In the Singularity Movement, Humans Are So Yesterday - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/business/13sing.html <comment><USER2> The thing that scares me about the Singularity is that it's such potent kool- aid for tech geeks. I talk to Singularitarians and there's this fire in their eyes like they've been reborn. They become so certain. They remind me of fundamentalists. If there's one thing more dangerous than a true believer it's a crowd of really smart true believers. I'm afraid, perhaps unnecessarily, of what might be done in the name of "ushering in the singularity".

I don't think we can know whether a singularity is possible until it's upon us, which could be never. I'm singularity agnostic. That doesn't mean we don't think hard about it. That doesn't mean we don't guard ourselves against its perceived dangers. It does mean that we keep our heads and stay skeptical and put out the fires that are already burning.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure what could be done that would be dangerous in the name of "ushering in the singularity." The worst plausible scenario is that we put money into research avenues that don't pan out. But that happens all the time anyways. The real worst case scenario is that someone gets too afraid of AI and goes all Sarah Connor. But that's not a likely scenario especially because most of the people who take the Singularity idea seriously are people who are generally optimistic about the long-term trends.

<comment><USER4> _I'm not sure what could be done that would be dangerous in the name of "ushering in the singularity."_

How about firing up a potentially runaway AI without a stable goal system? Releasing a virus to "improve" people in the releasers' preferred direction? The likelihood of these seems minor (and for the first, might not even been possible), but the consequences are so grave that they bear some thought and worry anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Lots of confusion in the article, given a very complicated subject with widely divergent opinions and the attempt for journalistic non-bias.

One thing that clears up some confusion is the important point that the word "Singularity" means different things to different people. <http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/schools>

</comment><comment><USER6> Here's one thing I've never gotten about singularity folks: why the assumption that human ego / personality will persist into post-human evolution?

It's easy enough to buy into a reduction of the basic singularity tenants: a) that we'll understand and be able to model the brain at some point, and b) that at that point evolution can proceed on, well, non-evolutionary time scales.

But it's always seemed to me like that step will have a tragic quality to it as well: that's the day humans become just animals. I don't know why a post- human intelligence would feel a need to preserve human individuals or the human concept of self any more than we feel the need to preserve gerbil personalities.

<comment><USER2> > _It's easy enough to buy into a reduction of the basic singularity tenants > ..._

I don't even get that far. It may be the case that it's impossible to model the brain to a sufficient level of detail to manufacture conciousness. It may even be the case that our brains are doing something non-computable to produce consciousness, in which case we have to give up on Turing-equivalent machines entirely and move to something that more closely resembles our physical brains. At that point Singularity-scale intelligence depends on the creation of some big-brained biotech Frankenstein, which doesn't scale nearly as well, and seems different enough to require a new name. We just don't know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can't figure out if I like the article or not.

On one hand it's good to see that the subject get's into mainstream media.

On the other hand. The subject is dealt with quite simplistically. And the focus on Kurzweil is giving the story a very one sided and kind of geeky don't take too serious kind of angle.

I realize that even a newspaper like the NYT can't get too nerdy. But there are far more important stories to talk about when it comes to transhumanism even if the singularity doesn't happen. (I am personally skeptic)

I would though make one book advice that isn't following any specific school of thought. Hans Movarec: "Robot - Mere machine to transcend mind"

</comment><comment><USER8> Its good to see Singularity getting more mainstream coverage. I think Singularity is inevitable, but I don't agree with Kurzweil's timeline or the fact that he is the face of Singularity. I understand that he wants to live forever but that doesn't mean he has to sell over-optimistic theories.

Maybe people who takes his over-optimistic predictions seriously will work harder to drive innovation?

<comment><USER9> That's probably why Kurzweil's son mentioned he is "less-weird" these days. Just imagine being mocked for evangelizing futurists ideas that were thought impossible are now surfacing into mainstream science. Of course, acquiring a vast amount of knowledge from this Singularity training is absolutely rich. It is only up to you whether or not you want to take the next step of tapping and developing untapped technologies - even if society likes it or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have wondered, in a consciousness transfer scenario, if we can really ever ascertain whether the consciousness is actually transferred or, as I fear is the case, a new consciousness is created and the old one lost.

I assume someone has written a long treatise on the subject, but I have not considered the subject pressing enough to actually research it.

<comment><USER11> It's one of those weird philosophical questions. The sad part is, there's no possible empirical answer--transferring my memories to a robot, the robot would believe it was me and any test you could possibly devise would confirm that the robot was me, but regarding my subjective experience inside this soggy bag of meat, who knows whether that continues inside the robot or just ends?

EDIT: Useful thought experiment from philosophy, devised during the time Ronald Reagan was still alive. Suppose someone told you that they would take you, erase your memories from your brain, upload Ronald Reagan's memories, and then torture the inhabitant of your body. How willing are _you_ to say, "go ahead! You'll just be torturing Ronald Reagan, not me!"? Personally, I'm not so willing.

<comment><USER12> For minor surgeries these days, like when I had my wisdom teeth removed, a common combination is a local anesthetic plus a drug, midazolam, that temporarily prevents forming new memories. Patients are conscious and responsive during the operation, but don't remember being conscious; in retrospect they remember it as if they had been knocked out with general anesthetic. An odd thought experiment: if the local anesthesia hadn't worked well and I was actually feeling pain, do I care in retrospect? I sort of don't, I think, oddly enough. I don't remember it, so it doesn't really matter to me either way. I mean, I wouldn't want to see a video of myself experiencing pain, but so long as I neither remember it nor ever have to see it, somehow it doesn't matter to me a whole lot.

<comment><USER11> Well, yeah-- _after_ the fact, it doesn't really matter if you experienced terrible pain that you didn't remember. But by that argument it's fine to torture babies, since they won't remember it.

The question is whether, before the fact, you would go into minor surgery without anesthetic at all knowing perfectly well that you would forget all of the pain afterwards. Maybe you would if it was the best option, but I would wince in anticipation.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, I think I would wince at it, but I don't think I'd be _that_ opposed. Somehow to me the idea of pain that I know up front I'll never remember isn't all that frightening a prospect, though I suppose I'd still avoid it given the option. It feels almost as if it's really just my body that'll experience pain, not "me", in the sense that I won't remember anything about it, it'll have no lingering traumatic effects, won't be an experience that'll do anything to shape my personality, etc. I'd definitely be much less apprehensive about it than if I knew I _would_ remember it.

