PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/TheHackersNews/status/1078907851995860992 <comment><USER2> Please note that "The Hacker News" is a separate site unrelated to "Hacker News".

<comment><USER3> This name confusion seems intentional and makes me default to unsympathetic, even though I suspect PayPal's issue is not related to a name confusion root cause.

<comment><USER4> > _This name confusion seems intentional_

Do you have proof, or do you just happen to feel this way without actually knowing any background story? If you make such an accusation you should state your reasons, preferably observable facts. Both "hacker" and "news" are generic terms after all.

In addition, even if they _did_ mimic the name, I would not see a problem. It's very descriptive, unlike a completely made-up word that someone spent a lot of effort on to establish as a brand.

<comment><USER3> This site, with the name "Hacker News", was already popular and predates the other site by several years.

If I launched a new site called "TheFacebook.com" tomorrow, what proof would you need that I was, at a minimum, knowingly causing confusion?

<comment><USER5> I think that's not a great comparison. Hacker News is still essentially a niche site known to people who care about a specific set of fields relevant to startups. If you asked a random person on the street they probably wouldn't know about Y Combinator, much less Hacker News.

I'm not sure how to measure the actual level of recognition of a brand name, but I feel that Hacker News falls into the second or third tier of whatever that ranking is, whereas names like Facebook or Google form the top tier. That, combined with the relatively generic name, make me inclined to believe without further evidence that it's a coincidence - especially given the fact that the site is actually about news related to hacking, or hacker news.

A closer comparison I can think of is if I saw a watch company called "The International Watch Company". The real IWC is a luxury watch company, but the brand and its full name aren't known to many people. In that case too, my opinion is that the name is generic enough for it to feel like an honest coincidence.

<comment><USER6> The popularity is not the most important factor in a brand trial, it's the domain.

There can't be two companies with the same name in the same niche, which is what is happening here.

<comment><USER7> This is not a brand trial, this is a discussion about the name being or not intentional.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This website was basically an extreme plagiarism website - all the way back in 2014 we had articles like this:

"The Hacker News - Profiting Off Extensive Plagiarism from Legitimate News Sources"

Interesting they feel so unfairly treated by paypal, but don't treat others properly themselves.

</comment><comment><USER9> Paypal has done this multiple times, here are some incidents.

[https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/My-Account/Permanent- BAN...](https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/My-Account/Permanent-BAN-limited- account/td-p/1489460)

[https://medium.com/@puntofisso/paypal-closed-my-account- with...](https://medium.com/@puntofisso/paypal-closed-my-account-with-no- explanation-it-could-happen-to-you-6ff0ba4ea95f)

[https://www.elliott.org/blog/banned-from-palpal-account- limi...](https://www.elliott.org/blog/banned-from-palpal-account-limitations/)

[https://www.success.grownupgeek.com/index.php/2008/04/05/pay...](https://www.success.grownupgeek.com/index.php/2008/04/05/paypal- limited-access/comment-page-3/)

Completely relying on any third party is a bad idea. We should consider the risks when we signup to any service. Around this month we have seen multiple companies banning accounts without giving valid reasons MailChimp, Patreon, Slack(They had a reason but they didn't notify the users earlier, however they appologized later)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18754860](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18754860)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18715866](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18715866)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18724107](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18724107)

<comment> barry-cotter Well everyone who wants to accept payments on the internet ultimately relies on VisaMasterCard. They will shut you off and get other payment processors to shut you off like happened to SubscribeStar when they set up as a Patreon competitor.

[https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1076886857445711872?s...](https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1076886857445711872?s=21) Long twitter thread on the relation between MasterCard, Visa and Patreon and how the credit card cartel is attempting to minimise political risk.

Transcript of a call with the head of Patreon's Censorship department where they as much as say MasterCard made them do it.

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U0mQjUA0T5INc_GDkwPJ2mfh...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U0mQjUA0T5INc_GDkwPJ2mfhO7tbaIogisSqqxHw0hc/mobilebasic)

<comment><USER10> There's a whole lot of conspiracy speculation in there, especially the idea of "SPLC's anti-conservative purge".

Simply put, being associated with hard-right political figures is seen as problematic by Mastercard, Patreon, Paypal etc., and they are trying to minimize their risk, because they don't want to lose business. They _have_ to do this, due to their obligations to shareholders, boards of directors and advertisers, who are all very concerned about public opinion's influence on their bottom line.

If you want to get to the heart of this "voluntary censorship", you have to either improve the public image of hard-right figures, so they're no longer seen as problematic, or break the reputation/bottom line relationship, or outright change the way businesses are run and held accountable, which would probably mean changing some fundamental things about capitalism.

Unless you want to abolish capitalism outright, I would suggest lessening the grip of corporations on payment services, and introduce a federal bank and federal payment service for the people. After all, isn't the ability to make and receive payment a public good on the level of water and electricity? Make it for everyone, equally.

<comment> barry-cotter > There's a whole lot of conspiracy speculation in there, especially the idea > of "SPLC's anti-conservative purge".

[https://www.nationalreview.com/news/maajid-nawaz-splc- apolog...](https://www.nationalreview.com/news/maajid-nawaz-splc-apologizes- settles-extremist-label/)

SPLC Apologizes, Pays Settlement to Islamic Reformer It Wrongly Labeled 'Anti- Muslim Extremist'

The Southern Poverty Law Center has reached a settlement with liberal Islamic reformer Maajid Nawaz and his organization, the Quilliam Foundation, for wrongly including them on its now-defunct list of "anti-Muslim extremists."

The SPLC announced Monday that it has agreed to pay Nawaz and Quilliam $3.375 million "to fund their work to fight anti-Muslim bigotry and extremism." The settlement was the result of a lawsuit Nawaz filed in April over his inclusion on the SPLC's "Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists."

[https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_6646994?ec_carp=612494826...](https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_6646994?ec_carp=6124948269983792344)

Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson has been added to the Southern Poverty Law Center's (SPLC) list of anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender extremists.

[https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/29/guidestar- rem...](https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/29/guidestar-removes-hate- group-tags-on-nonprofits/)

Gunmen have twice targeted conservatives specifically cited by the SPLC for hate: Republican Rep. Steve Scalise, who was shot June 14 by a fan of the SPLC Facebook page, and the Family Research Council, whose security guard was wounded in 2012 by a man who said he found the FRC on the SPLC's list of "anti-gay groups."

As far as conservative organizations are concerned, being labeled a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center isn't just annoying — it's dangerous.

<comment><USER10> SPLC serves a very important role of shining a light on dangerous extremists, such as this guy:

[https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/12/20/longtime- anti...](https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/12/20/longtime- antigovernment-militia-organizer-calls-lone-wolf-action-against-antifa)

<comment><USER11> _...at the time of writing the video calling for lone wolf retaliation was viewed just shy of 250 times on Facebook..._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a fraud website which has mercilessly ripped off content from other sites and published as its own. Also it has published a ton of proprietary information from time to time. Good riddance!

<comment><USER13> Do you have any citations for these claims? Not calling you a liar or anything - I'm just not at all familiar with the site in question, and it seems like it'd be important evidence if we want to fairly judge paypal's behavior here.

<comment><USER14> [http://attrition.org/errata/plagiarism/thehackernews/](http://attrition.org/errata/plagiarism/thehackernews/)

If you don't believe that, than take my word. I'm an infosec reporter and had countless articles end up on that site. News sites often report on the same topics all the time, but there's a difference between running a story on the same topic and copying the text and replacing some verbs and nouns with a synonym, and then switching sentence order to pass it as your own. Every reporter has his own way of structuring a story. It's pretty obvious for us when someone steals an article, based on how you present information points and which information points from a —let's say 50-page academic paper— you decide to present. Many times, information I obtained during private email or phone conversations would also end up on their site. When I confronted the "CEO" (aka site owner) he said he found that information using Google (obvious lie) and replied with insults. They kinda stopped copying my articles after I called them out a few more times on Twitter, but I don't believe for a second they're now doing actual news reporting.

I have other reporter friends who'd tell you similar stories and interactions with their staff. At one point someone tried to organize a campaign where all reporters would call out The Hacker News and Security Affairs (another site engaging in plagiarism) on Twitter, and urge security researchers to stop sharing links to their sites, but that didn't materialize because some of the bigger names in infosec journalism didn't wanna participate. In hindsight, it was kinda silly (childish would be a better word), but this only shows how many news sites TheHackerNews has angered in the past few years. They're absolutely despised by most infosec news reporters and I know at least two people who are now opening a beer in celebration.

Recently, the site started declining on its own. Reporting has been awful, with tons of inaccuracies that now I don't even bother checking it in RSS feeds: [https://twitter.com/thegrugq/status/902600568262107136](https://twitter.com/thegrugq/status/902600568262107136)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> They also reportedly shutdown Subscribe Star recently, when people started to use it instead of Patreon, in the wake of the Patreon banning of some prominent You Tuber. This isn't working. The free market doesn't seem to work well in the tech world, where we have all powerfull monopolies controlling what we say, what we know and what we buy. We need new laws.

