Hacker News Reader

rhino42on Show HN: My SSH server knows who you are

Thanks for the warning by the way! Moved forwardagent to specific servers.

I almost always log into trusted servers, but it's good to be preemptive ;-)

rhino42on Marilyn vos Savant and the Monty Hall Problem

One interesting variant, is the case where the Host opens a door without knowing if that door had a goat. Expressing relief that he opened a goat door, he asks you to consider switching doors.

IIRC, you get less information in this case, since there was a 1/3 chance that the host would accidentally pick the "car" door, but you still have a 1/2 chance of winning by switching.

rhino42on El Capitan’s Dawn Wall Climbers Reach Top at Yosemite

An attentive climber can see bolts from the ground at up to maybe 90-100 feet away. Mostly because of fortuitous sunlight reflections.

The general idea is that at some point in the future, we might be able to protect these difficult routes. So we preserve it for that. This argument is more legitimate in some cases than others. For instance, maybe someday we'll have some non-destructive way to protect thin cracks and flakes. But it is very unlikely that we can say the same about a barren face.

rhino42on ISRO Mars Orbiter Mission: Spacecraft successfully enters Martian Orbit

NASA actually had a rather successful program called "better, faster, cheaper" where we cut back on testing rigour in exchange for 1/2 - 1/3 mission cost

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2012/April/Pa...

rhino42on Machine learning resources

Caltech also has a fantastic open sourced machine learning course[1]. In fact, students taking the class are instructed to watch these lectures, and class-time is used for answering questions about lectures/homework. (disclaimer: caltech student)

[1] http://work.caltech.edu/lectures.html

rhino42on Flash memory issue forces Curiosity rover into safe mode

I work at NASA / JPL (but I'm not part of the MSL team, or any flight software team). We learn a good bit about good flight practices though. Here's what probably happened:

Someone found the problem as a behavioral anomaly or weird status bits. It gets reviewed and escalated a few times until the important people know. For class-A missions (I think lower classes too), we have performed fault analysis on each component (and the system as a whole), so that we can match an observed behavior to the actual underlying issue through something like a flowchart. I don't know for sure, but it was probably a bit harder for a bit-flip, but I wouldn't be surprised if they had provisions for that too. However, these high-profile projects are extremely risk-adverse, so they'll review any non-standard commands heavily before transmitting them. teams (plural) probably reviewed this failure before confirming the initial conclusion.

The week was accounting for this through analysis and review process.

(my opinion is my own, and doesn't represent NASA or JPL)

rhino42on A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

But categorically I would expect it to be a reasonable heuristic.

rhino42on Billion laughs

Nope, 1e9 = 1 * 10^9. He was fine.

rhino42on Do the police give more tickets at the end of the month to meet quotas?

But the analysis did not account for the variable number of weekend/weekday days on each day of the month. I don't know how meaningful this is, but it would be worth it to inspect this separately and then weigh it in if needed.

rhino42on Texas schools punish students who refuse to be tracked with microchips

Or wrap it in tin foil for a poor-man's farady cage. You could do slightly better with one of those passport RFID shields if that didn't cut it. Whenever they want you to present it, happily do so and then put it back in its cage

rhino42on Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

but they spit out a bunch of other nasty stuff too. Plus: consider death tolls of each power source per KWh:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-human-toll-of-coa...

rhino42on FBI launches $1 billion face recognition project

He may be pointing at organizations such as the TSA, which seem to have carte blanche nowadays.

rhino42on Google’s Self-Driving Cars Are Going to Change Everything

I like knowing where I parked. Further, we have something called valley parking, in most places that I would want to get off for a while.

You wouldn't need to know where you parked: a quick text message retrieves your car.

I will get to the airport after all. The only difference, I can have one or two to relax at home with wife, before the flight. The end result for the self-driving car is identical to the cab case, you can still have your drinks because you will not be driving the car. However, removing the cabbie from the equation will cut costs dramatically.

rhino42on Alzheimer's vaccine trial a success

As someone with a bit more knowledge in the field, can you help inform me: I thought the consensus was that beta amyloid was a second order effect of Alzheimers. Didn't we (as in the medical community) establish that it was now likely to be a result of chronic sugar toxicity? I'll find the relevant study

rhino42on Things the TSA doesn't want you to see

Devil's advocate here: but the TSA has made it more difficult to attack planes, meaning that they stooped attacks that nobody will ever know about

rhino42on Hunting Down My Son's Killer

First, mad props to you for taking control of your situation. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans can't (or won't) do that. If americans had control of their own medical actions, they would be even more susceptable to medical advertisements and would ultimately make terrible medical decisions (like, for instance, not giving their children vaccines due to fears about vaccines causing autism).

rhino42on Xbox 360 Should Be Banned from U.S. for Violating Patents, Judge Says

That being said, there is value to posts like the above. If we want to avoid becoming Reddit, we must self moderate and make an effort to stabilize our culture.

rhino42on Petition Obama adminstration to require free access to publicly funded research

Probably correct, I'm afraid to say :-(

rhino42on California Senate votes to allow self-driving cars

Self driving cars well have to be specially equipped- it's not unreasonable to add LIDAR as the standard fare for these cars. After all, it's extremely well suited for the task

rhino42on California Senate votes to allow self-driving cars

Last I checked, Google has a strong history of only using its patents defensively. I believe that's a good sign :-)

rhino42on Petition Obama adminstration to require free access to publicly funded research

Closest we got, imho, was Obama speaking in support of gay rights. They made a pretty big deal of it in the petitions.

As far as I know, laws? nada

rhino42on Ancient life, millions of years old and barely alive, found beneath ocean floor

That's my best guess. Worst part is, easy probably didn't even know it was dead

rhino42on Ancient life, millions of years old and barely alive, found beneath ocean floor

Why is the post by easy dead? It looks fine to me....

rhino42on How Google's Self-Driving Car Works

Also, publicity... Never discount publicity

rhino42on How Google's Self-Driving Car Works

The Lidar cost is not a concern in my opinion. What is Lidar actually used for right now? I'm guessing just military, science and research. This makes it very expensive. If there were demand for a million of them, they would cost a tenth as much-or less

rhino42on Faster Fourier transform among world’s most important emerging technology

Highly relevant question. As someone with a signal processing background, the SFT is so huge that without doubt it should be on this list. Knowing MIT's meritocracy, they would have given the award to more women if it were appropriate

rhino42on USPS gets into the SPAM business

That's funny, sounds familiar.

How do we finance social security again?

rhino42on Neil deGrasse Tyson: ‘How Much Would You Pay for the Universe?’

We're still getting lots of "not-space" but still beneficial science data out of NASA. I'm working with a team that's tracking pollution dispersion through earth's upper atmosphere right now, and my friend is off at a conference discussing her work on the origin of life. I think those are pretty compelling research topics.

(Electrical Engineer at NASA)

rhino42on Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France

I don't believe that is the case. Otherwise, we would see a shortage of care provided. Since everyone gets care, the competition with the super rich- if any- is vote driving prices

rhino42on Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France

This is very true. It was actually the argument that convinced me that a public provided healthcare system (at least for preventative treatment) is an awesome idea.