Visual C++ Cross-Platform Mobile - <AUTHOR> https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/explore/cplusplus-mdd-vs <comment><USER2> Microsoft, please port Visual studio to OS X.

<comment><USER3> Visual Studio in even the shittiest, crufty Windows VM is a better experience than Xcode. Seriously Apple, what is the deal?

<comment><USER4> Shocking enough I have a couple of friends that _love_ XCode... I guess there is room for everybody (Although I can't stand XCode either)

<comment><USER5> There are so many things Xcode does worse than Visual Studio, and so few things it does better. 5:1 ratio. Yesterday I was dealing with how Xcode's disassembly mode debugging is so bad compared to VS that it's nearly unusable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If it works good, this might do wonders for Microsoft's Windows phone app store. They are surely hoping people will be willing to build and upload the apps on their platform as well once they're written in an almost platform independent manner.

</comment><comment><USER7> As I already mentioned in Reddit, this is great for those of us that enjoy using Visual Studio.

If I would be part of the Android team I would feel bad to have Microsoft providing a better developer experience than the team is able (willing) to deliver to NDK users.

</comment><comment><USER8> When comes to ease of debugging Visual Studio is outstanding. Not the most powerful debugger in the world (WinDBG is much more advanced), but it's my experience is that it's easy to work with even for new people.

<comment><USER9> In my mind, these two just occupy a very different niche. WinDBG is great when you don't necessarily have the source or symbols at hand, where VS excels with that information available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm quite suspect on how is 'cross-platform' feat is achieved. Non-UI code shares well. As for the other: "Windows, iOS, and Android app development _" ... "_Free Microsoft extensions available for download for iOS and Android development" may not as positive as it's spun to be.

</comment><comment><USER11> If they can build Android apps, why cant they build desktop Linux apps? Or is it doing something else?

<comment><USER12> You are confusing Android with desktop Linux, very different beasts. Just try to open/create a graphical window on a typical Linux distro, after that try to create a simple app on Android and you will understand.

<comment><USER11> As a practical matter they are quite different, but this is mostly a linking problem. Both use ELF.

<comment><USER12> And _very_ different UIs. If by _desktop Linux_ you meant text based programs (no GUIs) than I think, at least technically, it should be possible to use a cross compiler toolchain (based on Clang) from VS 2015.

<comment><USER13> You'd have to make sure you statically link the program, because android uses a different libc than most other linux distros.

<comment><USER14> Or you point the linker at a different libc.

I think the question isn't so much "Can I make VSC++ Android apps run on Linux" so much as "Can I futz around with linker flags, and get a desktop binary if I point it to the right runtime, start files, and so on?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 Does anyone else find the use of "acquisition" a little weird here? I don't think anyone ever talks how "easy this software is to acquire" when they talk about features.

</comment><comment><USER15> How office team build microsoft office mobile for iOS? As i know, they use c++ shared library. Which IDE on OSX they use?

<comment><USER12> You don't need to use an IDE (like Xcode) on OS X in order to compile standard C++, a Makefile will do just fine. They've probably developed the C++ code on Windows with Visual Studio and tested on Windows and OS X.

For the GUI part it depends, technically you don't need an IDE to create GUIs on OS X. However, most people use Interface Builder from Xcode for this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Next up, full C++11 support? Windows is the laggard here.

<comment><USER7> I guess you aren't aware of commercial UNIX (Aix, HP-UX...) and embedded compilers support level.

<comment><USER16> There is a difference between niche things like that, and being the most installed full desktop os in the world. I repeatedly run into C++ projects saying no C++11 because of windows, and only windows.

<comment><USER7> I wouldn't consider computer systems that outnumber desktops as niche.

In any case, one takeaway from CppCon 2014 was that many companies only allow for C++98, not even C++03, on their style guides.

I do hardly any C++ nowadays, but as one of my favourite languages, that saddens me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why C++ instead of C#?

<comment><USER18> They'd be competing with Xamarin if they did that.

<comment><USER19> I think this is Xamarin, it's mentioned once on the page:

> ...or use these C++ libraries to build complete Xamarin Android Native or > Java Native Interface applications.

It's a little unclear though

<comment><USER12> It is no Xamarin here! What they say is that you can use these C++ libraries from Xamarin or directly from Java (with JNI).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> So it looks like this targets Windows and Android only (maybe iOS via Xamarin...?)

For an alternative the Poco C++ libraries[1] work on Android, iOS and Windows out of the box. Probably not as full featured and you obviously can't use existing Visual C++ code..., but its Open Source and mostly just works.

[1] [http://pocoproject.org/](http://pocoproject.org/)

<comment><USER21> A set of libraries is not an alternative to an IDE.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Meh, you know what - this is a bold move of Microsoft, and its quite compelling to see how they have embraced the platform-ology that must be embraced in mobile, these days. I applaud the effort.

But the tricky part of all of this is that so much of the mobile space is more common than people think. Glomming one platform on the other is sort of de- rigeur, in mobile - as it has (and still is and always will be) been on desktop, in the server space, and so on. Tricky thing: you can Run X on A if you use Y and A to make/build/run X. Got Y?

Microsoft: please port Visual Studio to all platforms, including my iPad, kthxbai..</comment>


Create Mobile Apps without writing a single line of code? - <AUTHOR> http://www.buysourcecodes.com/

<comment><USER2> Nice, to finally see a membership site to buy app templates. I have just became a member and the free source code for signing up was the icing on the cake.

</comment><comment><USER3> Trying to sign up and see what these guys offer. Seems to have good pricing for source codes.

<comment><USER4> Yeah. Its the only site which offers sourcecodes on membership basis.!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> amazing, I like the concept they have. I am app flipper and i wanted this type website from a long time. They are providing 1 free source code with signup. That is truly unbleveibale.

</comment><comment><USER6> awesome.... i can now start my own business... amazing..

</comment><comment><USER7> hmm...interesting.. and looks cool.!!</comment>


Dutch Magic Factory: Our Experience with Cystic Fibrosis - <AUTHOR> http://dutchmagicfactory.blogspot.nl/2013/10/our-story.html?m=1

<comment><AUTHOR> This showed up on a list I am on. I don't imagine anyone else would post it here. The information age is fostering patient/family driven health solutions. I think that is noteworthy and relevant to some of the apps people here write. Unfortunately, I don't know how to frame that in a way that is likely to be a big aha moment for anyone here.

<comment><USER2> [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JwTYxLNswA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JwTYxLNswA)

The prevention of CF has been accomplished in pet, farm and laboratory animals by the veterinary profession by assuring adequate levels of selenium and essential fatty acid nutriture to the preconception, pregnant and nursing mother. This is not as easy as it sounds because of malabsorption problems (Le., celiac diseases and Crohn's Disease) in a percentage of women! All things being normal a supplementation of 200 mcg selenium per day and 5 gm of flaxseed oil t.i.d. would be adequate to prevent CF. Treatment of CF is very basic - treat the infant as early as possible with selenium 1Mat 10-25 mcg per day. Plant derived colloidal minerals may be used orally thereafter. Provide 5 gm of flaxseed oil orally t.i.d. Most importantly YOU MUST DETERMINE IF THE INFANT IS ALLERGIC TO WHEAT, COW'S MILK OR SOY!!! If you do not correct the malabsorption problem, treatment will only be minimally effective. In the case of older CF patients, IV essential fatty acids and 1M selenium provide excellent management leading to a normal life expectancy of 75 years!

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I think I am missing something. How are you correcting the malabsorption issue?</comment></comment></comment>


Tesla's remarkable run to become one of the world's most valuable carmakers - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/920590/follow-teslas-tsla-remarkable-run-to-become-one-of-the-worlds-most-valuable-carmakers/ <comment><USER2> TSLA will catch everyone except Toyota by the end of 2017 because of a successful Model 3 launch.</comment>


Female Computers Mapped the Universe and Brought America to the Moon - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-female-computers-mapped-the-universe-and-brought-america-to-the-moon <comment><USER2> After the movie Hidden Figures, I'm not sure where the "obscura" comes in.</comment>


Why Isn't Apple Doing Better? - <AUTHOR> http://seekingalpha.com/article/4055719-apple-better <comment><AUTHOR>
        > Could you ever imagine Steve Jobs spending $5B on
        > a new Apple campus full of cushy environs to
        > coddle Apple engineers like a 100,000 fitness center
        > or a movie theater?

I'm pretty sure he did just that, so "yes" :)</comment>


Manage Your Time - Forget Rules, Invent Your Own - <AUTHOR> http://www.secondactive.com/2010/02/manage-your-time-effortlessly-forget.html

<comment><USER2> I believe you become somebody, _by_ doing. How can you become something or somebody if you don't do anything? So I disagree.</comment>


Why rejoining the EU is so problematic - <AUTHOR> https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2017/04/why-rejoining-eu-is-so-problematic.html <comment><USER2> Totally agree with this perspective. The deal we had - in the single market but not the Euro - gave us most of the upside and little of the downside. Soros is on record saying the same. The bullying of Greece by shutting down their banking system, and the special treatment given to French and German banks that had foolishly loaded up on Greek govt bonds was execrable. I prefer Brexit to Eurozone membership. But the Euro opt outs that the UK and Denmark have are the best option.</comment>


Angry Employee Deletes All of Company's Data - <AUTHOR> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325285,00.html <comment><USER2> Evidentally, it was either her or an eventual hard drive crash.

<comment><USER3> Yeah I don't really understand why they trusted 1 person with all those files...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Don't they wish they had spent the $XX/mo to do online backups!

</comment><comment><USER5> Note to self: Hire people who don't read the classifieds

<comment><USER6> Note to self: If you're going to commit felony file deletion, make sure that you at least do a good enough job that the files aren't recoverable.