<comment><USER16> Can you expand on this line of reasoning a bit? Specifically, what's stopping a competitor from eating Paypal's lunch right now? They have a majority market share now, but disruption still seems a possibility. Often it seems would-be disruptors get bought by the goliaths, but that's on the owners of the disruptors making their company purchasable such as through accepting investor money.

On the flip side, if we did get new laws, why would the goliaths not use their country-size budgets to lobby for the laws to just ensconce them as the government-approved monopoly (maybe not directly, but for example by throwing up legislative barriers to entry against would-be competitors)?

<comment><USER17>
      Specifically, what's stopping a competitor
      from eating Paypal's lunch right now?

Perhaps being a payment processor is actually difficult, and Paypal is doing a tolerably good job?

I only hear people bitching about their paypal account being locked once or twice a year, whereas I assume paypal deal with hundreds of attempts at credit card fraud, chargebacks, complaints about ebay goods and suchlike every day.

<comment><USER18> Oh, they deal with it. But always on terms favorible to them. I sold off inventory to my old CoLo and they froze all my funds for 6 months until lawyers got called, and somehow their fraud investigation magically vanished. They are no better than mafia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> PayPal is a disgrace. Years ago they blocked my account and freezed my money until I sent them a copy of my passport, my birth certificate, and a proof of address. But sending them wasn't enough, as this dragged on for months and months with no feedback from them. Eventually (after over a year) they cleared my account, but just a month later it was frozen again, _and they asked for the exact same documents_ yet again. By that time I had made sure I had no money in the account, so I didn't even bother contacting them again.

This was many years ago, and I have almost successfully avoided them since. However, a few months back I had to buy something from Ebay, and I could only pay through PayPal. I now live in a different country, and I have learned that I needed to create a brand new account, you can't change the country of the old account (not that i wanted to use that old account anyway). I made a new account, paid that Ebay guy, and got my merchandise. A month later (after I had already received my merchandise and having not used PayPal after that) I got an e-mail from PayPal asking me yet again for a copy of my passport, my birth certificate, and a proof of address.

Unbelievable. Stay away from PayPal if you can!

<comment><USER20> This applies to most centralized external services, but especially those that handle money. If your application or business relies 100% on one of these services that could be shut down or have your account suspended or removed, make sure to have a backup plan in place to switch it over to a self hosted option or another offering from another company.

<comment><USER19> Business? I'm a private individual _buying_ stuff on Ebay. The only time I received money on PayPal was from friends who paid back small loans, like taxi trips or restaurant bills.

<comment><USER20> That's even crazier then. I guess PayPal is bad for both parties!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> As far as I know, The Hacker News is just bunch of copied articles (i.e., blog spam) - but copying and plagiarism is so prevalent and pervasive on these news sites. Nothing new here.

However, they did add "donate" pay button on their website which means that PayPal might be on the hook if somebody donates to The Hacker News but article is written by somebody else. Just speculating.

<comment><USER22> Even assuming you are 100% correct, it is interesting that this violation is not decided by the legal system but by a secret court inside PayPal. They will not even tell you the offense you are guilty of.

<comment><USER23> Secret court? They're a private company, they're entirely free to choose who they do business with for whatever reason (barring a few protected classes that would fall foul of anti-discrimination law, of course).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> [https://hackernoon.com/paypal-is-still-one-of-the-worst- onli...](https://hackernoon.com/paypal-is-still-one-of-the-worst-online- examples-of-customer-service-42f3c13f6cd0)

I wrote this article on Hacker Noon 18 months ago or so, nothing has changed. The only good thing was the article going viral, which spawned a new golden level of PayPal customer service - they also had to disable account deletion for 48h, which was nice to know.

I've moved away entirely to Stripe and other services and it's been bliss.

</comment><comment><USER25> Wow, the "bitcoin" responses to that thread. Talk about trading one problem for another....

<comment><USER26> Yeah, everyone suggest to move from platform with 0.001% incidents rate, to the scammy bitcoin where no one is responsible for anything.

<comment><USER27> In bitcoin there's no central authority responsible for everything that has the power to censor you. You are responsible for your own safety.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Off topic, but "The Hacker News" should really change their name to "The Other Hacker News"

<comment><USER29> why? has ycombinator trademarked/registered hacker news?

<comment><USER30> Yes/no (in the United States).

In other words, they claim a common law trademark on it [1], but they have not registered it with the USPTO. This means they probably have some trademark protection, at least in some states, but not nearly as much as if they had a registered mark. For example, they might be able to get an injunction against a similar user in some states, but probably not damages or attorney fees. With a registered mark, they would be able to go for damages and attorney fees.

[1] See reply to you from 'disconnected' for link to claim.

<comment><USER29> thanks for your response, i don't know why i was downvoted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Often, the bans are just because they implemented Federal rules in the most stupid way possible.

For example, the US has something called the "Office of Foreign Assets Control" (OFAC). It's a list of names that companies like PayPal are supposed to prevent from being sent payments.

Paypal chose to implement it with super dumb string matching in ANY field. So, for example, if you put the words "Castro", "Cuba" or "JAMES KANG" into ANY field (even a MEMO field)...your payment gets stopped and your account frozen until you send them the DOB for "Cuba", even though it was just in a memo field.

[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160817/13505935266/paypa...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160817/13505935266/paypal- stops-payment-just-because-payees-memo-included-word-cuba.shtml)

[https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/About-Business- Archive/T...](https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/About-Business-Archive/The- Secret-Paypal-Blacklist/m-p/925329#U925329)

[https://imgur.com/a/RnpRm](https://imgur.com/a/RnpRm)

</comment><comment><USER32> Is there any viable alternative to PayPal for a EU-based micro-business wanting to accept CC payments from North American customers?

I run a legally operating one-man business providing electronic services to customers (mostly other businesses) in EU, US and Canada. The EU customers pay me with bank transfers like civilized human beings, but Americans and Canadians always insist on PayPal because, apparently, North American banking system charges an arm and a leg for international bank transfers, so they'd rather pay with CC.

I didn't mind having to provide PayPal with scans of a bunch of sensitive documents. What I do mind is pretending my PayPal balance is not real money but virtual tokens with little legal protection and the possibility of being arbitrarily frozen for an undisclosed reason. That, and their horrendous fees (including currency conversions based on rates they pull out of the ass) for which they don't even provide anything resembling a legal invoice (a screenshot of an HTML table won't cut with my IRS).

Someone, for the love of God, tell me there's an alternative a teeny-tiny business like mine could use.

</comment><comment><USER33> All this talk of monopoly in this sector of finance makes me wonder how you'd start a service in this space.

And it made me realize I have no idea how it works.

I swipe (or insert w/ chip) at a POS... which then beamz the transaction to VISA? So do you need to get a partnership with all of the POS vendors? Is that open or closed?

Of course, that presupposes that someone has your card. VISA doesn't make cards, they just get banks to issue cards using their network (why don't banks do this on their own?). So now I also need a partnership with at least one large bank to have a decent enough exposure to get those partnerships with those POS vendors?

The challenges sound largely political, in making those initial connections with the right company. Which doesn't make them easy, but it elevates a deceptively simple technical problem to a hard one, I think.

<comment><USER34> There is a lot more to it than that, there is merchant acquiring (merchant relationship with a payment services provider that gives merchants the credentials and equipment to accept payments), there are sometimes aggregators that transactions then funnel into. Next the transactions hit a network which acts as the router between acquirers and issuers (more on this later). The network can also act as a default stand in when the issuing bank is not reachable. From here the transaction goes into the issuing bank which runs a host of fraud and risk rules to answer the questions: 1. Should I authorize this? <\- this is bank's prerogative and mostly deals with financial risk and 2. Can I authorize this? <\- this is regulatory in nature and can be very binary and very binding. Its the the second question that also comes with binding regulations in some jurisdictions that prevent all parties along this chain from disclosing the reasons for declining, withholding funds or delay processing to affected parties. Even more interestingly, PayPal operates at most of these tiers almost entirely independently (PayPal API as the acquirer, PayPal as the aggregator, PayPal as the network of network _AND_ of-course PayPal as the issuer with PayPal credit. Obviously not all transactions go through all tiers in case PayPal (a credit card transaction goes to card network and card issuer in the back for example) but Pay upon invoice, Bank transfers and PayPal credit (bill me later) are all examples of PayPal extending credit to buyer. Payments are quite fascinating, you are correct that a lot of issues are political but don't underestimate the complexity of the ecosystem, especially in global context. And I have not even gotten into bad faith actors and the war between good and bad guys yet.

<comment><USER35> Is there some good resource on how this all works in reality, or is it just something you learn by working in the sector?

<comment><USER34> I write about it on my company blog for internal developers, perhaps I can get our legal folks to go over it and I can publish some of it. There is a lot of tribal knowledge for sure but on my journey from issuers to merchants to networks, I keep finding consistent themes. Perhaps it is time to put this all down on paper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Of all the legit PayPal outrage stories this one doesn't seem outrage-worthy. Looks like a bad blog spam account trying to capitalize on this community's name. Good for PayPal and for everyone really? What am I missing?

