices? (chinese investors attempting to recoup their losses/keep enough cash on hand to pay their debts and other obligations)neither/something else? (perhaps chinese real estate investment has a negligible effect on house prices)this is a significant question for me because house prices in the uk are far too high for my partner and i to have much chance of ever buying a property, at present, even with a very healthy deposit. | the thing you got to wonder about is : they're trying to stop a panic. is this going to stop the panic or reinforce it ?my money's on reinforce. and it's (thankfully) out of china. |
china trade halts locks up $2.2 trillion of shares, freezing market
| the thing you got to wonder about is : they're trying to stop a panic. is this going to stop the panic or reinforce it ?my money's on reinforce. and it's (thankfully) out of china. | this is a deflationary spiral playing out in a predictable manner. first commodities declined, hard. balance sheets and earnings fell. real estate falling. equities now rocked, the effect amplified by fear and increasing uncertainty. there is about 2 trillion of us dollar reserves on china's balance sheet, and i am guessing that number will decline by half in the months, possibly years to come. |
china trade halts locks up $2.2 trillion of shares, freezing market
| this is a deflationary spiral playing out in a predictable manner. first commodities declined, hard. balance sheets and earnings fell. real estate falling. equities now rocked, the effect amplified by fear and increasing uncertainty. there is about 2 trillion of us dollar reserves on china's balance sheet, and i am guessing that number will decline by half in the months, possibly years to come. | >> “the market has failed,” said hao hong, a china strategist at bocom international holdings co ...in his view the market would "succeed" if it would always go up? strategist? seriously?>> ...failed to revive confidence among stock investors...depends on which side of trade you are.
investors who are put holders are not complaining ... |
china trade halts locks up $2.2 trillion of shares, freezing market
| >> “the market has failed,” said hao hong, a china strategist at bocom international holdings co ...in his view the market would "succeed" if it would always go up? strategist? seriously?>> ...failed to revive confidence among stock investors...depends on which side of trade you are.
investors who are put holders are not complaining ... | for a taste of what chinese investors are going through i highly recommend galbraith's "the great crash 1929" [1]. he gives fascinating insights into to the mania and crash of the market and the futility of the authorities to prop it up. here's an excerpt:the worst continued to worsen. what looked one day like the end proved on the next day to have been only the beginning. nothing could have been more ingeniously designed to maximize the suffering, and also to insure that as few people as possible escape the common misfortune. the fortunate speculator who had funds to answer the first margin call presently got another and equally urgent one, and if he met that there would still be another. in the end all the money he had was extracted from him and lost. the man with the smart money, who was safely out of the market when the first crash came, naturally went back in to pick up bargains. the bargains then suffered a ruinous fall. even the man who waited for volume of trading to return to normal and saw wall street become as placid as a produce market, and who then bought common stocks would see their value drop to a third or a fourth of the purchase price in the next 24 months. the coolidge bull market was a remarkable phenomenon. the ruthlessness of its liquidation was, in its own way, equally remarkable.the rumors in china about malevolent foreign influence on the market also echo the 1929 crash. galbraith again:what was perhaps the last word on the policy of reassurance was said by simeon d. fess, the chairman of the republican national committee: "persons high in republican circles are beginning to believe that there is some concerted effort on foot to utilize the stock market as a method of discrediting the administration. every time an administration official gives out an optimistic statement about business conditions, the market immediately drops."
