Ubuntu 18.10 Cosmic Cuttlefish Released - <AUTHOR> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CosmicCuttlefish/ReleaseNotes <comment><USER3> Despite recieving enormous amounts of backlash and criticism from the tech comunity every release Canonical is the one company making Linux desktops available for less technical people and I applaud them for doing so!

Rocking the latest LTS here, and Ubuntu server on my homeserver. Wish them all the luck!

<comment><USER4> Honestly though, how many non- technical people do you know who run _any_ form of Linux? Steve Jobs came along and gobbled up that market 15 years ago.

<comment><USER5> My dad! :-P

For non-technical people, I think there's not much difference between using a computer with Ubuntu, Mac or Windows, for regular tasks like browsing the internet, online shopping, sending email, doing stuff in spreadsheets, sharing photographs, etc. Software's mostly the same, in fact. And with this trend to make everything browser based, even more.

Of course things can go wrong, but it doesn't really matter which OS they're using. For example, should this last week botched Windows 10-HP upgrade happened to my father, there's nothing he could have done on his own to restore his computer.

<comment><USER6> That's true only so far as using MS Office is not needed...

Most people's computing needs would be adequately served by an iPad -- but those who aren't are typically doing more with their computers than can be met by any OS.

<comment><USER5> Right. While Office has still some unpaired features, it's also true that not everybody using Office needs Office, specially the home users who need only daily finance, writting letters, etc.

<comment><USER7> The non-technical people in my life did not realize you don't need Office to open Office documents. This important when they interact with accountants, lawyers and such.

Once I show them Libre, they still want Office because Libre looks like it's from Excel 2003 era and loses credibility in their eyes.

Then I show them Google Docs and Sheets and it looks nice. Literally all they need is something that _looks_ modern. But in fact Google apps have actually been quite slick. Perfect amount of functionality at the moment. Google seems to follow keyboard behaviour and shortcuts for easy transition (especially Excel). Hope Google doesn't bloat their apps over time.

<comment><USER6> All of those applications are _ok_ if you don't actually need to produce commercial documents. Libreoffice and Google Docs aren't good enough, and if you're doing anything other than basic data presentation with Excel it's not compatible with any of them.

<comment><USER8> Google sheets isn't the only option available though. You can even use Microsoft's own online implementation if you want compatibility to excel (without vba)

[https://office.live.com/start/Excel.aspx](https://office.live.com/start/Excel.aspx)

<comment><USER6> Those are limited subsets of functionality, and vba isn't all that's not there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As always, kudos to Canonical to deliver one of the most mature distribution.

But. 2018. And still no fractional scaling. This drives me mad. (changing the text scaling is not a solution).

Ok, there was Mir, Wayland is late (again)... how can this problem not be solved in 10 years? (genuine question)

<comment><USER10> Maybe it's because when you set fractional scaling you lose pixel perfect design (icons, images, and so).

[https://icons8.com/articles/make-pixel-perfect- icons/](https://icons8.com/articles/make-pixel-perfect-icons/)

<comment><USER11> It dosen't happen that way on windows. I had scaling set to 1.25 and got no issues anywhere.

The issue with linux is that X wasn't designed for this and Wayland is still unstable/unusable (thanks nvidia)

<comment><USER12> Wayland is actually pretty stable. Nvidia has problem with OpenGL in Xwayland (i.e. 3d accel for x11 apps), otherwise, it should work.

There are warts though, when using Wayland. When using scaling (doesn't have to be fractional, either), X11 apps are being upscaled, not downscaled, resulting in blurriness. Unfortunately, neither Firefox nor Chrome does support Wayland natively, and who wants to use their most used app on their computer in blurry mode?

<comment><AUTHOR> Must admit I don't understand what Wayland is, or X server for that matter. Would someone mind explaining it, for someone a bit dull of mind as myself?

<comment><USER13> In short: X.org is a decade old _display server_ that became the standard to display graphical window on the majority of Linux distribution. GNOME, KDE, XFCE and others are/were client to this display server.

Wayland is a new protocol where the window manager (ie GNOME, KDE,...) is responsible of directly managing the display. Each window manager must reimplement this protocol (or use a library already doing this work) which enable them to have more control over the windows.

Applications must also directly support Wayland like they did for X.org before (which was the default commonly used, so no problem) or the user just have XWayland installed on their computer to show X.org windows inside a Wayland WM but then the application may not display correctly (blur, artifcats,...)

<comment><USER14> It is perhaps worth noting that while X.org is about a decade old, it is an implementation of the X Window System protocol which dates back to the mid 80s.

Suffice to say, quite a lot has changed in computer graphics/interfaces since that time, and most modern *nix operating systems end up circumventing quite a lot of X to offer modern features. Thus X brings quite a lot of legacy debt to the table which can't be easily removed.