<comment><USER37> No rhyme or reason given, the other times Paypal have withheld funds from or barred others for less legitimate reasons, most recently substar. For me big tech actively sabotaging the careers and income of folks with whom they, often arbitrarily find problematic is a big problem, particularly given how reliant people are on the web for these purposes and the increasing lack of competition

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Why do visa and mastercard want to ban people from receiving money? If anyone here have the answer please share.

<comment><USER39> The same reason banks and countries put sanctions on countries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Every chance I get, I tell people not to use PayPal. They have done this repeatedly, and the people who are affected have absolutely no recourse unless they happen to own a popular newspaper. PayPal has been shamed into doing the right thing, and that seems to be the only recourse. From reports I've heard, their internal system doesn't exist, and they aren't a bank, so there is no legal recourse either.

<comment><USER41> I wouldn't use ebay if I couldn't use paypal. I don't want to use my CC for any online xacts if I don't need to. I'd rather use paypal to protect myself or just shop at a site I trust (e.g. Amazon).

People who receive monies via PP need to protect themselves by assuming PP could freeze their account at any time. That means keeping the minimum amount of $$ possible under PP's control. I know there are regs to that but you need to protect yourself.

<comment><USER42> Some of the banks and some 3rd party companies are now offering a system to digitally generate "one-time" use card numbers that are automatically destroyed after a successful transaction.

<comment><USER41> I've seen virtual CC numbers for one time use here in the USA but not sure if they're still available. It's still a hassle to setup, configure, use, etc, which is its fall down. Simplicity is PP's strength, IMO, which is why it's got staying power.

<comment><USER42> They're definitely still available, there are even companies offering card generation API as a service (google Marqeta). I agree with you on simplicity, but one clear advantage to the temporary card approach is that it's automatically revoked without you having to take further action, whereas paypal still offers merchants the ability to automatically bill you on a recurring basis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Real Hacker News would've known to avoid PayPal :)

This story only made the front page because of the name confusion. Other comments claim that name choice to be intentional

</comment><comment><USER12> On Why this site was banned? [http://attrition.org/errata/plagiarism/thehackernews/](http://attrition.org/errata/plagiarism/thehackernews/) Plagiarism to begin with!

</comment><comment><USER44> So you can take someone's money and not give them a reason for it? Isn't this called theft?

This happened to a very minor account we had, reasoning was dubious.

Without any kind of transparency or due process ... (or competition) ... this is a problem.

</comment><comment><USER45> Who was ever donating to that thing?!

<comment><USER46> Looks like they sell online courses, with some having thousands of enrolled users.

<comment><USER23> Are those stolen from other sites too?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Regardless of weather the `THN` name is confusing or not and regardless of the speculations, does paypal need to give a reason for termination? Are they legally obligated? Is it something they should do for the sake of customers?

Should one get mad at `THN` because there name overlaps HN and they supposedly are `real hack` or should we be mad at paypal because it's overreaching it's powers?

<comment><USER48> When PayPal bans a site it's always for breaking their TOS. Sometimes the specific parts of that TOS are bullshit, but most of the time it turns out that it was a pretty flagrant violation of those terms.

I don't feel sorry for anyone who still uses PayPal to collect money for a use that has been specifically banned in their TOS, and anything that even starts to encroach on illegal matters falls into that. Information about how to break into computer systems (hacking) definitely falls into that and they should have known they were on shaky ground.

<comment><USER49> That is quite simply wrong. I have been on the receiving end of this problem, and there is zero transparency about the reasons behind banning, zero warning or recourse, and of course the good old 180 day locking of funds which can kill any e-commerce platform that runs on anything other than absurdly high margins.

The company in question moved to Stripe where it operates to this day.

PayPal is just a very large, shady as fuck company. Im hoping cryptocurrency matures to a point where they are not needed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Well they discover a thing: regulation may slow down things, but protect. A bank can't lock you out without facing trial, an internet company, far less regulated can.

Now think many time because we generally do no see banks as something "good" especially these days. If such days arrive it means that we are really in a dangerous situation.

And for we I mean "society".

</comment><comment><USER51> I hope we have more democratization of payment processing. I don't have an opinion of this instance either way, but the fact that a few companies dominate the payment universe is troubling.

</comment><comment><USER52> That website has recently plagiarized an article I helped write, so good riddens.

</comment><comment><USER53> From the follow-up tweet:

> Instead of giving a valid reason, company says "specific reasons for such a > decision is proprietary & it is not released since that could impair > PayPal's ability to do business in a safe and secure manner"

I've been trying to close my PayPal account for the last week and will keep trying, but so far have not been able to. I've had this account since 2000. I want to close it because of the treatment of SubscribeStar and others. I've never watched a video by Sargon of Akkad. But even if it was Adolph of Hitler I'd be concerned about this behavior by Patreon. For PayPal to back them up by dropping a competitor is enough for me to want to reciprocate.

First, PayPal required me to individually cancel most of the vendors I've paid via PayPal in the last decade or so, and made it difficult to discover how to do that. But I finally figured it out and cancelled them all. If they weren't being mulish about this it seems like it would be easy for them to do the same as part of the process of closing the account.

Now that I've done this I still can't cancel via their web site. I get the message "Before you close your account -- Sorry, there's a problem. If you keep seeing this, please contact customer service." There is no email address on their contact page. Their pop-up chat app on the contact page freezes immediately and is unusable. I'll call them if I have to, but I shouldn't have to. The issues closing the account are by themselves enough to make me want to close it.

When I do manage to close the account I'm hoping that they ask me for a reason, at which point I plan to tell them "specific reasons for such a decision is proprietary & it is not released since that could impair my ability to do business in a safe and secure manner."

<comment><USER37> I'm with you. The problem is, PayPal weren't the only payment processors to bail on Substar, if we want to purchase online which popular/accessible processors are not engaging in similar? Genuine question

<comment><USER53> I'd like an answer to that too. If one emerges I'm inclined to support it. Hopefully there are enough people like us to make that profitable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> This is why we need permissionless money that can't be seized by companies or the government.

</comment><comment><USER55> Banning without explanation seems too common for Paypal?

<comment><USER56> It's common for any money transmitter service. Every time i look into the stories I've found the ban actually makes sense.

People who get upset generally are running a business that violates their payment processor's terms of service, or user agreement.

Paypal is the most accessible, largest payment processor so we see the most stories about them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> PayPal up to its usual top class behaviour I see

Have they ever been sued for similar?</comment>


EU's draconian new copyright law puts an expiration date on startups - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/eu/2017/07/27/eus-draconian-new-copyright-laws-put-expiration-dates-on-startups/?amp=1 <comment><USER2> Despite opposing the legislation, the article is filled with copyright maximalist garbage that goes far beyond the already harsh copyright laws of the EU and US. Just look at this paragraph:

"The European Parliament should take a rational approach where they ask themselves, 'does a certain text and data mining cause any harm to the author or the rights holder?' And if the answer is no, then they should allow it."

Far from "you can't copy copyrighted stuff", now they want "you can't do anything with copyrighted stuff that might reduce the owner's profits". Another paragraph:

"The Copyright Reforms, and especially the article on text and data mining, is meant to make sure that companies cannot profit illegally from the intellectual property of others."

They don't mean 'cannot profit illegally', they mean ' _make_ it illegal to profit from reading _public_ data'.

Such a thin veil of language that, when pulled back, reveals utterly absurd laws - and it's been used before. It's hard to outlaw 'figuring out how stuff works', but they did manage to mostly outlaw 'reverse engineering', despite it being the same thing. Now it's 'data mining' instead of 'using publicly accessible data'.

And I'm more than a little disappointed so many journalists can't (or won't) see through it, and instead just parrot what various lobbyists tell them.</comment>


John McCain, Internet dunce - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/08/13/john_mccain_technology/

<comment><USER2> Please, for the love of god forget about fucking politics on HN, I stopped reading reddit for a reason.

<comment><USER3> If this is the article I'm thinking about, it's a dupe, and the first time around sparked an interesting discussion on how much technology you want a good leader to have.

But it might not be that article. I didn't click. The title is pure flamebait, so I flagged it.

As the U.S. presidential season continues to heat up, it'll get worse. Mark my words.</comment></comment>


Ask PG: Why does everything start with 1 point that doesn't actually count? - jack-r-abbit

Everything (submissions and comments) starts with 1 point but that 1 point is not really counted in your karma. Only after you get an upvote do you get an increase in karma. But the point value associated with any given item is always 1 higher than the net karma change. I'm just curious about the thinking behind it. <comment><AUTHOR> I suspect it has to do with gamification and social engineering. One point, even though it represents zero up votes has a more positive connotation than zero points. Also, one point may signify that the comment contributes to the discussion more strongly than a zero.

In the end, though, points are non-fungible and karma only matters in the way a person lets it.

</comment><comment><USER2> > _How is a user 's karma calculated?_ [1]

 _Roughly, the number of upvotes on their submissions and comments, minus the number of downvotes. (The numbers won 't exactly match up, because some votes aren't counted to prevent various types of abuse.)_

[1] [http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

<comment> jack-r-abbit Thanks for that. But it doesn't really answer my question. I know how Karma is calculated and that does not really explain why everything starts with 1 point that isn't counted.