<comment><USER11> Hence the eternal philosophical problem with thought experiments (or "intuition pumps" as some people call them)--different people have different intuitions so maybe your thought experiment won't even make sense to them :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I enjoy the idea of Singularity very much, but if this article is representative of what this movement is all about (although it appears not to be), it seems flawed to me. I had the feeling Singularity is oriented toward biology, while I believe it should rather be approached by an anthropologic or mathematical point of view. Besides, Intelligence is often mentioned, yet, has it ever be defined correctly? My first guess would be that Intelligence is only another word for the complexity of a given system. Thus, human intelligence is only a representation of the complexity of our biological system. Considering this, it is indeed inevitable that universe will be saturated by intelligence, as universe is mathematically meant to keep complexifying as «time» passes on.

That said, I have not read much about the subject, and I'd really enjoy some serious text about this theory.

<comment><USER14> > ...universe is mathematically meant to keep complexifying as «time» passes > on.

Doesn't it actually (within any closed system) do that exact opposite of that, by the second law of thermodynamics?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I found this article massively disappointing just because it drowns out the central, important question (is technological progress really accelerating and to what end?) in all this human-interest nonsense about the quaint fervency of futurists like Kurzweil. Fervent belief doesn't always mean false belief, and its not clear to me how the author has earned the right to this apparent condescension. The article gives people who don't care to think about the future consequences of present developments an easy out, which, when you think about it, is a good way of helping to ensure that the very people we're laughing at, and are slightly worried about, are left to follow their own agenda.

<comment><USER16> _its not clear to me how the author has earned the right to this apparent condescension_

Do we have to earn the right to be condescending nowadays?

If you ask me, condescension should be the default posture to adopt towards anyone making wild, overconfident assertions based on flimsy evidence. Now, since evidence about the future is awfully hard to come by...

<comment><USER15> _Do we have to earn the right to be condescending nowadays?_

To me that's kind of like asking do you have to climb the stairs in order to look down from the balcony, so, yeah, I think it needs to be earned, and I think you have earned it if you've already done the work necessary to determine that a conjecture is wild and based on flimsy evidence. The author of the article didn't do that work. I won't be seduced into conjecture about the ellipsis, but evidence about the future is not so much hard to find (it's everywhere in fact; it's the present state of things) as hard to interpret. Still, there are lots of smart people working on predicting one or another aspect of the future. Often they're wrong, so I share your skepticism, but skepticism is different from denial or dismissal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> On a somewhat related note, here is a man with a bionic eye: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1424807>

</comment><comment><USER18> It is telling that this article is in the business section and not the science or technology section.

</comment><comment><USER19> Sounds like eugenics, only the "undesired" population is humans.

<comment><USER8> Thats an over-simplification of what singularity is.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are you still using a CV? - <AUTHOR>

last time I applied to a job I used linkedin as my resume. Are you still using a CV or you are now using new info (github, stackoverflow, etc...)? <comment><USER2> Of course. There is a growing number of companies that will happily look at LinkedIn and personal websites, but the vast majority of companies have HR employees that will insist on a CV in Word or PDF format for an interview.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm currently in the process of interviewing for a new job. If there's an option to import my Linkedin data, I'll do that. Otherwise I'll send links to my personal site, Github, and Linkedin. If someone specifically asks for a resume or C.V., I'll politely say that I don't have an up to date version and to please refer to my public Linkedin page. I have not noticed had any negative consequences from not having a CV or resume.

</comment><comment><USER4> (Disclaimer: I'm not a developer.)

I still use a resume. In my opinion, if I were hiring a developer, if the person doesn't spend the minimal effort of sending an updated resume, it shows lack of interest on his part. Providing additional links would be a great supplement, but I can't see that as a pure replacement.

</comment><comment><USER5> A lot of (larger) companies use tools like Resumator which require a pdf/doc CV in order to upload an applicants details. Personally I don't mind referring to linkedin for a candidates background provided they have a github/bitbucket account that lets me see beyond their work history.

</comment><comment><USER6> It really matters what field you are in. The more traditional fields will absolutely need a Resume/CV.</comment>


A Navy veteran refused to accept a 'no' to his battery invention - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/12/naval-veteran-aluminum-air-metalectrique/ <comment><USER2> So techcrunch still runs one sided articles about companies that are basically glorified advertisements. They haven't changed after all these years.

They did not dwell on the biggest difference between aluminum air and lithium batteries -- that the aluminum air ones are not actually rechargable. Whenever you run out of batteries you have to send each used battery back to the factory to be re-manufactured and get a new one.

If you want to really compare these to lithium batteries, then you should compare the energy needed to re-manufacture a new aluminum air battery compared to the energy needed to merely recharge a lithium battery. I bet that the al-air battery will end up at least ten times more energy intensive. (Manufacturing aluminum is a very energy intensive process). And of course you also have to worry about shipping heavy batteries back and forth between the factory and multiple recharge centers. Whereas with lithium ion you are only "shipping" electrons over wires.

Relying on single use battery for ordinary transportation is just crazy extravagance.

<comment><USER3> I keep thinking that maybe metal air batteries only really make sense for an electric aeroplane. The energy density of lithium ion is too low and there are a lot of things to do at the end of a trip, so maybe swapping out a battery pack isn't a huge deal.

<comment><USER4> A possible issue: they get heavier as they discharge. Unless the aluminium oxide is somehow expelled out, but this is not the case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Without having to charge the battery, a car could simply swap the battery > out in second, completely removing 'charge time'... Meanwhile, Hydrogen Fuel > Cells would require a huge and expensive Hydrogen distribution > infrastructure and a new Hydrogen generation system.

This is cool, but the above argument that battery a swap out system being much significant of a hurdle that developing an H2 infrastructure doesn't make sense. For a battery swap out, you need not only the infrastructure to deliver fresh batteries to points of use/sale, you also need to infrastrucutre to return the batteries to the recycling station, and the recycling station infrastructure itself.

H2 fuel infrastructure simply requires H2 liberation from a water source and delivery to fueling statuons. Fuel cells exhaust water. Now, the H2 fuel cells themselves and their platinum-based membranes are another hurdle, but that's not the argument the author made. This author (and others) need do a more complete cost-benefit assessment.

<comment><USER6> Exactly. The text you quote is PR-messaging to cover up the major downside that these aren't rechargeable - they have to be swapped out. So they're not really a competitor for Lithium rechargeables; they're a competitor for Duracell gold-tops.

(Interestingly, I recall that Tesla originally planned to offer battwry-swap stations, and even demonstrated over. Not sure why they dropped the plan - presume either logistics, or they developed their battery technology to allow charging more quickly than they'd originally thought possible?)

