Zombieball

I believe correctable pens solve this issue.

Wipebook (http://www.wipebook.com) did a short video comparing correctable vs. dry-erase vs. non-permanent pens:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m-hE6VDAG_I

It demonstrates their resilience to accidental erasure.

Yep. Same here. You want to be able to explicitly turn off the lights (say when you go to bed). Not have to wait for some timer to expire.

I suppose if the motion sensors had some extreme AI and could detect when I would want the lights on or off and make that decision before I verbalized it. But I'd probably want the voice interface as an override when the AI gets the wrong answer.

> isn't the most convenient way to turn on a light switch still just physically flipping the switch?

The answer to this is: No.

The Echo and Google Smarthome don't require you to take it out of your pocket to interact with it. Walk in the door and it's listening. It sounds like a small difference but it is huge.

I think voice interfaces are very easily dismissed as for the lazy people, or a gimmick. Until you start using it on a daily basis. Then you start to realize how stupid it is to not be able to turn on your lights while both hands are overloaded with grocery bags (because two trips to the car is just never done!)

I think in this scenario it seems fair to post a question. What's the alternative, write a blog article asking the same and post a link to that instead?

I'm also interested in a status update given some recent news posted on HN about Finland experimenting with the same ideas.

Awesome, I gave it a quick glance. This line from Readme makes me happy:

> code shared across platforms (browser, server, native mobile)

I'll definitely have to take a closer look. Thanks!

That'd be awesome! I'll keep an eye out.

I'd love it if a series like this was made where a React website and React Native app were made in tandem. Suggestions for project layout and architecture would show you how to reuse core business logic between both apps.

Perhaps even the view layers could have some overlap?

I currently work on a team that supports multiple native Android apps and an Angular 1.X web app. The ability to reuse code in this fashion is the biggest lure to React for me. I've seen a few blog articles that cover this topic at a shallow level. If anyone has resources they could share it would be much appreciated.

You nailed it. People frequently point out the unattended delivery aspect or talk about shooting drones from the air to get "free" packages.

At the end of the day it's a lot easier for theieves to just follow the UPS truck.

I am still waiting for Prime Now in Vancouver!

I bet someone thought the same thing when Amazon sold its first couple of books online ;)

Does the fantastic integration hinge upon using Windows as your primary OS?

A lot of MS software (Outlook, SharePoint, Lync) is not that great on OSX vs. the Windows version.

Im curious how well this works in an office of people using different operating systems.

I don't know why but I think the turn-styles that identify customers as they enter will help alleviate some of these concerns. Additionally I think if they distributed Amazon Go branded shopping bags in the store it would also help.

I've used the Apple Store feature to buy a charger and iPhone case in the past. I admit it did feel strange as I waltzed out the front door past the genius bar guys just holding an item in my hands. If I had a bag I could put the item into (I imagine I could've asked a worker for one) then I would probably just look like every customer who paid at the till.

This leads me to think that the reason I felt weird is because I was the only one walking out of the store (to my knowledge) that paid in this manner. If I know everyone is doing it, again my mind would probably be at ease.

Anyone here used jsawk that could compare and contrast to jq?

This is a good low-tech solution!

Thanks!

> How would an electronic voting machine improve upon this?

I am just theorizing here: Someone now takes the box of paper votes and runs it through the scanner machine. And passes this number along to someone. What is stopping them from tampering at this step? I think this is precisely what my co-worker was describing. There is an inherent trust that your paper ballot is scanned and recorded in a fashion that matches your vote.

An electronic voting machine could potentially communicate votes in real time over a secure connection. Or in the case of Brazil's machines, I believe stores it locally, encrypted, with a verifiable cryptographic signature of some sort.

I'm sure we all know the multitude of other attack vectors this introduces. I guess I am just not convinced that paper makes things more secure.

Don't shoot the messenger! I am just passing along the one story I remembered / found interesting.

I'm not saying this scenario is plausible for swaying the outcome of a presidential election (which is what I am sure is on many of your minds right now). But for locally elected officials? Seems at least plausible to me.

At the end of the day I imagine electronic voting is all about speed. A quick wiki search brings up the following anecdote:

> The voting system has been widely accepted, due in great part to the fact that it speeds up the vote count tremendously. In the 1989 presidential election between Fernando Collor de Mello and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the vote count required nine days. In the 2002 general election, the count required less than 12 hours. In some smaller towns the election results are known minutes after the closing of the ballots.

