HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

nebula

1,078 karma · joined November 9, 2008

submissionscomments
nebula··on Deodorants, perfumes, soaps pollute air at levels as high as cars
need conditioner and aggressive rubbing it in/scalp self-massage to avoid dandruff.

Curious: Does conditioner help you avoid dandruff? Any explanation as to how it does?

nebula··on Major new iOS bug can crash iPhones and disable access to apps and iMessages
I checked the character, it is anything but weird. It is a valid character in a language used by millions of people. For those curious: It is a Telugu character; Telugu is one of several widely spoken languages in India.
nebula··on Googlebot’s JavaScript random() function is deterministic
I used to browse with lynx till few years ago. I am not sure if it is practical to do that anymore. Most of the web is no longer friendly for text browsing.
nebula··on Britain's 'concentration camp' in Russia
Did Nazis persecute Christians? My knowledge of German history is very limited, but I remember reading that church supported Hitler.
nebula··on Easter Island: a sustainable society has been falsely blamed for its own demise
The real answer is more sinister. Throughout the 19th century, South American slave raids took away as much as half of the native population. By 1877, the Rapanui numbered just 111. Introduced disease, destruction of property and enforced migration by European traders further decimated the natives and lead to increased conflict among those remaining.
nebula··on Bids in 300MW Saudi solar tender breach two cents
Very interesting. Can you please provide more details on your setup. I would love to know more as I am interested in doing something similar.
nebula··on IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S
>Even in the Bay Area, a Home is still 5-6X annual income of a typical software engineer.

Is this true? I am ignorant of actual prices in Bay Area, but people are always complaining of high housing prices there.

nebula··on India unveils $2.5B plan to electrify all households by end 2018
A good analysis of the plan and what it takes to implement it successfully: https://swarajyamag.com/infrastructure/before-those-bulbs-ar...
nebula··on Bakhshali manuscript: oldest recorded use of the zero symbol
American mathematical society has a featured column related to use of zero in India: http://www.ams.org/samplings/feature-column/fcarc-india-zero...
nebula··on Using Tensorflow to Recognize Saimaa Ringed Seals from Webcam
OP said the following about AI SaaS providers:

You are using a “ready” product and so everyone gets the updates to model but your own modifications for the model are impossible with current providers.

I think this may not be true about Azure. In Build conference this year, they demoed cognitive service APIs where one can use transfer learning techniques, and train models and use them.

nebula··on Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B
I know that there are some stories about bad experiences in the fulfillment centers, but keep in mind that those positions are temporary seasonal work by unskilled labor.

The tone of your writing suggests that you are OK with treating these people badly. If a company treats some set of its workers badly, what stops them from treating other employees the same way? In this case, they may treat SW engineers well because there is a lot of demand for engineers, and they have to be treated well to retain good folks. That is not comparable to the good culture that OP claims WF has.

nebula··on New SMB Worm Uses Seven NSA Hacking Tools, whilst WannaCry Used Just Two
Yeah, I read about Morris worm a year later in my networking textbook. It was a good feeling to realize what I have done was similar in nature. Of course, Morris worm was a real technical exploit (buffer overflow was involved IIRC) Mine was nowhere comparable to that in sophistication.
nebula··on New SMB Worm Uses Seven NSA Hacking Tools, whilst WannaCry Used Just Two
Good thought :) When I put out the first version, I haven't really understood the consequences or its effectiveness; In fact it had my code name in the greeting :( When it first appeared, people found it amusing; but it quickly went out of control and kept appearing again and again. This annoyed people. I was in trouble. I had to quickly find a solution in that panic.
nebula··on New SMB Worm Uses Seven NSA Hacking Tools, whilst WannaCry Used Just Two
Reminds me of a tricky situation I got myself into :

When I was in college, I wrote a simple worm to display a new year greeting on all computers it infects. Once it infects a computer, it did the following: 1. it replicated itself to as many computers as possible 2. Displayed the greeting (till user acknowledges it through a key press) 3. self delete (in the hope that it will quickly die by itself)

I seeded it in one of the computers in our college network. I didn't expect it to be so effective; It spread itself very quickly in the entire network. With self-delete, I thought it would die on its own. I was wrong. Machines kept infecting each other in a perpetual loop. The only way I could stop it was to write a new version that replicated, and cleaned the first version. This new version kept replicating in the network even after a year. This new version was not doing anything visible to the user, and I was saved :)

nebula··on Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas (2012)
The point when it became clear to me that Microsoft had lost their way was when they decided to get into the search business. [This was PG's view in the article]

In retrospect, this seems to be a wrong conclusion. I know Bing is far far away from Google; But I think that Bing investment was well worth it for Microsoft. If you have followed Build 2017 conference, it is obvious how Microsoft is leveraging AI/ML in several of their products; and of course, they have a good offering of cognitive service cloud APIs. Without their heavy investment in Bing, Microsoft perhaps would have found it hard to make such quick jump onto the AI/ML bandwagon.