<comment><USER3> I haven't read the source for the site but I would guess that it is an implementation artifact. You don't get to vote on your own comments, so the arrows need to go away, the arrows go away after you vote, so why not make it an automatic self vote? You thought it measured up to be worth posting so you must think it worth an upvote right?

<comment> jack-r-abbit But then people could game the karma by submitting/posting stuff that might not be worthy. Why not just start everything with 0 points and let the karma flow from there?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


HN on StoryLine – historic news browser - <AUTHOR> http://www.storyline.im/

<comment><AUTHOR> StoryLine is my pet project. If you have any questions I'm happy to answer them. It's still in early stages and I'm keen to hear your feedback.

<comment><USER2> Cool project.

For the "tutorial", I read through maybe the first 3 boxes, then got tired and clicked until I could explore it myself. I bet it's the same for most users (feel free to measure to get real data). If you can, defer teaching to mouseovers and other hints in the UI.

<comment><USER3> Same here. Another option is to offer an option to end/cancel the tutorial next to the "Next" button.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pretty nice. I had a similar idea a while ago but not using "spheres", and this works well, well done.

UI wise, the lines crossing each other when you select a sphere is not very elegant. WHy dont you make the news you select appear on the left, while keeping the suggested news on the right ? That would look so much better, and be less confusing for the user.

And the tutorial was a bit too long. I would rather have in-line help than a mandatory tutorial.

one more thing, there is little to no value of providing a pre-visualisation of the web page. It would be so much more useful to provide the first few lines of the articles. There are libraries to scrap articles that do that very well.

<comment><AUTHOR> I like the idea of showing selected items on the left, will need to think how it would work with narrow 1024px browsers. Perhaps selected news could float on top of the graph.

and I agree article preview or abstract would be definitely more useful, will look into it. Thanks for the feedback.

<comment><USER4> You're welcome. I may have more suggestions about overall design. Let me know if you want to reconnect offline.

<comment><AUTHOR> that would be great, I still don't have any designers involved in the project so the current version is very simplistic, pretty much the best I could do.

you can find me on twitter @antulik

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Instead of clicking each individual bubble, I wish there was a line which u can drag on top that will show the articles on the right as it passes the bubbles

<comment><AUTHOR> that's a good idea, probably will do it in the nearest future. Thanks for the feedback

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great Job. Some questions, in no particular order:

1\. What was your inspiration for the project?

2\. You mentioned it was your pet project, how long did it take to develop once you got started?

3\. What is the tech stack it is built on?

4\. How much data do you have in it now that it is visualizing from, and can you talk about the process of how it determines what to display, refreshes view, etc.

5\. I notice that there is a "login" option, and the ability for users to create "calendars". Can you give a brief summary / pitch of where you would like to see this go?

6\. What is your favorite flavor of cupcake?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll answer only the first and the last questions (:

Inspiration [http://s23.photobucket.com/user/NRGrush/media/ZX-10R%20Custo...](http://s23.photobucket.com/user/NRGrush/media/ZX-10R%20Custom%20Seats/green- lights-background-1.jpg.html)

not sure about cupcakes, but blueberry muffins would be my choice, I just assume you are a cupcake manufacturer and perform customer analysis.

As for the rest I should probably write a small blog post to sum up all of that. In short server is ruby on rails, client is mostly emberjs + d3js. I also post updates on StoryLine blog, so check it out, it should give you an idea on progress of things. [http://blog.storyline.im/](http://blog.storyline.im/)

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the reply, despite your choice of muffin over cupcake ;-)

Looking forward to following the storyline progress.

<comment><USER7> "Some people like cupcakes better. I,for one, care less for them."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very nice project. Are you planning to add any other sites?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, is there any sites you would like to see there first?

I've started with Google Calendar, then Twitter, then Reddit and now HackerNews. HackerNews so far is the best dataset to start with. Reddit integration is half done, but still not sure on subreddits because there are too many of them.

<comment><USER8> I was thinking about Reddit - because it's so big that I never find enough motivation to browse it. Your interface is much more pleasant and encouraging so I'll be looking forward to try Storyline with Reddit. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It doesn't appear that you can sign up?

<comment><AUTHOR> not at the moment, I should probably be more explicit about that. I removed registration to simplify the process for new visitors. And you still can keep track of news you've read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> this needs to work with the leap. Cool idea.</comment>


Api.wordpress.org Secret key URL - <AUTHOR> https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/

<comment><USER2> This should be renamed: WordPress.org secret-key service

As it says in the default wp-config.php of a WordPress installation:

        /*
        * Authentication Unique Keys and Salts.
        *
        * Change these to different unique phrases!
        * You can generate these using the {@link https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/ WordPress.org secret-key service}
        * You can change these at any point in time to invalidate all existing cookies. This will force all users to have to log in again.
        *
        * @since 2.6.0
        */
        define('AUTH_KEY',         'put your unique phrase here');
        define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY',  'put your unique phrase here');
        define('LOGGED_IN_KEY',    'put your unique phrase here');
        define('NONCE_KEY',        'put your unique phrase here');
        define('AUTH_SALT',        'put your unique phrase here');
        define('SECURE_AUTH_SALT', 'put your unique phrase here');
        define('LOGGED_IN_SALT',   'put your unique phrase here');
        define('NONCE_SALT',       'put your unique phrase here');

This page is meant to generate the code to be pasted into a new wp-config.php

</comment><comment><USER3> Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this doesn't seem like responsible disclosure.

<comment><USER4> There's no security problem here. If you refresh the page, you're given a new set of keys/salts. This is an API for random key/salt generation for use in WordPress installs.

<comment><USER3> Thats embarrassing, shows what I know about Word Press. Thank you for clarifying.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: unicode.style - <AUTHOR> https://unicode.style <comment><USER2> Screen readers don't do very well with this, so please only use it for novelty purposes. Otherwise you will unnecessarily be locking people out from what you write.

<comment><USER3> Well, look forward to spammers using this to bypass the spam filters...

<comment><USER4> Also using similar unicode characters in your username for nefarious spoofing attacks or worse -- [https://labs.spotify.com/2013/06/18/creative- usernames/](https://labs.spotify.com/2013/06/18/creative-usernames/)

This is called a Homoglyph attack.

If you accept unicode for strings that should be "unique" (eg username), there are various normalization schemes that basically convert equivalent-ish looking characters into a consistent hash.

I have no doubt spam filters use this.

<comment><USER5> I'm still waiting for the .corn TLD...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm having trouble understanding what this does. Apparently there's a popover when you select the text you typed. I had to go to [https://github.com/ekmartin/unicode- style](https://github.com/ekmartin/unicode-style) to figure this out.

<comment><USER4> It's a kinda ascii-art thing that 𝔩𝔢𝔱𝔰 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔞𝔫𝔰𝔴𝔢𝔯 𝔥𝔫 𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰 𝔞𝔩𝔩 𝔣𝔞𝔫𝔠𝔶 𝔩𝔦𝔨𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔰. 𝕆𝕣 𝕝𝕚𝕜𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕚𝕗 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕨𝕒𝕟𝕥 𝕝𝕖𝕤𝕤 𝕘𝕠𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕔 𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕖 𝕠𝕦𝕥𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕖.

𝙸𝚜𝚗'𝚝 𝚞𝚗𝚒𝚌𝚘𝚍𝚎 𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have been using [https://yaytext.com](https://yaytext.com) for quite a while. Only for novelty purposes, of course.

</comment><comment><USER8> Underlines a̲r̲̲̲e̲̲̲̲̲̲̲ ̲̲̲̲̲̲̲a̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲ ̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲l̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲̲ittle nesty when re-selecting already underlined characters from the left

</comment><comment><USER9> This seems like a major source of security issues. How can i protect myself from it?

Am i supposed to normalize ALL untrusted user input or will that break normal text in some language i'm not familiar with? Or only normalize things that are supposed to be unique, like urls, usernames and other identifiers?

</comment><comment><USER10> I would make it more clear what the app does and that you should highlight text to format it.

I discovered that by accident.

</comment><comment><USER11> On iOS, the selection popover interferes with the one you designed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. I'm planning on implementing a static (always-enabled) toolbar for mobile devices — hopefully that'll make it better.

<comment><USER12> Maybe if your options appeared below the selection rather than above they wouldn't interfere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Doesn't work with accented latin alphabet characters ("ü𝕓𝕖𝕣") - is it a fundamental restriction of the styled unicode charset or a mapping issue? Seems like it should be supported but would need a transition from precomposed characters to the equivalent combination of letter + diacritic.

<comment><USER14> It's not a fundamental restriction in the character set; "𝕦̈𝕓𝕖𝕣" is valid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What about "strikethrough" and "slashthrough"?[0,1,2]

P.S.: It's look like you reinvent YayText[3] website ;-)

[0] [http://adamvarga.com/strike/](http://adamvarga.com/strike/)

[1] [https://yaytext.com/strike/](https://yaytext.com/strike/)

[2] [https://yaytext.com/slash/](https://yaytext.com/slash/)

[3] [https://yaytext.com/](https://yaytext.com/)

</comment><comment><USER16> [https://github.com/ekmartin/unicode- style/blob/master/src/tr...](https://github.com/ekmartin/unicode- style/blob/master/src/transform.js)

I learned something new today, thanks!