[1] <link> |
the long-term future of artificial intelligence [video]
| so much of these discussions are overly focussed on an general purpose ai singularity, and what the ai itself would do.that makes for interesting discussions, but i think a much more immediate concern, is what strong ais will enable their owners to do.for example, nation states owning large fleets of robots, corporations owning powerful ais attached to markets and industry.the first group or few groups of people to control a rather powerful ai would have incredible power and leverage over other humans.the danger here is not the ais behaving "badly" of their own accord, but rather their owners instructing them to further their own selfish goals (which appears not to be uncommon behaviour among those in power) and succeeding wildly with complete political, military, and/or commercial domination. in fact, succeeding at any of these may well lead directly to succeeding at all of them. | roughly the first half is background. in the second half he gets into a "how to make ais nice" track. he talks about a few concepts, which may or may not be interesting depending on your level of familiarity with the friendly/unfriendly ai problem. however, i expect miri in particular (eliezer was apparently in the audience) has gone far beyond this basic outline, and i haven't heard any reassurance that the problem of potentially misaligned motives/incentives (humans vs the ai agent) is solved.he compares the voluntary self-restriction of the recombinant dna technology, at asilomar in 1975, and even references crispr as a new technology that complicates enforcement of those limits, but i don't think that's really instructive. artificial general intelligence research is necessarily going to be conducting extremely dangerous experimentation... that's entirely the point of it. until someone comes up with a way to make agi guaranteed friendly, all agi research is like high-risk genetic research experimentation, all the time, and with no obvious way to contain it (unlike most biologics which, no matter how pathogenic or ecologically disruptive they get, have a difficult time getting through good containment procedures). |
the long-term future of artificial intelligence [video]
| roughly the first half is background. in the second half he gets into a "how to make ais nice" track. he talks about a few concepts, which may or may not be interesting depending on your level of familiarity with the friendly/unfriendly ai problem. however, i expect miri in particular (eliezer was apparently in the audience) has gone far beyond this basic outline, and i haven't heard any reassurance that the problem of potentially misaligned motives/incentives (humans vs the ai agent) is solved.he compares the voluntary self-restriction of the recombinant dna technology, at asilomar in 1975, and even references crispr as a new technology that complicates enforcement of those limits, but i don't think that's really instructive. artificial general intelligence research is necessarily going to be conducting extremely dangerous experimentation... that's entirely the point of it. until someone comes up with a way to make agi guaranteed friendly, all agi research is like high-risk genetic research experimentation, all the time, and with no obvious way to contain it (unlike most biologics which, no matter how pathogenic or ecologically disruptive they get, have a difficult time getting through good containment procedures). | russel makes a mistake at 30:00 when he says computers are "totally unable to play checkers". excerpt from j schaeffer et al (2007). checkers is solved:>in this paper we announce that checkers
has been weakly solved. from the starting position (fig. 1, top), we have a computational proof
that checkers is a draw. the proof consists of an
explicit strategy that never loses — the program
can achieve at least a draw against any opponent,
playing either the black or white pieces.not the focus of the talk, just thought i'd point it out. |
the long-term future of artificial intelligence [video]
| russel makes a mistake at 30:00 when he says computers are "totally unable to play checkers". excerpt from j schaeffer et al (2007). checkers is solved:>in this paper we announce that checkers
has been weakly solved. from the starting position (fig. 1, top), we have a computational proof
that checkers is a draw. the proof consists of an
explicit strategy that never loses — the program
can achieve at least a draw against any opponent,
playing either the black or white pieces.not the focus of the talk, just thought i'd point it out. | this video is pretty interesting in laying out the questions concerning ai and its implications. but not much new for anyone who has done any study of the questions but still worthwhile to hear it again in different forms and perspectives.one thing i notice about ai talks such as this one is that there is a lot of vague concepts and implicit assumptions (especially regarding values)and psychological projection going on when evaluating the implications of what ai will or will not do. to separate out our fears of failure or the fear of others more intelligent than ourselves someone needs to do the following thought experiment; what if we invented a pill that would make the next generation 10 times smarter than the current generation. if the average iq is 100 then the next generation (of those who's parents opted to give them the pill) would have iqs of 1000 or an order of magnitude increase. such a scenario would have all the "singularity" effects in a few generations while separating out all the confusion and problems of it being artificial intelligence and computers doing the thinking.would you want this pill to be generally available or ban it? would you give it to your kids?this approach would really force the ai discussion where it belongs. what are values and where do they come from? is intelligence an unconditional value? can values be defined rationally and scientifically and be proved? a major benefit to this aspect of ai research is that it will force the scientific study of values and ultimately to the rejection of the implicit assumption that values are subjective and not open to reason. |