<comment><USER7> Actually, being sloppy on that detail probably saved her from a lifetime of debt slavery, or worse.

<comment><USER6> The (short) article didn't indicate that the files being recoverable effected her criminal case at all, but I suppose that there's civil litigation as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article would have been better if they had given some idea of just how much data was actually involved.

</comment><comment><USER9> Another good argument for software as a hosted service.

</comment><comment> daniel-cussen This is the first time I here something like this happen. Yahoo may start being careful...</comment>


Linner, a full-featured HTML5 application assembler - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/SaitoWu/linner

<comment><USER2> I notice that like so many projects on github, it completely lacks any licence, which is bad. Please choose a well-known licence and add it to the repo. Please.

[edit: thank you!]

<comment><AUTHOR> Added MIT License.

[https://github.com/SaitoWu/linner/commit/ce35c15836e409a0c17...](https://github.com/SaitoWu/linner/commit/ce35c15836e409a0c17fec682d2a55ed234e8578)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Linner... hmmm...

Oh it's like brunch I get it!

Clever.

<comment><USER4> I had to check out brunch.io for a description of what an "application assembler" does. Linner would benefit from some text describing it's function!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's also the Grunt-based Assemble [http://assemble.io/](http://assemble.io/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Hi - what's the difference between this and Mimosa ([http://mimosajs.com/](http://mimosajs.com/)) or Yeoman ([http://yeoman.io/](http://yeoman.io/))?

</comment><comment><USER7> How is this different to yeoman?

<comment><USER8> Yes, please could you add some explanation to the readme of what exactly this does? :) It looks like something that I might be interested in (I've previously rolled my own solutions, see: [https://github.com/lucaspiller/1gam- january/blob/master/Make...](https://github.com/lucaspiller/1gam- january/blob/master/Makefile)), but yeah, I'm not going to read through the source code to figure this out.</comment></comment>


Dude, no one will ever buy that online. AKA how incumbents get Pwned in tech - <AUTHOR> http://www.breakingvc.com/2015/04/20/dude-no-one-will-ever-buy-that-online-aka-how-incumbents-get-pwned-in-tech/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dude-no-one-will-ever-buy-that-online-aka-how-incumbents-get-pwned-in-tech <comment><USER2> There are something like _six_ of these boutique foam mattress startups, of which Casper is one of the newest, cutest, hipster-i-est versions. I've had a Keetsa mattress for about five years now. It's fine -- it was about 20% cheaper than a TempurPedic when I bought it, and the fact that it came vacuum- packed was a gimmick that made it possible to get it into my apartment. It's a little on the firm side, but that's what you get when you have no choice.

(As an aside, nearly _twenty years ago_ , I bought a mattress from the Denver Mattress Company, who were (and are) selling _and manufacturing_ great mattresses for a fraction of the price of the big players. You want to talk about innovation? Talk about those guys, not three hipsters in Brooklyn who got some VC money last year and used it to buy generic foam mattresses from a Chinese supplier.)

That said, there's no way in the world that this market is big enough to support this many startups. Mattresses weren't sold in stores because the companies didn't think people would buy them online; mattresses are/were sold that way because they're like cars -- people buy a new one once a decade. It's hard to build a big business unless you're extracting maximum margin per item sold. It's even harder when five other identical "scrappy insurgencies" are competing on price in the low end of the market.

But hey, cheap VC dollars means cheap mattresses for you. Everyone is thinking about gross revenue and "disruption", but nobody is thinking about business models.

<comment><USER3> Suppose this is why the "Why now?" question keeps getting more important to VCs.

Imagine a few decades from now, when practically _every_ type of software startup will have been already been tried 100+ times. Maybe the increasing focus on startup "team quality" that's already happening will be a big part of the answer to that question.

<comment><USER2> I think the early players in the space probably have/had a good argument for that question -- if you're Denver Mattress in 1998, or Keetsa in 2008, you could (perhaps) plausibly claim that the fundamentals of the market had shifted, and make a convincing speculative argument that you could take over a largish industry.

But the rise of _five_ new mattress startups in the last few years? That's just sloppy, herd behavior. Investors are piling into whatever sector seems hot, without doing even the most cursory analysis of the existing players. Why should the 7th startup in this vertical be seen as compelling? Is it because they have bike messengers?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Any time someone says "will never do that online," I have an almost Pavlovian response of "sounds like doing that online is a good startup idea." In pretty much every case where people have shown an interest in doing offline, once the experience has been replicated closely enough online, it's ended up working well. The first company I worked at out of school, BuildASign, started as a software to design signs online (incredibly, the founders were the first people to build an online sign designer, at least that they've found). They intended to sell it for a few grand to a local sign shop, as they were all in grad school. All the sign shops they approached said "No one wants to design a sign online! They want to come in and see samples and get help from a person." So the founders threw up a site, planning to do all their fulfillment at a store to demonstrate why they should buy their software. The response was so strong that they quickly decided not to sell, and bought a printer. Today, they have a 100K sq ft manufacturing facility and have had at least 5 straight years of high growth revenue in the high 8 figures (and have been profitable since year 2, plus - until a very recent PE investment - were entirely owned by 3 people).

Point being, once something can be done well enough online, people will do/buy/use it.

<comment><USER5> How did they get the idea for the online sign shop?

<comment><USER6> [http://eventualmillionaire.com/dangraham/](http://eventualmillionaire.com/dangraham/)

<comment><USER4> Yep, that's the story. Never saw this, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> ...Oh and these beds offgas for days if not weeks. I ordered one from Leesa, a similar company offering the same kind of memory foam mattress. They have the same 100 day return policy but it turns out that you have to wait 30 days. Casper has the same 30 day wait period. Presumably this is to give the bed enough time to stop stinking. I don't know about the Casper bed but a week into it the Leesa is very comfortable but still really smells. I knew about the offgassing before I ordered the bed and I'm not a fussy person. I did not know how bad it would be.

<comment><USER8> They don't all offgas like that. Mine smelled only a little bit and only for a couple days.

This is the one I got: [http://home.woot.com/offers/purasleep-memory-foam- mattress-4...](http://home.woot.com/offers/purasleep-memory-foam- mattress-4-sizes-3)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Oh, and they're [Casper mattresses] a fraction of the cost of traditional Serta, Stearns & Foster, Tempurpedic mattresses."

That's just not true. Their queen mattress costs $850, equal or above many of the listed competitors.

<comment><USER10> Offtopic perhaps, but last year I purchased a mattress online from [https://www.tuftandneedle.com/](https://www.tuftandneedle.com/). Not really expecting anything, but having heard enough praise for their customer support, I figured I'd take them up on their money-back offer and give it a shot.

It's damned fantastic, though the entire experience was foreign as hell to me. I was able to order it online (for $700, I think, for the King model), have it delivered on the day I selected. While nobody set it up for me, it came in a box that just sort of fully expanded as I cut it open.

I don't have any particular insight on Casper, but it seems like, to me at least, T&N sort of proved the market, so unless my timeline is off, Casper seems like far less of a gamble than the first entrant to a market would be.

<comment><USER11> Seconded for Tuft and Needle. Its such a great mattress, I'm giving them away as big gifts now, and family members who get them love them. +1

<comment><USER10> I stopped short of raving about the actual mattress, because I didn't want to come off as a shill... but yes, the mattress is phenomenal. My wife finds it just too stiff for her comfort, so we got a topper for it, but it is otherwise just as good (if not better) than any hotel I've ever stayed in.

The only oddity I've noticed (not a complaint, but different) compared to traditional mattresses is that there's no bolstering on the sides, but understanding how it's made, that's expected. It is different tho, as pushing on the edge of the mattress, historically, has always yielded resistance, while my Tuft & Needle mattress is just as soft there as everywhere else.

<comment><USER11> > I stopped short of raving about the actual mattress, because I didn't want > to come off as a shill

That's fair. I'm more than happy to throw my receipts into Imgur for anyone who thinks I'm a shill. Awesome mattresses, A++ would buy again.

<comment><USER12> Any evidence you provide is more or less worthless in making such a determination.

It would be a weird thing to do, but even something like creating fake bank statements isn't particularly hard.

(I'm not implying you are a shill, just commenting on the utility of links to imgur in verifying anything)

<comment><USER11> How sad is it when nothing is trusted online :(

<comment><USER12> It's not about the trust, it's about the verify.

(So I would probably take a receipt you posted at face value, but it would be impossible for me to verify it)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "If you're not aware of Casper, they're a web-only millennial focused mattress company"

As a millennial, I'm really dying to know what it feels like to sleep on a millennial mattress.

<comment><USER14> It makes you feel like the most special snowflake there ever was! And when you wake up, there's a trophy under your pillow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Similar to Tucker Max and Lioncrest, I heard him on a podcast the other day about how people kept asking him how to self publish and he would go into great detail and they would lose interest, until an entrepreneur yelled at him, she basically said, "this is my problem find a solution" and he came up with a completely novel way to self publish, that was unthinkable before.

<comment><USER16> got a link?

<comment><USER17> [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141118152523-205984021-my-s...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141118152523-205984021-my- start-up-made-200k-in-it-s-first-two-months-and-i-m-embarrassed)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I bought a bed from Casper a few months back, and the experience has been nothing short of spectacular. When I tell friends who don't work in startups or are older, they are baffled until I explain it. Buying a bed has to be up there on the list of "I see why someone would hesitate to do it online, without trying it out first," and Casper has figured it out.

</comment><comment><USER18> Cached: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:J5cH6Ct...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:J5cH6CthF6IJ:www.breakingvc.com/2015/04/20/dude- no-one-will-ever-buy-that-online-aka-how-incumbents-get-pwned-in-tech)

</comment><comment><USER19> The article cited in this post is actually quite interesting for being 25 years old.