A former co-worker of mine wrote software for voting machines in Brazil. He described to me a few reasons why electronic voting machines are important. To be honest I forget the majority, but one story that stuck with me:

One common scheme electronic voting machines help prevent is forced votes. A bad guy gets their hand on a single empty ballot and writes the name of the candidate he wants to win on it. He then comes to you and threatens you and your family. Says hand in this pre-filled ballot and bring me back your empty ballot, or else... You comply, he fills out the empty ballot again, and repeats.

The electronic voting machines protect your identity. They allow you to vote anonymously. They provide data integrity that is harder to spoof than paper voting methods. I explicitly asked why they don't just vote on paper ballots like they do in Canada (or the UK as you describe). His response was that we take for granted the inherit trust our societies have to allow us to vote in such a fashion without it being tampered.

When I search my email on haveibeenpwned.com, one of my results is the following:

Bitcoin Security Forum Gmail Dump: In September 2014, a large dump of nearly 5M usernames and passwords was posted to a Russian Bitcoin forum. Whilst commonly reported as 5M "Gmail passwords", the dump also contained 123k yandex.ru addresses. Whilst the origin of the breach remains unclear, the breached credentials were confirmed by multiple source as correct, albeit a number of years old.

Compromised data: Email addresses, Passwords

Finally got around to watching this. Super interesting. Exactly what I was thinking about.

Thanks!

Reading through Tesla blogs and watching this video, my understanding is the self driving hardware is cameras and ultrasonic sensors.

Does the lack of lidar not scare anyone else?

Also, Out of curiosity, does anyone know how a Tesla behaves if you point ultrasonic transducers in the same frequency at it? Do they have special modulation to avoid tampering in this manner? I imagine you could confuse the car into thinking there are barriers it can't see.

> Women love to look at other women's rings and chat about it. If she is open to the idea, just remember that she's the one being brave and breaking out of the mold more so than you.

This is a great description that captures the social pressure aspect quite well. Guys aren't the ones wearing the ring everywhere!

Makes a lot of sense. I didn't think about the forgone taxes. Probably quite significant.

What's causing the tax loss? Businesses fleeing the country?

Are we glossing over the fact that none of these drivers work for Amazon?

> A BBC reporter got a job with AHC services

I think the real issue at play here is the use of contract workers to skirt labour laws. Perhaps governments need to stop differentiating between part time and full time workers given the assumption everyone needs to make a living wage some how, even if it is through multiple "part time" jobs.

Just throwing out thoughts.

I expected a long rant about storing all your passwords in one place. First paragraph I see reference to php, and completely sympathized with the author

And I am a LastPass customer!

(edit: clarification, I meant to portray my disdain for php. I still like (and trust) LastPass!)

Haha maybe!

I think the biggest change in the past year (vs. 15 years ago) is the ability to interface with products like Amazon Echo and Google Home.

It's very convenient to be able to control lights from anywhere in the room by issuing a voice command. Not just turn them on and off but also dim, change colours, etc.

Granted this is from the perspective of living in an apartment :)

There is a good video from Niel deGrasse Tyson talking about learning.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=utedyJ7QRBs

His argument is learning is never a waste of time, even if you don't ever use and forget everything you studied. The simple act of learning is beneficial, it helps build connections in your brain. You develop skills that can be applied to other problems.

A lot of Vancouver's bike lanes are setup in this manner (road --> parking --> bike lane --> sidewalk).

I have seen the occasional bike get doored by passengers not checking before opening their door. But I imagine this occurrence is much less than if the bike lane were on the driver's side.

The problem with this anecdote, and many of the comments I see about "Amazon delivery" is it only manages to address Amazon as a last-mile carrier.

If you look at the "Ground Control" infographic in the article, a significant portion of logistics is in the linehaul network: tractors + 53' trailers full of thousands of packages. At the end of the day you don't really know if Amazon, Fedex, or USPS handled these shipments, all you see is the guy who shows up to your door. I imagine there is the potential for huge savings to have Amazon vertically integrate this.

Sure, personalized delivery to your doorstep is a tough problem to solve. But delivery of thousands of packages between point A and B? Not as tough.