<comment><USER7> two issues, super chargers were more than quick enough even when this technology was introduced. the second was that they had such little uptake it wasn't worth trying at more than the first site.

the unwritten concern was, who owns which pack? is the new pack I swap going to swap back to me or equivalent?

<comment><USER8> > is the new pack I swap going to swap back to me or equivalent?

the packs are not rechargable, you would be buying a new battery and getting paid to recycle your old battery.

<comment><USER9> Shivetya was talking about Telsa battery packs, which are rechargeable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> alan-crowe Way back in 1997 the German Post Office did a big trial with Zinc-air batteries in delivery vans [https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15420863-500-germany-...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15420863-500-germany- greens-its-postal-vans/)

Zinc-air only gets you around 180 Wh/Kg, while Aluminium-air manages around 1300 Wh/Kg.

If the article is correct that Trevor Jackson has solved practical problems with the electrolyte, then it is time to dig out the results from the old German Post Office trial. Why did it go nowhere? If the main problem was simply that Zinc-air batteries were too heavy, then a practical Aluminium-air battery is a big step forward. If on the other hand the problems were to do with swapping and re-smelting, then Aluminium-air might be solving the wrong problem.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for that link. It mentions a postal van lasting a week on one battery stack and testing with full loads. Cynical me says politics and oil industry but manufacturing and logistics surrounding it must have been challenging as well.

[edit] [0] Mentions the Deutsche Post thing as a pilot project with a "regeneration" plant for recycling. So might just have been funding drying up when the project ended.

[0]: [https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/661884](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/661884)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Having a good aluminum-air battery would be fantastic, even if it was non- rechargeable. It makes no sense to replace the existing battery pack in BEVs, but they could be used for range extension when going on road trips.

I'd be really curious to know how many kWh you could pack in a hand-swappable unit like Gogoros batteries. Make two slots in the bottom of the trunk (in a way that it can be used for storage when you don't have batteries in there). When you go on a long trip, just go to a station, pick up two batteries, and drop them off at your destination.

The problem is, considering that this is the main use case, it's not a technology with a huge market potential like lithium-ion. It's nice-to-have, but not essential.

Could also make sense for electric air planes or boats.

"The technology development has peaked and unlike aluminum, lithium is not recyclable"

This is just false. Solid state lithium-ion batteries are arguably more mature than aluminum-air, which is a huge step forward. Lithium is also recyclable. That process is not as mature as the process for making aluminum, but I'm guessing there's a bit more to scaling up the recycling of these batteries than just handing over the spent cell to an aluminum smelter.

</comment><comment><USER12> Assuming the technology is as described and I don't know enough to comment on that, it doesn't surprise me, the British government is terrible at exploiting technology that is come up with inside the UK.

Another example is the SABRE folks, honestly innovation in this country is "men in sheds" relies refusing to take no for an answer.

</comment><comment><USER13> If it is not possible to manufacture those cells on site, at home or at charging/swapping station he should probably give up. But entropy... more energy you pack, more it wants to get out.

if you can pack 10x more energy in the same size as lithium cells and they wont explode on damage, maybe there will be some benefit to making whole delivery network for aluminum cells

</comment><comment><USER8> Is there a reason to not use a combination of battery types in an EV? Have a smaller rechargeable lithium battery for daily commutes and regenerative breakes. Have a space/socket for a larger single-use aluminum battery for when you need the extra range.

Assuming these things are stable enough, it really would not be hard for gas stations to keep a couple of these on a shelf. The hardest part would be scheduling the pickups for recycling.

<comment><USER14> Gas stations already have several vendors--for fuel and snack foods--coming in and out. With the Al/air batteries being just a swap, why would it be any different than the bread man dropping off fresh product and picking up stale?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The battery's "only waste product is aluminum hydroxide..."

Producing Al(OH)3 is an intermediate step in the Bayer process (used worldwide) to convert bauxite to Al2O3 - a process which requires a lot of energy and produces a lot of (dangerous) waste.

So there may be potential there for this battery's 'waste' to actually save -more- energy.

<comment><USER16> No, the step that converts the aluminium hydroxide into aluminium metal is an extremely energy intensive step. You won't be saving energy unless you use solar thermal to heat the kiln. And you'd have to do this if you wanted to use the batteries again as the batteries are single use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There's got to be a catch. If the technology is so much better, why is it so shunned? I have great trouble believing that Big Lithium would really be preventing it's use given that aluminium is abundant everywhere.

<comment><USER18> The catch is that this battery isn't rechargeable, it has to be swapped out and recycled.

<comment><USER17> Ah, this explains it 100%.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Much simpler would be join the scooter scheme of ~swappable rechargeable batteries ... a ready made standard that could then work for any vehicle up to a car

By forcing ownership of batteries outside of consumers effective recycling could be much more effective too. Right now there is a huge cost, almost a planned obsolescence, when a EV's battery degrades ... as is inevitable with current tech.

~swappable

[https://electrek.co/2019/06/10/yamaha-ec-05-electric- scooter...](https://electrek.co/2019/06/10/yamaha-ec-05-electric-scooter- gogoro-batteries)

</comment><comment> ur-whale Not sure I understand why this guy keeps turning to governments for funding instead of the private sector.

Is there some sort of regulatory hurdle he's trying to overcome?

<comment><USER20> I think the above comments are the clue that the private sector isn't interested.

Too many downsides in being a primary battery. BTW hearing aid batteries are zinc air. So the metal-air technology has certain uses, but as for EVs the highly energy intensive process of re-generating the batteries is probably what causes potential investors to pass.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Sounds useful as an emergency power backup — where you could simply store lots of Al rods and worry about returning the oxide byproduct only after power has been restored. This system has a dramatically higher energy density per cost and volume than any secondary batteries, which makes up for any loss of energy in refining Al

</comment><comment><USER22> Corrosion and self discharge are the big problems for metal - air batteries.

They typically self discharge in less than a month once they are activated.

[https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/120466](https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/120466)

</comment><comment><USER23> It's unbelievable how bad the editing in this article is. I barely skimmed this and came across four typos.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm surprised he found it so hard to get funding. They definitely need to get their story out to more people.

</comment><comment><USER25> Being non rechargeable I wonder if these batteries could be used for things like watch/remote control/torch/etc batteries since the typical ones you buy are also non rechargeable and I imagine not very environmentally friendly.

</comment><comment><USER26> It really reads like an inventor story in Europe. The German who invented Lithium Ion batteries also run across the country and nobody was interested until Sony came along and needed something for their walkman...so the story goes...

</comment><comment><USER27> Being that it's not rechargeable and cost £60/kWh.. does that make a 60kWh recharge $3600? If so it is a very expensive 'tank of gas' equivalent?