[https://hbr.org/1990/07/reengineering-work-dont-automate- obl...](https://hbr.org/1990/07/reengineering-work-dont-automate- obliterate/ar/1)

<comment><USER20> The best stuff on how people think, work, and organize is thousands of years old, why would an article from twenty-five years old not "actually" be interesting?

Noophilia is a disease. You would be well-advised to excise it from your...you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Huh, I was wondering about the returns, and how you could pack it again if it's so tightly compressed. From the FAQ, the answer is that a courier picks it up and drops it off at a local charity.

</comment><comment><USER22> I hate to nit pick at the design of the site but I found the light green links on a white background very hard to read.

</comment><comment><USER23> Seems like a plug for Zipments which is funded by VC the author works for. Disclosure please.

</comment><comment><USER24> cringing at use of "AKA" instead of "i.e." or simply "or:"

<comment><USER25> cringing at the use of "Pwned", what is this 2005?

<comment><USER26> w00t!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Looks like your MySQL server is down</comment>


Iran Cryptocurrency Launch Imminent - <AUTHOR> https://thebitcoinmag.com/iran-cryptocurrency-launch-imminent <comment><USER2> I think the interesting factor here is not political at all. It does not matter if you agree with the sanctions or not. The fact is that clearly Iran sees blockchain tech as a way to circumvent US sanctions on conventional financial networks.

If they were smart they wouldn't just launch their own though. There are plenty of crypto-currencies already out there, and if they need to find a backdoor into sanctioned markets, then using one of those makes more sense. Otherwise, this is going to go the way of the Venezuelan Petro – aka essentially an exit scam as far as we can see at this moment.</comment>


Fact or Fiction?: An Opera Singer's Piercing Voice Can Shatter Glass - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-opera-singer-can-shatter-glass/ <comment><USER2> "It's possible, but you have to be both good and lucky," says Jeffrey Kysar, a mechanical engineer at Columbia University who studies the different ways in which materials can fracture and fail.

<comment><USER3> If that's a yes you should read about 'Tansen'.

"Among the legends about Tansen are stories of his bringing down the rains with Raga Megh Malhar and lighting lamps by performing Raga Deepak."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The L.A beast recently taught himself how to shatter a glass over a 5 week period which is a pretty impressive feat [https://youtu.be/sZfaXtjHTzA?t=38](https://youtu.be/sZfaXtjHTzA?t=38)

</comment><comment><USER5> > A famous commercial from the 1970s showed Ella Fitzgerald shattering a wine > glass with ease through Memorex speakers

No. The ad was for Memorex _recording tape_ , and the hook was that Ella's voice recorded on Memorex tape was equally as effective as Ella singing live.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjV0DswlXeo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjV0DswlXeo)

<comment><AUTHOR> Watching that, I just realized I've totally mixed up Memorex and Maxell in my memory:

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Link to the Mythbusters episode snippet:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4jdGf3RzCs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4jdGf3RzCs)

</comment><comment><USER7> They did this on Mythbusters and showed it was possible.

<comment><USER8> I take it you didn't read the article.

> Yet, it seems that until a couple of years ago there was no proof that any > person had ever broken glass with his or her voice alone.

> Then in 2005 the Discovery Channel television show MythBusters tackled the > question [...]

<comment><USER9> >Yet, it seems that until a couple of years ago there was no proof that any person had ever broken glass with his or her voice alone. Then in 2005 the Discovery Channel television show MythBusters ...*

Considering that we have had witnesses reporting that tons of times in the last 200 years, and written records of such acts (by journalists), and everything, this is a peculiar version of "proof".

<comment><USER10> We have plenty of "proof" and "witnesses" of UFO sightings as well...

I agree that a Mythbusters finding may not be proof of the highest calibre but they do go through a lot of effort to avoid false positives/negatives.

<comment><USER9> Well, there have been tons of actual UFO sightings, so that's just as well.

They might not have been aliens from another planet, but UFO just means unidentified flying object, of which tons exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> According to my Radio Shack SPL meter, I can hit at least 127 decibels — which is where the meter tops out.

Now, I have not yet replicated that process in a more controlled test, in a suitably calibrated environment. But I would be interested to do so.

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's Jaime Vendera (measured at 120 db) doing it:

[https://youtu.be/QGk8nXs6Aao](https://youtu.be/QGk8nXs6Aao)

Apparently unless you're at the resonant frequency you need over 163 db to shatter glass:

[http://decibelcar.com/menugeneric/87.html](http://decibelcar.com/menugeneric/87.html)

<comment><USER12> From the article:

> "Even if you could excite the cup, that doesn't guarantee it would break. > Fracture depends on the size of the initial defects."

I have to wonder if Jaime tapping the glass with a spoon in that video not only reveals the frequency he needs, but more crucially introduces tiny fractures.

<comment><USER13> Probably no worse than what it was subjected to in the production and shipping process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Worth it just for the phrase, "Although I was trained as an opera singer before becoming a science journalist."

</comment><comment><USER15> "too long didn't click": the answer is yes.

<comment><USER16> No, the answer is that while possible, only few people are able to produce sounds that high and loud and even they won't be able to shatter any glass. Fractures in the glass are more important, a glass in perfect condition cannot be destroyed by a singer without amplification.

I actually found the article not clickbaity at all, I knew about the Mythbusters episode and resonant frequencies before but still learned something new.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This article really resonated with me.

</comment><comment><USER18> The Memorex ad showed Ms. Fitzgerald breaking the glass live. It should be noted though that they used amplification for this purpose.</comment>


Edward Snowden whereabouts unknown as US presses Russia - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/24/edward-snowden-booked-on-plane-from-moscow-to-havana-live-coverage

<comment><USER2> This is the problem with the media today. Edward Snowden is not the story!

The story is that the governments are illegally bugging people. They are not stopping the terrorists (Woolwich/Boston). They are harassing legitimate activists. They are not serving the people they are meant to represent.

EDIT: And of course we, the general public, are not free of responsibility either for the media choosing to cover the personal interest story rather than getting their teeth into the politicians who might improve things.

<comment><USER3> The claim that governments are not stopping terrorists is ridiculous. There are people who are sitting in jail right now who have pled guilty to plotting terrorist attacks that were prevented. No, you can never stop all terrorist attacks, but that is a poor reason to not bother preventing others. You are free to argue that current surveillance practices did not actually help prevent these attacks, or that additional regulation and oversight is necessary, or that you'd rather have the terrorist attacks than any surveillance, or that terrorist attacks are really the fault of some U.S. policy that should be corrected, or whatever else you want, but whatever you argue you really should not just avoid reality and invent your own.

<comment><USER4> I, and many others I suspect, would just prefer to have a CHOICE - and some CONTROL of our own lives.

If you prefer the safety and protection of this _New America_ , then you are welcome to it.

But if there were an _Old America_ , an America ruled by the original words and meanings of the Constitution, an America where you could be proud of the goals and ideals of your government, yet humble and grateful that you and your family were part of it - THAT America is the one _I_ would CHOOSE to live in, and the one _I_ would defend with my life if called upon.

<comment><USER5> > If you prefer the safety and protection of this New America, then you are > welcome to it.

He didn't write that, though, did he? He merely asserted that a very broad spying program was likely to have nabbed some actual bad guys. I don't get why people can't simultaneously believe that and also be against all the secret courts and lack of checks and balances, or indeed the spying itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I thought it unlikely he'd fly via Cuba: the great circle route from Moscow flies _much_ too close to US or Canadian airspace for my comfort, if I knew there was an Espionage Act warrant out for my arrest and the establishment wanted to make an example of me. ("Diversion due to technical issues" and an unscheduled stop at Gander in Newfoundland would totally ruin my day, even short of an intercept and diversion by F-15s over the Caribbean.)

Just guessing here, but the real route ( _if_ Ecuador is in fact his destination) may be something like bizjet to Iceland, refuel, continue to somewhere in North Africa, refuel, then over the south Atlantic. And that's assuming he was ever in Moscow in the first place.

<comment><USER7> It actually overflies the US mainland today:

[http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AFL150](http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AFL150)

But on other days it goes nowhere near it:

[http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AFL150/history/20130620/1...](http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AFL150/history/20130620/1005Z/UUEE/MUHA)

<comment><USER8> You make that sound like conspiracy but if you do a fair comparison, i.e. compare to the flight exactly 1 week previous, it takes the same route.

<comment><USER9> >You make that sound like conspiracy

I didn't get that impression at all. If that post wasn't "Just the facts, ma'am", what is?

He didn't say _all_ other days, after all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ecuadorian Foreign Minister:

        I will give a press conference at 7 pm. in Melia hotel, Hanoi.

[https://twitter.com/RicardoPatinoEC/statuses/349055771419480...](https://twitter.com/RicardoPatinoEC/statuses/349055771419480065)

 _Vietnam!_ The plot thickens!

I feel an urge to stick bits of string onto a map with push pins.

EDIT: btw 7pm in vietnam is basically now.

<comment><USER7> _Vietnam! The plot thickens!_

I doubt Vietnam is relevant here. This visit was announced a week ago:

[http://talkvietnam.com/2013/06/top-ecuador-diplomat-to- visit...](http://talkvietnam.com/2013/06/top-ecuador-diplomat-to-visit- vietnam/)

 _" Vietnam will be Patino's second stopover during his Asian tour. Besides Vietnam, he will visit the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore."_

<comment><USER11> This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia.

Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they can play in a successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reason to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides.

"Beyond Vietnam", A Time to Break Silence By Rev. Martin Luther King

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> ...and nobody gives a shit about Bradley Manning anymore, the nerdrage industry has already moved on.

the "real" story should be how seemingly easy it is to get into NSA systems. billions of dollars in security and they failed to notice what this guy was accessing/downloading. assume for every Snowden there are at least 5 real spies in it for the money.