</comment><comment><USER17> Android Firefox is just showing me black boxes for those Unicode ranges, so this definitely can't be very effectively used everywhere (I haven't tried yet, but I'm guessing some native messaging apps may have similar issues).

</comment><comment><USER18> You should keep the toolbar on the screen.

</comment><comment><USER19> Neat idea but completely unusable on Firefox mobile due to the context menu that pops up whenever text is selected and obscures the site's menu that does the same.

</comment><comment><USER20> There is something about rendering these unicode code points that seems to make Firefox jank more than usual (when scrolling this page up and down). Are rendering these code points especially costly for some reason?

</comment><comment><USER21> People might find Unicode Text Converter useful as well.

[http://qaz.wtf/u/convert.cgi?text=Hacker_News](http://qaz.wtf/u/convert.cgi?text=Hacker_News)

</comment><comment><USER22> 𝔥𝔦 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝓯𝓻𝓲𝓮𝓷𝓭

<comment><USER23> It was not initially 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 to me that I could 𝘴𝘵𝘺𝘭𝘦 things that I typed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Not clear what this does? Also, copy button doesn't work on iOS.

<comment><USER25> It lets you 𝗯𝗼𝗹𝗱 or 𝕤𝕥𝕪𝕝𝕖 stuff in unicode, so plain-text places (like Hacker News) can get formatting.

<comment><USER26> HN supports _italics_ it's not entirely plain-text

<comment><USER27> 𝙾𝚗𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚐𝚘𝚝𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚘𝚗 𝙷𝙽 𝚝𝚘𝚍𝚊𝚢 𝚒𝚜 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚜 𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚍𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚘 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚊 𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚌𝚔𝚚𝚞𝚘𝚝𝚎, 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚎𝚕𝚜𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚙𝚕𝚢 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚒𝚝 𝚞𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚏𝚒𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚖𝚘𝚋𝚒𝚕𝚎 𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚜. 𝙸 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚜𝚎𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔𝚊𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚕𝚒𝚖𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝙵𝚒𝚡𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚍𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚎𝚡𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚣𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚕 𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚘𝚗 𝚗𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚘𝚠 𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚎𝚗𝚜.

<comment><USER28> Or perhaps HN should fix some properties formatting after all these years? Code gets posted here pretty regularly after all...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Nice work. +1 I would 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲 to see this as a chrome plugin.

</comment><comment><USER30> Is it just me, or does the BB style render the most interesting characters as rectangles? (Chrome on OS X)

𝔸 𝔹 𝔺 𝔻 𝔼 𝔽 𝔾 𝔿 𝕀 𝕁 𝕂 𝕃 𝕄 𝕅 𝕆 𝕇 𝕈 𝕉 𝕊 𝕋 𝕌 𝕍 𝕎 𝕏 𝕐 𝕑

</comment><comment><USER31> This is entertaining but it's completely broken on Chrome mobile in a way I've never seen before.

</comment><comment><USER32> This would be great as an Emacs extension. Is there something like this?

</comment><comment><USER33> 𝔲𝔫𝔦𝔠𝔬𝔡𝔢.𝔰𝔱𝔶𝔩𝔢

𝔉𝔬𝔯𝔪𝔞𝔱 𝔱𝔢𝔵𝔱 𝔲𝔰𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔲𝔫𝔦𝔠𝔬𝔡𝔢 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔰. 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔢 𝔞𝔫𝔶𝔴𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔞𝔠𝔠𝔢𝔭𝔱𝔰 𝔭𝔩𝔞𝔦𝔫 𝔱𝔢𝔵𝔱.

</comment><comment><USER11> Neat. Suggestion: maybe don't "underline" characters such as y or g

</comment><comment><USER34> This reveals all kinds of bugs in current software.

For example, if I use the tool to make a url italic, then pasting that url into Chrome's url bar gives me back a bunch of unicode rectangles.

But that's not what I wanted. I wanted Chrome's url bar to interpret those unicode code points as an italic version of the actual unicode code points I want. Chrome should add a check for edge cases like these and add branches to map the string to the corresponding non-styled code points automatically.

Someone needs to send lots of bug reports to all the relevant pieces of software that currently have this bug. Firefox, Chromium, probably Edge, Webkit. Those are just the browsers, but I'm sure there are more. I'm not actually sure about Firefox tbh, but maybe just send the bug report first and see if it gets accepted to find out.

Ooh, here's another one-- if you paste some unicode.style'd text into LibreOffice does it convert it to the "normal" code points and add the relevant styling? If not, it should, otherwise it's broken.

Actually, I just realized another issue. If I type something in the url bar that is styled with unicode.style, then there is no way for Chrome to know whether I want it displayed styled or not.

For example, maybe I'm pasting it there temporarily so that I can copy/paste it later in a Tweet. In that case I probably want to keep the current styling for the tweet.

So Chrome should map to the normalized unicode code points (just in case I'm typing a url or want to instantiate a search), but still _display_ the styled version. Then when I copy it again, it should put the unicode.style version into the buffer. And the app which receives the pasted buffer should receive the unicode.style code points. And of course that app should also normalize it underneath while retaining the styled display for the same reasons.

To deal with this complexity, there should probably be a standardized way for all apps to deal with styled text.

Please help by testing every app and filing relevant bug reports.

<comment><USER35> Ugh. This just further poisons me against unicode being a good thing. ASCII or bust.

"ABCD" and "𝓐𝓑𝓒𝓓" are the same thing, but they also aren't. Am I supposed to normalize everything on username creation to prevent people from making duplicates?

<comment><USER27> You either have to do that, or restrict usernames to ASCII subset only (and face the wrath of non-Latin alphabet users), or restrict to a whitelist of ranges that only represent alpha characters across all languages (i.e. not math symbols, nor box-drawing, nor emoji, etc.)

i8n is complicated because the diversity of language is itself complicated. I feel your pain, though, don't get me wrong.</comment></comment></comment>


Fivetran Is the Cloud's Newest Unicorn with $1.2B Valuation - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidjeans/2020/06/29/fivetran-cloud-andreessen-horowitz-general-catalyst/#46bf54b87a03 <comment><USER2> Their Series B was only 9 months ago [1], and based on the amount raised ($44 million), I would guess they were valued at around 400-500 million. This would mean they've more than doubled their valuation in less than a year. Congrats to the Fivetran team for all the success!

[1] [https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/24/fivetran-hauls- in-44m-seri...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/24/fivetran-hauls- in-44m-series-b-as-data-pipeline-business-booms/)</comment>


The Mongols built an empire with one technological breakthrough - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/05/the-mongols-built-an-empire-with-one-technological-breakthrough/ <comment><USER2> It's a shame that the popular conception of the Mongols is one of a mindless horde... The entire Mongol empire was built on innovation, not just in military tactics and strategy but also in administration. And it all started at the top with Genghis Khan.

Instead of killing all members of a conquered population, Genghis offered the talented artisans, craftsmen, engineers and warriors among them a place in the Mongol empire, an offer many accepted. Incorporating Chinese military engineers from the Song Dynasty was how the Mongol army became so adept at sieges.

Genghis encouraged the development of a postal system and roads linking the massive empire, and allowed the people he conquered to continue practicing their own religions. Unique to the Mongol empire among other steppe empires in history is that when Genghis died, his empire actually continued to grow, a testament to the foundations upon which he built his empire. All other confederations of steppe peoples that aspired to empire crumbled when their leaders inevitably died.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, there was a lot of remarkable things that happened even though people tend to dwell on the violence. I would love to see more about the history (and in that setting more generally); the 2007 movie Mongol was really different and wonderful. It's a shame that the followups that were planned were never made, shortchanging the only movie.</comment></comment>


Y Combinator IRC channel? - <AUTHOR> I've been a member of many social bookmarking sites basically since their beginnings - and I've rarely seen discussion that is up to par with the quality of the Ycombinator comments section.<p>Is there already an IRC channel for Ycombinator? If not, then let's make one! <comment><USER2> There is #startups on irc.freenode.net with some people from here hanging there.

<comment><USER3> For you continued convenience, simply sit back, click here, and enjoy:

[http://mibbit.com/?server=irc.freenode.net&channel=%23st...](http://mibbit.com/?server=irc.freenode.net&channel=%23startups)

</shameless type="plug">

<comment><USER4> Ahem it's <plug type="shameless"> </plug>

<comment><USER5> I think that could better be represented as <plug type="shameless" />

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is also the chatterous room for HN at <http://www.chatterous.com/hnyc/>

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't think I can take another Hacker News time-sucking/addicting feature now.

<comment><USER7> 132 members here: <http://friendfeed.com/rooms/newsyc></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How does your company handle conference attendances? - <AUTHOR> At our company (based in NL), we just have a per-team budget that essentially comes down to EUR 1.000 per person. With around 25 in this particular team (most other team are <10) that comes out at a nice overall budget we get to spend as a team.
However, it's still next to nothing as most decent conferences are EUR 500+ entry, in which case we're limited to just 1 or 2 visits a year. Not even taking conferences abroad into account.
So the question now rises, how do other companies handle their employees wanting to hit up multiple conferences a year? There are many ways to implements a lot of different aspects and factors here. I'm primarily just looking for different angles of approach, input, inspiration (like, for our HR team) :) <comment><USER2> Here are some quick thoughts

It feels anecdotally to everyone I have worked with that the law of diminishing returns applies. For this reason, there rarely seems any reason to send more than 2 (maybe 3) people to a conference. So with that in mind...