<comment><USER15> Also, even back in the day, X wasn't considered the best tech around, at least by some. For example: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS) was around.

However NeWS' licensing was proprietary and X won out.

<comment><USER16> Gopher and HTTP had a similar situation. Gopher had a lot going for it, but the future licensing situation was unclear. HTTP was free, clear, and widespread by the time Gopher became GPL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Unfortunately, I think Canonical has lost their focus on the desktop user. Every version of Ubuntu since 16.04 has had major issues for me. I have given every one of them a chance to redeem themselves, right up to today trying 18.10. Still no dice...

For me, as boring as it sounds, Debian 9 (Stretch) with XFCE is rock solid as a daily driver. I'm not some fuddy duddy doing nothing but text editing either. I code every day with Golang and Postgres 11 using VSCode. I make music using Bitwig (and sometimes Ardour). I use Shotwell and Gimp for my photography. I run the latest Krita in the (probably vain) hope that I can become a better artist. And I write my always-in-progress novels with the latest Libreoffice 6.1 and FocusWriter.

So to the people asking for a distro that has a better policy on quality, I don't think you can go past Debian.

<comment><USER18> What major issues you encountered on 18.04?

<comment><USER19> Well for one, at release, if you mistype your password, and then type it correctly, gdm would crash and you had to hard reboot.

[https://askubuntu.com/questions/1031797/ubuntu-18-upgrade- fa...](https://askubuntu.com/questions/1031797/ubuntu-18-upgrade-failing-to- login-after-upgrade/1032472#1032472)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> A point that's not been discussed in the Ubuntu vs Debian discussion here is the difference in communities. A major reason I prefer Ubuntu - <USER2> specifically Kubuntu - is because I find the community around it warm, welcoming, positive, encouraging and inclusive, whereas I found the Debian- user email list cantankerous to say the least. I'm glad there's a place for the kinds of posters out there in the world, but it's not for me. Horses for courses, as we say in the UK. Linux isn't just a bunch of software that I can use, but a community which I am a part of.

<comment><USER20> OT: cantankerous - bad-tempered, argumentative, and uncooperative

thanks for the vocabulary expansion!

<comment><USER16> I (and probably the person you replied to) take all these words for granted. It didn't occur to me someone hadn't heard of them.

Check out the thesaurus entry for cantankerous for some more useful, related, and probably less common than I think terms: [https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/cantankerous](https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/cantankerous)

<comment><USER20> Thanks!

And I don't wish people to stop using less common words - I do enjoy an expanded vocabulary, just for the record. The comment was just to save others a couple of clicks :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm amazed at Canonical policy of releasing new versions with these kind of bugs open [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CosmicCuttlefish/ReleaseNotes#Known_...](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CosmicCuttlefish/ReleaseNotes#Known_issues)

Anyone care to recommend a distro which has better policy on quality? (for desktop usage)

<comment><USER22> Canonical need to be clearer that the LTS releases are the real releases, and the interim 6-monthly releases are more like developer previews.

<comment><USER21> Humm, didn't think of them that way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Personally, I've only ever had issues with Ubuntu Server and have since switched back to Debian.

I don't know if I'm extremely unlucky or if the choices I make are really _that_ bad;

\- I've hit a bug with amavisd and bitdefender[1]

\- Recently, Ubuntu pushed for 'netplan' instead of ifupdown and that didn't work with an empty bridge for LXC[2][3]

\- They broke a (convenience) script for remotely unlocking a LUKS rootfs[4]

\- postconf segfaulting every 5 minutes[5], nothing bad but it just looks ugly in the server logs

That's the major annoyances that I've experienced in the last 3 years. Never had anything like it on Debian. :/

[1] [https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/amavisd- new/+bug/1...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/amavisd- new/+bug/1525930/)

[2] [https://bugs.launchpad.net/netplan/+bug/1736975](https://bugs.launchpad.net/netplan/+bug/1736975)

[3] [https://bugs.launchpad.net/netplan/+bug/1773997](https://bugs.launchpad.net/netplan/+bug/1773997)

[4] [https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/busybox/+bug/16518...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/busybox/+bug/1651818)

[5] [https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/postfix/+bug/17534...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/postfix/+bug/1753470)

<comment><USER4> Most Debian packages are years behind the current stable release. This debate is as old as Ubuntu itself. It is the very reason Ubuntu exists. Stable, free, current: pick any two

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Great to see a new release. Looks like TLS 1.3 is supported OOTB.

To get nginx with TLS 1.3 support currently required compiling from source on Bionic. "The Ubuntu project is currently evaluating replacing OpenSSL 1.1.0 with backported OpenSSL 1.1.1 in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Bug 1797386"

Fingers crossed...

</comment><comment> irq-1 Lubuntu 18.10 will have LXQt -- it's still beta:

[https://lubuntu.me/cosmic-beta-released/](https://lubuntu.me/cosmic-beta- released/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Curiously I can't install it on a laptop so I've hot to go back to 16.04. None of the new versions want to install, get stuck at Installing grub2...