<comment><USER13> Protecting a system against a malicious administrator is an incredibly difficult problem. You can bet if the NSA can be stung by it, then so can almost every other organization.

<comment><USER14> At the very least you should avoid third party companies. I suspect in many European countries like France or Germany such leak would be less likely because their government are less prone to trust third parties.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What I don't get is – all the journalists made it sound like he was definitely in Moscow yesterday, yet by the sound of it nobody actually saw him get on or out of the HK to Moscow plane? Is that not a huge journalism failure?

<comment> k-mcgrady I think the first they heard he was going to Moscow he was already on the flight. Then he was in the secure area of the airport so probably difficult to get to and find. Considering the number of journalists involved they definitely failed but I don't think as badly as it looks. Not to mention WikiLeaks 'confirmation' he was in Russia.

<comment><USER15> The guardian just posted a relevant update, 'How do we know Snowden was ever in Russia?', which essentially would be better titled 'Why we thought he was ever in Russia'.

Sounds like it is quite possible that the whole Russia thing was an intentional diversion planted by Snowden / Wikileaks, to divert media and US official attention from the true destination..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Meanwhile a planeload of journalists are now off to spend the day in Cuba"

<comment><USER17> Hahaha! That calls for another rum (or maybe a Cuba libre or Mojito). Cigar, anyone? Bottoms up!

<comment><USER18> I'm afraid not:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/24/edward- snowden-b...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/24/edward-snowden- booked-on-plane-from-moscow-to-havana-live- coverage#block-51c82222e4b0c1d5e990ab42)

 _36m ago Apparently those poor journalists on the plane to Cuba can 't even drown their sorrows ..._

<comment><USER17> Sure, no alcohol on some planes ... but I'm sure they'll get at least one night of debauched journo-drinking before having to fly back to their stations!

<comment><USER19> They'll get at least 2 nights:

      And worse (or, really, better?): Thanks to travel regulation
      in Cuba, they'll have to stay there three days before they'll
      be allowed to fly back.

[http://gawker.com/snowden-snow-job-leaker-fools-reporters- on...](http://gawker.com/snowden-snow-job-leaker-fools-reporters-on-to-cuba- fli-555021969)

<comment><USER20> This is the most hilarious turn of events so far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> One rumor is that he flew to Iceland via Oslo: [http://www.tnp.no/norway/panorama/3802-pirate-party- norway-s...](http://www.tnp.no/norway/panorama/3802-pirate-party-norway- snowden-passed-through-norway-to-iceland)

<comment><USER7> This rumor has a credibility problem:

* The Oslo flight left only 20 minutes after the Hong Kong arrival

* That route would involve four flights to reach Iceland (stopping in Moscow, Stockholm, and Oslo). The trip can be done in two: you don't need the Moscow or Oslo stops.

<comment><USER22> Considering they claimed one of their sources was within wikileaks, it's likely it's part of a wikileaks/Snowden plan to obfuscate his real travel plans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is anybody else watching this with glee? This is the stuff movies are made of. The school yard bully who has been tolerated for years is finally being put in its place. "Oh shit, Snowden poked you in the eye? Maybe if you didn't spend so much of your time bullying everyone else, he wouldn't have done that... P.S. if you want him, you're gonna have to go through all of us... we're not putting up with your shit any more either."

<comment><USER24> Yeah, imagine a "what if" movie where Snowden is on the Aeroflot flight from Moscow. You have journalists and secret agents on the plane. Some agents try to talk sense into him, others try to block them (no weapons allowed so they resort to slapping each other), journalists snapping pics and posting stuff on Twitter. All the while the plane is closer and closer to NATO airspace with trigger-happy generals. At the same time you have maybe 5 people on the plane that don't know what is going on and actually want to fly to Cuba (for a vacation say). And, there is no alcohol on board...

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Maybe he is clinging to the landing gear Bruce Willis style.

With all this mess, I wouldn't be surprised to wake up tomorrow to see "Snowden says 'screw it, take me back to Hong Kong.'"

Unless this is all some very well orchestrated smoke screen, it must be crazy stressful. Maybe he should just parachute out and take his time to figure out what to do in international waters.

</comment><comment><USER26> He will probably make a fortune by selling the story to Hollywood.

<comment><USER27> Hollywood can make the story without his side, they have enough info. You can bet, a hundred people are furiously and actively penning their scripts regarding this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's pretty mind-boggling that thanks to the likes of twitter, we can actually see the seat he was meant to be sitting in as the plane is ready to take off - [https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/349106511257161729/phot...](https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/349106511257161729/photo/1)

<comment> k-mcgrady "The seat he was meant to be sitting in"

Did he actually have a ticket for this flight in his name? If not this is just a seat on a plane that a lot of incorrect people thought he would be on.

<comment><USER29> I read yesterday that sources within the airport/airline confirmed that his name was on the passenger list. Also the cabin staff has a printed passenger- seat list, no doubt that in a plane full of journalists at least one of them will get a glimpse on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's called misdirection. Leak that you're leaving Hk, via Russia, via Cuba. That take a completely different route. Tradecrafty.</comment>


Security Researcher Assaulted Following Vulnerability Disclosure - <AUTHOR> https://www.secjuice.com/security-researcher-assaulted-ice-atrient/ <comment><USER2> With articles like this, I often to take out the horrible thing that the company is doing and post the quote to Hacker News, to give a sense of the scale of the issue; in this case me trying to do so would require including the majority of the article. It's _that_ bad. And yes, apparently the company thought it was ok for the COO to physically assault security researchers at a conference.

<comment><USER3> One of the Glassdoor reviews mentions the COO getting wasted at tradeshows, so maybe the assault is just normal behavior for him.

<comment><USER4> Weird, I've gotten "wasted" at tradeshows but never assaulted anyone :)

<comment><USER5> Angry drunk vs. happy drunk is a good zeroth-order personality test.

<comment><USER4> > Angry drunk vs. happy drunk is a good zeroth-order personality test.

And to be fair even "happy drunk" can be unprofessional in the wrong context.

But I think anyone who judges someone for how they act in a bar, after dark, and the concern is they were too _jovial_ (absent some kind of sexual harassment or belting out racist jokes) is not someone I'd want to work with anyways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was once fired from a state job (USA) for bringing a vulnerability forward in the online ethics training. You can run "setScore(100, 0, 100)" in the developer console and pass the exam without actually taking it. (The state used a third party online exam provider who I contacted). I was fired by the end of the week

<comment><USER2> In that case you fail the test for showing a lack of ethics ;)

<comment><USER7> I would say the state failed the ethics test for firing him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Now that this is out in the open, I wonder how much longer Atrient will stay in business. These people sell these systems to casinos. Their customers are not going to like this at all.

Atrient mostly handles affinity cards and such. So they have lots of info about customers, including drivers license scans[1], but not much of a connection into the casino's main systems. A basic break-in might get you a suite upgrade or free booze. A more ambitious attacker would obtain the casino's customer list, with enough info to identify big losers and big winners.

[1] [http://www.atrient.com/products/card-printing- enrollment/](http://www.atrient.com/products/card-printing-enrollment/)

<comment><USER9> Regarding a "casino's main systems"..

Going back a few years I was involved with a gaming organisation. We were advised that certain activities legally had to be air gapped (we are not in the US), and I raised an issue of how it is that servers could be accessed by VNC (single dictionary word password) over the Internet if that were the case.

I was advised that the server was installed in a rack with 1RU of space between it and the router connecting it to the internet, and that lawyers had reviewed it and considered that to meet the legal definition.

I strongly suspect you'll find core activities just as vulnerable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is not the first time Atrient has been sloppy with the details of their NDAs, nor the first time Jessie Gill has gotten in trouble for being a touch too eager to get physical.

[https://www.leagle.com/decision/infdco20180828d81](https://www.leagle.com/decision/infdco20180828d81)

<comment><USER11> Hahahaha, how terrible is Atrient's lawyer, Mark E. Ferrario, for filing a complaint _that didn 't even allege a cause of action_?!

He just asked the court to do some random stuff without arguing a case. The whole opinion is just, "Plaintiff didn't allege anything, so dismissed".

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> To assault a programmer on the floor of a conference and expect to get away with says a lot about what this person has likely gotten away in their past.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, especially a tech conference. Everyone has phones with cameras, vloggers and journalists covering things.

I know there are stories of casinos in Vegas breaking people's legs for cheating, but I guess that doesn't happen anymore since big corporations run them now with too much to lose. Plus if that ever happened and went viral, it would hurt their business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you (like me) didn't know what a Shodan safari is, you're in for a fun ride:

[https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/21/shodan- safari/](https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/21/shodan-safari/)

<comment><USER15> Without Oath's abusive GDPR wall: [https://outline.com/JF28AH](https://outline.com/JF28AH)

<comment><USER16> It's quite ironic that I can view the techcrunch.com link without JS just fine, but the outline.com link requires me to allow JS on at least 2 domains before viewing the content.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Disclosing security vulnerabilities that aren't part of a bug bounty program takes a large amount of either courage or ignorance. Until there are protections in place for a given jurisdiction, far safer to leak it anonymously or just stay quiet. I was surprised that GDPR didn't contain any sort of protections for security researchers. The fines collected are hefty enough they could easily run a very successful bug bounty program.

<comment><USER18> I agree with you, but it isn't a clear cut issue. Attacking a server right now comes with _some_ legal risk, which is a deterrent to some. It's impossible to tell white hats from black. If it were paired with a law that made it a felony to resell vulns to third parties then it would be much more robust.