<comment><USER27> Although it's confusing as they say it's £0.08/mile so the bit the exchange must be cheap but something else in there is expensive?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Sounds like the main benefit vs other batteries is a high weight energy density, would it be enough to enable new applications for batteries?

</comment><comment><USER29> Batteryswap makes sense to me. More sense than attempting to retrofit charge onto streets

<comment><USER30> Swapping out a few hundred kilos of battery is going to require some tools and equipment. That doesn't sound like something you'd do on the side of a road. Building facilities for that would be quite a bit of effort. Probably installing a charging point is a lot less complicated and costly.

Also the logistics of moving tons of batteries around are going to be a bit challenging. The infrastructure for that would also need to be built and unlike charging points there's none of it anywhere. Finally, having a lot of middlemen messing around with batteries adds a lot of cost as well.

Anyway, now that in car batteries are good enough now and on track to get way better still, this seems completely redundant. There are plenty of charging points and EV owners typically install one in their homes as well. None of the infrastructure for swapping batteries exist, no standards for such a thing exists, and fixing that seems to not really solve a problem anyone actually has.

<comment><USER29> The only logistics are for initial supply and replacement. The battery swap points would be what we call gas stations. The batteries would clearly be designed to slide in and out in some motorised manner with a lift, And have positive latch connects.

Contrast the costs of battery swap with retrofitting power reticulation to large developments, upscaling the distribution network, fitting individual charge points, and swap has good economics.

I agree it's unlikely. I just think it makes more sense.

<comment><USER30> Sounds like a lot of infrastructure would be needed to swap, handle, transport and store the batteries. Also presumably at some point you'd need to charge the batteries, which means you need .... charging points. So the economics are those of charging points plus a lot of logistics and man power. That sounds like bad economics to me.

<comment><USER29> Repurposed gas stations have most of what you need. Delivery of power to an array of chargers cheaper than reticulated suburbs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Could this process work at grid scale as a power storage for renewable energy?

<comment><USER32> These batteries are not rechargeable - though you could create them with the 'spare' energy when wind power isn't needed for eg. Issue is the time that should plants could remain unused if the plant is not profitable at normal energy costs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> There is still a lot more bribe money in blocking new tech than in advancing it.

Everything that effectively brings the end of the Fossil Economy closer hits roadblocks in government. Anything ineffective has it easier, so dominates funding.</comment>


Google has filed a patent on robots that mimic dead celebrities: - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/lovesick-cyborg/2015/04/26/when-robot-personalities-mimic-the-dead/#.VT5FrRfmqlo

<comment><AUTHOR> um... what are we doing, people??? seriously</comment>


The Intel Safety Critical Project for Linux OS - <AUTHOR> https://01.org/blogs/imad/2018/letter-industry <comment><USER2> They seem to ignore or be ignorant of prior work in standards for this field, eg IEC 61508 and ISO 26262, not a confidence booster.</comment>


Why don't we have Chess-Style Tactics for programming? - <AUTHOR>

I've returned to studying Chess extensively lately. One thing that's struck me is how easy it is to study Chess compared to programming.You can just solve "tactics" and improve pretty quickly. Here, I mean tactics in the broadest sense, including positional, opening and endgame "tactics".
Tactics are "positions" that have an optimal solution. Solving tactics builds a library of common "patterns" or "themes" for chess players to use in actual games. Anyways, I digress.
Besides studying tactics, Chess players go over games by masters. This part has an easy analogue in the programming world. Reading good code is obviously very instructive.
The analogue between tactics and programming seems easy. Programmers obviously encounter obvious patterns (design patterns for instance.) It seems it would have obvious pedagogical value to construct problems based on common themes and variations on those themes. Why hasn't anyone done this? I'm really tired of lame problems that I see cropping up in various "how to program" books and web sites around the web. Obviously programs take longer to construct than it does to solve a chess tactic, so I can understand why this approach might sometimes be unreasonable. I think books like SICP take a nice approach; writing out programs and leaving parts of the program blank for students to fill in. I think this strikes a nice balance between a problem that can be completed in a reasonable amount of time and a problem that has actual practical and pedagogical value.
I think the real advantage of this approach, "tactics" that is, is that it organizes "units of improvement" into smaller quanta. If I can solve a tactic and reinforce a tactic in five minutes, that means I can improve even if I only have five minutes here or there to spend improving. State of the art Programming-Pedagogy is decidedly not conducive to this approach.
I had considered that perhaps certain kinds of activities are just not suited to practice in small increments of time. I think this is false though, because I'm also an accomplished pianist. While it's not as clear cut as studying a chess tactic, I can usually work out something to do in a small amount of time that improves my ability. I've also fenced at the national level, and fencers can always do little drills to improve in small amounts.
I realize that things like code katas exist. However, it seems like most of the "practice ideas" programmers have are pretty lame. I find myself passively wishing that someone would do something about the frankly pathetic state of the art in programming pedagogy. I'd do it myself, but not being a master programmer, I wouldn't trust myself to not screw it up.
Anybody else have any ideas? <comment><USER4> Chess have quick feedback loop. You do sth wrong and almost immadietly you know it was wrong.

Programming (getting the design just right) doesn't. You only feel the pain of bad design in big projects, after a few months passed.

Even the most complex games of chess would be finished in one day, most often in an hour or so.

Where programming has quick feedback loop, people learn very quickly - <USER2> example learning the syntax of programming language is easy, because when you do sth wrong, you know after a few minutes.

</comment><comment><USER5> At first glance your idea seems to compelling. But then I realised that with chess, as with any other game, the desired outcome and the rules are fixed. In the case of a computer program the outcome is the correct implementation of the specification (requirements). Since that is different for every application, there is no series of steps that will lead to the "correct" solution.

Therein lies one of the core challenges of software engineering education. Teaching programming languages is easy. Teaching the skills required for analysis and design for real-world sized problems is difficult.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is true. Chess, as opposed to Computer programming is well understood. I traveled this line of thought also. I came to a different conclusion though. Music for instance, is as abstract as Programming is, but it's possible to create small "quanta" of improvement all the same. I refuse to believe that programming is such a unique endeavor that it can't be subjected to a similar approach.

Also, I don't think your analogy stands up totally well. Teaching the rules of chess is easy. Really good analysis requires years of practice. All the same, the state of chess pedagogy is fairly impressive. I wouldn't be surprised if someone out there has reached a low master class simply by studying tactics, openings, end games and strategy out of books (while playing very few games.)