As a side note, is Microsoft still considered a company on its way to oblivion? I personally think they reinvented themselves in the new era. Am I mistaken in my view?

nebula··on WannaCry – New Variants Detected
Thanks for the response. I should have been more explicit, but when I said BTC n/w I meant a consensus sort of thing from users/miners. Thanks for your explanation regarding the need of a fork to achieve this even with consensus.
nebula··on WannaCry – New Variants Detected
I am trying to understand impact of crypto currency. Sorry for my ignorance, and or impertinence. 1. Is it possible to run such large scale ransom demands without cryptocurrency? 2. Do we know if the attacker is using a single BTC wallet, or if ransoms are being collected in a distributed fashion. 3. Is it possible for BTC n/w to hijack BTCs going to the ransom wallet(s). That is to say collectively overwrite/override the transactions and may be reroute the coins to some non-profit wallet? I know it will be a very bad precedent, but I am trying to understand if it is technically possible.
nebula··on Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars
I wonder why MySpace couldn't copy some of these features from FB.
nebula··on China's Shenzhou 11 blasts off on space station mission
Thanks a lot for the pointers. Many here have already pointed that I am buying too much into the "free market" propaganda; may be I was indeed brainwashed into buying that, but I am trying to open my eyes and learn. AFAICT, there seems to be strong correlation between wealth/prosperity of a nation and the openness of its economy. Are there any counter examples to this? Coming to back to the original topic, is it fair to say there is no strong correlation between development of science and freedom of thought? Well, it may be true if the state does not repress the ideas being produced under science; I can now see why that might have been the case under USSR, and even in China. Scientific thought being largely apolitical may not have to be repressed by authoritarian regimes. Any holes in this logic? Sorry for being naive!
nebula··on China's Shenzhou 11 blasts off on space station mission
I could be completely off the mark here, but is it wrong in my part to assume that China may not necessarily have the right environment for basic research to flourish? The way you mentioned the "China being excited" translates to "Chinese authorities deciding to push basic research". That will no doubt get human and other resources allocated for it, but is it sufficient? China, and USSR may not be a fair comparison, but I feel China is much closer to how the USSR functioned, of course with the added opening up of the economy, and probably economic freedom within the country (The two missing pieces that led to bankruptcy of USSR). Now, let me explain the reason why I brought this comparison here. USSR in its day probably matched the west in defence, and to some extent space tech, but did USSR produce any original major basic research breakthroughs? Basic research is not amenable to top-down push and needs an environment where ideas and expressions of those ideas have freedom. Anyway those are passing thoughts I had when I read your comment.
nebula··on The Age of the Superbug Is Here
I can understand what he meant: Heavy use of antibiotics in diary and poultry industry is a significant factor contributing to drug resistant bacteria. In other words, these industries are actively providing the selection pressure you referring here.
nebula··on VotePlz – The Easiest Way to Vote
This is probably a risky question to ask here, but let me ask it anyway: looks like most/all YC partners are rallying behind a particular candidate. Would this VotePlz effort try to help their favorite candidate in an indirect way? On the face of it, it doesn't seem like, but I would be skeptical given how partisan Paul Graham's political tweets had been.
nebula··on Water treatment plant hacked, chemical mix changed for tap supplies
Article mentions some Syrian connection to attackers. I don't understand why the writer used the 'hacktivist' word here.
nebula··on China's Subprime Crisis Is Here
new constitution, which favored closer ties with China over India.

Really? They have it ingrained in the constitution? If Geo-political situation changes, and they need to re-balance their ties? They are going to need constitutional amendments?

nebula··on The Web Is Dangerous: Phishing and Browser Extensions
you carry both phones most of the time?
nebula··on Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer
I just love the idea.I may finally put my Pi for some good use. I am hoping enough people have looked at it to trust this with my network.
nebula··on Study of Holocaust survivors finds trauma passed on to children's genes
Do you mind pointing to any resources that can help in understanding pursuing trauma-release treatments. Thanks in advance.
nebula··on Offer HN: Free Domains
Can I have the .press please? simulacra@gmx.com
nebula··on Algorithms and computers won’t stop terrorism
Forgive my ignorance, but what was that Target incident, and how/why algorithms informed a father that his daughter is pregnant?
nebula··on Nukes ready to fly
Very interesting that Pakistan, a much smaller country( by all measures) has a larger stockpile of nukes than its larger neighbor India.
Page 1 of 7Next →