90 Days and My Six-Figure Mistake - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ben_mathes/90-days-and-my-six-figure-mistake-a495f4a188e2#.xn6mw98h0 <comment><USER2> Author here. Yes, that was my stupidity at 24 that cost me over $100k. Woohoo!

Ask away. This is early, feedback welcome.

Loads of edge cases to explore and catch. For the most part, saves the 30-minutes "this is how equity works" conversation, and tries to prevents mistakes on both sides.

<comment><USER3> How come you were considered an insider ? In my experience that's C*O level.

<comment><USER2> IIRC (8+ years ago), athenahealth was very open with internal data, as part of building an internal culture of honesty and trust. The Exec team walked the walk and showed us very detailed financial info during all-hands.

<comment><USER4> Heh .. I'm 37, in tech and still struggling to make the downpayment. I wonder how many well-payed tech folks in their 30s are in a similar position where we are completely screwed for housing?

<comment><USER2> Just have to put away 5k/month to afford a barebones downpayment... in 5 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Important issue. Glad it's being talked about and worked on.

A bit of a tangent, but I see the author in the comments and that he is at a VC now. Im not a founder or VC, but do have a Q: to what extent do you see common term sheet practices and current gov regulations causing issues for founders?

Clearly employee equity letters could be more fair, and I realize founders have opportunities to exit that later employees don't get. But to what extent are founders being educated on the risk/reward involved in starting a startup, taking VC funds and their term sheet implications? and are some founders pushing back or deciding not to take the risk of starting a startup at all?

</comment><comment><USER6> > Once an employee learns how equity really works, they often leave startups. > Want to make money? Go work at Google.

Want to be happy? Stop worrying about making money, accept you never really will, and go work for a startup with people you like who are trying to accomplish something interesting.

</comment><comment><USER7> Note: article is pretext for a product ad.

<comment><USER2> That experience was the instigator. It's why I wanted to make the product.

<comment><USER7> That does not match the intent of the headline, which makes it a form of clickbait as opposed to an "Announcing a Clear Letter of Equity and Remuneration" headline.

<comment><USER2> Fair. I went too terse with the title.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Rendering transparent overlay in cross-platform desktop application? - <AUTHOR> I'm new to desktop GUI development (web developer) and at the simplest level, I'm trying to do the following across Linux, Mac, and Windows:
- Overlay a transparent PNG/SVG & text label on the screen.
- Stay on top of everything else (as much as the OS/window manager allows).
- Ideally, not interfere with user input, but I can work around this.
I've done a ton of digging on this, and these are my main takeaways:
- wxWidgets and TkInter do not support transparency.
- I've gotten a hack to work with GTK/cairo on Linux, but portability of the transparency part doesn't seem likely.
- Electron and friends are in the progress of supporting this sort of use-case, but that seems INSANELY resource intensive for my needs.
- QT and Java seem to be the only two options that even roughly support this, but I'd imagine my third requirement of not interfering with user input can only be accomplished through the respective native APIs.
Given that all I need is an icon and text rendered transparently on the screen, would it be overly ambitious to try to write the "rendering" part low-level and platform specific (X11, WinAPI, Cocoa?), and have something higher level that toggles/abstracts the implementation (either at packaging or runtime, doesn't matter)? Are there any good examples of simple GUI applications that build native UI's for each platform but communicate with them using cross-platform code? Should I just give up and use QT or Java?
I'm definitely not looking for exact code on how to accomplish this, but rather a high level "how would you do it?" from those experienced with cross-platform desktop app development.
Thanks HN! <comment><USER2> Use Qt, it has the thing you need.

it doesn't have to handle user input,

you can override QT's event loop to do nothing. Qt's event loop is very hackable.

[https://kernelcoder.wordpress.com/tag/event-handling-in- qt/](https://kernelcoder.wordpress.com/tag/event-handling-in-qt/)

<comment><USER2> ok, how to do it,

use qt for ui. create a frameless window and adjust the transparency of your window to 0.5.

as for user input, you can try to override its eventloop, simply ignore and bypass events. I have never tried this myself.

if this doesn't work, you might need to do some platform dependent code. for example creating an event filter, capture operating system event before qt does and throw it away.

I have done this on windows, but I didn't try this on mac.

you can ask on the official qt forum if you have any trouble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What is this overlay meant to do?

<comment><AUTHOR> Essentially I'm after the same sort of effect they had in Screenhero[0], so showing the location and name of other people's cursors on your screen.

0: [http://media02.hongkiat.com/sharescreen-coworking- screenhero...](http://media02.hongkiat.com/sharescreen-coworking- screenhero/screenhero-sharing.jpg)</comment></comment>


Why we use i, j, and k in for loops - <AUTHOR> http://tech.ablegray.com/article/why-we-use-i-j-and-k-in-for-loops <comment><USER2> Surely Fortran merely copied existing math conventions.

<comment><USER3> That was exactly what I was thinking. n is used for naturals, i, j and k are used for variable values in sums, for example (which, when programmed, would require the use of "for" loops).

<comment><USER4> Does i stand for 'integer' or possibly 'index'? I also wonder how far into the past it goes, 19 century?

<comment><USER5> Like so many other things in mathematics, I suspect it goes back to Euler (18th century). He invented the capital-sigma notation for sums, although I'm not sure what letters he used for his indices.

The use of x, y and z as unknown reals goes far as back as Descartes. I don't know what he used for integers though, or whether he bothered to distinguish integers from reals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Clearly it is in deference to D i j k stra. ;-)

<comment><USER7> Yeah... he had such an awesome name for who he turned out to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Errr... i, j, k are often used in mathematical proofs in summations and things like that... are we sure that's not why Fortran used them in the first place?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Math or Fortran?

</comment><comment><USER9> I learned to program on the ZX Spectrum (Awesome home computer). The spectrum had a great(ish) keyboard, where each key also had about 3 or 4 BASIC shortcuts on it, which you could get with various shift keys. Also it would recognize when it was expecting a statement, and just use the statement for that key instead of the letter.

For example, to type "for f", you would press the 'f' key twice, as it had the shortcut 'For' on it, and also was the letter f. Similarly, to type "next n", you'd hit the 'n' key twice.

Perhaps why you sometimes see f and n in for loops.

</comment><comment><USER10> I always thought it was because programmers were too lazy to write a couple of extra characters to make a nice descriptive variable name. At least that's why I do.

<comment><USER11> Sure, we are... But the question is why did we arbitrarily start incrementing from 'i' instead of 'a'?

<comment><USER12> int i; float f; char c;

<comment><USER13> __

    float    f;
     unsigned u;
     char     c;
     key_t    k;

That's how I swing, man.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Could it have something to do with the keyboard layout?

On standard keyboards "i" is just above "j & k". Also in basic typewriter tuition, your right hand apposing finger starts on the keyboard at the letter "j" when you commence typing. "k" has your right index finger. Most people being right handed these letters are pretty much the first & most intuitive letters to use.

</comment><comment><USER15> Wow! I did a global search for the variables "i", "j", and "k" in this 2000 line program I have to enhance, and I got all of them and a whole lot more! What a great idea!</comment>


Encounters of the multimodal kind - <AUTHOR> So I've spent some time making things in my life.. software, hardware you name it. I've been deep into many topics.
One of these topics encompasses new forms of data stores. Over a decade ago I created a nosql db which was solid for protying purposes but later tabled the project as it was too soon to market.
Having said that, I've review many forms of nosql dbs today and wonder what the community has to say.
Here are some tech specs which need to be fulfilled.
1. Must have native graph support 2. Must have document support like couchdb 3. Must have key value support
4. Must be clusterable 5. Must be extremely fast 6. Good support and decent community
7. Must work in Linux environments
That's essentially the 10000 view.
After reviewing a dozen or so solutions I landed on two candidates.
1. Orientdb 2. Arangodb
My question to the community is what are your thoughts in my decisions as well as what other thoughts you may have?
I'm not looking to debate why I need this solution. The requirements are the requirements.
Lastly, I also considered using three or more solutions readily available which would satisfy the requirements. Including things like rocks db, couchdb, and graph db
Thoughts ? Bashing? Trolling?
Thanks <comment><USER2> I haven't tried it in a cluster setting, but I have had good experiences with ArangoDB.</comment>


Gavin Andresen on Craig Wright - <AUTHOR> http://gavinandresen.ninja/either-or-ignore <comment><USER2> >Either he was Satoshi, but really wants the world to think he isn't, so he created an impossible-to-untangle web of truths, half-truths and lies. And ruined his reputation in the process.

This makes no sense as he was privately and publicly trying to prove that he was Satoshi. Why would someone that wants to convince the world they aren't Satoshi, go around saying that they are?

Occam's razor seems like the best principle to use in this controversy</comment>


Robot warriors will get ethics guide - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30810070/ <comment><USER2> This is thinly veiled posturing. The idea is as ludicrous as an "ethics guide" for nuclear warhead guidance systems. The entire concept of autonomous fighting machines is inherently totalitarian:

[http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/global/the-second- amendm...](http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/global/the-second-amendment-in- iraq-combat-robotics-and-the-future-of-human-liberty-820)

 _"So the response ... from the Pentagon has been to fund the development of weapons systems which are capable of defeating the Iraqi population, with their rifles and improvised bombs, so that the next population that chooses to resist the US military can be swiftly and effectively defeated. What this effort will do, if it is successful, is defang not just the population of Iraq, but all populations, overthrowing the protective effect individual firearms ownership, destroying the intent and effectiveness of the Second Amendment, and unbalancing the Constitution permanently through evolving technology which end-runs around the original intent of the Framers. It is the one blow that the Constitution cannot recover from: bad laws can be unmade, and unjust men can be hanged, but once the technologies to upend the Constitution exist, it is indeed finished."_

<comment><USER3> Unless you give individual citizens the ability to create similar machines.