the long-term future of artificial intelligence [video]
| this video is pretty interesting in laying out the questions concerning ai and its implications. but not much new for anyone who has done any study of the questions but still worthwhile to hear it again in different forms and perspectives.one thing i notice about ai talks such as this one is that there is a lot of vague concepts and implicit assumptions (especially regarding values)and psychological projection going on when evaluating the implications of what ai will or will not do. to separate out our fears of failure or the fear of others more intelligent than ourselves someone needs to do the following thought experiment; what if we invented a pill that would make the next generation 10 times smarter than the current generation. if the average iq is 100 then the next generation (of those who's parents opted to give them the pill) would have iqs of 1000 or an order of magnitude increase. such a scenario would have all the "singularity" effects in a few generations while separating out all the confusion and problems of it being artificial intelligence and computers doing the thinking.would you want this pill to be generally available or ban it? would you give it to your kids?this approach would really force the ai discussion where it belongs. what are values and where do they come from? is intelligence an unconditional value? can values be defined rationally and scientifically and be proved? a major benefit to this aspect of ai research is that it will force the scientific study of values and ultimately to the rejection of the implicit assumption that values are subjective and not open to reason. | it could be potentially a very stupid idea, but creating multiple ais at the exact same time with similar resources available to them for development in different locations of the world would create a balance of power.what i'm trying to argue is that it kind of works for us even in the most aggressive situations: if you bomb me i bomb you.if one ai is super-aggressive then others could decide to stop it.if it wants to convert all matter for making paper clips other ais would say: i don't want to be a paper clip and actually have the power to do something about it. where as us.. we'd be powerless.in the case where all band against us, well.. we'd have many problems.all of this to say that developing one single super-human ai in a box is worse in my opinion. |
time warner cable owes $229k to woman it would not stop calling
| better yet, encourage nuisance callers! if you're in the uk, it's possible to set up a 'premium rate' phone number - which means the caller has to pay to call you.<link> | i find it odd that there's no universal system for blocking calls from specific numbers. i'm guessing you could implement a spam filter, so harassment/telemarketing wouldn't be a problem. |
time warner cable owes $229k to woman it would not stop calling
| i find it odd that there's no universal system for blocking calls from specific numbers. i'm guessing you could implement a spam filter, so harassment/telemarketing wouldn't be a problem. | there is a lawyer who makes a nice amount every year (more than an average silicon valley salary) suing the telemarketers that call him.i was wondering if such a lawyer would partner with others -- but anyway he released a book on how to be a parasite on parasites and get paid doing a service to society. does anyone have a link?<link> |
time warner cable owes $229k to woman it would not stop calling
| there is a lawyer who makes a nice amount every year (more than an average silicon valley salary) suing the telemarketers that call him.i was wondering if such a lawyer would partner with others -- but anyway he released a book on how to be a parasite on parasites and get paid doing a service to society. does anyone have a link?<link> | i sued a telemarketer once and got a few thousand dollars: <link> |
time warner cable owes $229k to woman it would not stop calling
| i sued a telemarketer once and got a few thousand dollars: <link> | i have an old analogue modem hooked to our phone line, so when we receive an incoming call the number pops up on my computer screen (and the lounge tv screen if xmbc is being used at the time.) it is also cross-referenced with my address book so if it is a known number, it also displays the name of the caller.one problem though is here in australia, a lot of telemarketers, etc., have the caller id comes up as private. also, my mum, mother-in-law, sister-in-law and one of my clients all have private numbers, so that’s five likely sources when i see a private number. the problem is there’s only one of those sources i actually want to talk to (not saying which one, but it aint the telemaketers.)would love a device similar to the one cmdkeen mentioned available in the uk that will screen unknown numbers and voice prompt them.i’ve occasionally pondered using asterisk or similar open-source pbx to create a system like that. however it is in the queue behind about four other pet projects… |