<comment><USER19> The only way you're going to reduce the amount of vulnerabilities being sold on black markets is to provide sufficient financial and social incentive. There are enough people with dubious morals who don't care how illegal it is to find and exploit them, who will eagerly take the biggest payday. Combine no guarantee you'll get paid, poor treatment by authorities and employers and the (albeit low) risk of getting your shit kicked in, I'm not surprised people aren't lining up at the door to report vulnerabilities.

<comment><USER18> I agree completely, but the issue is that the vulnerability value is asymmetric. It's about $1m to get an iPhone no-click RCE. Up to about $4m for one with a seemingly long shelf life. Apple is not going to pay $Xm for their bug bounty.

That said, that there will be _some_ that continue to engage in illegal activity doesn't mean we shouldn't make it illegal in the first place. I'd even be in favour of treating certain classes of vulnerability sale as an act of terrorism or treason or arms export violation.

I know it is hard, but we have to try to solve this.

<comment><USER19> Yeah, I'd rather not make security research any more taboo and frowned upon than it already is. Regulation should be put towards forcing companies to put bug bounty programs into place and forcing companies to put the necessary money into it, not disincentivizing the absolutely crucial and important work that researchers do. Apple can easily afford it.

<comment><USER18> I agree that regulation should be put into place, I've blogged about it in the past and I've argued that it should scale with number of affected users, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't make certain acts illegal. Selling a iOS 0day to the Saudis should be illegal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Casinos have such a large attack surface that they should be thanking anyone and everyone who exposes any vuln.

</comment><comment><USER21> So is this still a vulnerability? Time to do some more digging boys!

<comment><USER2> In the off chance that you're serious, this sounds like a great way to land yourself in federal prison.

<comment><USER22> > a great way to land yourself in federal prison.

For what? Checking shodan and seeing that people don't know how to write secure code.

<comment><USER23> Dude, just don't.

I get the excitement of knowing how easy it is to do this stuff. But US Federal Laws can be interpreted in creative ways to throw you in Federal Prison. And I think that will continue to be the case until American society (the Jury, in US) learns more about how these things work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Wouldn't the Nevada Gambling Commission be interested in this?

<comment><USER25> I mean, maybe, but do you really think they have some sort of well-staffed cyber-division that would 1. understand this and 2. know what to do with it? My guess is they're still operating like it's the 1980s. Hopefully I'm wrong!

Curious that the FBI now does vulnerability coordination. Haven't ever heard that before.

<comment><USER26> _do you really think they have some sort of well-staffed cyber-division that would 1. understand this and 2. know what to do with it?_

1\. Yes. 2. Also yes.

The Nevada Gaming Commission, all of the big casino companies in its state, and the companies that make the gambling machines, are quite remarkable, technologically speaking.

Sometimes I think the terrible web sites they have for hotel reservations are just a smokescreen.

<comment><USER27> > Sometimes I think the terrible web sites they have for hotel reservations > are just a smokescreen.

Captain Obvious says he'd imagine that the amount of money brought in from room reservations is a drop in the bucket to what is made on the casino floor, hence the comping of rooms for players. The money spent on reservations vs protecting the gaming would be in proportion to that.

Maybe Captain Obvious is being a bit simple minded, but makes sense. Everything about the hotel is geared to get you to lose your money in the casino.

<comment><USER26> _Everything about the hotel is geared to get you to lose your money in the casino._

That's last century thinking. Gambling's influence on the bottom line domestically is waning.

These days it's all about entertainment, clubs, and restaurants. That's why every casino in Las Vegas is falling all over itself to build new sports and entertainment arenas, and paying huge bucks to put celebrity chef names on their restaurants.

<comment><USER27> That sounds like the mindset they must have used when they had the Vegas is family friendly ad campaign. That failed, and the What happens in Vegas campaign took over. I would have a hard time believing concerts, magic shows, celeb chefs generate the same kind of money that the casinos and sports betting brings in. However, if you have something that backs that up, I'd definitely be willing to read it and change my view.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > Because there is no SSL protection and because the API is wide open and > vulnerable to abuse, it is possible to identify kiosks by their Mac address

Eh?

<comment><USER28> It should have said "MAC address" [0]. Nothing to do with Apple Macintoshes.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address)

<comment><USER15> That still doesn't make any sense to me in the context of the rest of the sentence.

<comment><USER29> Possibly, existing kiosks are registered by MAC address in the API. By querying the API for registered kiosks, you can pretend to be one by spoofing the MAC

<comment><USER30> I still don't understand it, TCP/IP doesn't transmit MAC addresses. Your knowledge of it ends at the next router... Therefore you definitely can't authenticate/authorize by MAC address.

<comment><USER31> > Therefore you definitely can't authenticate/authorize by MAC address.

I would be entirely unsurprised to see that the device is calling out to the API with it's MAC address as some kind of authenticator.

eg: [http://foo.example.com/api/prizes?id=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx](http://foo.example.com/api/prizes?id=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx)

<comment><USER32> I've used quite a few systems where the MAC address is used as a secondary password to verify that someone didn't just steal the hard drive out of a kiosk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Such behavior needs to lead to jail time and not just a trivially payable fine so that the rich like the poor understand that wrongdoing has consequences.

</comment><comment><USER34> We should not forget the 18 year's old Hungarian "hacker" that was arrested for opening Dev Tools and modified HTML values. [https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/25/hungarian-hacker- arrested-...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/25/hungarian-hacker-arrested-for- pressing-f12/)

</comment><comment><USER35> Wonderful man, this Jessie Gill.

[https://www.leagle.com/decision/infdco20180828d81](https://www.leagle.com/decision/infdco20180828d81)

</comment><comment><USER36> Does anyone figure this guy is connected and the third party contractors hired to program the kiosks were some student working from home in his off time?

</comment><comment><USER37> This one does deserve to be called vulnerability. It is a plain stupidity.

</comment><comment><USER38> People are complaining a lot about GDPR here but such a case would definitely lead to a fine of 4% or 8% of atrients revenue.

<comment><USER39> Konami is at huge risk, too, as it sounds like they were the global distributors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> So open season on Atrient?

</comment><comment><USER41> g'bye atrient. we hardly knew ye.

</comment><comment><USER42> Play stupid games with mafioso, win stupid prizes. (Pun intended.)

</comment><comment><USER43> While the behavior of Atrient and specifically Jessie Gill is absurd in terms of working with the researchers to address the issues and pay the bounty, I am always skeptical of these captured videos. We don't have any context of what was said before and what the communication between the researchers and Atrient was like other than their accounts. Maybe I am just being cynical, but I've personally had interactions with security researchers who are extremely arrogant and on a vendetta to show how smart they are, and drift from white hat to grey or in some cases black hat territory.

<comment><USER44> I personally (and unfortunately) know Jessie Gill of Atrient. I have to, for work purposes. The way his interactions and comments/quotes were described in that article were exactly things that he would say and do. He's a pretty violent guy actually. And the way he's acting in that video, only saying, "I don't know you" and sitting down, he knows he needs to watch what he says because there are a lot of things that that video could tie to later. Anyway, I wasn't there so I can't be 100% sure of anything, but I have known Jessie for years, hell I've been to his house several times, and the behavior is spot on.

<comment><USER45> hello! thanks for this comment would you be able to contact me on twitter @me9187 (this account is mentioned in the secjuice article for verification) and tell us a little bit more about your experiences?

<comment><USER44> Unfortunately I can't risk being caught in Jessie's sights right now. He has a way of twisting things into his favor and always seems to get himself out of trouble by turning it on someone else. I have been following this story though and I may contact you in the future. Thanks, and sorry.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which tools are ubiquitous but badly in need of a redesign/reboot? - <AUTHOR> Which tools/businesses would you love to see modernized? Where can friction/pain be taken out? <comment><USER2> LaTeX. The tooling is awful, the error messages are close to useless, and any moderately complex document needs hacks and workarounds to accommodate the various quirks it has accumulated.

I remember reading online somewhere "the best use of a 1 million dollar grant today to advance physics and math would be to redesign and develop LaTeX from scratch. The amount of productivity lost fighting against it is enormous." (Probably heavily paraphrased, since I don't remember the source.)

Dr. Christoph Schiller, creator of the "Motion Mountain" physics book done entirely in LaTeX, mentions some of its other shortcomings here: [http://www.motionmountain.net/onlatex.html](http://www.motionmountain.net/onlatex.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> * Airlines - I have no idea how but it's more important than the latest app.

* Basic Infrastructure (e.g.,clean water, well maintained roads, sound bridges, beautiful parks)

* domain information groper (dig) - Build a better dig and the world will beat a path to your door!

<comment><USER4> > Airlines

Airplanes are cool, so people keep pouring time and money into it, but the airline industry as a whole has made a cumulative loss during its 100-year history[1]. It's better to avoid any startup idea related to airlines.

> Basic Infrastructure (e.g.,clean water, well maintained roads, sound > bridges, beautiful parks)

Ugh, local/state government with petty politics, corruption, insane levels of bureaucracy. Stay away as well.

> domain information groper

Have you seen the typical web service that provides information like that? It's either someone's hobby project, in which case they'll tire of maintaining it and paying bandwidth, or it'll turn into a spam-infested site like whatismyipaddress.com. You could make a good free tool, but you can't make honest money on those.

On a related note, no one has been able to find an honest way to make money on caller-ID lookup (telephone directory lookup). Useful phone lookup did exist in the early web days, but today they are _all_ unreliable, spam-infested, dishonest sites. The information on some sites is literally 100% fraudulent, giving fake names and addresses for every possible phone number.

If it were possible to provide an honest, useful, and profitable service, it would be the top Google listing every time you searched for a phone number; the fact that it doesn't exist, means that it is not possible[2].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline#Economic_consideration...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline#Economic_considerations)

[2] A significant factor is probably due to the lack of useful phone number databases since individuals and telecom companies want to keep their numbers private. But this can't be the entire answer since at least 80% of landline numbers are "published", but even landline lookup has become useless.