<comment><USER4> Automated sentry guns are largely banned as "booby traps". Soon, toy UAV kits which anyone can build might be banned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Other researchers suggest just not building the weaponized robots in the first place:

<http://noevilrobots.org>

</comment><comment><USER4> Human ethics guides often fail.</comment>


Apollo astronauts left trash, mementos and experiments on the moon - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencenews.org/article/apollo-astronauts-anniversary-trash-mementos-experiments-moon <comment><USER2> Trash - the most human of all artifacts.

Trash on the moon. There's really no limit for our potential to ruin any environmenT.</comment>


Crash: how computers are setting us up for disaster - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/11/crash-how-computers-are-setting-us-up-disaster <comment><USER2> We will soon have accurate text summarization AI that will do to reading comprehension skills what calculators and other computing machines have done to math skills</comment>


On Uber's Choice of Databases - <AUTHOR> http://use-the-index-luke.com/blog/2016-07-29/on-ubers-choice-of-databases <comment><USER2> All of these response posts seem to miss one big piece that made no sense to me. Uber goes really in-depth around the higher cost of updates in postgres, but then Uber describes Schemaless as an immutable append only data store. They created a custom database with no updates, but one of their primary reasons for changing from postgres to mysql was because of the high cost of updates?

<comment><USER3> From what I can tell Schemaless has updates but represents them as inserts. When you want to change something (e.g. change the billing status of a trip), it writes a new billing status for the trip and consumers will always ask for the latest billing status for the trip, which is the most recent and up-to- date one.

Take this with a grain of salt, I just read the Schemaless articles yesterday.

<comment><USER2> That is how I understood it too. Updating your data with a call to insert won't run into the same problems as updating your data with a call to update. Their immutability implementation seems like it would behave nearly the same under both databases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a very good and fair response and anyone serious about tuning their DB should have use-the-index-luke.com bookmarked!

<comment><USER5> 'SELECT * from depesz'[1] is another great resource for weird sql capabilities and performance-related stuff, focused heavily on Postgresql

[1] [https://www.depesz.com/](https://www.depesz.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This really all boils down to "Ford F-150s are bad trucks because your cargo can get wet when it rains, use a U-Haul truck".

Sure, for that VERY specific (and not very common) use case U-Hauls beat F-150s. However, I think we can all agree that F-150s are far more versitle for most use cases, up to including something trivial like heading to Starbucks for a quick coffee.

</comment><comment><USER3> The money quote to me that was really interesting was this one:

> for a rapidly growing company, technology is easier to change than people.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is a response to Uber's article, discussed at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12166585](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12166585).</comment>


Ask HN: What technologies are used by Healthcare.gov? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> [http://www.cgi.com/en/us-federal/services- solutions](http://www.cgi.com/en/us-federal/services-solutions)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's the contractors website, not a list of technologies used.</comment></comment>


Your Facebook Friend Just Joined - <AUTHOR> http://yongfook.com/post/30300774745/your-facebook-friend-just-joined <comment><USER2> The advice of waiting until the friend has some activity logged sounds good, and possibly might give better results.

The article though is completely subjective. These are things that can be A/B tested very easily, and should, before making grandiose predictions about effectiveness. The author is probably like most of us here a techie and has a different relationship in regard to email. Most of your visitors might not care that the mail they receive is about a person they hardly know. It might still be very effective in getting the user back to the site, because it's very personal.

It might be even more effective for acquaintances than for good friends, because the user probably already knows his best friend is also on pinterest. Maybe the user might see this as an opportunity to get to know that person better. This whole article is just conjecture.

In the end, it's the numbers that count. If 80% of the fb friends fall in the "acquaintances" group, then pinterest, if it would self-limit to good friends, would be unable to send 80% of the mails it's sending if it would not self- limit. Sure, more people might unsubscribe from these notifications because of that 80%, but most probably don't. Why prematurely lower the amount of call to actions you have? 5% conversion for 100% of your friends joining, vs 8% conversion for 20% of your friends: even with the higher conversion, you're still losing out.

See patio11's advice on mails and how different it works than most of us here think.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is very interesting - I have been planning on implementing this in exactly the "wrong" way the article describes:

        Even if I was interested, sending a notification to me when they have
        joined is a pointless milestone. All you are telling me is that if I click,
        I get to see an empty profile.

So, are there any actions that make sense for the "FB friend joined" milestone? Prompting the user to message their friend in welcome seems artificial and annoying.

</comment><comment><USER4> I knew this would be about Pinterest before even clicking.

Yes, the email notifications seem like they could be valuable but they tend to be about friends that don't mean too much too me. Great points made in this article.

</comment><comment><USER5> So... this looks exactly like what GraphMuse does: <http://graphmuse.com/></comment>


Super Logoff - <AUTHOR> http://www.superlogoff.com Bookmark this site if you ever want to permanently delete your Facebook account or perform a super logoff. <comment><USER2> I find the facebook share link on this page to be poetic. On a serious note, how long will it take facebook to kill this the same way it did <http://www.suicidemachine.org> ? I'd love to see one of these succeed, but if my memory serves me, there's been a constant cat and mouse game going on between them and facebook since it first became popular.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, the facebook share thing is quite poetic, isn't it? ha ha - haven't heard of suicidemachine.org - will check it out</comment></comment>


Safari 10.1 - <AUTHOR> https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/content/releasenotes/General/WhatsNewInSafari/Articles/Safari_10_1.html <comment><USER2> Safari is a great browser and I'm sometimes surprised at how huge Chrome's mindshare among developers is. Every time I try Chrome out on my Mac I end up running screaming back to Safari. Safari doesn't choke on tons of tabs, it doesn't eat battery and memory for breakfast, it's never started autoplaying videos when I open a tab in the background, it's got support for picture in picture video which is my most used new feature of OS X in ages, and is fast fast fast.

<comment><USER3> Because Safari has consistently lagged behind Chrome and Firefox for functionality and standards compliance?

And still does: [http://caniuse.com](http://caniuse.com)

<comment><USER4> I don't think it is fair to discount battery life, memory usage, and performance so heavily. Looking at the [http://caniuse.com](http://caniuse.com) list there are plenty of features supported by Safari and not supported by Chrome including Audio Tracks, Video Tracks, ES6 modules, SVG Fonts, Animated PNG, CSS regions. Safari is actually the first to 100% ES6 compliance; Chrome sits at 89%.

I would also remind everyone that Google chose to fork Webkit to create Blink. They could have contributed their IndexDB engine to webkit at any time but chose not to. They could have contributed to the process isolation refactor but chose to do their own thing instead. They could have collaborated on JSCore instead of creating V8. That isn't wrong or right but it is the truth and it does mean duplicated effort.

Some of the features supported by Chrome are interesting to web-only developers I'm sure, but I don't want the browser on my mobile phone running service workers eating my battery in the background. With great power comes great responsibility and the JS-advertising-infested web has a really poor record on handling responsibility.

If you give a web developer media playback, they force auto-playing media on you.

If you give a web developer responsive layouts, they steal your ability to zoom.

If you give a web developer cookies, they inject tracking bugs to invade your privacy.

If you give a web developer service workers they will absolutely drain your battery.

(Yes not everyone but it will be widespread enough that browsers will be forced to invent countermeasures.)

<comment><USER5> That's only the newest version of Safari, before that it was pretty shit (on par with IE). Can't expect the mind share to change overnight, especially when it has lagged for years.

<comment><USER6> It's really weird to see this myth about Safari being the new IE6. At no point did Apple abandoned WebKit or add proprietary features to the extent that Microsoft did. They've continued to plug away adding new functionality and as has been mentioned they are ahead of Chrome/Edge in some areas and behind in others.

Some features in particular service workers Apple has deliberately chosen to take a firm position on because they value battery life and security.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "When the pointer is locked, users will see a banner explaining that the mouse cursor is hidden, and that they can get out of pointer lock by pressing the Escape key."

I beg your pardon — which key?

<comment><USER8> Funny. But there is still an escape key and it's not altogether impossible to use

<comment><USER9> Unless of course you touch type in which case you end up looking at the keyboard now....

<comment><USER10> No you don't. Why would you? Touch-typing relies on you knowing where each key is, and the Escape key is still in the same place it always was.

<comment><USER9> If I use a normal keyboard, even on my 12" Macbook, I never need to look at the keyboard, but with the touch bar, I simply cannot press the esc key, i put my finger there, touch it, and sometimes nothing happens, its like it doesn't register that you press it, or maybe im touching it wrong.

Regardless I feel like I'm trying to re-learn to type.

I'm moving to a Dell XPS 15 tho. Done with Apple if this is the direction they are going.

<comment><USER10> What do you mean by "the direction they are going"? Are you implying that next Apple is going to replace the rest of the keyboard with touchbar-like keys? Because I highly doubt that's going to happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Whew. Custom Elements, Fetch, and async/await all at once? Christmas came real early in 2017...

<comment><USER12> Does this mean Safari is no longer the new IE?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9804533](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9804533)

<comment><USER13> WebRTC is the main killer for me

<comment><USER14> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13466306](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13466306)

<comment><USER15> Plus it's been on the under development list for a while: [https://webkit.org/status/](https://webkit.org/status/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is prerelease documentation though. Any idea about when this reaches a stable release?