tetris blocks traumatic flashbacks even after the memory is fixed
| > half the participants then spent 12 minutes playing tetris while the others just sat quietly for 12 minutes.from reading just this article alone, it sounds just as likely that looking at photos of your trauma a day later and then sitting there quietly thinking about it for 12 minutes causes twice as many traumatic flashbacks as looking at the photos and then being distracted by something else so you don't think about it. | > "think of it like hand washing. hand washing is not a fancy intervention, but it can reduce all sorts of illness. this is similar"how did they miss the obvious analogy?hand : handwashing :: brain : ___________ |
tetris blocks traumatic flashbacks even after the memory is fixed
| > "think of it like hand washing. hand washing is not a fancy intervention, but it can reduce all sorts of illness. this is similar"how did they miss the obvious analogy?hand : handwashing :: brain : ___________ | seems this would also "help" keep you from forming desirable memories. does candy crush have the same effect? is king creating a zombie army of people who have blocked out all significant memories from their lives? |
tetris blocks traumatic flashbacks even after the memory is fixed
| seems this would also "help" keep you from forming desirable memories. does candy crush have the same effect? is king creating a zombie army of people who have blocked out all significant memories from their lives? | interesting. i recently had a guy email me to say that my game twenty (which i find induces a similar kind of focussed mental state as tetris) was helping him with his military flashbacks.on the flip-side i would imagine this is similar to the kind of 'hypnosis' induced by poker machines and the like. |
tetris blocks traumatic flashbacks even after the memory is fixed
| interesting. i recently had a guy email me to say that my game twenty (which i find induces a similar kind of focussed mental state as tetris) was helping him with his military flashbacks.on the flip-side i would imagine this is similar to the kind of 'hypnosis' induced by poker machines and the like. | their control group seems a bit questionable to me -- maybe sitting there quietly for 12 minutes increases the risk of flashbacks? it seems possible that you'd end up thinking about the traumatic event. |
humans can sense the polarization of light with the naked eye
| so after a little owl-like head twisting, i was able to perceive the brush on both of my dell 24" lcds. however, i noticed something interesting.even though they are fairly similar models with a year or two difference (u2410 vs 2408wfp), they have different polarizations. the u has a vertical brush/bowtie and the wfp has a horizontal brush.in the past, i have noticed that the brightness of the two is different and has been hard to match. if i drag an application between the two screens, it is almost impossible to tune either monitor so the display is uniform.does the manufacturer explicitly determine the orientation of the polarization? are there reasons for one versus the other? reasons why a manufacturer might want to rotate it?i have noticed in the past that some dashboard or nav screens in cars are hard to see with my sunglasses while others aren't, and i know that is due to the orientation of their polarization because if i twist my head 90 degrees, the effect reverses.fun stuff. | i've never understand the idea that in non-polarized light, the "amplitude" of the light wave points in all directions, whereas in polarized light it points in only one. the amplitude of a light wave doesn't literally mean something is oscillating up and down, right?? the amplitude is just the light's intensity. so what does it really mean for light to be polarized? and why do thin slits cause polarization? |
humans can sense the polarization of light with the naked eye
| i've never understand the idea that in non-polarized light, the "amplitude" of the light wave points in all directions, whereas in polarized light it points in only one. the amplitude of a light wave doesn't literally mean something is oscillating up and down, right?? the amplitude is just the light's intensity. so what does it really mean for light to be polarized? and why do thin slits cause polarization? | took me an hour but i got it! staring at a solid background on my nexus 5 on full brightness in a pitch black room did the trick. horizontal linear oscillation was more noticeable for me than vertical for some reason, which meant holding my phone in landscape mode. the brush pattern is significantly fainter on my laptop than my phone, and i seem to lose the effect every few minutes when using my laptop. i've been able to bring it back by glancing back at my phone in landscape. this is really, really cool by the way. |
humans can sense the polarization of light with the naked eye