<comment><USER5> I'm a lousy chess player, so I'll stick to your comment about "small quanta". What you suggest is one of the features of Agile Programming and the art of refactoring. Taking your music theme further, many applications are like a symphony or even an opera; large, complex, lots of performers, large complext score, need for a conductor, etc.

Your chess inspired idea of programming is more like a jazz group - <USER3> clued in, playing off one another's riffs, improvising, etc without a score or conductor. Speaking of which, you might want to check out Live Coding (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_coding>).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >I'd do it myself, but not being a master programmer, I wouldn't trust myself to not screw it up.

This thinking is why we don't have them. If you think the idea is worth something just do it: if the idea is good but you screw up a little, you've still done enough for other people to build on and improve.</comment>


Show HN: Simplified interface for old people. - <AUTHOR> http://kwkster.com A simple way to leverage some social networking tools. <comment><USER2> I don't get it - most old people I know would have no interest in any of those apps...

However, if you're going for a general idea of "big icons/minimal description" then I think you might have something cool to start with.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wanted Twitter so I clicked on the "t." but that's actually for Tumblr. Looks cool, but I'm not sure it accomplishes its goal.

I would think it would be much more useful to write out "Twitter - This is the site that lets you post short messages or read short messages posted by friends and celebrities"

</comment><comment><USER4> I love this, have you tested it on any "old people"?

<comment><USER5> I'm an old people, and I didn't really know what it does. Links to those sites? Why would I go "here" to go "there?" And hovering to show the link destination is turned off (why?), so I didn't click on anything. Because I'm old, and paranoid.

<comment><USER6> By "old people" I imagine he means less tech-savvy, not literally just people of an older age. The fact you're on HN means you aren't his target demographic :)</comment></comment></comment>


Growing on trees: A profitable rainforest - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13684132

<comment><USER2> My Brazilian ex's relatives own a plantation that grows sustainable mixed exotic hardwoods used for flooring and construction. This isnt the same as undisturbed rain forest, but it sure beats the practice of destroying everything to get a few valuable trees. It also uses much less acreage, because only the valuable trees are grown. In contrast, current practice turns the destroyed forest to cattle grazing

<comment><USER3> Do they replant the trees each year or do they cut off branches for the hardwood?

<comment><USER2> They cut down and replant a certain percentage each year. The trees are quite a bit smaller in diameter than the rain forest giants, so the life cycle is much more like normal tree farming practices. In the rain forest, the giants form a canopy that shades the forest floor, so the floor is much more open than you would expect. Mostly there arent any branches except at the crowns, 100-150 feet off the floor. The seedlings cant survive in the gloom until a giant falls. My guess is that a plantation with its smaller trees can grow much more wood than an equivalent area of giants.

<comment><USER4> Quite. The temptation is that those rain forest giants represent a significant one-time windfall; this is what led to the unsustainable forestry practices that denuded most of England of its forests and nearly did it in for the US.

International agreements like CITES, if memory serves, regulate and in some cases outright prohibit certain forms of lumber (the most notorious examples are Brazilian rosewood and Cuban mahogany, both of which were tremendously important hardwoods a century ago and are nearly extinct now), and efforts like FSC certification seem to be helping things out somewhat--one can actually buy lignum vitae now, relatively cheaply for an exotic. But I imagine we still have a long way to go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How do the trustees of this forest sell carbon sequestration? Do they just say "this forest sequesters a billion tons of carbon dioxide a year, and for $10/ton, we will associate those good works with your company's name"?

<comment><USER6> There have been very accurate satellite measurements of rainforest deforestation since the 70s. We know how many acres are being destroyed each year from across the world. Because historical measures are so good, we are able to know if the rates of deforestation are increasing or decreasing. If countries are able to decrease their rates of deforestation from the historical baseline then they get carbon credits under certain cap-and-trade models. They are then able to sell these credits at auction.

Because preserving an acre of rainforest is far less expensive than reducing CO2 in more traditional ways, we can reduce the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere for less money than it would otherwise cost.</comment></comment>


Why is the letter Z associated with sleep? - <AUTHOR> http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3063/why-is-the-letter-z-associated-with-sleep

<comment><USER2> _"you know what they call sleeping in the UK? Catching some zeds."_

We do? Literally never heard that, not a single time.

As to the fact that it comes from snoring... am I the only one who thought it was obvious as soon as I read the title?

<comment><USER3> Not a word, exactly, but certainly a variation of <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onomatopoeia>

<comment><USER4> z in the US is pronounced zee, in the UK zed, so certainly not an example of onomatopoeia for Brits, or a particularly good example for Americans. It's certainly a stretch to attribute it this way.

<comment><USER2> I don't know about in American, but in the UK it's not that "zed" is onomatopoeic, it's "zzz" which is just the sound a z makes in a word, not "zedzedzed" or "zeezeezee". And that's why it comes from snoring.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's a more pertinent question:

 _Why is this on the front page?_</comment>


Bad relay: Fixing the card reader for a vintage IBM 1401 mainframe - <AUTHOR> http://www.righto.com/2018/09/bad-relay-fixing-card-reader-for.html <comment><USER2> Let's put this in perspective. Highly trained engineer, in 2018, decodes ancient diagrams, to fix a vintage IBM machine of historical economic, but little technical significance.

But.

The year is 1966. A 1401 at a Midwest insurance center's card reader is acting up. It has been heavily used and is approaching obsolescence. IBM sends an a 20-year lifer, WW2 vet tech, making $7.50 an hour. He has seen this 3 times before. He opens that panel, switches the component, and it's working. For good measure, he changes a number of other likely pitfall components, and cleans and lubricates the whole reader mechanism. All in 90 minutes, and he is gone.</comment>


Pair Programming: My Personal Nightmare - <AUTHOR> http://www.bennorthrop.com/Essays/2013/pair-programming-my-personal-nightmare.php

<comment><USER2> A few things...

First, don't place isolated works of genius against the mundane day-to-day work that most people do. Most of us aren't geniuses. I'm not an Einstein, and I'll never look good compared to him.

Next, I don't think it's that vociferous a demand in the industry. Most of the industry still resists pairing, regardless of results. And certainly, nobody is saying that it's impossible to be productive unless you pair.

Now, some positives for pairing. First, it's a risk management approach. Businesses generally aren't interested in maximizing productivity. They're interested in minimizing risk. Don't believe when they say otherwise, they're full of crap. (To be precise, they're interested in minimizing the APPEARANCE of risk more so than risk itself, but.) Depending too much on the results of individual programmers who could quit, be incompetent, or get hit by a bus is a business risk. By pairing, the knowledge gets distributed throughout the team. Moreover, it helps mentor junior programmers and integrate new staff.