Also, haven't most of these features already been available in the tech preview? [https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology- preview/](https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/)

<comment><USER17> When macOS 10.12.4 ships [edited from 10.12.3, because I can't type]. And Apple doesn't comment about future product releases in general, so good luck finding out when that is. :)

<comment><USER10> You probably meant 10.12.4.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, I did. Edited.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Reduced Motion Media Query" The extents to which Apple goes for people with disabilities is as baffling as it is commendable. I can't think of another company in any industry that does so much.

<comment><USER19> Unless you're a blind user with a Touchbar Mac...

<comment><USER20> Actually not at all, Apple has already thought about that: [https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT207258](https://support.apple.com/en- au/HT207258)

There's VoiceOver support for the blind, zooming for visually impaired, etc. all implemented already.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Biggest deal here (for me) is the HTML 5 download attribute.

Without that you cannot name or provide an extension for files that are triggered for download.

<comment><USER10> The server can do this with the Content-Disposition header. The `download` attribute just lets you trigger downloads (optionally with a filename) for URLs that otherwise wouldn't be downloaded.

<comment><USER22> It's important to download JS-generated data as well, such as something in a Blob. You can't set a HTTP header on local content. The 'download' attribute lets the user "download" that without having to wastefully post it to a server and back.

<comment><USER23> To make what AshleysBrain said a little more concrete, imagine an image editor program (or a music editor, or a word processor, or whatever) that's written completely in client-side JS. There are starting to be a _lot_ of these, actually. Without a working download attribute, the only way to save your work is to post it back to the server and redownload it. That is a slow, ugly, and unsatisfying hack to get data that's actually already present on the local machine.

Even IE 11 has a way to do this (non-standard, of course, but it does have a way to do it :-). Edge supports the standard way.

As I noted in a different post, though, support for the download attribute has already landed in Webkit Nightly for macOS, and is apparently being worked on for iOS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Support for fetch and async/await, that's pretty big news.

</comment><comment><USER25> We just need support for _required_ as in <input required> now (;

[http://stackoverflow.com/q/23261301/938236](http://stackoverflow.com/q/23261301/938236)

> If an attribute is not listed here, it is not supported by Safari and > WebKit: > [https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Ap...](https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/AppleApplications/Reference/SafariHTMLRef/Articles/Attributes.html)

<comment><USER26> That seems to be a documentation oversight. The blog post announcing form validation support mentions `required` explicitly as a supported attribute: [https://webkit.org/blog/7099/html-interactive-form- validatio...](https://webkit.org/blog/7099/html-interactive-form-validation/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm always pleasantly surprised when Apple graces us with Safari updates. They tend to come with fairly cutting edge features when they actually ship.

The _opportunity_ they have at the moment is the super long gap between releases, which is even more apparent on iOS. I wish Safari could switch to a more Chrome-like model of shipping smaller updates more frequently, perhaps in an evergreen model. I guess there's only so many new emoji's Apple can use to encourage people to upgrade...

<comment><USER15> You do realize that Safari's engine WebKit is used for mission critical things in macOS and iOS… many apps like Mail, the App Store, iTunes and many thousands of 3rd party applications, right?

Every WebView in a macOS or iOS app is backed by WebKit—it's not just a browser; it's an extremely important system software component on over a billion devices.

I think Safari Tech Preview and WebKit Nightlies are a good tradeoff—I'd rather that than frequent instability on my Mac or iPhone just for the appearance of being an evergreen browser.

You can see what's being developed and what's being considered for WebKit just like you can for Chrome and Firefox: [https://webkit.org/status/](https://webkit.org/status/)

<comment><USER27> Yup. Of course I realise that. But also I believe that implementation details of iTunes also shouldn't hold users (and/or developers) back.

Safari Tech Preview was a huge surprise and an awesome leap for community engagement and awareness of upcoming works. But the realities are that "the industry" is moving ahead faster than Safari's (at best) twice-a-year release cycle. I can 1005 appreciate vendors taking time to let 'specs' 'settle', but Safari's comparatively infrequent cycle puts them at a weird pace.

<comment><USER15> The narrative that somehow Safari's release cycle is causing major problems in the "industry" or that somehow, macOS and iOS users are being left behind is false, especially for everyday users.

I use an old MacBook laptop running MacOS 10.7.5 with Safari 6.1.6, an ancient version of Safari by today's standards--about four years old--when I'm out and about. Otherwise, I'm using macOS Sierra with Safari 10.x on two different iMacs.

On the MacBook I use Facebook, Slack and many other websites without a problem. I get a warning banner on Gmail that says my version of Safari is no longer supported; other than a few cosmetic issues, I can send and receive email just fine.

The point: web developers have long figured out how to deal with multiple browsers across different platforms with different capabilities. Many differences and bugs have polyfills; it's not a show stopper.

Look, there are major features and minor ones; Safari has been at the leading edge with support for CSS Grids, wide-gamut color support, variable fonts, 100% of ES6, CSS Snap Points in addition to rendering speed and power efficiency.

There certainly have been calls to reduce the pace of new specs and releases so we developers can catch their breath and so that Apple, Google and Mozilla can release quality implementations--there's nothing wrong with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Lack of custom elements has been a big problem for years. Glad they finally caught up there. We can finally use semantic HTML with safari!

</comment><comment><USER29> Hmm, still no support for MediaStream Recording or Media Capture APIs. That's unfortunate as I'm currently developing a web app that makes use of microphone input. I'm a Safari user myself, but I'm forced to direct my users to use Chrome or Firefox to be able to use the microphone utilizing features.

</comment><comment><USER30> I really wish I could have a bookmarks bar with just favicons showing in safari, it's something that's a key part of my workflow in Firefox and I actually really like safari and other than that and the annoying wide tabs thing which I'd probably get used to if use it more often.

<comment><USER31> Try dragging a tab to the left side of the tab bar. The tab will shrink to icon size and stay there after restarts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> aside from the information: This website is sooo rediculously hard to browse on my smartphone (Nexus). The arrows are the only thing working to expand the information and they are really hard to open and close (with strange go backwards behaviour). Really bad website UX Apple.

<comment><USER33> It's not meant for mobile use any more than a Javadoc webpage is.

It's a developer resource to consult while coding on your laptop.

<comment><USER34> Actually, I loaded the link on my iPhone and it is responsively designed at least for Safari on mobile.

<comment><USER35> On firefox all I see is "Guides and sample code"-heading, a lot of grey and some cut off text.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Safari is a great browser for MacOS, what it lacks right now, is not more features, is opening the extension system.

Let's face it, it is ridiculous to have to pay 100$ a year to be able to improve Apple's product in exchange for nothing.

Making plugins for a browser doesn't have in any way the same opportunities to make money from it as making apps for iOS or for MacOS.

Still Apple, in all their usual stubbornness refuse to let people to publish and sign their extensions for Safari without paying them their 100$ anual fee.

<comment><USER37> I don't know whether it's ridiculous or not, but it's definitely a culture clash.

Safari had a hard time attracting ports of other browsers' extensions even when you could distribute them for free and they were fully HTML-based. (Probably because there was no Windows version.) Now, not only do you have to pay, the old extension system has been deprecated in favor of a new system where you have to bundle your extension within a native app and implement a native-code-based interface. It's probably not a bad interface in isolation (haven't tried it myself), and makes it easier for existing native app developers to add extensions, but I expect it makes code reuse between extensions for Safari and other browsers quite difficult.

In comparison, both Firefox and Edge are going in the exact opposite direction and moving to an extension API directly based on, and largely compatible with, Chrome extensions. So pretty soon you'll be able to use popular extensions with any browser you prefer... except Safari.

But hey, at least now Safari will be able to take advantage of the popularity of building apps for the Mac App Store. Oh wait...

<comment><USER38> If Safari starts supporting WebExtensions we're halfway there, but I don't see them switching from their current model anytime soon — sadly for its users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> still no WebRTC?

<comment><USER40> If it's not yet an official standard then don't count on it.

<comment><USER38> That doesn't really matter, they pushed CSS Transforms, Transitions and Animations long before they were "standards", hence the slew of prefixed properties still enabled on many browsers.

It's more about politics and priorities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Would love better clipboard support so we could paste images into Gmail and GitHub issues. Having to use Safari more often on a new MBP to save battery, this is one feature I miss daily.

</comment><comment><USER42> > Updated Behavior of Fixed Position Elements

Wow, inputs in bootstrap modal will finally work on iOS!

</comment><comment><USER43> Any catch if it does away with needing the `-webkit-` prefix for CSS yet?

</comment><comment><USER44> This confirms 2017 will be The Year of CSS Grid Layout.

</comment><comment><USER45> One polyfill less for custom elements

</comment><comment><USER36> I don't understand the down votes since it's factual that you can't sign your plugins and distribute them inside Safari (AND ALSO keep them automatically updated) unless you pay Apple their anual fee.

But well, fanboys will be fanboys.

<comment><USER10> I don't know why your original comment was downvoted, but dismissing people who disagree with you as "fanboys" is rather insulting.

<comment><USER36> Can you provide any other logical explanation to down vote a factual comment completely related to the post?

<comment><USER10> My best guess is it's just people tired of seeing someone complain about the $100 developer program membership every time the subject of Safari extensions comes up.

<comment><USER36> So people get tired of facing reality and down vote whoever makes them peek outside their walled garden.

Ok, it's acceptable.

<comment><USER10> You're being insulting again. If you don't want to be downvoted, you might want to try taking a different tone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I wish they made it usable, favoring function over [their idea of ]beauty.