| took me an hour but i got it! staring at a solid background on my nexus 5 on full brightness in a pitch black room did the trick. horizontal linear oscillation was more noticeable for me than vertical for some reason, which meant holding my phone in landscape mode. the brush pattern is significantly fainter on my laptop than my phone, and i seem to lose the effect every few minutes when using my laptop. i've been able to bring it back by glancing back at my phone in landscape. this is really, really cool by the way. | fascinating! wikipedia has a great illustration of what it looks like, and now i can definitely see it in my lcd monitor.<link>'s_brush |
humans can sense the polarization of light with the naked eye
| fascinating! wikipedia has a great illustration of what it looks like, and now i can definitely see it in my lcd monitor.<link>'s_brush | researchers suspect that vikings used this effect in combination with a 'sunstone' (icelandic spar) to navigate by the sun even when it was hidden by clouds.article: <link> <link> |
lebanon’s forgotten space programme (2013)
| more lite a rocket programme than a space programme. | shortly after independence, zambia also briefly had an unofficial space program:<link> |
lebanon’s forgotten space programme (2013)
| shortly after independence, zambia also briefly had an unofficial space program:<link> | this is a repost. original discussion here: <link> is also a well thought out documentary on the subject that i saw at the moma recently: <link>[edit]
another thought about the lebanese rocket society... this story isn't just about the nascent rise and fall of a small country's space exploration program. it is also about it's diverse demographics and the strength that arises from a multi-cultural population. in this case the story is about manougian, an armenian, who lived in lebanon for only a few years. the story points to the resourcefulness and ambition of the armenians in lebanon. |
lebanon’s forgotten space programme (2013)
| this is a repost. original discussion here: <link> is also a well thought out documentary on the subject that i saw at the moma recently: <link>[edit]
another thought about the lebanese rocket society... this story isn't just about the nascent rise and fall of a small country's space exploration program. it is also about it's diverse demographics and the strength that arises from a multi-cultural population. in this case the story is about manougian, an armenian, who lived in lebanon for only a few years. the story points to the resourcefulness and ambition of the armenians in lebanon. | the cedar iv launched in 1963 was so successful that it was
commemorated on a stamp. it reached a height of 90 miles (145 km),
putting it close to the altitude of satellites in low-earth orbit.
so, sounding rockets, not orbital rockets: <link> myself, from 3 years ago: an object in orbit is both high and fast. *really* high (160km) and
*really* fast. (7.8km/s)
7.8 kilometres per second is 17,000 miles per hour.
they were far, far away from actually putting an object in orbit. altitude's the easy part, speed's the hard part. |
lebanon’s forgotten space programme (2013)
| the cedar iv launched in 1963 was so successful that it was
commemorated on a stamp. it reached a height of 90 miles (145 km),
putting it close to the altitude of satellites in low-earth orbit.
so, sounding rockets, not orbital rockets: <link> myself, from 3 years ago: an object in orbit is both high and fast. *really* high (160km) and
*really* fast. (7.8km/s)
7.8 kilometres per second is 17,000 miles per hour.
they were far, far away from actually putting an object in orbit. altitude's the easy part, speed's the hard part. | as a lebanese person, it's sad to see that this part of our history isn't taught to us. i only found out about it when the original article was written. such a shame that the lebanese (with quite a few exceptions, especially among millennials) have given up on intellectual progress. |
when ‘int’ is the new ‘short’
| i think the most interesting bit here is this:> now, the more astute reader will point out that i just sent over 4 gigabytes of data over the internet; and that this can’t really be all that interesting - but that argument is readily countered with gzip encoding, reducing the required data to a 4 megabyte payload.this was pretty much my first thought on seeing the iobuffer signature - "that exploit payload is going to be huge". but things are not always as they seem and using gzip to generate a large string on the client is something i had not previously considered. | many many c/c++ programmers, even many of those employed by google, have a natural tendency to use a old c types like short/int/long etc. for integral types without thinking through x-platform issues or api interactions with other code.also, size_t is a frustrating beast. it's meaning is dependent on the platform. the single unix spec only calls for size_t to be an unsigned integer type. now imagine you're writing code to compile over multiple mobile platforms as well as on x86_64 on the server side. can you tell me what is the largest number you can address with that type -- without getting into a long google/stackoverflow session or hitting the compiler manuals for each of those platforms? if you absolutely want to make sure that your type can handle the values you expect it to handle, better give it well defined types provided by stdint.h (uint32_t is sooo much better than just int or unsigned int or even size_t for this purpose).now granted, you'd need to interact with external libraries (including libc/libc++) that'll want to use size_t etc. not much you can do here but be very careful when passing data back and forth between your code and the library code. but that's been the lot of c coders since time began. |