<comment><USER5> There is nothing wrong with government. You just need to know someone. I have worked on multiple government contracts, typically through someone I knew who needed something done. I built a product and sat down with their purchasing manager, and grossed a few grand a month for pretty minimal effort.

And the government is already so used to bad software, so long as it works, you are doing them a favor.

As with most industries, you need to know a person, a problem, and a solution to make any money.

<comment><USER3> Why is government software so bad? Also, why did you put in minimal effort?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've heard the source code for GNU Screen is pretty ugly and in need of a refactor, but I haven't had much issue with things user-side, so it's hard to say if that's really necessary.

</comment><comment><USER7> Mail servers for personal deployment.</comment>


Guido's thoughts on reduce, map, filter and lambda (2005) - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> There is no link, want to post it here?

<comment><USER3> Maybe it could be this:

<http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=98196></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How often do you check HN? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> too much :) i.e 1 point by interrupt_ 0 minutes ago

<comment><AUTHOR> I check it too much too :)

One thing that makes it worse is that I don't know what are the new entries in the front page, so I have to scan it again and again. I wish there were a better way.

<comment><USER3> Have you tried [https://hckrnews.com](https://hckrnews.com) \- an unofficial alternative hacker news interface with posts sorted by time

<comment><AUTHOR> This looks interesting. Thank you! I'll give it a try over the next few days.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Soccer, Made in America - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/articles/with-his-eye-on-the-world-cup-soccer-coach-jurgen-klinsmann-overhauls-team-usa-1401899734

<comment><USER2> I found quite amusing how the american journalist urges into explaining what a penalty area, a corner kick, the stoppage time, and other soccer-related things are.

Journalists in Italy don't explain baseball-related things when writing about baseball.

Just saying.</comment>


Securing a Rails App against Firesheep with HTTPS - <AUTHOR> http://blog.documentcloud.org/blog/2011/02/https-by-default/

<comment><USER2> I would recommend not doing https in rails. I use nginx to switch between http and https when needed.

in your nginx config you do this for https setup: # needed for HTTPS proxy_set_header X-FORWARDED-PROTO https;

then if you want, you can check in rails that certain controllers received https requests.

using nginx as proxy means your rails app only ever deals with plain text http.

the only issue, with all http -> https transitions is making sure that things you are storing in sessions are placed in your forms if you go from a http page to an https page on form submission. If not you will lose state if you are storing sessions in the cookies.

The part about relative urls is right. Using cdns etc makes things harder if they don't support your ssl cert.

At CarWoo! once you login we do everything behind https. For our user creation form you can be on an http page, but it submits to https.

We created partials that represent our sign up forms (we have many kinds of landing pages) that automatically take important things out of the session and put them in the form if needed. These things are not security risks, but are important for the correct functionality of the app.

<comment><USER3> https targets for forms on http pages are a security anti-pattern. The Tunisian government keylogged people's Facebook details because of it.

<comment><USER4> This is exactly correct. Security teams at our clients routinely "flunk" applications because they fail to set the "Secure" flag on cookies; this flaw is even worse than that one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The initial redirect from HTTP to HTTPS is a weak spot. Most users will just type "example.com" into the address bar and an active attacker can strip HTTPS from there. There'll be no padlock icon, but how many of your users really going to notice?

See <http://dev.chromium.org/sts> to fix this.

<comment><AUTHOR> I dig the STS header, but isn't fixing the problem for only a small-ish percentage of browsers ... not really fixing the problem?

<comment><USER6> No. It's not. But without clients knowing about the fact that a site should be accessed only over SSL, there is no fix. Chrome isn't the only browser to support this. AFAIK, NoScript for Firefox also adds support and once this becomes widespread, more browsers might follow.

Fixing the problem for some is certainly better than not fixing it and waiting for the perfect solution that might never appear.

Especially if the fix is this easy to implement.

<comment><USER7> Firefox 4 betas have been shipping with STS support since June. See <http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/5dc3c2d2dd4f>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm implementing a similar solution. My only concern is that the ssl handshake takes an anywhere been 600 and 1000ms - far too long as far as I'm concerning. does anyone have a suggestion to improve this?

My setup 1) Linode $20/mo REE box (will bump up in production) 2) Nginx 3) RoR 3.0.3 4) SSL Through Geotrust. It is a "chained" cert but i don't believe this is the bottleneck.

thanks in advance...

<comment><USER9> Your chained cert might actually be the bottleneck if the total data exceeds 4K and the user has to do a second round trip to ACK the cert.

[http://journal.paul.querna.org/articles/2010/07/10/overclock...](http://journal.paul.querna.org/articles/2010/07/10/overclocking- mod_ssl/)

Basically, unless you are certain you need it 4096 bit security, use a 2048 bit key (1024 is not secure anymore) and only include the minimum number of intermediate certs you can get away with. OSCP stapling doesn't seem worth it if it cause you to over flow the initial TCP window.

<comment><USER8> this is a really great piece of advice. i'll check this out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If anyone sees any gaping holes in this scheme, or has a more elegant solution to the HTTP-for-anonymous/HTTPS-for-logged-in-users pattern, I'd love to hear the critique.

<comment><USER10> As a commenter mentioned above, the weak point here is the fact that you only enforce HTTPS after the user has logged in. Since your login page is served insecurely, an active attacker could modify it to steal passwords. A well known tool to do this is SSLStrip: <http://www.thoughtcrime.org/software/sslstrip/>

The Tunisian government recently took advantage of Facebook's insecure login page to steal passwords for _everyone in the country_: [http://blog.jgc.org/2011/01/code-injected-to-steal- passwords...](http://blog.jgc.org/2011/01/code-injected-to-steal-passwords- in.html)

Protocol-relative URLs may be useful while migrating to HTTPS, but should not be needed long-term. All content should only be served securely.

Once a site is fully functional over HTTPS, adding the HSTS header is an important last step to further mitigate active attacks. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Strict_Transport_Security>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the example. Looks like we'll give up attempting to serve any HTTP pages in the future, and do as you recommend -- I don't see any way of getting around the login-form-phishing hack you describe.</comment></comment></comment>


R.I.P. Cisco Cius--Another Tablet Bites the Dust - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/256307/rip_cisco_ciusanother_tablet_bites_the_dust.html

<comment><USER2> from the article, it sounded like they were counting on a business model where they could slap the "enterprise" label on a tablet and get away with vastly overpricing it.</comment>


Ask HN: What would you pay monthly to be searchable? - <AUTHOR> For $10-20 per month (the rough cost of middle of the road web hosting), what would you pay to be searchable? Your favorite niche vertical like your twitter network, full fidelity search of the glory days of Usenet posts, your bookshelf? <comment><USER2> The written content of images and the spoken content of videos on the internet?

Not sure about the monthly-bill thing. It'd have to be content that I'd want to search multiple times a week, and I don't think there's any like that.

Maybe a better pricing model would be a set number of searches? $5 for 100 searches or something like that? That might align better with the costs, too.

<comment><AUTHOR> (Yeah the exact billing model is fungible/an example to get people to think in terms of actually willing to fork over money.)

Do you mean you might have a specific and relatively small set of videos that you would like searched, but at a much lower price point (e.g. 10k videos at less than $10/year)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I would pay up to $120 per month for a search engine that had its own crawler, and was completely open source, as long as it worked with JS disabled.

The crawler is, arguably, the hardest part. We have open source search engines out there, like searx[1], but most of them are search aggregators, and depend on Google, Bing, and a few other established search engines.

[1] [https://github.com/asciimoo/searx](https://github.com/asciimoo/searx)

<comment><USER2> > $120 per month

Though I'm curious if there's an actual market for a monthly-subscription Google competitor, I very much doubt this bid would be representative of it.

<comment><USER3> I do not think there is a market for this — a big one, anyway —, and agree that what I would pay is not representative of what others would, I was just answering the question ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><AUTHOR> +1 I appreciate your answer!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand what you mean?

<comment><AUTHOR> Most searching (e.g. web, email, torrents) is based on ads, which works because of the utility to a huge number of people. There are many things one might in passing want to be able to search (e.g. quickly finding the location of particular book on your disorganized bookshelf, non-web text content, etc.) but don't have mass appeal to sustain ads revenue. And even many of those wants aren't worth paying a few dollars for let alone the cost of hosting search.

So does anyone in the HN crowd have a search-based itch they're willing to pay to have scratched that's not already handled by existing search products?</comment></comment>


Declassified memos show FBI illegally shared spy data with private parties - <AUTHOR> http://circa.com/politics/declassified-memos-show-fbi-illegally-shared-spy-data-on-americans-with-private-parties?utm_content=buffer1acd4&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer <comment><USER2> Amazing how this story will get no love on HN.

</comment><comment><USER3> Mafia</comment>


The YC Fellowship and Stripe Atlas - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ycombinator.com/the-fellowship-plus-stripe-atlas <comment><USER2> How many people will use this just to exchange $500 for $15,000 AWS credit?

<comment><USER3> You'll have to invest into learning a few legal things, one of them being how to liquidate a corporation. For instance how much does it cost to wind up ?

<comment><USER4> $10.

[http://www.corp.delaware.gov/Dissolution%20-%20274%20BIS%20S...](http://www.corp.delaware.gov/Dissolution%20-%20274%20BIS%20Short%20Form%20-%20web.pdf)

<comment><USER2> So exchange $510 for $15,000 in AWS credits. I wonder if the credits go away, or if they would even know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a founder of a company which started in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and joined Techstars NYC, I absolutely love what they are doing. The initial setup of the entity, the bank account, all the paperwork was a major distraction. It needs to be simplified and this looks like a step in the right direction. SVB was by far the easiest and most supportive option for getting your bank account setup when you're not (yet) in the US. Awesome initiative, great news for startups around the world.