I still can't use it because of the super-annoing "feature" that greys out tab favicons making impossible to immediately see what site is loaded in that tab if you have a lot of tabs open, and of course not showing the full address on iOS (I'm bother by the fact they think it's a good idea, but at least on macOS there's a setting to remove it).

Apple is really falling behind both Microsoft and expecially Google in terms of their own software. It's just not usable anymore. Everything is hidden just to make it look pretty. So annoying.

They should focus on their iOS version, because on the desktop the contribution they make is minimal, on iOS no one will install a custom browser instead of keeping the ad-free default one.

<comment><USER27> Like that _super_ readable Chrome tab bar when you have lots of tabs open? [http://imgur.com/a/MZ2dI](http://imgur.com/a/MZ2dI)

<comment><USER46> There is no solution to that many tabs.

Not getting it right with 5-6 open seems hard even if you try.

<comment><USER27> I have no difficulty understanding what my 7 open tabs are... [http://i.imgur.com/LB7BqOT.png](http://i.imgur.com/LB7BqOT.png)

But that's just me I guess. To each is their own.

<comment><USER46> If there were colored icons in each tab, you'd be able to figure out which tab is which at a glance, without reading every single title until you find what you're looking for.

It's so obvious that icons are easier than text—and this is why you see icons everywhere–that I have a hard time understanding how anyone would favor this solution. However, of course I have no interest in convincing you to switch browser, it's definitely a matter of preference.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Atlassian ditches 'brilliant jerks' in performance review overhaul - <AUTHOR> https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/at-work/atlassian-ditches-brilliant-jerks-in-performance-review-overhaul/news-story/82a5e2abba1939f51d68ae81db8f05bd <comment><USER2> >The $47 billion Australian software company, which was founded in Sydney in 2002 and floated on the US stock market in 2015, says two-thirds of every performance review will now have nothing to do with job skills.

>Instead, equal weighting will be given to how each of its 3000 employees impacts others on their team, and to how they live the company values. Atlassian says the change will "more fairly measure people on how they bring their whole self to work".

For a company that seems to be catching on to the idea that working at a company might involve being good at working as part of a time, I can't help feel describing that as "having nothing to do with job skills" is probably not the right way of looking at it.

In fact, there are some really funny points in this article that point to the bias that this is being met with

>Asked if it would be possible for someone who did well in their role to be outscored by someone who did poorly but was more likeable

For gods' sakes it is not about being likeable, it's about being able to work productively in a team environment. You aren't going to get a good review by being useless but really good at small talk in the kitcken. It's about being able to perform at the company in a way that positively impacts others whilst getting your own work done. Is is easier to work with someone if they're likeable? Probably. If someone is difficult to work with are they dislikeable? Sure. But stop talking about the side-effects and talk about the actual thing that's important - ability to add value to the company.

<comment><USER3> I think the truth is somewhere in between.

I'd much rather work on a company that has a pleasant atmosphere but not insane growth than on a shitty environment grinding my ass off.

But ignoring performance completely, that is nuts. Because output and success also bring joy and enhance the atmosphere of teams.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> On the other hand:

Many former employees blamed [Facebook's] cult-like atmosphere partly on Facebook's performance review system, which requires employees to get reviews from approximately five of their peers twice a year. This peer review system pressures employees to forge friendships with colleagues at every possible opportunity, whether it be going to lunch together each day or hanging out after work.

"It's a little bit of a popularity contest," said one manager who left the company in 2017. "You can cherry-pick the people who like you — maybe throw in one bad apple to equalize it."

 _Inside Facebook's 'cult-like' workplace, where dissent is discouraged and employees pretend to be happy all the time_

[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/08/facebook-culture-cult- perfor...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/08/facebook-culture-cult-performance- review-process-blamed.html)

<comment><USER5> The opposite side of this particular spectrum is Microsoft in 00's, where it was very clear to everyone that fixed sized pie is being divvided up, and people would wait for the smallest missteps by their peers, and CC their manager, and their manager's manager to make sure they know someone fucked up and their rating is lower at review time. Since there was a curve, one's own rating could then be higher, assuming they don't screw up likewise. Whether you're helping others didn't matter one iota.

Personally, I prefer peer reviews, even though they do often lead to likeable no-ops being promoted, and introverts being passed over for a promotion.

At least in "peer review" companies I never felt like my peers are trying to stab me in the back all the time.

<comment><USER6> I knew people who had worked at a company where it was pretty standard for people to leave their "360 reviews" in tears as extreme levels of self- criticism were expected. Their company culture apparently encouraged this level save "radical honesty".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sounds like Atlassian have reached the size where enough incompetents have been hired that they try to drive out the useful people because they make them look bad.

<comment><USER8> I wonder what 'brilliant jerk' means? For me the worst kind of jerk is a 'fool with authority'.

I'd much rather work under a brilliant jerk than a hypocritical fool.

<comment><USER9> > I'd much rather work under a brilliant jerk than a hypocritical fool.

Good news: There are people who are neither. I prefer to work for competent non-jerks. A team of good people will always outperform a brilliant jerk that drives everyone else away.

<comment><USER8> >> Good news: There are people who are neither.

True, but from my experience, companies are shockingly terrible at identifying and promoting those. Instead, they tend to promote the foolish but politically correct loud mouths.

High intelligence which is unrewarded tends to leave signs of trauma in a person. So they might seem like greedy selfish jerks, but in fact, they're frustrated for good reasons and we should listen to them and tolerate their harsh but accurate views about reality.

Jerks are fine so long as they're not afraid to criticize you to your face and give you a chance to improve. Not all jerks are sociopaths. For example, Linus Torvalds has described himself as a jerk - I'd be honored to work for such person. Altruism is about actions, not about choice of words or tone of speech.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> And somehow, as if by magic, anyone from a working-class background will turn out to have been a "jerk", and those who went to the right schools and are friends with the right people will turn out to have been "living our values". And one more slice of that pesky social mobility will go away.

<comment><USER11> There are no brilliant jerks in the upper class?

I dunno about that. Sometimes I run into folks who went to "a small school outside of Boston", and well...

<comment><USER10> You'd think that. But somehow these subjective assessment criteria always turn into a way to include the upper class and push out the riff-raff. (Of course it's probably mostly a question of what class the person doing the assessing is from).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The spirit of this is in the right direction but the details are in the implementation. I've seen this sort of thing backfire big time as it basically encourages cliques of people that "like" each other and then shun others.

If not done properly the whole company starts to feel like high school politics all over again as it loses track of what it's actually accomplishing or not accomplishing and focuses too much on poorly implemented soft metrics. I've seen excellent managers that drive high performing teams get dinged by under-performers on those teams who say said manager is hard to work with. Sure they'd be much happier with a manager that let them slack off but that's not going to help the company.

<comment><USER13> Nailed it. There are some very good points made in the article. Atlassian is a smart org and I suspect they're doing it well, but the article doesn't go into enough depth to let us look at it with a critical eye. There is a real danger that these policies will treat symptoms rather than causes.

I think that people often take an extremely puerile view as to how exclusion and bullying manifest. I once saw an HN commenter suggest that the solution was to ban profanity. Now, obviously you shouldn't be screaming "fuck you" at your colleagues, but removing certain means won't fundamentally change behaviour if the ends remain the same. It's important to think about the incentives you've set up for your workforce. Are they playing a zero sum game? Does an assist count for as many points as a goal?

> I've seen excellent managers get dinged in such a System because a few poor > performers just mark the manager as difficult to work with to cover for > their own underperformance.

Which raises another question - why are these discussions always centred around "brilliant jerks" and not just, you know, "jerks" ? Is there any actual evidence that being a jerk correlates with being a good engineer? Or that brilliant jerks are harder to fire than incompetent jerks?

<comment><USER14> Yea, most of the jerks I've worked with in the past have not been brilliant. They were just jerks.

The "My company was acquired and I got a management position out of it, so nothing I say is wrong" jerk.

The "I've been successful here by not collaborating, so I don't have to collaborate with you either" jerk.

The "I'm to busy to even acknowledge your E-mail" jerk.

And all the many, many "Taking credit for other people's work" jerks.

None of them were particularly brilliant or productive. Just jerks who flourished in environments where jerky behavior was either not punished, or got you promoted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Instead of either their old or their new approach:

1\. Don't tolerate jerks regardless of their level of "brilliant". And simply not being likeable isn't enough to categorise someone as a jerk.

2\. Give your employees honest reviews focusing on their actual skills, performance and impact. Don't come up with artificially soft language and treat them like children who need to tiptoed around.

<comment><USER16> But who gets to define the "jerk"? What if 9 people in the room decide to bet the company/project on blockchain vaporware, and you are fervently opposed? Many people will come across as obnoxious when they have to stand their ground vs the majority. You have to find a balance, otherwise you'll incentivize friendly groupthink.

<comment><USER17> You are only a jerk if you keep opposing (or sabotaging) the project after it has been decided to do it.

<comment><USER18> I agree. But is this enshrined in some constitution that everybody reads and adheres to?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The weakness in this model is that technically people calling other people jerks, tend to be jerks. Especially when there's some negative consequence for that person in the form of less favorable reviews it would be kind of nasty to do this on the record. So, the people doing this the most would in my book be the actual jerks. This thing gets super political and in politics, the charismatic sociopaths end up leading.

I'd advertise a different model where who works for whom is strictly voluntary. Somebody wants something done and needs somebody else to work with them; that other person needs to agree to work with that person and should have the option to join another team instead of being assigned to a group of people. Nobody likes working for jerks and the whole thing will sort itself out in no-time. Team players joining forces together will produce great results and you can then simply judge the output.