when ‘int’ is the new ‘short’
| many many c/c++ programmers, even many of those employed by google, have a natural tendency to use a old c types like short/int/long etc. for integral types without thinking through x-platform issues or api interactions with other code.also, size_t is a frustrating beast. it's meaning is dependent on the platform. the single unix spec only calls for size_t to be an unsigned integer type. now imagine you're writing code to compile over multiple mobile platforms as well as on x86_64 on the server side. can you tell me what is the largest number you can address with that type -- without getting into a long google/stackoverflow session or hitting the compiler manuals for each of those platforms? if you absolutely want to make sure that your type can handle the values you expect it to handle, better give it well defined types provided by stdint.h (uint32_t is sooo much better than just int or unsigned int or even size_t for this purpose).now granted, you'd need to interact with external libraries (including libc/libc++) that'll want to use size_t etc. not much you can do here but be very careful when passing data back and forth between your code and the library code. but that's been the lot of c coders since time began. | it's kind of bizarre that chrome goes to exceptional lengths to sandbox things into lots of mutually untrusting processes, then parses network input outside of that protection. |
when ‘int’ is the new ‘short’
| it's kind of bizarre that chrome goes to exceptional lengths to sandbox things into lots of mutually untrusting processes, then parses network input outside of that protection. | i've never really liked the short/int/long definitions. they're just out there to confuse you, especially if you've written your share of assembly.for as long as i can remember i've just used size_t, uintptr_t, uint32_t/int32_t (or any of the 16/32/64 variants), exactly because i want to be explicit about the machine word sizes i'll be dealing with. before that, i always used similar (u32/i32, long/ulong, ...) platform-specific typedefs on proprietary systems too.for all practical purposes, int/unsigned int has been at least 32 bits since the early 90's (well, on modern platforms) but why use those if you can explicitly declare how many bits you actually need.(i've bumped into a few archaic platforms where stdint headers weren't present but it's easy to just add a few build-specific typedefs somewhere in that case.) |
when ‘int’ is the new ‘short’
| i've never really liked the short/int/long definitions. they're just out there to confuse you, especially if you've written your share of assembly.for as long as i can remember i've just used size_t, uintptr_t, uint32_t/int32_t (or any of the 16/32/64 variants), exactly because i want to be explicit about the machine word sizes i'll be dealing with. before that, i always used similar (u32/i32, long/ulong, ...) platform-specific typedefs on proprietary systems too.for all practical purposes, int/unsigned int has been at least 32 bits since the early 90's (well, on modern platforms) but why use those if you can explicitly declare how many bits you actually need.(i've bumped into a few archaic platforms where stdint headers weren't present but it's easy to just add a few build-specific typedefs somewhere in that case.) | conversion to and from c's `int` is one place where i think rust is failing too :(rust allows silent truncation of values in numeric conversions and considers it "safe", because other features for memory safety will catch buffer overflows — but it doesn't care about cases where the program will do a memory-safe logically-invalid thing (e.g. write to a wrong location within a buffer).that's because rust has no integer size promotion at all, which means `len as usize` and `len as c_int` are required all over the place when interfacing with c (and the `as` operator has no overflow checking by design). |
react on es6+
| what's the status of mixins? how could i do something similar in terms of functionality in es6? | i understand the interest in new javascript standards in the browser however i've been doing a lot of react+coffeescript (without jsx) work lately and it can do all of what is mentioned in the article in a more expressive and (imho) more beautiful syntax.i'm genuinely curious about all the es6/es7 articles. is the interest driven from the eventual native support in future browsers and being able to drop transpiler dependencies? |
react on es6+
| i understand the interest in new javascript standards in the browser however i've been doing a lot of react+coffeescript (without jsx) work lately and it can do all of what is mentioned in the article in a more expressive and (imho) more beautiful syntax.i'm genuinely curious about all the es6/es7 articles. is the interest driven from the eventual native support in future browsers and being able to drop transpiler dependencies? | this might be a silly question, but was there ever any thought put towards using es6 template strings rather than the jsx syntax additions? for example: class outercomponent extends react.component {
render() {
return (
<mixincomponent>
<innercomponent />
</mixincomponent>
);
}
}
being replaced by something more like: class outercomponent extends react.component {
render() {
return jsx`
<mixincomponent>
<innercomponent />
</mixincomponent>
`;
}
} |
react on es6+