Stripe if you're reading this, it would be great if you would make it possible to migrate Stripe accounts from one country to another. You're still charging me BTW (Dutch VAT) while our entity is actually in the US.

<comment><USER6> It surely can't be that bad?

Is it not possible to do this all online? In the UK it took a day and 15 or so pounds to set up a company, got the official company documents the next day. It's also possible to get it the same day with a bit more money. Took a visit to the Branch but had the business bank account within the week in addition to the Stripe account activated within 5 minutes.

<comment><USER7> Setting up a company in the UK - sure. Opening a business bank account when you're not a resident - nowhere nearly as easy.

<comment><USER6> If you use UKTI to help you, especially if you're a fintech startup, they'll help you through that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Are the founders (of one of these Strip Atlas-started companies) required to _not_ be US citizens?

<comment><USER9> Nope, we don't have any requirements like that in place. That said, the Atlas beta is focused on companies based in emerging markets; so it's more conducive to someone who doesn't currently live in the US, regardless of if they're a US citizen, for example.</comment></comment>


I'm leaving the Internet for a year - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/30/2988798/paul-miller-year-without-internet <comment><USER2> Having followed Paul's writing for awhile, I feel like I get where he's coming from and what he hopes to do with this endeavor. I really respect that.

But I still have to question the viability, and ultimately the value, of this honestly rather extreme abstentionism. If he were moving to a village in Thailand, things would be different – he'd be surrounded by people who don't need the internet, and the society he'd be living in wouldn't expect him to use it.

But, as far as I can tell, he's staying in NYC. The penalty for disconnecting is going to be disproportionately greater there than it would be in a society that doesn't expect even its homeless to be able to get government forms from an internet-connected computer in a public library. He can try to live in New York circa 1992, but he's ultimately going to be expected to live in New York 2012.

I think a more productive self-denial would be to limit one's internet usage to libraries and internet cafes. Cancel the FiOS and 4G, divorce yourself from Twitter and email, but leave the option open of making a trip down to the library to take care of the things in your daily life that actually require the internet.

<comment><USER3> "If he were moving to a village in Thailand"

Having spent a few months in a village in Northern Thailand, I was quite happy on the speed our internet connection was usually providing us. Generally used for checking email, skype, news and that passive income sources were still working.

Going rural in more remote places, where the area is cut off by rain or snow for some months of the year is far more challenging and interesting, at least for me. It shouldn't be, its the lives of the folks who live there everyday, we're just rather more lucky, most of the time.

When I lost house connected internet for a week, having to use libraries and cafes in Canada was far more challenging, in terms of scheduling time to go and use, than it was using the internet in a rural Thai village.

Good luck paying bills and checking your bank account (ATMs are an alternative) & investments when you can't use the internet & they now issue e-bill/e-statement, unless you pay extra for paper.

<comment><USER4> Actually, I've gotten 3G coverage in the remotest parts of Thailand, places that only got electricity this year. I had more trouble staying connected in small towns and such in the US!

<comment><USER5> I have not been to Thailand but can vouch for the problems of small town America. I crossed the country this year, on foot and accepting rides. In parts of rural Texas, my Verizon service either could not be connected at all or would announce to me that I was in Mexico and "additional charges" would apply for getting online. Oy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sheesh, what a pain in the ass this will be. Not paying bills online, not making plans over email, etc., etc. The idea of not letting "the Internet" into unknown corners of your life is fine but I do the same thing by _paying attention_. This reminds of the regular Information Overload articles that get written about how the writer has too much stuff to pay attention to. When I read those I always think "you're doing it wrong". Control your technology, don't let your technology control you.

<comment><USER7> > Not paying bills online, not making plans over email, etc., etc.

If he's married, I'd wager 90% of those things will still get done over the internet; but instead of clicking a mouse, he'll ask his wife.

<comment><USER8> I think the part where he says: ["Internet use" includes web browsing from any device, asking anyone to web browse for me, surfing the internet over someone's shoulder] means that he won't ask someone to do it for him...

<comment><USER9> He also mentions it in the very first paragraph:

      I just won't use the internet in my personal or work life,
      and won't ask anyone to use it for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I spent 20 years without Internet. I'll give it up when you pry my unlimited-3G iPad from my cold dead fingers. (Until then, I'll be figuring out how to have it surgically implanted.)

</comment><comment><USER11> Maybe he should ditch electricity and plumbing too? I mean, if you're going to figure out how this one technology has infested your soul, why not go all the way?

I'm sure there are some Amish* communities that would take you in and let you hammer some nails while you get back to your non-technological inner being.

* That's always what they seem to do in movies to the point of being a cliche.

<comment><USER12> The internet is pretty distinct. It changes how we think and perceive the world.

Electricity is very impactful. But most things that it provides had analogues, at least for the middle to upper classes. Servants fulfilled the role that appliances now play. Horses provided fast enough transport, because the scale of cities were smaller, etc.

All analogies will break down somewhere, but most modern electrical conveniences have fairly close analogues in the past. But nothing seems like the internet.

<comment><USER11> Imagine a culture that was pre-electricity. Bring someone from that culture to 1990. Show them cell phones, televisions, space travel, etc. Imagine the cultural shock... the "advanced technology == magic" effect.

Now imagine showing someone from 1990 what things are like in 2012 with the internet we have today. While they would think it's "neat" and even "amazing", the magic effect would not be there.

The internet is cool, no doubt, but it's not the leap that electricity has been.

<comment><USER13> > _Now imagine showing someone from 1990 what things are like in 2012 with the > internet we have today. While they would think it's "neat" and even > "amazing", the magic effect would not be there._

I wonder what the biggest "future shock" for (let's say) a 1995 web user visiting the 2012 web? Video and bandwidth seem like the biggest differences, but as you point out, neither are "magic" from a 1995 context.

<comment><USER14> Video and bandwidth are impressive - 1995 was still painfully slow for many people. People maybe had 56 kbit/s, but perhaps that dropped back to 33.3 kbit/s because of noisy lines. (v90 was approved late 1998). I was stuck on 14.4 kbps for ages. Oh god. ("Sloppy" is apparently a modem speed simulator. (<http://www.dallaway.com/sloppy/>) )

But I think the magic would be video and bandwidth on a handheld device?

<comment><USER12> I've noticed that the web has gotten more useful. Google has an answer for more and more things. Wikipedia covers more topics. The qualitative difference is real, but hard to measure, because we can't search the web as it was in 2004, using the google of 2004.

I know I only went halfway back. If you go to 1995, there's a whole class of services that didn't exist.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, Wikipedia would be a pretty big "future shock" (though more social than technological).

And another social surprise would be Facebook because of the number of non- techies using the Internet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Couple of years back I hiked in Himalayas and there was no access to Internet for 15 days. Not just Internet but no cell phones, TVs, iPod etc. For first 3-4 days when we were still in rural towns of India, we had electricity but after that we had no access to electricity. I must say it was the best experience of my life. I don't think I missed anything at all. As far as author goes, 1 year is a really long time. I'd love to hear after 1 year.

<comment><USER16> but how did you plan the vacation? I imagine you used the Internet pretty extensively.

You didn't give up the Internet, you just went somewhere that didn't have it. Your time was spent doing something else, and you (probably) had plans on how to get around already.

If you gave up the Internet before you planned your trip, could you have gone?

<comment><USER13> Or if he used the Internet to schedule a one-way trip there, how easily could he get home without using the Internet?

<comment><USER15> In fact I did exactly that. I scheduled one way trip using Internet. But I came back home without any help from web. Asking indigenous people solved that problem. And I also had those good ol' printed maps (instead of Google Maps) of that area.

I highly recommend this type of adventure. Its a lifetime experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> That's a fascinating experiment. I just tried 30 days without the internet (at home). But I still used it in cafes, whereas Paul is disconnecting completely.

I think he's going to find many little points of friction that he wasn't expecting. So many non-internet exchanges now end with "sure, send me an email" or "Sure, just go to our website and..." The infrastructure to serve non-web users still exists, but it's fading.

I personally decided to go back to the internet. I'm doing an online course with Udacity; cafe bandwidth didn't cut it.

If I were just doing writing, I actually would go without a home internet connection. It's a much more productive system if your work doesn't require access. But my work now does, and there was too much friction.

If I were doing _technology_ writing, like Paul...well, I'd love to know how this turns out.

<comment><USER17> Maybe some day we'll have public phone-to-Internet relays where you call an operator and tell them to navigate a website and read it back to you, like the text-to-phone relays the deaf use.

<comment><USER18> I like this idea. However, one must take into account the cost of having a human-operator read back a website to you.

Maybe as synthesized speech improves you could have a viable service like this using computer programs as the operator.

It'd be one way to cut back on your Internet addiction. You'll certainly reevaluate the worth of online discussions when you have to actually _listen_ to them play out while you sit there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Every few months I see a grand announcement on Facebook from someone or another about how they are closing their account. It always strikes me as a plea for their friends to beg them to stay.

In this case obviously he is a writer so he probably has the idea that he will write a pulitzer-prize winning article about his year spent offline.

I think if you're truly fed up with technology, just drop out. No need to make a big announcement about it.

<comment><USER20> I suspect a year writing a book of some kind, perhaps not about the Internet absence. Given the nature of this gentleman's job, I suspect a chunky advance to live off and some kind of plan.

I know this is a very small gesture in comparison, but I now spend time at a small cafe with no wifi and poor mobile phone signal for a couple of hours between commitments on Mondays. Mind mapping on paper and writing on a small netbook. Very productive of ideas.