You'll get certain people having a hard time getting a team together or finding a team that will have them because they are jerks, that would be a reason for them to get a bad review (because they don't deliver). People voting with their feet is a more honest model than people whining to their managers. Empower people to vote with their feet. Small teams, empowered to do what needs doing, with people committed to working with each other can get things done.

You'll get all your performers joining forces and you can expect great results. Everybody else ends up stuck with each other and it should show in whatever teams results you get from that. Some people get a lot of stuff done by themselves and that might still be positive. Linus Torvalds is a jerk, I wouldn't want him on my team but I use Linux and Git on a daily basis and I'm glad he's working on that.

<comment><USER20> That could be okay, if it's done slowly and discreetly by upper management. Otherwise their are all kinds of hazards around recruiting like in the NCAA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "rather than a score, they either get an "exceptional year", a "great year" or an "off year"." \- I wonder if that means an average year counts as an "off year"?

<comment><USER22> I assumed that "great" means average. If you ask someone, "How are you" and they say "Great!" it just means "Not significantly worse than usual".

I also like the implication that there's nothing wrong with a couple of "great" years in a row, while a couple of "average" years in a row would at some point be pretty demotivating.

<comment><USER21> Consider the context. If someone asks you "how did X on your team perform", and X's performance was average, not bad but nothing special, would you use the word "great"?

The last place I worked with levels like that used "met expectations" for the average, which seems more accurate, and isn't something to be ashamed of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Unless the jerk part is extreme, this is totally inappropriate. Extreme brilliant jerks are rare in my experience. Funny/tolerable brilliant jerks are the norm in jerk world.

This is babysitting of adult people.

Any kid must tolerate/live-with way more insulting behavior every freaking day without anything in return like regular pocket money.

Somebody think your code is shitty, you smell funny, you have weird glasses, you talk to quite, wow, lets immediately make a drama.

World of adults has become inferior to the world of kids.

</comment><comment><USER24> Good.

I turned down a job this week because it became clear that the CEO couldn't handle any non-positive feedback and took it as a personal criticism.

Hey dude, if you have a redux reducer file that's over 11k+ lines long that doesn't mean that I'm "not smart enough to understand your code" it means you haven't bothered to keep basic code hygiene and break up your files.

It was a shame too - cool industry and tech stack and an odious toxic suck-bro culture. /smh

<comment><USER25> > Hey dude, if you have a redux reducer file that's over 11k+ lines long that > doesn't mean that I'm "not smart enough to understand your code" it means > you haven't bothered to keep basic code hygiene and break up your files.

While I haven't seen the code, this belief that large files are bad "by default" to me is a clear sign of an developer who puts superficialities before more important work.

In any event, any significantly evolved system has lots of sore spots that are nevertheless not the most pressing issue at any particular moment. This is the nature of things. Learning to accept that and still getting things done is valuable.

<comment><USER24> Nah man, I didn't make it black and white like that. It was more along the lines of "why is this reducer so big? it seems like that's a major red flag to me because that usually means its difficult to debug" and the guy went bananas. I almost never make bold "it must always be so" statements, as only the Sith deal in absolutes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> >Atlassian says the change will "more fairly measure people on how they bring their whole self to work".

They don't want people to bring their whole selves to work; nobody actually wants that. Lies like this cast immediate doubt onto everything else they're saying about the workplace environment.

</comment><comment><USER27> If they stick to it, it could be helpful in hiring as well. They need reverse inquiry from really smart kids (and it is mainly kids in all likelihood) who were not the standard candidate from years past.

</comment><comment><USER28> So... no job at Atlassian for Torvalds??

</comment><comment><USER18> 1 Apple in 10 lemons is a culture misfit and can be labelled as a brilliant jerk.

</comment><comment><USER25> > Atlassian employees can receive one of three grading levels on each element, > based on "growth mindset language" — rather than a score, they either get an > "exceptional year", a "great year" or an "off year".

...and right there flips the Bozo Bit.

<comment><USER29> The truly brilliant will just win at the new soft skills game as well; and just adapt their behaviour. They are very used to hiding among us.

The description brilliant jerks; does come over as despising of talent.

<comment><USER25> If you're a truly brilliant person and you're _still_ working at Atlassian, you should be on your way out anyway. Atlassian clearly has jumped the shark.

I don't actually have an issue with getting rid of people that really are a drag on team morale with their antics, even when they're highly productive. Perhaps you can find another spot for them, otherwise let them go their merry way and have them be brilliant elsewhere.

Having said that, there's a lot of people "on the spectrum" that are jerks not out of arrogance, but because their brain happens to make them essentially tone deaf. With all this talk about "diversity", I hope Atlassian doesn't forget about _neurodiversity_.</comment></comment></comment>


Pose: Photo sharing fashion app - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/11/pose-a-photo-sharing-app-for-fashion-and-shopping-that-just-raised-1-6-million/

<comment><AUTHOR> I've actually been working on a product thats very similar: location + product photo. It was pivot from the project I used in my YC W11 application (got rejected). Guess I need to move faster! How do others deal with similar products being released while you're in the middle of developing it yourself? It seems like a delicate balance between keeping the blinders on and continuing to build my vision (ie not reacting too much) and stopping to think about how my vision is different...</comment>


Drawn to Tesla's Bright Prospects, Many Black Workers Say They Found Racism - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/business/tesla-factory-racism.html <comment><USER2> One of the things that always strikes me with Tesla is the history.

They're at the old NUMMI plant, [1] which was a joint GM/Toyota venture so that GM could learn how to build cars as well as Toyota. Toyota's philosophy has two things at the foundation: continuous improvement and respect for people. [2] When This American Life did a piece on it, they talked to some of the GM workers, who spoke very movingly about how it was a deeply different experience to have such a different work culture. [3]

It's sad to me that Tesla didn't do more to learn some of the lessons that were taught right there in that building.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI)

[2] [https://www.lean.org/womack/DisplayObject.cfm?o=755](https://www.lean.org/womack/DisplayObject.cfm?o=755)

[3] [https://www.thisamericanlife.org/403/nummi](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/403/nummi)</comment>


Freenode's Parent Organization Dissolved - <AUTHOR> http://blog.freenode.net/2013/03/bye-bye-pdpc/ <comment><USER2> Hats off to the freenode folks. I feel a bit disrespectful speaking ill of the departed, but some history would provide context. Before he passed away, Rob Levin set up PDPC (and OPN before that) to essentially operate as his own piggy bank, while being tasked with 'administering' freenode.

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/01/29/buy_a_piece_of_net/>

The reality was that volunteers already provided the servers and most of the IT admin duties, and the donation solicitations over IRC were incessant -- to the point that I actually ignored all global messages coming from lilo (Mr. Levin's nick name).

The individuals that took over from Mr. Levin are to be commended for doing away with the full time position, the overzealous calls for donations, and instead relying on volunteers and the community that had always been ready and willing to chip in.

In that regard, the PDPC shutting down seems neither surprising, unwarranted, or sad. Many thanks to the folks that keep Freenode running.

</comment><comment><USER3> Another way to put it: PDPC existed to pay for Rob Levin's house/car/children.

Without the need to support Rob Levin, the other freenode volunteers didn't have as much drive to solicit donations.

<comment><USER4> Really? It took six years for PDPC to disband? How come? I don't know the whole story, but I'm a donor/got my cloak/etc, so am curious.

<comment><USER3> Reducing their level of effort in fundraising didn't mean the lights went out overnight. It took six years for it to dwindle to where there was more cost (the cost of incorporation) than benefit in PDPC's continued existence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It never really made sense to have a charity on top of an IRC network anyway, I claim.

Kudos to the volunteers who keep that place running so smoothly.

<comment><USER6> It's honestly not going to make a lot of difference to us day to day.

(and I second that kudos, since while I'm technically staff I barely actually -do- anything these days because other people always seem to get to whatever it is before I even notice :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> More details at [https://plus.google.com/104326727082310562426/posts/CMW4Gst6...](https://plus.google.com/104326727082310562426/posts/CMW4Gst657v)

EDIT: Static copy at <http://planet.freenode.net/>

</comment><comment><USER8> Text since the site seems to be having issues:

Bye bye PDPC

Sadly, we were forced to dissolve PDPC, freenode's parent organisation.

When the organisation transferred across from the US to the UK we wanted to keep the organisational structure as close to what it had been before (change is scary, right?) — however, we made the conscious decision to no longer have any paid employees after Rob Levin passed away. This meant that everyone involved with the organisation were volunteers and we no longer had anyone who could invest the time and effort required to do fundraising and similar tasks, meaning that the organisation was unable to sustain the levels of donations required to obtain and maintain charitable status in the UK.

Due to the massive reduction in financial support we found ourselves in a position where being an incorporated organisation cost more than what we were able to bring in in donations and after years of operating at a loss it was decided that we would apply for the dissolution of the corporation in order to drastically reduce costs. The application has been processed and the organisation has been dissolved; to further reduce costs we have also discontinued the majority of infrastructure services for which the organisation paid, together with the reduced administration and organisational fees this means that we are now in a position where our outgoings are restricted to domain renewals! We would like to thank everyone who has contributed to the organisation in the past, users, organisations and staff in particular, who have always been (begrudgingly?) happy to contribute towards the difference in order to cover the deficit. What does this organisational change mean for freenode?

In practise it means very little, the PDPC has never been involved in the day to day operations of the network and there will be no changes to the way in which the network is run. freenode is staffed entirely by volunteers from all over the globe who contribute their time and expertise to keep the network up and running in between contributing to various other FOSS projects. What about other PDPC projects, such as fosscon, geeknic, and the fossevents site?