Beyond that, I just find it a useful technique in many situations. Programming requires thinking on several levels at once. I've found it very effective for the driver to focus on the individual lines of code, while the kibbitzer keeps track of the big picture. It also helps keep you going when you hit a roadblock, rather than checking Twitter and coming back to life two hours later. So there are real productivity gains to be had.

Have you ever seriously TRIED pairing?

<comment><USER3> For some (many?, most?) people pairing is just too intrusive, makes them uneasy, makes them nervous and, thus, less productive.

No amount of productivity metrics can overcome this drawback. I'm not particularly introverted, but the same moment someone tries to force me to do pair programming for longer that few minutes a day at the time convenient to me, I would start looking for another job. What's next? Trying to feed me with energy drinks to make me more durable/productive? Or giving me drugs to make me more creative/productive? Thanks, but no thanks.

<comment><USER2> I worked in a pair programming shop for nine years. What I saw was that some programmers couldn't handle it at all (you're probably one of them), but others took to it like a fish to water. I can go either way myself.

But again, it's not about the productivity of the individual. It's about the productivity of the organization. If I put on a manager hat and one programmer can't deal with team processes, no matter how good she is, she's gone. If I want the benefits of pairing for a team, I won't hire programmers or keep programmers who can't deal with it.</comment></comment></comment>


SELinux is beyond saving - <AUTHOR> https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/linux/SELinuxBeyondSaving <comment><USER2> When CentOS 7 came out, I decided to make peace with all of the new stuff (systemd) and all of the old stuff I had been disabling (SELinux.)

Turns out that doing crazy shit like letting users have their html files in ~/public_html/ requires a lot of SELinux configuration. procmail touching user directories? Yep. spamassassin? Why, yes. Maybe there's something I did wrong... I did read the docs.

Also turns out that there isn't a tool which tells you what new rules are needed, relative to the existing configuration, for recent SELinux denies. Yeah, there are some tools to spit out a complete config file based on all logged problems, but not a diff, and I had already lost some of the early logs to logrotate n=4 by the time I realized I needed 'em.

111 lines of perl and 116 lines of SELinux rules later, I was in good shape. But REALLY? REALLY?

<comment><USER3> The targeted policies and functionality booleans in CentOS are really nice. I took the same step with finally buckling down and actually using SELinux for version 6 and there was definitely a learning cliff, but just like anything else after you've used it for a while it's all old hat.

You may have seen it already, but the CentOS SELinux HOWTO was very useful for me in learning how to interact with it: [https://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/SELinux](https://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/SELinux)

>Turns out that doing crazy shit like letting users have their html files in ~/public_html/ requires a lot of SELinux configuration

You should just be able to `setsebool httpd_enable_homedirs on`. What trouble did you run in to?

>procmail touching user directories?

This works by default for me in in C6 and C7: I'm using it on a number of production systems. The ~/.procmailrc should have type procmail_home_t but procmail itself can create/modify/delete files in the user's home dir.

>spamassassin?

Again, should just work. You may need to `setsebool spamassassin_can_network on` depending on configuration.

>a tool which tells you what new rules are needed

That would be nice. My usual process if I'm in a situation that needs custom rules is to:

        echo '' >/var/log/audit/audit.log # (it would be better to rotate it here, but you get the idea)
        setenforce 0
        # Do whatever I want to be able to do...
        setenforce 1
        sealert -a /var/log/audit/audit.log

<comment><USER2> I read that HOWTO, actually, and the stuff you're describing isn't really explained in it.

For example, there's a httpd example changing a label right there in the HOWTO, and it doesn't explain where I'm supposed to discover the correct label. And the recommended audit-script-to-config doesn't show the correct labels, it prompts you to relax the rule instead of changing labels.

My procmail rules don't correspond to what you said procmail does. And how was I supposed to discover procmail_home_t ?

I'm not saying I'm Mr. Super Smart, I'm just saying that it's quite a bit of investment.

<comment><USER4> The man pages are useful, especially once you know the basics. For example, start at [man selinux]([http://linux.die.net/man/8/selinux](http://linux.die.net/man/8/selinux)) in _See Also_ see the reference to [man httpd_selinux]([http://linux.die.net/man/8/httpd_selinux](http://linux.die.net/man/8/httpd_selinux)) and in there you find every type and boolean including `httpd_enable_homedirs`. See also, [man procmail_selinux]([http://linux.die.net/man/8/procmail_selinux](http://linux.die.net/man/8/procmail_selinux)).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's worth noting that Android is using SELinux in recent versions for system hardening and as part of the sandboxing model.

See: [https://source.android.com/security/selinux/](https://source.android.com/security/selinux/)

While I agree usability is suboptimal on servers, there are definitely environments it can excel in.

<comment><USER6> I don't think android is really a special case, SELinux is still hard. The only thing that makes android special is that google engineers have put in a lot of work to make SELinux work. It's a powerful tool, but if you want the benefits of SELinux it takes significant effort _somewhere_ in the development chain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Russell Coker has done some work on SELinux. He's had a Linux box online since 2008 or so that users may ssh into as root. It's really amazing to see what SELinux can do. However, I agree that OpenBSD's focus on small and simple is the better approach.

[https://www.coker.com.au/selinux/](https://www.coker.com.au/selinux/)

[https://www.coker.com.au/selinux/play.html](https://www.coker.com.au/selinux/play.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> Leaving selinux on would be more easy if the access denials were put in the primary system log and/or in dmesg and did not just go in the audit log. It takes too long to figure out what the problem is with selinux. That being said we leave it on in production, since with ansible we find the problem once and then incorporate the changes into our playbooks.

I've used both apparmor and selinux and while it was pretty easy to figure out how to write a custom profile for apparmor, it's not easy to do the same for selinux. If a custom profile for selinux could be made as easy to write, that would help a lot.

<comment><USER9> At least on Fedora, for a few releases now, the audit messages appear in the journal, which is the primary system log.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> For desktop Linux, SELinux is indeed difficult to use on a day-to-day basis. To the point that there's no way I'd consider using it.

However, it is working great for Android. Where all apps are already sandboxed, and you don't have to worry about the user installing some app that will use a new system call, or try to touch random files on the system.

<comment><USER3> >For desktop Linux, SELinux is indeed difficult to use on a day-to-day basis. To the point that there's no way I'd consider using it.

It's on by default in Fedora, has been for years. Most people never even know it's there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> When SELinux first came out I was working as a training instructor for RH. Every single knowledgable sysadmin was kicked in the teeth by 'avc denied', one of the dumbest error messages to ever be created in Unix.