<comment><USER19> I'm totally in favor of unplugging for a bit, although I never seem to do it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Funnily enough, I started doing this last week when I realized that I'm on the Internet instead of learning the things I want to be doing -- martial arts, dancing, woodwork, metalwork, mechanics, hunting, chemistry, making friends, learning to fly, adrenaline rushes, etc. The only difference is that I allow the use of Internet cafes.

You do get physical and psychological withdrawals. I've been having fucking night terrors -- I've only had those once in my life, and that's when I gave up a drug addiction. There's an overwhelming feeling of loneliness and emptiness, but I knew this would happen since I don't have much of a social life.

Everything is slow.

At the moment it's not going well, because it's dawned on me that I can't afford the things I've been missing out on -- can't even afford martial arts classes. I've had no motivation to increase my income since I've just been spending time on the Internet.

However, this is what I've been banking on. The deep emptiness will hopefully motivate me to make a real change, as opposed to the shallow and medicated emptiness I felt thanks to the Internet.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's been done before:

[http://www.slate.com/articles/life/offline/features/2010/lif...](http://www.slate.com/articles/life/offline/features/2010/life_without_the_web/my_probably_crazy_plan_to_give_up_the_internet.html)

<comment><USER23> I will be running the marathon under three hours. Top comment: It has been done before

<comment><USER24> You seem to be interpreting the comment as suggesting that there is no point in the endeavor. It can equally be read as simply offering another perspective or showing what might be expected.

<comment><USER22> I was being a little dismissive.

<comment><USER25> Way to be honest! =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This person loves the limelight so much that staying away from the Internet for a year will be a tremendous challenge for him.

</comment><comment><USER27> The author is doing an AMA on reddit right now: [http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/szzm7/iama_technology_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/szzm7/iama_technology_journalist_im_leaving_the/)

</comment><comment><USER28> I think you should live blog the whole thing. Wait. Nevermind.

</comment><comment><USER29> I think not getting a data plan for your smartphone (or using a dumbphone) is a pretty good balance nowadays. I can't think of a single thing I've been missing after my iPhone contract ran out. I still have the internet when I focus on it and work, but I don't run around like a short-sighted, Facebook- addicted zombie on the subway anymore.

</comment><comment><USER30> Two years ago, I read the same thing (by a different author, of course): [http://www.slate.com/articles/life/offline/features/2010/lif...](http://www.slate.com/articles/life/offline/features/2010/life_without_the_web/my_probably_crazy_plan_to_give_up_the_internet.html)

It inspired me to make Hacker Monthly.

</comment><comment><USER31> Wouldn't a better and easier solution be to simply practice restraint and limit yourself to several websites like Google Maps, Wikipedia, Email (once a day), Calendar (in the morning)? Then you can include other sites one-by-one to see which are most distracting, and block them.

</comment><comment><USER32> The first time I moved to the US I always thought I would learn a lot about the states.

What I realized is that it taught me more about Denmark where I came from.

By leaving the internet my suspicion is that he will learn a lot about it and probably get his priorities straight.

If you can afford it, clever move.

</comment><comment><USER33> I recently spent 5 days without cable and internet connection (that's not quite true, I had internet connection of a total 4 hours) but I have activities so I'm not bored to death.

It feels, relieving at that time. It feels that life can be simpler.

Maybe I'll do that again soon....

</comment><comment><USER34> _"I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die Discover that I had not lived."_

</comment><comment><USER35> I honestly can't comprehend how he plans on doing his job without the internet. He's a tech-reporter for crying out loud! Relying on magazines & phone calls only to do that job in 2012 seems near impossible.

</comment><comment><USER36> I get the part about not using the internet. Easy enough. But not using the internet & still getting stuff done? That I'd like to see.

</comment><comment><USER37> The following services are best done via internet and will be full of friction to substitute an alternative: 1\. Remote desktop sharing and web conference calls 2\. Remote learning / webinars 3\. Bank transactions (web banking) for bill pay, instant wires and archived bank statements, etc. Yes, a phone call to the 1-800 could work, except for payments and immediately available bank statements. 4\. Music video of the latest Rebecca Black hit exclusively available on Youtube only (lol right?) 4\. 4.

<comment><USER38> _3\. Bank transactions (web banking) for bill pay, instant wires and archived bank statements, etc._

We used to put these things called checks into little paper envelops. We then put an inexpensive stamp onto them an deposited them in mailboxes. About 3 days later our bills were magically paid.

In all honesty does anyone actually have hard numbers on the number of people that actually use online bill pay? I'll willing to bet that a larger number of people still pay via a mailed check.

<comment><USER39> Maybe in the US and for business transactions, but the remainder of the world seems to have taken to online and automated phone payments almost exclusively.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> gee...i wish i was wealthy enough to pull this off....seems pretty inconsiderate....if you hate the internet and it makes your life terrible then stop....for good....but I bet you come back because the internet has allowed you to get to this point of un-appreciation. why hate on it?

</comment><comment><USER41> Filling some of the time with a bit of dial-up Trade Wars wouldn't be all bad.

</comment><comment><USER42> Hehe, I have that old Nokia he was looking at in the shop. Dumbphones rock!

</comment><comment><USER43> For the past couple of months I've lived without iPhone (with Prompt and Textastic) or phone for that matter (except for the occasional Skype call). I've tried to restrict my development and general Web usage to ~2 hours a day. I recall bumping into a colleague at around 3-4a.m. We had a smoke and then he got called away to do tech support on some web app he had been contractually obligated to support.

Given experiences like that, and my previous work schedule: In the meantime, I've played in the park; re-learned futball to where I can perform advanced, intensive dribbling; re-experienced my long distance running regimen with old friends; progressively mastered the track bike (in complex traffic scenarios, track standing, skid stops, heel stops, etc.); re-organized my thoughts in ordinary language philosophy, contemporary neuroscience, quantum mechanics, Wittgenstein and Spinoza; I've begun a semi-daily writing activity; longboarding; road tripping; skipping stones; befriending animals; etc.

These are the activities which contrast with $ pip install -r reqs.txt or reading another API or vim or bash scripting.

But what else have I noticed?

Daily I sit underneath the Texas sun, and watch. I watch people use these devices. I see IE everywhere and hours upon hours of people fumbling with that. Or texting. Playing some app or Twitter.

It's beautiful, as I sit under the sun, silent. It upsets me how so many able bodies opt for such narrowly prescribed lifestyle.

This argument often turns into ad hominem or red herring involving luddites, Amish, throwbacks, vintagers, etc.. But this text-based lifestyle is a choice too, you know, regardless of how "technologically savvy" or "liberated" or "autonomous" or "anonymous" one is.

<comment><USER44> Lots of applause lights in there (<http://lesswrong.com/lw/jb/applause_lights/>). I'm pretty sure things are not nearly as bad as you seem to believe.

<comment><USER43> It's largely anecdotal, personal writing. So your description of my style may be technically accurate, but I feel your point suffers as a Mary-the-Color- Scientist observation.

Take Paul Grice's Maxims for conversational exchange: Many maxims are at play, and we shouldn't expect for anyone to be "in control" of their execution of a maxim (maxim of relevance, truth, etc.). And an important point is that Grice notes a maxim of relevance: relevant _information_.

Do I aim to supply anyone with _information_ with my post? Am I giving you information? From my post, does it seem like I, the author, would see _information_ as imperative to my point? Yes, naturally programmers expect an optimally informative state such that transaction might occur, but...

Please, just read the sentences. I'm not a politician trying to convince you. I am a human being with an approximate grasp of Academic English. I mean, you're re-labeling my style with "UNINFORMATIVE."

How do you expect me to take that?

And "as bad as you seem to believe." Please point to anywhere in what I have written that suggests I have described an overarching state of affairs to which we should all direct our attention.

My point is nothing more than "it is a lifestyle choice amongst many". Of course as someone who works out daily, as my anecdotal bits clear emphasize, I am at once suggesting my own bias. But "things"... I'm nowhere in that post talking about _things as they are_ or "the grand scheme."

You've applied that concept, not me. I'm mainly interested in this idea that _Everything before the Internet is boring_. I am thinking in terms that we have all well acknowledged: hours spent in front of a screen. The 5:01 developer intuits this. When I consider my hours not spent in front of a screen, I have sport, books, travel, etc. Others have this as well. Sometimes family or quite simply that too-sunny-fucking-idyllic-sunday feeling that tells you: What I am discussing here, with this poet, must be more interesting than work. So my point is actually a request for us to halt the discussion. Before we talk about values (good, bad, etc.), let's first acknowledge that it is a lifestyle. We should understand the values of the lifestyle (notably the one the original author seems to reject).

And as a follow-up: What motivates this linguistic policing?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Life before the internet was incredibly boring _most_ of the time. You spent the majority of your free time figuring out ways to wring the most value from the 10% of time spent doing actual things with actual people.

A lot of it was filled with TV and moving around needlessly (to get things, to send things, to be somewhere at a certain time to pick up the phone...). It really sucked.

<comment><USER46> One thing about life before the Internet was that social connections were used for finding out information. Nowadays people just go on the Internet and find it. Knowing a lot about a lot of things doesn't really count for much. I used to program Macs in the 90s and you'd get these big old Inside Mac books and maybe a good Primer book and if you got stuck, there was no stack overflow. You just had to go ask somebody. People maintained friendships because they might need information from that person. Now that's become totally obsolete.

<comment><USER47> I just find the questions I get asked are more interesting.

<comment><USER48> I used to get asked things that were effectively trivia, now I get asked things that are more about discernment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> This reminds me of that guy about 10 or 15 years ago, who made some amazing claim that that he was going to live in his house, sustaining himself entirely from work he did and things he bought from the internet for a year. And then basically everyone forgot about it. I don't even know how that ended. The truth is nobody really cares. Stay on the internet, don't use the internet... nobody cares.

</comment><comment><USER50> Good luck!</comment>