These projects will continue as they have before, and we invite you to attend fosscon for real world talks and collaboration, to join a geeknic picnic or plan your own at <http://geeknic.org>, and to check out <http://fossevents.org> for events in your neighbourhood and around the world. I appreciate the work you do and I still want to contribute

The best way in which to help the network is to contribute time — help out in #freenode or elsewhere on the network, assist users in finding answers to their questions and help us try keep the channel and network temperature at a nice, comfortable level which encourages collaboration! If you are low on time but still want to help out you might be able to help us through your company or organisation by becoming a server sponsor (See "Hosting a server" for more information). If you feel that one particular volunteer has helped you out and you want to say thank you — ask them if they have a preferred charity to which you could make a small donation! With time we might update our website to provide links and information of such preferences. Alternatively, you may consider donating to one of the following projects:

        Software Freedom Law Center
        Electronic Frontier Foundation
        Open Rights Group

Existing PDPC donor cloaks

Existing PDPC donor cloaks will remain valid for a full year, after which they will be converted to unaffiliated cloaks. Ongoing donations will be cancelled by us. If you have previously donated to PDPC you'll still qualify for your donor cloak as normal. If you believe you're due a cloak and we haven't processed it yet please contact us.

</comment><comment><USER9> > ...meaning that the organisation was unable to sustain the levels of > donations required to obtain and maintain charitable status in the UK.

Speaking as the secretary of a UK Parent teacher association that raises about £2,000 a year I think I can say that there is no minimum required to obtain or maintain charitable status in the UK. The Charities Commission make everything as simple as possible and are very helpful.

<comment><USER10> <http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/Publications/cc21.aspx>

_63\. The minimum requirement for registration is that a charity must have an income of more than £5000 a year._

Sounds like something might be afoot at the PTA...

<comment><USER11> ...or, they just didn't register.

Charities with an income less than £5000/yr do not have to register, but still maintain their charitable status.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well, seems I donated just in time :)

Mad props to the staff, I enjoy using freenode a lot!

</comment><comment><USER13> Freenode FTW! Keep up the good job, guys!</comment>


Faster, more flexible web scraping with Nokigiri - <AUTHOR> http://tenderlovemaking.com/2008/10/30/nokogiri-is-released/

<comment><USER2> Hpricot is now faster than Nokogirl. I'd love to see this turn into the XML Parsing Wars.

<http://hackety.org/2008/11/03/hpricotStrikesBack.html></comment>


Prof. calls out student for cheating via Math StackExchange - <AUTHOR> http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/256816/if-n-the-order-of-a-group-and-gcdk-n-1-then-there-exists-an-element-in?__=650705013#comment562583_256816 <comment><USER3> After spending 9 years in school, I have very little regard for Professors that both don't understand how this generation of kids work, nor understand that take home finals in technical fields such as math have zero merit.

The smart kids are always going to be penalized because the cheating kids are going to ask for help. In other words, this kid got caught. We can discuss if this kid should have known that he was cheating or not (and I believe that there is good evidence that modern kids have a difficult time grasping the idea of original work). That is both a process and a procedure that colleges should teach kids. Ethics 101 should be a required course.

(Then again, Allen and Gates bought DOS from Seattle Computing Products and sold it as their own.)

My problem is the other 50% of the kids that find a friend that can help them, and thereby cheat but have no avenue to be caught.

Simple solution is to have tests in class on a sample of the work done during the quarter/semester. If you can't do this, then you don't understand how to test for knowledge

While this won't stop cheating, it should bring it down dramatically. The best way to slow cheating is to not give an opportunity to cheat in the first place.

<comment><USER4> In the past ethics 101 was taught by parents, somewhere along the way they became incapable of raising kids properly. Anyone with proper work ethic will understand that this kid was asking for someone to walk him through or do his question. Not get an idea fleshed out.

I would think it's still a parents job to guide a kid properly in the realm of ethics, maybe we should place more responsibility of the children onto the parents. (mind you this I'm not touching the fact that they really can't prove the kid is who he is, I'm just referring to the ethics aspect.)

<comment><USER5> Which bit of the past is this, certainly not during the era of the robber baron industrialists ... maybe between now and then - or before then ..?

<comment><USER4> My point wasn't about the quality of ethics, but that it's being left to schools and not the, you know, parents.

\--I suppose since I used the word properly I invited an argument of quality. I did mainly mean to refer to to the who and not the how well though.

<comment><USER6> "My point wasn't about the quality of ethics, but that it's being left to schools and not the, you know, parents."

Your mistake lies in assuming that parents before were somehow a better source of "ethics" than parents now. History books are always exceedingly kind to prior generations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So, does this mean I can register an account on Math StackExchange and ask for help with an alias, which is possibly a fellow student's actual name and that person will be penalized for my cheating?

<comment><USER8> As with the recording industry, the teaching industry's business model needs to change. Grading students on homework that can easily be googled is no longer an acceptable means of assessing work and aptitude.

<comment><USER9> I heard a cool piece on NPR the other day, talking about the benefits some schools and students are seeing by implementing flip teaching. Essentially, the hour long lectures are presented as a podcast/video/whatever and are to be viewed at home. This allows the students (and parents for that matter) to take as much time as needed, rewind, etc.

Then at class, the students do their homework, with the teacher helping and grading the work.

I'm really intrigued by this, and think there is a future for this method, given how technology has progressed.

<comment><USER10> That's actually more-or-less the "traditional" british and american method of teaching (at least at the college level); historically, one was expected to show up in class having already studied the material to be discussed and prepared with questions to ask about points that were unclear.

I'm not sure at what point it got "flipped" around to the current state where students expect to learn the material in lecture and then study their notes, but attempting to flip it back seems like a good idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a dilemma for me. On one side:

Is it wrong to ask for help?? In the professional world, being able to communicate and collaborate in finding an answer is more usefuel than doing it all by your own.

On the other side:

If what you want to do is to develop in your brain the mental models to do math. then you need to do your homework... is like triying to get in shape, it's ok to have a personal trainer but he can't lift weights for you.

<comment><USER12> I think the issue here was that it was for a final exam.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, let's post the questions to our take home final to the internet. No one will notice. Honest.

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure what you expect when it's a take _home_ final, however.

<comment><USER10> Honesty?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The prof also busted him on another question:

[http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/256822/product-of- tw...](http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/256822/product-of-two- polynomials-p-and-q-with-rational-coefficients-has-a-integer- coef#comment562581_256822)

<comment><USER16> That is the only other question that was asked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This kind of thing does cause serious issues evaluating students.

On one hand, students, employers and lecturers all agree (I think) that allowing students to do larger projects, over a period of time, allows them to better show their strengths and tackle interesting problems.

On the other hand, without locking people in a room with nothing but a pen for 3 hours or so, it is very difficult to check they aren't getting someone else to do all their work for them.

<comment><USER18> I still like to push the idea that my school's CS department uses: grading appointments. 40% of your grade is the code actually working, 60% is you being able to explain it to the TA.

<comment><USER19> If the TA has a grasp of spoken language, that might work. (In the past I've dropped labs and classes when profs/TAs couldn't communicate clearly.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This kind of thing is only ever going to get easier, not harder. Overall it's a good thing that sharing knowledge has become so easy.

So we need to rethink the way we structure education and credentials.

Why is there an incentive to cheat like this? Frankly, because most of the hoops a student jumps through during their education really don't impart any lasting measurable value. What fraction of educational content is still usable in the average student's brain ten years after they learned it? Very little.

Mostly this comes down to the rigid and one-size-fits-all way we teach most things. Learning is orders of magnitude more effective when the learner has a personal motivation for why they want to learn something and how they intend to apply it in their life -- factors that are frequently missing from our traditional classroom model.

The real value in school is the meta skills. Learning how to learn. Today we expect students to get those as a side effect of learning a bunch of pointless (to them personally) stuff, but more often than not they pick up the wrong set of meta skills: they learn how to cram information just long enough to regurgitate it for the test and then forget it forever.

If you want people to learn the really valuable meta skills, you need to let them practice those meta skills in domains the students actually care about.

<comment><USER21> The value is not in getting the answer. The value is in the mental exercise of figuring out how to get the answer. Supplying your professor with the answer is merely a token you provide as evidence that you have done so.

As far as whether any "lasting measurable value" is imparted by these sorts of exercises, I can say that at my workplace I've seen more than one freshout who clearly hadn't made it through college without significant assistance from Stack Overflow and other people's blogs. None of them lasted very long.

Perhaps knowing how to solve problems for yourself isn't necessary to get a college degree nowadays, but it's surprising how useful it can be in a career where you _solve problems for a living_.

<comment><USER20> I don't disagree at all. I sure as heck did every problem myself and took pride in it, and I'm sure I'm more capable because of it.

But that's not the point of my post. I'm asking why somebody who clearly doesn't care about learning this bit of math feels the need to go through the motions in the first place. It's a suboptimal way to learn anything.

<comment><USER22> Because they are buying a credential.

<comment><USER20> Yes, but the credential is supposedly tied to actual abilities that matter.

If they use their fraudulent credential to get a job and then perform well, then the material really was pointless and the system really is a big show without substance. I can hardly fault someone for gaming such a system.

On the other hand, if they fail miserably because they lack relevant skills, then they didn't really prosper from their cheating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is there any way to be absolutely certain that "John Paul" is really John Paul?

Otherwise this does not mean anything more than _"somebody better be confessing, but I am not sure who"._

(The fact that there was a an attempt on the question does not bode well for this guy, but again, that could be faked too... right?)

<comment><USER24> How about signing up under someone else's name and asking questions.