Regardless if booking is undertaken by your team or by HR, there is opportunity for wheeling and dealing. Whoever makes the booking can try to organise discounts through the conference organisers. Can also try to organise a joint trip with a supplier / partner, funded by the partner

Secondally, I tend to encourage notes and debriefs - The team and culture have the expectation that whoever goes to the conference will knowledge-share with the team. With this expectation ingrained, all attendees return with a page of notes to jog their memory and run through with us all (semi-informally). This reinforces the value from only one or two attendees.

2-3 pax (dependent on conference) seems the sweet spot at which it is still worthwhile, people don't get too homesick or lonely, the guys bounce ideas off each other or fill gaps the others have, etc.

There are a) Often unsold tickets and b) always many many no-shows. Therefore it is always worth trying to get last minute cheap tickets for conferences. Usually if you see '$495 per ticket' for a conference, somewhere there are still people getting in without paying a cent. And the more corporate the event (i.e. if held by a single vendor), the easier it is to get discounts (as compared with governmental, non-profit events etc.)</comment>


Tragically Hip's Gord Downie Dead at 53 - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/gord-downie-obit-1.4359906 <comment> 52-6F-62 Terribly sad day.

It's been a sad week for Canada having lost John Dunsworth on Monday.

Here's one of my favourites -- Gord Downie performing a dramatization of an Al Purdy poem, with a dub of Al Purdy reading, himself.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPKeczB3wrg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPKeczB3wrg)

Downie was an advocate of Canadian arts & letters, and naturally, a poet himself. The CBC Obituary is a good read and does him better justice than I can.</comment>


Lyrebird beta – Create your voice avatar - <AUTHOR> https://lyrebird.ai/blog/lyrebird-is-back <comment><USER2> Why is this being built? Have we not had enough trouble with veracity of audio and video already?

<comment><USER3> It's important to make people realize that this technology is here. It's impossible to stop the technological advances but at least we can reduce their impact by making it well known.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is amazing... I wonder how Obama feels about it !

</comment><comment><USER5> This is awesome :o</comment>


Perl as PID 1 under Docker - <AUTHOR> http://tech-blog.cv-library.co.uk/2017/08/31/perl-as-pid-1-under-docker/ <comment><USER2> I was relieved to see the article mention dumb-init in its conclusion. It's very likely what you want if you're not booting your containers with a full init system, and the README has a thorough explanation of why and how dumb- init works.

[https://github.com/Yelp/dumb-init](https://github.com/Yelp/dumb-init)

<comment><USER3> Does docker's newer --init flag not fully replace dumb-init's use? Or is dumb- init now just so you don't need to remember to --init whenever you use the container? I find it really weird that --init is a run-time option rather than something specified in the Dockerfile and baked into the image.

<comment><USER4> Some container engines don't support the --init flag, such as Amazon ECS[0], so there is still a place for dumb-init and tini for the time being.

[0] [https://github.com/aws/amazon-ecs- agent/issues/852](https://github.com/aws/amazon-ecs-agent/issues/852)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No mention of linux' pid_namespaces documentation ?

> Only signals for which the "init" process has established a signal handler > can be sent to the "init" process by other members of the PID namespace. > This restriction applies even to privileged processes, and prevents other > members of the PID namespace from accidentally killing the "init" process.

> Likewise, a process in an ancestor namespace can—subject to the usual > permission checks described in kill(2)—send signals to the "init" process of > a child PID namespace only if the "init" process has established a handler > for that signal.

<comment><USER6> Yep, I wrote a container system similar to docker (also in perl) and had to make sure I had signal handlers setup properly for PID 1 so that weird things didn't happen when it execs to another process or fails during that. Not too difficult to do, but if you're doing docker then dumb-init is probably the better option than adding some boiler plate to everything you're going to make.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ran into the same issue with the mysql docker container which ultimately bothered me into making my own. Started off experimenting with trapping signals (trap foo INT,..) similar to the article but found this nifty `--gdb` (nowadays `--debug-gdb`) flag to mysqld that enables more signal handling.

Source: `docker pull jbergstroem/mariadb-alpine`

edit: docker should really open the doors for a cleanup/shutdown phase. There's both entrypoint and cmd but not a "exit" command.

</comment><comment><USER8> Nice writeup. Interesting enough, SIGKILL does not work from inside the container: [https://andrestc.com/post/killing-container- inside/](https://andrestc.com/post/killing-container-inside/).

</comment><comment><USER9> I wonder if using the --init flag would also fix the docker issue with bash scripts getting in an infinite loop when the script catch signals:

# Run with care...

$ sudo docker run -it docker.io/ubuntu:14.04 /bin/bash -c 'trap x EXIT; x() { echo exit; }; while sleep 1; do echo sleep; done'

^C

[bash enter in infinite loop]

I'm asking because my Fedora 25 install does not include docker 1.13 yet.

<comment><USER10> Why don't you use Docker's installation repos [0]? The current version of Community Edition is 17.07, which is a handful of releases past 1.13. As someone that works with a few different customers with different versions of Docker, I'd really recommend upgrading to the latest version.

[0] [https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/linux/docker- ce/...](https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/linux/docker-ce/fedora/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Noticed the same thing when running a node.js application in docker a while ago. Adding a signal handler manually fixed it easily. It was just not expected to be necessary.

<comment><USER10> Yes, for some reason, loads of people expect containers to behave like virtual machines.</comment></comment>


Measles outbreak rages after anti-vaccine groups target vulnerable community - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/05/measles-outbreak-rages-after-anti-vaccine-groups-target-vulnerable-community/ <comment><USER2> I got the historical measles data from project tycho[1] a few years ago, and plotted by week. It looks like this outbreak is right on time: [https://i.imgur.com/wVDvo43.png](https://i.imgur.com/wVDvo43.png)

The seasonality here is amazing.

[1] [http://www.tycho.pitt.edu/data/level1.php](http://www.tycho.pitt.edu/data/level1.php)

</comment><comment><USER3> How can we combat woo-woo of this type on a local level? When I moved out to the bay area from Arkansas, I thought I would be escaping this type of garbage but it is still rampant out here. It just comes in a different form. Here the neighborhood health food stores have entire sections devoted to homepathic "medicines", and I see anti-vaxxer bumper stickers plastered all over town. Events like the "March for Science" that just happened are all good, but I worry that standing up for Science and "reason" is too general and abstract. How can local groups educate people to counteract these movements that have actual damaging effects on our communities? Are there organizations we can donate to that have this type of education as a primary goal?

<comment><USER4> In the South and midwest, magical thinking (ie church, religion and faith) is given more weight than rationality.

In those sort of areas, the pastors and most prominent families have the most influence over communities beliefs, generally.

In the Bay Area, social groups tend to form around work colleagues or hobbies. There are some churches, but they're not typically the center of Valley social universes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Isn't there space for lawsuits - reckless endangerment, medical advice (harmful) without a licence, etc?

Or does first amendment override such cases and they can go on undeterred? After all, this is a case where this speech caused direct harm to particular individuals.

<comment><USER6> You cannot remove the burden to think for oneself from people. Fining people who give wrong advice sets a really dangerous precedent. What is wrong? Will we start fining climate change deniers? What about fining people who believe that certain antidepressants are dangerous? Etc.

EDIT: I wanna add to this that if you make things government-mandated and force it on people, you only give the conspiracy theorists more reason to be suspicious.

<comment><USER7> Simple. You endanger yourself - be my guest. You endanger others, you suffer. The key role of government is to represent community interest and not vaccinating your kids is very clearly endangering others.

<comment><USER8> Measles is one of the diseases that you only get once, then you're immune for the rest of your life. Some kids are killed by measles, which is why the vaccine is popular - it is difficult to predict which kids will have a difficult case of teh measles.

<comment><USER9> It's worse. Some kids can't be vaccinated for whatever reasons. They piggyback on others. If you take the herd immunity from their society, you put them in grave danger.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Who is profiting from anti-vaccination propaganda, and how? Are they just going for publicity? I know some actually believe it, but people like Wakefield need some sort of motive.

</comment><comment><USER11> what's the point for all the hate? everybody who got the shot is safe. now you are running around screaming at ppl who didn't? how can one non-vaccinated person endanger vaccinated ppl?

<comment><USER12> They endanger the people for whom the vaccines are not effective (its not a 100% preventative), or people who have weakened immune systems / a medical condition and thus can't have the vaccine. The non-vaccinated person becomes an extra vector for spreading the disease amongst a population.

<comment><USER11> the theory is that vaccines train the immune system. so, it's not like the virus doesn't exist anymore but the body knows how to fight it. "weak" ppl are endangered anyway.

<comment><USER12> Vaccinated people are not effective carriers for the disease because their body is properly fighting it. Unlike an infected person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have been thinking that probably most likely vaccines can appear to "cause" autism, but only if there is things like leaky gut.