| this might be a silly question, but was there ever any thought put towards using es6 template strings rather than the jsx syntax additions? for example: class outercomponent extends react.component {
render() {
return (
<mixincomponent>
<innercomponent />
</mixincomponent>
);
}
}
being replaced by something more like: class outercomponent extends react.component {
render() {
return jsx`
<mixincomponent>
<innercomponent />
</mixincomponent>
`;
}
} | i'm using react in es6 with rails (the react-rails gem now uses babel as its transpiler). what i've found is that i've had to choose between using es6 and getting prerendering working correctly. i also couldn't get the es6 modules working without requirejs or commonjs. if anyone has this figured out, i'd love to hear it. |
react on es6+
| i'm using react in es6 with rails (the react-rails gem now uses babel as its transpiler). what i've found is that i've had to choose between using es6 and getting prerendering working correctly. i also couldn't get the es6 modules working without requirejs or commonjs. if anyone has this figured out, i'd love to hear it. | does anyone have an example of an open source project that uses babel for react + es6? usually for me the hardest part is setting up the project organization and plumbing to make everything work. |
live-coding blender with hy
| i've always wanted to see blender's 'ghost' ui code broken out to a separate project, its very opinionated views on layout setup and surfacing underlying api bindings through the gui would make an amazing 'control panel' framework. | <link> average: 0.58, 0.25, 0.14in the event my little server goes down when the usa wakes up, you can see the same video on the github link above, and here is the text of the blog post:"hy is a clojure-like lisp that compiles to python bytecode. blender is a popular free and open source 3d modelling program. this is a little livecoding experiment i put together with the two of them."thanks for your interest. |
live-coding blender with hy
| <link> average: 0.58, 0.25, 0.14in the event my little server goes down when the usa wakes up, you can see the same video on the github link above, and here is the text of the blog post:"hy is a clojure-like lisp that compiles to python bytecode. blender is a popular free and open source 3d modelling program. this is a little livecoding experiment i put together with the two of them."thanks for your interest. | hy lisp is a really awesome and exciting project. and programming 3d stuff in it is really cool. huge props to the author for a fun video.but i'll go against other commenters here who are saying that blender is an amazing piece of software. for a long time i was really passionate about cg, and even worked as a 3d artist in a few stuidos, and guys, if you want to start learning 3d - do not start with blender.if you want to get into modelling - check out nevercenter silo, it is the most convenient 3d modelling tool you'll ever use, it is amazing.if you want to understand the basics of all the cg, and learn how professional vfx are done - learn maya, it is used for everytning, and is the absolutely best way to get started with 3d, once you understand it - you can do whatever you want and easily switch to any other app if you wish. it is the industry standard, and the best way to learn the foundations.if you want to see how the perfect cg software looks like - check out sidefx houdini. it will blow your mind, it is like linux/emacs/lisp of cg world. it is elegant and brilliant and perfect in every way(except that you can't really model in it, that's why you need silo).also take a look at zbrush, it is a sculpting software, looks alien but is really brilliantly done. you can look at the gallery here - <link>, it's amazing. if you have a tablet and some solid drawing skills - you can start creating amazing things in it really quickly.if you want to try compositing - use nuke from the foundry.all these packages have free trial versions. silo is cheap, hoidini has an apprentice version that you can use for free, indefinitely, with no limitations except for output resolution(and maybe a small watermark, i don't remember).compared to these packages - blender is a horrible mess. it is worse than what gimp is compared to photoshop. just like gimp, theoretically you can use it, and even make some good things with it, but you really, really don't want to.maybe it's a gem of open source software, and i respect that. but if you are getting into computer graphics and want to learn and understand how it works - hell no, use something else. |
live-coding blender with hy
| hy lisp is a really awesome and exciting project. and programming 3d stuff in it is really cool. huge props to the author for a fun video.but i'll go against other commenters here who are saying that blender is an amazing piece of software. for a long time i was really passionate about cg, and even worked as a 3d artist in a few stuidos, and guys, if you want to start learning 3d - do not start with blender.if you want to get into modelling - check out nevercenter silo, it is the most convenient 3d modelling tool you'll ever use, it is amazing.if you want to understand the basics of all the cg, and learn how professional vfx are done - learn maya, it is used for everytning, and is the absolutely best way to get started with 3d, once you understand it - you can do whatever you want and easily switch to any other app if you wish. it is the industry standard, and the best way to learn the foundations.if