'avc' was Access Vector Cache. The Access Vector Cache was a component of SELinux. AVC denied meant selinux was denying access. But instead of printing 'selinux denied' \- you know, like smb messages are for samba, and postfix messages are for postfix - the SELinux folks seemingly just wanted their audience to do a web search for 'avc denied'.

It's a small picky thing, but rather than one person fix something, they made every admin do a piece of research instead.

This is a pity: SELinux is one of the things that fixes the peering (aka 'Containers don't contain') issue with Docker.

</comment><comment><USER12> May I disagree partially, using this authors exact words?

"... Unless you are a high risk target, spending almost any time beating SELinux into shape on your machine is a bad tradeoff and pretty much a waste ..." \-- [https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/linux/SELinuxToxicM...](https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/linux/SELinuxToxicMistake)

If you are a high risk target, SELinux is a great option.

Also, to refer to the partial disagreement, here is my exact feeling...

"I'm a security aware sysadmin and yet yesterday I casually admitted that I made less-secure choices because the really secure option was too annoying and potentially inconvenient. In fact this is not the only case where I make this tradeoff, picking a less secure but more convenient option..." \-- [https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/tech/SecurityNotImp...](https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/tech/SecurityNotImportant)

<comment><USER13> I don't think you're disagreeing with the author. His statement was equivalent to "If you are not a high risk target, SELinux may be a bad choice". Since he used 'unless', I'm assuming his intent was the same as yours, "If you are a high risk target, SELinux is a great option."

<comment><USER12> I was simply disagreeing with the title of "SELinux is beyond saving." SELinux doesn't _need_ saving for those who have a strong use-case. There are some great lesser alternatives like AppArmor, grsec, TOMOYO, and AKARI if SELinux can't work for you. :)

<comment><USER14> > There are some great lesser alternatives like AppArmor, grsec,

Lesser? grsecurity is actually a _far superior_ alternative to SELinux: [https://grsecurity.net/compare.php](https://grsecurity.net/compare.php)

It's unfortunate that their stable patches are no longer available publicly: [https://grsecurity.net/announce.php](https://grsecurity.net/announce.php)

<comment><USER15> Well, unless you've been blocked from getting it by what's-his-name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> SELinux worked and worked well _when you knew how to use it_. (Learning how to use it was also reasonably hard.) Its primary problem was that its default behavior was stuff mysteriously failing on your system. This made it very hard for the uninitiated to get into it when stuff all over the web just recommended "turn off SELinux" as the first thing to do when something wasn't working right.

It got a bad reputation as that quirky security thing that keeps stuff from working all the time.

</comment><comment><USER17> While I have nothing against SELinux, I feel that modern solutions using containers have made it almost irrelivant.

And now some SE supporters are fighting back in the dirtiest way possible. [https://opensource.com/business/14/7/docker-security- selinux](https://opensource.com/business/14/7/docker-security-selinux) Mr. Walsh makes all sorts of claims about things, such as devices, which are never exposed to the container, not being namespaced. It is very bad when someone who is respected and has qualifications goes and spreads lies and insinuations, just because their product is no longer relevant.

<comment><USER5> I thought that Docker containers were primarily intended for environment isolation, not for security?

As I understood it, Docker relies on the kernel enforcing syscall namespaces for security... and that there's a (admittedly small) possibility of container breakouts via this route, because of the large surface area involved.

Even the Docker devs have a whitepaper that recommends running Docker inside a VM when multi-tenancy is involved, as part of a defence-in-depth strategy:

[https://d3oypxn00j2a10.cloudfront.net/assets/img/Docker%20Se...](https://d3oypxn00j2a10.cloudfront.net/assets/img/Docker%20Security/WP_Intro_to_container_security_03.20.2015.pdf)

<comment><USER18> Docker uses SELinux, seccomp and apparmour as well as stock Linux capabilities (in conjunction with namespaces) to reduce the attack surface exposed to a container.

There's nothing inherently insecure about containers (look at FreeBSD and Solaris). The issues you see with Linux "containers" are usually caused by leaky abstractions (namespaces that don't namespace the entire kernel) and insufficiently clever setup scripts. But it is getting better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I confess to disabling SELinux being one of the first things I always do on a new Linux box. It gets in the fucking way. A lot.

<comment><USER20> It works great on really mature platforms where the engineer has time to fine- tune and troubleshoot SELinux issues every time a change is made...

But who the heck has the time for that now-a-days?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Configuring SELinux reminded me of configuring email. My god, can simple systems be made more complex than this? I mean it's email and yet you have to really struggle with 100s of options to make sense of it all (and you do know sendmail has no public repo with a proper revision history right?).

Apparmor, in contrast, is much easier to use (granted it has it's warts) but atleast they are trying to be user friendly instead of mathematically complete.

/rant

<comment><USER22> I remember going through hell trying to build an apparmour profile for an app at my last job (a Python app, which makes this a bit more complicated with interpreters, wrappers, external commands and such).

I did get it built and the built in tools for aa are decent.

I've never had to develop and SELinux profile. Now I don't ever want to.

<comment><USER21> I feel I need to quality what I meant by 'much easier'. AA is exactly as you made it sound - actively asocial. Now imagine how SELinux is ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm sure it's not intentional, but the author spends quite a lot of time telling me that the SELinux folks aren't listening or learning what the real issues are in security, but try as I might I all his links to his blog posts he doesn't actually state what they are!

What are the key issues that SELinux needs to address?

<comment><USER24> One repeated many times is that it's complex enough that people default to turning it off. But it doesn't even come from users sometimes. Just google the following: installation instructions "setenforce 0"

How many projects just went the lazy way? How many projects went out of their way to fix the issue the wrong way?

Notice how nagios documentation first tells you how to disable selinux for the whole system and make it permanent. Only then as an alternative gives you two lines to make it work correctly instead.

So what can SELinux folks address? Submit a change to every documentation in that list with instructions on how to make selinux work without issues. And make sure the alternative of "setenforce 0" has a warning that this will disable protection of your whole system rather than just this app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Complexity is evil in security, and opt-in security generally doesn't work. SELinux is both complex and opt-in.

<comment><USER26> You can make it enforce rules strictly over everything, rather than selectively enforce it on specific applications.

<comment><USER27> no software is written with this in mind, so it wont work right without extensive babysitting (that nobody will do).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> SELinux is still nice for hardening a safety critical server.

But configuring it sure isn't fun.

</comment><comment><USER29> The post succeeds at saying nothing concrete about actual deficiencies in SELinux beyond "it gets in the way". Yes of course it does. That's what locked down systems do even if it's only to shoulder the blame for breaches on admins who disabled protections.