</comment><comment><USER14> some discussion from an earlier, local newspaper article [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14229989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14229989)

</comment><comment><USER15> Darwin awards would suffice here if this antivax crap didn't hurt others who were vaccinating properly as people are supposed to.

<comment><USER16> Could you please elaborate how someone not-vaxing who gets sick can hurt a vaxed person? I hear this argument some times but no-one was able to explain how this works.

<comment><USER17> Even more importantly certain vaccines are given at certain ages. So if some anti-science parent doesn't vaccinate their brood and say, take their kid to the same play area as my kids, one of which isn't a year old yet, she's now got an exposure to something she can't be vaccinated for yet.

This is why having high vaccination rates are so important. There is a percentage who can't be vaccinated (age, health issues, whatever), there's an unknown percentage for whom the vaccination just didn't work, and then there's the wide circle of immunity formed around them by everyone else who is immune and up to date on those immunizations.

<comment><USER2> Please stop spreading this "cannot vaccinate due to age" myth. It is completely off-base. I explained more here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14282142](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14282142)

<comment><USER17> It's not really a myth if your pediatrician won't do it. And though I see the idea as valid, I'm not really going to fight against the vaccination schedule that every pediatrician wants to stick to.

<comment><USER2> What reason did the pediatrician give?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As antivaxxers and MMS folks are irrational child-abusers, they should be investigated by CPS. Worse, antivaxxers put the _community_ at risk by reducing herd immunity. Just like fluoride in water, there should be no exceptions for protective prophylaxis like vaccines. No exclusions for religious magical thinking or affluenza "conditions," only based on medical need where harm would be likely.

<comment><USER18> Have you ever read the list of side effects of a vaccine?

<comment><USER19> You understand the differential of risk right?

You've got a 1 in 10 million or so chance of serious adverse reaction to vaccination.

You've got a 1 in 10 chance of serious adverse reaction if you're exposed to the virus.

You're effectively saying something along the lines of "Do you know how dangerous motorcycle riding is?! We should play russian routlette instead!"</comment></comment></comment>


IPhone's localization system can be easily spoofed - <AUTHOR> http://www.ethlife.ethz.ch/archive_articles/080417_WiFi_location_spoofing/index_EN

<comment><USER2> The current system has an "accuracy" that sometimes can be most closely measured in miles (i.e., it's not accurate at all). Certainly, that's better than positioning in NYC when you're really in Zurich, but not by much.

Thus, any applications that would depend on pinpoint precise location are going to have problems anyway. It seems the moral of the story is (as an application developer) to use the location services as an advisory (but not as an authoritative) service. The user should be given the capability to override or further specify his/her location.

<comment><USER3> The current system has two components: 1. the GSM tower based one ("accuracy" measured in miles) and 2. the Skyhook WIFI based.

If the Skyhook one returns results, your "accuracy" will probably be within a hundred feet. If you want, you can add your own access point so your iPhone will now where exactly home is: <http://www.skyhookwireless.com/howitworks/submit_ap.php>

The research in the article only targets Skyhook's WPS system. From Skyhook's form, it's clear that they use the access points MAC address as an identifier. I hope that the researchers did not spend too much time and money to figure out that all they needed to do was spoof some MAC addresses.

From Skyhook's side, they should be able to get better accuracy by using multiple access points and signal strength to refine positioning. Of course that assumes they have sufficient access point density in their database for you location.

From the iPhone's side, it can check that the Skyhook results are within the GSM tower results. The GSM tower results are presumably more reliable and more difficult to spoof (compared to buying a $50 access point).</comment></comment>


Boeing didn't want to re-engine the 737 - <AUTHOR> https://leehamnews.com/2019/03/20/boeing-didnt-want-to-re-engine-the-737-but-had-design-standing-by/#more-29704 <comment><AUTHOR> In retrospect, it looks like they should have gone with their original idea and built a new small airplane from a clean sheet design.

It could have been fly by wire and included the important flight envelope protection controls that can't just be glommed-on to the older 737 design.

<comment><USER2> That's not a bad point, it starts sounding like they needed to add features to a system that was never architected to handle them. Specially the MASC system needed more access to global state than was available in the module it was implemented in.

Probably didn't want to do a clean sheet design because of the mess they were in with 787 Dreamliner.</comment></comment>


The "Bus Test" Considered Harmful - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ard_adam/the-bus-test-considered-harmful-b431216db9cc <comment><USER2> If you have an idea and can't reduce the bus factor by getting other people on your team to co-sign it then it shouldn't be part of the project. That shows that either it's a bad idea, that you're not able to communicate it well, or that the other people are overly cautious. All of these things are good reasons why your idea would be too much risk.

If you can get other people on board then it's a very good sign. The bus factor is just a shorthand test for that.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the title is misleading, since its' just the author that thinks there is a problem with the "Bus Test." I thought it was going to lead to a study or even the results of some forum or panel. As onion2k says, if you can't get people to buy into your idea, then it fails the Bus Test and should not be part of the project.</comment>


Still Not There but Finally Waking Up at 6 AM – What's Working for Me? - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/still-not-there-but-finally-waking-up-at-6-am-whats-working-for-me-b5b896136b <comment><AUTHOR> Hey Guys! Would love to know your feedback on the service.

</comment><comment><USER2> Apparently the scientists have just invented a new, revolutionary device that "wakes you up every single day at your selected time".

They have called it an 'alarm clock'.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ever heard of something called "constructive feedback"? You might want to give it try. I hear it works :)</comment></comment>


Tesla Model 3 Can No Longer Be Recommended, Says Consumer Reports - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-model3-cr-unreliable-20190221-story.html <comment><USER2> > body parts filling with snow and falling off

I'm embarrassed about how many times it took me to read that to understand the article was not referring to human body parts.</comment>


FBI wants to monitor Facebook and Instagram for domestic threats in real time - <AUTHOR> http://lite.cnn.io/en/article/h_74d428788a4d60823f909ebe4c0d3bd8 <comment><USER2> Warning! Possibly unpopular opinion ahead: I want them to monitor Facebook and Instagram for domestic threats in real time... I would really like that so please do, and when you detect them, without abusing anyone's rights, please go and arrest them quickly ( on legitimate charges with supporting evidence of course ) BEFORE they shoot up churches, malls and walmarts.

<comment> t-writescode What makes a phone call over a wireless carrier worthy of more protection that a private text chat between two people?

(The former being protected by federal wiretapping laws that have been around a looooong time)

<comment><USER3> Well for one, the article never specified anything about private text chats (unless I missed it?) so I think you're asking a misleading question. Most of the article was about the US government/FBI looking to read public data, which AFAIK has never been protected by wiretapping laws.

Additionally, something that is different is the scale. In the US, an activity may be legal if done once but if done millions of times it may be illegal. Here, there are many times more people plotting, discussing, and celebrating terrorist events online than there are on traditional phone calls. Having phone calls be traditionally 1-1 and private internet chats be 1-many, even 1-1000000 or 1 to 7000000000 if public, is a totally different beast. I'm not sure there is any analogous previous laws, I think we need new laws.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> They could also invest as much time investigating militias as they do mosques - hell militias are more intrinsically dangerous than any mosque

<comment><USER5> I think it's interesting how much animosity there is between the military and the militias. I personally think it makes sense to make a formal link between them to build trust.

For example, the military could regulate the militias in exchange for access to military equipment and a promised to join in officially declared wars under federal command. I honestly don't know the particulars (i.e. what militias would accept), but more formal ties with the government could ease tensions with these groups that just want to defend the America they believe in. Some groups obviously wouldn't accept, but that just makes it easier to tell who is likely to cause problems.

I agree though, I'm not worried about mosques, I'm worried about extremists, and extremists come from a all manner of backgrounds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does it matter really? They already do that, don't they?

<comment><USER7> Perhaps it's just a matter of degrees. Cooperation with inquiries is different than mediating the pipeline.</comment></comment>


Network Attached Embedded CPU Debugger - <AUTHOR> https://www.crowdsupply.com/sid-price/ctxlink <comment><AUTHOR> One of the things I do with my Black Magic Probe[1] is to connect it to a Raspberry Pi on my workbench and have the RasPi export it as a network port using nc(1). This means I don't have to run a USB cable from my desktop to my workbench to run the debugger, I can connected with the gdb target extended- remote debug:xxxx (where my RasPi's host name is 'debug'). This project cuts out the Pi and puts the debugger right on the network, even easier.

I don't have any financial interest in this project but I am interested in seeing it get into production if possible.

[1] [https://1bitsquared.com/products/black-magic- probe](https://1bitsquared.com/products/black-magic-probe)</comment>


Fear may be more dangerous than radiation - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fear-is-potent-risk-of-japanese-nuclear-crisis/2011/03/14/AB76TxV_story.html

<comment><USER2> According to this (pretty amazing) UCSB lecture:

[http://online.kitp.ucsb.edu/online/plecture/bmonreal11/rm/fl...](http://online.kitp.ucsb.edu/online/plecture/bmonreal11/rm/flashtv.html)

... fear and lack of communication did grave damage at Chernobyl as well. For example: because the authorities could not get their stories straight, they were unable to advise local farmers to dispose of contaminated cow's milk,w which may have been the vector that dispersed the majority of the radioactive iodine to children in the affected area; elevated thyroid cancer among children is one of the clearly indicated aftereffects of that disaster.