you want to see how the perfect cg software looks like - check out sidefx houdini. it will blow your mind, it is like linux/emacs/lisp of cg world. it is elegant and brilliant and perfect in every way(except that you can't really model in it, that's why you need silo).also take a look at zbrush, it is a sculpting software, looks alien but is really brilliantly done. you can look at the gallery here - <link>, it's amazing. if you have a tablet and some solid drawing skills - you can start creating amazing things in it really quickly.if you want to try compositing - use nuke from the foundry.all these packages have free trial versions. silo is cheap, hoidini has an apprentice version that you can use for free, indefinitely, with no limitations except for output resolution(and maybe a small watermark, i don't remember).compared to these packages - blender is a horrible mess. it is worse than what gimp is compared to photoshop. just like gimp, theoretically you can use it, and even make some good things with it, but you really, really don't want to.maybe it's a gem of open source software, and i respect that. but if you are getting into computer graphics and want to learn and understand how it works - hell no, use something else. | i had an urge today morning to try my hands at 3d modeling and rediscovered blender and began using it just today. quite a coincidence that hn front page has a post on blender.i've got a huge learning curve ahead of me, though. |
live-coding blender with hy
| i had an urge today morning to try my hands at 3d modeling and rediscovered blender and began using it just today. quite a coincidence that hn front page has a post on blender.i've got a huge learning curve ahead of me, though. | imho blender is one of the best examples of good software.
on almost all elements in the gui you will see the api-path on mouseover so it's very easy to discover the possibilities.the separation between the view and logic is great. so you can also run blender command line only and everything is still working. trow a script at it and you can do whatever you like.this video is another great example of it's power. |
show hn: rubik's cube
| one christmas i got my ~6 yr old son a rubik's cube. he loved it and carried it around for a couple days. then i took it from him to explain how you're supposed to mix it up and solve it. he cried when i couldn't get it back together! i felt so terrible. i spent about a week watching videos, reading move patterns, and practicing at night, and finally figured it out.i have to get out a cube every couple of months and solve it or i forget. it's funny how a few of the patterns still to work from some strange muscle memory or something - and i only have to think about what piece i need where, and then my hands just do it.the best part of knowing how to solve one is when you come across a mixed up cube at someone's home or a business... they think i'm some kind of genius, yet really i just memorized patterns to put pieces where i need them. but who am i to tell them what to think ;) | for those interested in getting a sub 60 second solve time then try learning cfop. <link> has some very good resources to get you started.with more practice and learning the correct algorithms then a sub 15 second solve is achievable.cfop stands for (c) = cross = cross on bottom layer - (f) = f2l = first 2 layers = solve bottom two layer edge and corner pieces at once - (o) = oll = orient last layer - (p) = pll = permute last layer |
show hn: rubik's cube
| for those interested in getting a sub 60 second solve time then try learning cfop. <link> has some very good resources to get you started.with more practice and learning the correct algorithms then a sub 15 second solve is achievable.cfop stands for (c) = cross = cross on bottom layer - (f) = f2l = first 2 layers = solve bottom two layer edge and corner pieces at once - (o) = oll = orient last layer - (p) = pll = permute last layer | nice job.i used to have the solutions memorized... it helped me get a job offer once because the hiring manager left to get some water and came back less than a minute later with the cube on his desk solved. when you don't know the tricks it can be impressive when someone does that. if you know the tricks it is just a silly time waster.it's a neat thing to learn. of course some people like to try to figure out the patterns on their own. :) |
show hn: rubik's cube
| nice job.i used to have the solutions memorized... it helped me get a job offer once because the hiring manager left to get some water and came back less than a minute later with the cube on his desk solved. when you don't know the tricks it can be impressive when someone does that. if you know the tricks it is just a silly time waster.it's a neat thing to learn. of course some people like to try to figure out the patterns on their own. :) | this account has been suspended. - <link>
all the images are hotlinked from this domain |
show hn: rubik's cube
| this account has been suspended. - <link>
all the images are hotlinked from this domain | i would implore anyone who's thinking about playing with a rubik's cube to not read any of those "how to solve it quickly" things.it may have taken me a year of chipping away at it and my process is definitely suboptimal, but at least i have the satisfaction of having worked it out myself.also, play with it! it's an incredibly simple but totally mind bending device. |
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