<comment><USER30> My experience with it was on RHEL4.x some years ago, trying to install a bunch of stuff not from the official repos or EPEL. (I think it was Puppet, at the time.) Holy crap. It took me a week. It was more complex (or, almost equivalently, poorly documented) than the old AT&T Merlin PBX+voicemail system.

The only thing I recall offhand was the hugeness of the namespace for roles (?) and actions (?). Every time I punched a hole to allow a specific thing to happen, something else blocked the action with cryptic logs in obscure places. I felt like a blind person, trying to find their way through a maze.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> SELinux is not not worth saving because security has been moving steadily into namespace separation (E.g., containers, virtual machines).

Giving an application/user and entire trimmed down OS namespace reduces damage done from getting pwned significantly. Why use a system that protects processes from running alongside each other when I can just give them their own, fenced-in home?

<comment><USER24> No. No, no, no. Virtual machines - yes, to an extent. Containers - no.

Containers still use the same kernel, have access to the same filesystems (in practice), same devices, same ioctls, etc. There can be a lot more separation done in the future, but right now, you definitely gain a lot by isolating your containers using selinux.

Even with virtual machines, you want any breakout / external write vulnerability to be contained. That's why libvirt/kvm _relies on selinux_ (or apparmor) for system protection and for cross-vm protection ([https://libvirt.org/drvqemu.html#securityselinux](https://libvirt.org/drvqemu.html#securityselinux))

<comment><USER22> I felt the same way about Docker containers. Now I work for a company that uses Docker containers in production.

The fact that the process, by default, runs as root and PID 1 within the docker container still has be going "You gotta be fucking kidding me?!"

I realize Docker has come a long way since the days of it being LXC based. Cgroups and several other safeguards have done a lot of docker security, and containers are much more lightweight than full VMs, but I'm still a little on edge about the security aspect.

<comment><USER31> Since Docker 1.10, you can specify --userns-remap=default on the daemon and root inside the container will not be root outside: [https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/daemon/...](https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/daemon/#starting- the-daemon-with-user-namespaces-enabled)

<comment><USER32> I have the impression that regrettably many docker users expect things to be the other way around: that the actual default docker behaviour resides behind a --ridiculously-insecure, not that you need to specify --i-actually-want-my- container-to-try-to-contain to get that expected behaviour.

Hopefully more people are becoming aware of the actual default behaviour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The article (and the comments here) encouraged me install SELinux on one of my (Debian) VMs to see how it goes, and I'm now wondering why I didn't try it earlier.

</comment><comment><USER34> If you are a security purist, why aren't you using grsec / pax / rbac in the first place? The general totem pole is grsec rbac is king > Apparmor is a destitute wannabe hacked together disaster that is still more usable than SELinux > Archlinux doesn't give a shit while Red Hat is off doing their own thing with SELinux with the NSA and Google.

</comment><comment><USER35> Do people see this as something though which should be or needs to be replaced or is this just a it's dead? If the first, are there any projects I could contribute to or is a new project needed?

</comment><comment><USER36> What to use instead of SE Linux?

</comment><comment><USER37> And this kind of crap is why I use Windows.

<comment><USER38> Ah yes, Windows, where you wake up one day and have a completely different OS.

<comment><USER39> That whole one time leading into 95 (b.")b

<comment><USER40> I detest Windows and touch it as rarely as possible, but _this week_ I had to make an emergency trip to a client's office to re-share a folder after a server had "upgraded" itself from 7 to 10.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> If he calls himself a security aware sysadmin but he is somehow breaking his own beliefs for productivity/delivery reasons, I don't see much of an interest.

Let him rant all he wants on his blog. Back to work.</comment>


ServiceStack going AGPL for 4.0 - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/app/basic/stream/z12tfvoackvnx1xzd04cfrirpvybu1nje54

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm kind of sad of this move. I fear that this will only hurt ServiceStack adoption given that all MS frameworks are Open Source and it is already difficult to move .NET developpers outside the Microsoft confort zone.

I was able to move most of our WCF services to ServiceStack but I would never have been able to do it with this kind of license.

Anyhow I hope him well, ServiceStack is really awesome and mythz definitely deserve to make a living from it.</comment>


Show HN: A MIX simulator - <AUTHOR> http://danielbarter.github.io/mix.html <comment><USER2> This is very cool. I've actually been trying to do something similar is rust, but I'm nowhere near as far along (I basically just have load instructions working at this stage): [https://github.com/harrybraviner/mix](https://github.com/harrybraviner/mix)

I love Knuth's books for the fact that they teach you advanced algorithm features 'from the ground up', as it were - it's great to see someone else make an emulator too.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yup, it works. I like the register icons.

Unless I'm not understanding the UI, it needs a "run" button so I don't wear out a mouse button mashing "step". Yes?

<comment><AUTHOR> That is a good point! For me, if I click the step button, I can then hold down enter and it starts steping very fast. That may be browser specific though

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Really like this simulator!

Please also add a MMIX version and finally translate all the MIX code from Knuth's "Art of Computer Programming" to MMIX ;)

It's great this also works on mobile devices, but it would be better if the "step" and "back" buttons were more touch friendly (bigger).

</comment><comment><USER5> Nice work, now time to dust off AVL trees in MIX. :)</comment>


Leadership from the Other Side of the Fence - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@andrewbaliuk/leadership-from-the-other-side-of-the-fence-f3a1ee7f3a2d <comment><AUTHOR> Just wrote an article about my experience working side-by-side with one of the most outstanding entrepreneurs! Hope you can find something valuable for yourself! Any feedback is highly appreciated!</comment>


Can we make consciousness into an engineering problem? - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/can-we-make-consciousness-into-an-engineering-problem?href <comment><USER2> Just want to say that it is incorrect to say that cognitive scientits dont talk about awareness of mental models, or awareness if mental processes. It is a field callee meta-cognition....and its a really cool field...and the phenomena are measureable. Cool article though.</comment>


Ask HN: World-class speakers who would do corporate speaking engagements? - <AUTHOR> Hi all, I'm trying to get my company to sponsor a talk with some world-class speaker (probably via Zoom) for our annual leadership "retreat". Did anyone attend or heard about a good speaking session in a corporate setting and can recommend? Something around leadership ..<p>Thanks! <comment><USER2> I like Scott Harris, personally

[https://www.scottharris.com.au/about/scott/](https://www.scottharris.com.au/about/scott/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! He is more like a coach, right? Or is he an ex-CXO of something so has real hands-on experience?

<comment><USER2> I don't think he is specifically an ex-executive per se, just a top notch speaker.</comment></comment></comment>