<comment><USER25> I couldn't understand someone who did that. If you're posting under an alias it's because you're worried that you might get caught. You're also assuming that the person you're posing as is going to be blamed. At this point - <USER2> would you expect happen? The accused is going to plead innocence. If it was a serious enough matter IP logs and maybe other forensics are going to get pulled out. Are you smart enough to evade all that too? If you get caught, the punishment is going to be even worse.

At that point, it is probably easier to just study, learn the material and do it yourself.

I just cannot fathom how people could be truly pulling off these sort of stunts and can sleep soundly at night. At some point if you're an idiot you have to accept it and either do something different or buckle down and work harder.

<comment><USER26> You clearly don't know how cutthroat some of these universities are. There are students that will do _anything_ to be number one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The best part is that the student edited the question and replaced it with a bunch of garbage characters, and then an admin rolled back the edit, ~2 hours before the professor's comment.

</comment><comment><USER22> Its a trap. A written confession may result in serious consequences; without that, prof can't prove John is John...

<comment><USER28> Maybe not beyond reasonable doubt but if the student wants to push the point then a University board is likely only to need to demonstrate that the questioner is a particular student on the balance of probabilities (in order to avoid falling foul of a later legal challenge).

There may well be data held on the Uni computer network, for example that would help to prove who the culprit is to a high enough degree too - eg an account ID matched with IP of math.stackexchange.com around the time the question was asked.

<comment><USER22> That would not be possible unless all HTTP is forced through a proxy server, which is very unlikely in a Uni network. I worked in a University NOC and I can tell you that this is not going to happen even if they do have the logs; unless an actual crime was involved or its somehow going to mean negative PR you aren't going to get cooperation from them on something like this.

<comment><USER28> I would've expected a basic "domains accessed + timestamp" log on a per login basis would be reasonably standard to guard against abuse of computer facilities.

Would grep-ing a classes logs for the timestamps of accesses to "math.stackexchange.com" be too great an infringement to guard against fraudulent activity.

It's probably only tortuous but still fraud in the process of obtaining a degree is a pretty serious offense in Uni terms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Teachers in my High School caught students doing this several times. The teacher would go on the _Answers sites the night of an assignment and_ incorrectly* answer a question to catch the students cheating. Pretty clever on the teachers' part.

<comment><USER26> But also rather immoral, since they were abusing the site. What if someone else came along later and thought those answers were real?

<comment><USER30> Then that someone learns a valuable lesson about the internet.

<comment><USER26> That's no justification to sabotage a math Q&A site, _especially_ if you're a teacher. Those teachers should feel ashamed of themselves.

<comment><USER31> Please explain. Note, this is not a comment about the teacher. Nowhere in my comment do I reference the teacher.

>>>That's no justification to sabotage a math Q&A site.

I assume you mean: [learning a valuable lesson about the internet is] no justification to [knowingly post an incorrect answer to] a math Q&A site.

I disagree, and I think that the justification the OP mentioned is an excellent one, for one very specific type of sabotage (posting an incorrect answer). I will try to paraphrase their justification:

Someone who reads an answer on a math Q&A site and does not check to make sure the answer is _correct_ will learn "a valuable lesson about the internet" if the answer turns out to be _incorrect_.

I assume that the lesson could be that "thinking that an idea is true doesn't make that idea true true". A more specific lesson about math could be "check your work". In my mind, these lessons are both valid justifications for the one specific type of sabotage mentioned. Some people believe that checking your work strengthens your math skills, so the people who checked to see if the answer was correct or incorrect may have improved their math skills as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm skeptical anything will come from this. It's not like a Stack Exchange username is legitimate proof of identity. The professor called out the student for cheating but unless the guy actually turns in the form along with the exam, there's probably no way to legitimately link the student's identity with the stack exchange identity, unless the guy was stupid enough to sign up with his actual name.

That being said, this would be an effective way to screw over someone else, if you signed up with their name and plastered these types of questions all over the internet. The first thing that any HR rep is going to do when considering a job application is searching for the persons name. If this type of garbage comes up, that resume will probably be instantly tossed into the bit bucket.

</comment><comment><USER33> I got to see the editor powers in action as the professors comment was deleted after a reload. The edit makes sense, anyone can post under any name and bad news travels faster then good and can be stickier so reputations can be damaged incorrectly.

</comment><comment><USER34> I'll never understand why professors give take home exams and expect that the internet won't be used to help answer the questions. Even if he didn't just post the question without trying, who's to say a similar question isn't already there?

Do History professors do this? I mean a math problem is something you might be unlikely to find on the internet, but I'm guessing wikipedia knows when the battle of Gettysburg took place.

If you are allowing for "open book" but not "open internet" give the test in class and set their book on the table.

</comment><comment><USER35> This story and discussion is the perfect example of how wrong people are when thinking about schools and what's going on in there.

A teacher provides two services: teaching (obviously) and evaluate students to let them know how well they are prepared to pass an official exam.

So cheating or not cheating here is a non-issue except for the student that clearly doesn't know what he's doing. And the the teacher who seems enjoys playing the sheriff's role could be ridiculous, except he doesn't know what he is doing either.

That's a pretty sad story, actually.

</comment><comment><USER36> So his username on the Math site is John Paul, but if you click over to his Stack Exchange network profile, it says his name is Stephen Hilger. Definitely some shenanigans here.

</comment><comment><USER37> It's nothing new - the same has been going on on Stack Overflow and other forums for ages. Here's a particularly egregious example of someone cheating on a Regional Olympiad level competition: <http://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/155319/150097>

</comment><comment><USER38> Just now, the professors answer disappeared in front of my eyes after a page refresh. For those seeing this after me, apparently his professor was watching the thread and told him he show he is cheating and send a copy of the url and/or his post history to discuss his penalty.

</comment><comment><USER39> The professor (under a false name) should post an answer in a specific way and then see if any students submitted the exam with the copied answer.

But in honesty what did the professor expect from students who are given take home exams? That they won't go online and look for answers?

<comment><USER10> Yes?

Are you saying that you _would_ go online and look for answers? If so, why do you believe that's an acceptable way to conduct yourself? If not, why do you believe that the professors students are any different?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> So was this a CMU student? :(

</comment><comment><USER24> Don't use your real credentials when asking for help on school work.

I don't think this student was asking for help so much as asking someone to do the work for him, but I'll keep it in mind either way.

</comment><comment><USER40> This also happened with a Portuguese 2nd year CS student, no one was sure if it really was the teacher.

</comment><comment><USER41> Is there anything to say that the professor actually is the professor? It's a new account.

<comment><USER8> Not sure why you were downvoted. I was wondering the same thing. It could just have been another student or friend busting his chops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> OP had it coming. Why would you use your real identity in this situation? What a n00b.

</comment><comment><USER43> Member for: today

Hmmmmmmmmm

</comment><comment><USER44> wooh wooh wooh, so whos real and whos not here?

</comment><comment><USER45> Is this hacker news?

</comment><comment><USER46> ouch.

</comment><comment><USER47> Yowch.

</comment><comment><USER48> I think this is wrong. The professor does not understand how the world spins around nowadays. He caught that guy,but there is no guarantee nobody else was cheating. Personally,as a non-English student attending a university in the UK I could easily ask questions in a language the professor could not understand, on forums he doesn't know exist. My point being - if somebody wants to get away with it,they will - as many people pointed out,it would be enough if he posted that question under a fake name.

So if the professor cannot guarantee that no-one is cheating,then any marks obtained for that exam/homework/whatever are completely meaningless.

<comment><USER6> "The professor does not understand how the world spins around nowadays."

I'd love to hear you explain that to a partner after being caught red-handed. Of course, many people DO just this after being caught cheating. Blame the partner, blame "the system", blame everything but themselves. It's immature and destructive.

<comment><USER48> You misunderstood me. I am looking at it from the opposite perspective - as an honest student, I would protest against a test that can be so easily cheated on.

<comment><USER6> My mistake, then. I agree.

No one enjoys having cheaters around them, bringing them down, don't you think that the professors would rather have cheat-proof exams to offer their classes as well?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Blockchain for Personal Data Licensing - <AUTHOR> Is there any platform where I can securely store personal data (e.g. genetic data from 23andMe, personal health records, etc) on a blockchain, that allows me to sell access to my data for companies interested in studying it? Or is this a dumb idea? <comment><USER2> Great Idea.This is the source for DRM. If there is a way to not allow copying of digital Assets while allowing distributed access, then blockchain tech comes very close to this. If successful this can be very profitable. So slight modification to your usecase, you can prove you are the original owner of a digital asset by hashing it and putting it on a distributed ledger. You will not be able to however proactively give out access to said asset unless you control how that asset is measured and given to you in the first place. So this would be akin to proving you own the asset and use the blockchain as a distributed DMCA. There is this NYC startup funded by Joanne Wilson doing something similar with art. That could be a start

</comment><comment><USER3> None that I know of. Not sure the "blockchain" bit here matters much as I don't see how "proof of ownership" matter. More important is the fidelity of the data and that it can be packaged with other data. Companies like Kantar have representative panels (paid volunteers) with installed internet and tv monitoring, known household demographies, which fill in surveys, etc. Maybe worth having a look at things like that.

Data under experimental conditions is still very valuable. The sample size need not be that big before it's useful when you're not having to guess at everything.</comment>


How to Get Terminal to RaspberryPi via SSL from Anywhere, No Port Fwd - beame-io https://www.hackster.io/zeev-s-glozman/how-to-get-terminal-to-raspberry-via-ssl-from-anywhere-a94624 <comment><AUTHOR> You can use ngrok to forward to SSH directly... though the web ui is interesting, I think being able to use a client cert would go a l-o-n-g way towards security.