Fear may be rampant in Japan right now (who could blame them?) but my understanding is that they are, for the most part, doing everything right: monitoring mSv exposures, watching the food and water supply, liberally evacuating the surrounding areas. This stuff sounds simple but is almost literally the laundry list of things the Chernobyl authorities did wrong.

<comment><USER3> Indeed...

The thing is that I doubt one can blame the fear evoked by radiation and things-nuclear on the anti-nuclear movement - its the opposite really. The event of the atomic bomb, the invisible and long-term qualities of radiation damage and so-forth have pretty much seared the fear of radiation into the psychies of modern people.

The anti-nuclear movement is a result of this rather than a cause.

But the thing is, unless there's a magic wand to make the fear go away, the anti-nuke folks have a point. Something that evokes this kind of fear in people will have a certain danger.

Human beings aren't rational. In some circumstances, they are less rational than others. Sometimes just avoiding the situations where we are less rational is more cost-effective than imposing the "most rational" course of action (Especially since it is only "what would be the most rational course of action if it weren't for these unfortunate irrational behaviors").

<comment><USER4> Oil and coal and nitroglycerin have caused similar destruction, yet you don't see comments like yours about them, so I find it specious to suggest that nuclear acquired its stigma honestly. At any rate, we have no better long-term option for power than nuclear AFAIK.

<comment><USER5> Radiation is tailor made to be scary.

The negative outcome for someone outside the nuclear industry has a name: cancer. The negative outcome for someone outside the coal industry (respiratory illness) is less well-defined, less likely to be attributed to coal, and less likely to cause someone to die unusually young. That last is important - old people and people with asthma die from air pollution. Otherwise healthy people can contract radiation-induced cancer.

The mechanism by which nuclear plants produce negative outcomes (radiation) is also poorly understood and _imperceptible_ , whereas one can see smog and kinda tell when it's a code red day out.

It's not just that there's some destruction - it's that the destruction can't be understood, perceived, or planned for until it's too late.

People's fear of nuclear power is _irrational_ , but it doesn't necessarily depend entirely on propaganda.

<comment><USER2> You can say exactly the same set of things about smog, the soot that blackens a grilled hamburger, the hamburger itself, and the breakdown products of the oil that fries the french fries that go with the burger.

<comment><USER5> Do you mean in so far as those things are carcinogens?

<comment><USER2> They are not only carcinogens, but carcinogens that (from what I can tell) are almost by definition worse than 100msv radiological exposures, in that radiological exposure is one of the purer sources of carcinogenesis we can measure, and 100msv is the floor of our ability to measure it.

Compare that to eating four or more serving of red meat in a week (hardly a crazy amount in the US or Argentina); that corresponds to a lifetime cancer risk comparable to having been a former longtime active smoker. Smoking will reliably give you cancer. 100msv of radiation will give one out of some huge number of people like you cancer. Probably.

<comment><USER6> > Smoking will reliably give you cancer.

I'm having a hard time digging up the figures, but last time I looked, only about 5% of smokers die from lung cancer, and much smaller numbers from a few other smoking-related cancers. Another chunk get cancer but don't die from it. Unless I'm badly misremembering, though, the majority of smokers — more than 50% — never get cancer from smoking.

I don't think that a mechanism that fails more than half the time, or even, say, 1% of the time, should be considered reliable.

I concur that people should worry more about smoking, red meat, and browned oils than about 100mSv exposures to radioactivity. Outside the US, I would add automotive exhaust and indoor wood fires as major causes of cancer.

<comment><USER7> It puts a lot of stress on the heart, too, and I think a fair number of them die with smoking as a contributing cause to that.

Anyhow, if you do get cancer from smoking, it's pretty ugly. My grandfather had it, in spite of quitting immediately once it was generally known that smoking was a Bad Thing (TM). He had to use Prednisone and it weakened his bones until they started breaking all the time. He was very upset with Grandma for calling the paramedics once, too, because he was just ready to die :( It made for a really miserable way to spend his last ten+ years of life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Timely chart about the relative levels of radiation dosage involved in every day living, medical procedures and exposure to nuclear power plants vs. what's harmful for you from XKCD:

[http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/19/graphic-chart- showin.ht...](http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/19/graphic-chart-showin.html)

<comment><USER9> The chart seems to indicate that radiation 50km away from Fukushima was high enough to get into the "clearly linked to increased cancer risk" zone within 20 days. That's scary enough for me.

<comment><USER8> Now that I look at the chart again, I'm a little confused. It says ~3.5 micro sievert 'extra dose from one day in average town near the Fukushima plant as of March 17th, varies quite a bit' in the blue squares, but also 'one day dose (~3.6 milli sievert) at two sites 50 km NW of Fukushima on 3/16, seen again on 3/17' in the green ones.

Even factoring in the variation they mention, that's a 1000x difference. I know the dosage drops off exponentially, but first example must be a lot further away than 50km, which is no longer 'near' in my book. Perhaps the latter measurements were extreme cases caused by wind patterns.

<comment><USER10> Radiation is not a static. If a particle happens to decay at your detector when it is detecting, you'll get a massive spike. As the radiation changes between hours, places and the specific isotopes decaying, it's near impossible to get fast and accurate results for average dose recieved.

<comment><USER5>
        If a particle happens to decay at your detector when it is detecting, you'll get a massive spike.

This is not true. The energy deposited by a single quantum of radiation is negligible, and at this point most of the activity is from long-lived isotopes and so shouldn't change from day to day.

I would guess that wind patterns are responsible for the variability in measurements, not nuclear physics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What many seem to be missing is that the potential downside of a black swan nuclear catastrophe is many orders of magnitude worse than anything that could occur at a coal plant and includes such lovely scenes as giant radioactive clouds circling the earth. Clearly the Japanese disaster has come nowhere close to this severity, but what would have happened if another larger earthquake and tsunami had struck in the midst of the containment operations? How about five more? Yes, these scenarios are extremely extremely unlikely, but if the possible results include worldwide radiation poisoning, it still could be worth considering, so I think these fears do have some rational basis. Comparisons to x-ray output or air pollution are completely missing the point.

<comment><USER12> "if the possible results include worldwide radiation poisoning"

Well, they don't. We've blown up dozens upon dozens of nuclear bombs, actual factual nuclear bombs, each of which is far far worse than even the worst possible multi-plant catastrophe that could possibly strike, and all we got was a measurable but as far as I know impact-free increase in radioactive cesium levels in people's bones. (Which is even less impressive than it sounds because it's _really easy_ to measure radiation. "Measurable" is orders of magnitude below "dangerous".) "Some plants melt down and everybody in the world gets radiation poisoning" is not a "Black Swan", that's "The laws of physics have been rewritten" event. We can't plan for those at all.

(No, please do _not_ trot out anything about how we "may not" fully understand the science. Again, if there is some weird circumstance under which some uranium can suddenly become conscious and declare its undying hatred of the human race in magnificent Elizabethan English shortly before completely converting all its mass to energy, rendering the planet sterile in the resulting explosion, it still doesn't matter, because we can't plan for such low-probability events regardless. We understand radioactivity matters well more than we need to to run reactors.)

I am all for rational analysis of the risks, but if you're including actual doomsday scenarios in your analysis, you haven't even started rational analysis yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Misleading title - fear affects more people and hence, by some kind of measuring, might do more damage in some cases. It doesn't imply that if you are exposed to both radiation and fear, fear does more damage.

Besides, the fear is a real consequence of such disasters.

As for the calculations of "only 500 people died of radiation" after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I am not sure I trust those. All kinds of stories seem to float around (also for Chernobyl), I would like to see some serious studies determining who died of what. Since radiation might kill slowly, it could be difficult to study.

Also the comparison to other toxins is plain silly and betrays the article as a propaganda piece.

<comment><USER13> > Besides, the fear is a real consequence of such disasters.

I was thinking the same thing. Fear/anxiety/depression/despair are predictable, measurable and likely unavoidable.

<comment><USER14> The basic fear may be unavoidable, but the current media coverage is ridiculously overblown (there is one casualty so far at Fukushima---due to a fallen crane, not any kind of radiation).

This is fearmongering, and this _is_ avoidable.

<comment><USER9> Media trying to cause a panic, news at 11.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This was my conclusion as well. It was somewhat true at Chernobyl, definitely true at Three Mile Island and it's going to be exponentially more true at Fukushima.

</comment><comment><USER16> In addition, irrational fears will devastate Japan food exports for years - Kobe beef and sushi industries better look to diversify.</comment>


Ask HN: Would you take a chance and work for Movie Pass? - <AUTHOR> just curious if you had a chance to join the company knowing what's said on the news?  They can be the next netflix, they have grown in users exponentially but also means they are bleeding cash.  Just curious what would you do if you were presented with an offer to join them? <comment><USER2> I like my job so no. Otherwise, if they offered good pay and a flexible schedule, and I was impressed with the engineering talent, then why not? Everything is a risk.</comment>