Also, do you really trust the proxy in question... You could do your own forwarding on a $5 Digital Ocean account if you wanted to.</comment>


Ask HN: Is your startup/tech company having a black friday / cyber monday deal? - <AUTHOR> I know some companies have before the Holidays sales, so I thought I'd see if anybody wanted to promote theirs. <comment><USER2> We're offering 50% off for life at UserCompass ([https://usercompass.com/](https://usercompass.com/)). 60 second setup, 100 responses free, AND 50% off for life.

We automate NPS surveys to your Stripe customers. No more excuses not to start sending NPS surveys now! :)

</comment><comment><USER3> here's a list of over 100 that are being promoted. [http://blackfridaytech.co/](http://blackfridaytech.co/)</comment>


HP Releases Z Series Laptops with Official Ubuntu 20.04 Support - <AUTHOR> https://www.debugpoint.com/2020/09/hp-z-series-linux-laptop/ <comment><USER2> It's the 7th generation ZBook plus servers and desktops. Directly from HP

[https://press.hp.com/us/en/press-releases/2020/hp-drives- per...](https://press.hp.com/us/en/press-releases/2020/hp-drives-performance- remote-collaboration.html)

Sadly the 15" ZBook still has the number pad and the off center touchpad. HP, if you're reading this I'd pay an extra for a keyboard without number pad and a centered touchpad. Thanks.</comment>


Entire Japan coast shifted 2.4 metres, earth axis moves ten inches - <AUTHOR> http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Japan+earthquake+factbox+Entire+Japan+coast+shifted+metres+earth+axis+moves+inches/4425617/story.html <comment><USER2> For someone who has lived through a massive earthquake (as I did in Taiwan in 1989), the disturbing thing, even for someone who has lived in earthquake zones for years, is the aftershocks. They build up to a doubt about whether the earth can ever be counted on to lie still. Now after more than a decade of living somewhere where earthquakes are unknown, I largely am back to counting on the earth beneath my feet to lie still. (The danger here, and it is a considerable danger, is slipping and falling on ice. That paralyzed my dad for the last six years of his life.) The earthquake news from Japan brings back a lot of memories from the Ring of Fire. Many people there will be wondering over the next few weeks if the term "solid ground" has any meaning at all.

<comment> X-Istence I lived in Phoenix when there was an Earthquake somewhere down south in Mexico and I felt it. The earth was moving back and forth, the blinds on my window moved back and forth and not ever having felt an Earthquake it was the weirdest feeling in the world.

I can't imagine a strong earthquake or what it would feel like, but Phoenix which is definitely not known for its earthquakes moving underneath my feet made me more wary about what I am walking on than ever before.

<comment><USER3> When was this? I've been in Phoenix for 20 years have never heard of anyone here saying such a thing.

<comment> X-Istence Last year, sometime around April if I remember correctly... let me check my Facebook backup. (Yay for searching a big huge HTML document)

April 4, 2010 is when it happened, sometime late in the morning, afternoon. I just remember just waking up and trying to decide if I should go take a shower or not, and thus lying in bed.

[http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/poster/201...](http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/poster/2010/20100404.php)

[http://www.examiner.com/supernatural-christianity-in- phoenix...](http://www.examiner.com/supernatural-christianity-in- phoenix/phoenix-area-feels-easter-sunday-earthquake)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does this affect the orbit of satellites? Do satellite location services like GPS need recalibration?

<comment><USER5> It will not greatly affect the orbit of any satellite, because the Earth's center of gravity can't be shifted by any action internal to the Earth itself by conservation of momentum, excepting somehow raising some part of Earth above the relevant orbits which no earthquake is going to do. Otherwise to change the trajectory of Earth's center of gravity requires an external force of some sort. Some small effect from a different mass distribution will be caused and it will have to be taken into effect, but when you care about these effects as far as I know you have to measure them empirically anyhow, because if you care at that level of detail it turns out there's a lot of noise as the Earth warms and cools and has various flows within it and as water moves hither and yon and so on. So while it will have some effect it is merely one of very many such things.

Technically speaking, it won't require any recalibration either, because when the satellites tell you that you are 2.4 meters away from where you were yesterday when standing in the "same location", _they're right_. (Assuming this number is reliable.) GPS doesn't really tell you where you are "on the surface", they tell you where you are within the sphere they encompass and from there we map that back to the surface location with other knowledge our systems have. If Madagascar took it upon itself to go dock with Australia tomorrow, the GPS satellite system itself would not need to be updated. All the things that _use_ GPS and have some reason to expect Madagascar to be in a certain location would need to be updated.

<comment><USER6> > It will not greatly affect the orbit of any satellite, because the Earth's > center of gravity can't be shifted ...

Even if the center of gravity is not moved, there is an impact on trajectories. We are used to use a simplification that consider only the gravity center (using this theorem <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_theorem>) but this theorem doesn't apply if we want to be really precise.

<comment><USER5> Is it the case that you might explain such a thing with words that look something like "Some small effect from a different mass distribution will be caused and it will have to be taken into effect, but when you care about these effects as far as I know you have to measure them empirically anyhow, because if you care at that level of detail it turns out there's a lot of noise as the Earth warms and cools and has various flows within it and as water moves hither and yon and so on. So while it will have some effect it is merely one of very many such things."? If only I had thought to add such words to my original post. Alas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've felt a distant earthquake once, in _Michigan_ (not exactly an earthquake zone) - it was deeply unnerving, particularly in an office on the fifth floor of an old factory building. I can't imagine being trapped amidst suddenly collapsing buildings, or knowing that it could potentially happen any time. I hope the worst is over and people have reconnecting with their families by now.

Also, I don't want to trivialize what the Japanese are going through, but why does Japan move in metric while the Earth moves in imperial units? Sheesh.

<comment><USER8> How long ago was that? I felt one from Michigan myself a few years back, that originated down in southern Indiana. That was around 3 or 4AM, though, so unless you were working late or living in your office...

The American midwest may not be earthquake central, but it has its faults. New Madrid, in particular:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Madrid_Seismic_Zone>

I remember the noise around Iben Browning's 1989/90 prediction, but it looks like nothing major has happened there since. Yet.

<comment><USER7> It was this one, last June: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Central_Canada_earthquake> .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> somewhere in Japan, someone has hardcoded GPS locations into their autonomous dishwashing robot, and is now wondering why it can't find the sink...

(btw, another version of the story with citations, attributed quotes is here: [http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/12/japan.earthq...](http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/12/japan.earthquake.tsunami.earth/index.html))

</comment><comment><USER10> Now, isn't that _so_ Canadian? The headline mixes metric _and_ imperial.

</comment><comment><USER11> The power of the northridge earthquake was indescribable. To think that this quake in Japan was more powerful blows me away. During the northridge quake, it literally felt like the entire world was coming to an end.

<comment><USER12> The Japan quake (8.9) was over 900 times more powerful than Northridge (6.7).

Each point on the Richter scale is a 30x increase in energy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Contains some bullet points with nothing to back them or the headline up. Has some videos though if you haven't caught them elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER14> The U.S. military is planning an excursion and training exercise later this year on the Madrid Fault. My company is planning on demoing some new tech there. <http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2003/fs017-03/images/madrid.jpg>.

Last time it hit, the bells range in Massachusetts around 1890. If one were to hit today expected loss of life is in the 1000's. They would expect a total loss of infrastructure for stuff that has been built over 100 years ago. They have no earthquake building codes so imagine something that would destroy buildings just like the one did in Japan. Happily only several hundred were lost compared to what is expect of the Madrid fault.

</comment><comment><USER15> I live in Florida, and I'll take the risk of hurricanes and tornadoes any day over earthquakes. Just the sudden and unavoidable nature of earthquakes makes them seem orders of magnitude worse to me.

<comment><USER16> How do you feel about the risk that most of Florida will be underwater in a few decades?

<comment><USER15> Let the whole state go under. I'll be long gone by then. (All kidding aside, I haven't really heard anything about that, and it isn't a pleasant thought. Any particular articles on the subject that you've seen?)

<comment><USER16> I'm only half-joking. The sealevel rise estimates are all over the map (no pun intended). For one estimation on the effect on Florida, see: [http://www.globalwarmingart.com/sealevel?lat=30.487&lng=...](http://www.globalwarmingart.com/sealevel?lat=30.487&lng=-84.375&zoom=5)

For one estimate of +2m, see: [http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/news- stories/article/...](http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/news- stories/article/global-warming-may-cause-2m-sea-level-rise-this-century-say- experts.html)

Again, I don't know how likely this is, but Florida is one of the most vulnerable states in the US. The prize probably goes to Louisiana with North Carolina in the top 3.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> a. does it mean that the velocity of earth's rotation changed? b. and thus, by virtue of relativity, time (for us earth people)?

<comment><USER18> If the rotation speed of earth changed (and this is definitely possible), then by a really, really tiny amount (something like a day getting a thousandth of a second longer or shorter)</comment></comment>


Filesystem Sandboxing with EBPF - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/803890/aaa62a70fb863940/ <comment><USER2> Another use case for ebpf.</comment>


Suspects must assert right to silence - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2010-06-01-court_N.htm# <comment><AUTHOR> "By a 5-4 vote, the justices said that once rights have been read and questioning begun, a suspect must clearly declare that he wants to remain silent and cannot simply be silent."

First, that's some twisty logic; in order to be silent you must first not be silent.

But what's really puzzling is that you can be told, "You have the right to remain silent ...", yet not have the right to remain silent.</comment>