<comment><USER26> Are You online or offline while installing? 18.04 won't install in my laptop if I was not online.

Something needed to be downloaded to properly finish the setup process.

<comment><USER25> Online, though my internet doesn't work properly today, so it may be that... I'll try again later...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Two quick questions for anyone that has already tested it:

\- Does it include a dark theme by default, or not yet? :-/

\- Can you install flatpak with `apt-get` or do you need to install some apt sources first?

<comment><USER28> You can install any theme you want... This is linux, not macos. The point is for you to customize to your liking.

Same for flatpack, I don't see why you expect it to be bundled over snaps (which is included if I recall) or appimages...

<comment><USER27> > You can install any theme you want... This is linux, not macos. The point is > for you to customize to your liking.

Not that easy without security risks. See: [https://askubuntu.com/questions/854253/how-to-install-a- cust...](https://askubuntu.com/questions/854253/how-to-install-a-custom- gtk3-ubuntu-theme-without-having-to-add-a-ppa)

That's why I ask if it has been included by default, in the preferences menu or wherever the theme preferences are.

> Same for flatpack, I don't see why you expect it to be bundled over snaps

I didn't ask if it's bundled. I asked if it's in the default repos to install it remotely (opt-in) without changing the repos configuration.

<comment><USER29> You can install ubuntu-budgie-themes, they come with Pocillo, including a dark variant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Does 18.10 solve the Dropbox sync problem?

<comment><USER19> You mean the fact that Dropbox only supports unencrypted ext4 now?

No, that is Dropbox's new intentional behavior, they have no plans to resume sync support for linux.

<comment><USER31> Couldn't you just fake it in a container pretending it was ext4? Apart from the real question: why Dropbox when you can rsync and others.

<comment><USER19> ... because dropbox is cross-platform, user-friendly, doesn't require use of the commandline or configuring an upstream source, has a web interface, simple sharing with others, etc etc etc etc

Those kinds of "can't you just..." or "why use [easy user-friendly popular thing] when you could [complicated nerdy feature-bare alternative]" answers are rarely helpful and typically come across as condescending.

Yes, there are complicated containerized or fancy disk volume spoofing workarounds, and there are also alternatives (I like SpiderOak), but none are as simple as using dropbox was.

<comment><USER32> I got 1 TB for free with TransIP STACK. They use encryption on their end, I use on mine as well (Cryptomator). Its cross-platform (basically their clients are a fork from OwnCloud/NextCloud), there's a web interface, simple to share with others, and it works on every filesystem AFAIK. No vendor lock-in.

The only thing Dropbox has going for it, is that it was the first one which was both easy and popular when there was demand for it. That's all. Network effect example numero uno.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Hello fingerprint scanner!

<comment><USER31> Can you elaborate on that? I saw the fingerprint scanner libraries being added but does this add a significant amount of the hardware installed these days?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where to find beta testers for an OSX app? - <AUTHOR>

For a new app that I'm building, I've decided to embrace the Lean Startup approach, and give out lots of beta copies in exchange for feedback and bug reports.
My question is where's a good place to get a around 15-20 beta testers to play with my app?  There seem to be such services for mobile apps, but I can't seem to find a place to test out my desktop app.
P.S: In any case, if you want to play with the app (it's a very simple productivity app), leave me your email or contact me via my profile. <comment><USER2> You could always post on MacRumors' forums to see if anyone wants to beta your application.

However, I'd be willing to put it through its paces for you if you'd like. j.curcio <at> me <dot> com

</comment><comment><USER3> Any Mac forum usually has a good place for developers to post questions, and ask for beta tests.

Buy I'd be happy to give it a test dubcanada at gmail com

</comment><comment><USER4> Well, sounds fun. I would love to be a beta tester. email@example.com

<comment><USER5> Same here, firstname.lastname@example.com</comment></comment>


Gneiss – A spreadsheet programming tool - <AUTHOR> https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~shihpinc/gneiss.html <comment><USER2> This is cool because one of the most difficult things to do in these types of systems is represent context of a program at any given time: especially when most programs maintain their context using the stack (plus quite a few other abstractions depending on the programming methodology).

Using a spreadsheet as your "context" is one way to solve this problem.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there a link where I can download this from?

</comment><comment><USER4> I got to see Kerry present this work at UIST last year and it was very cool. The spreadsheet provides a great visual way to interact with both the API you're pulling data from and the web app you're ultimately providing it to. With a bit of hierarchical spreadsheet support (take a look at Eirik Bakke's work from CSAIL), this could easily replace all API documentation with examples you can play with instead of protocol descriptions.

</comment><comment><USER5> Will it be open-sourced?

</comment><comment><USER6> I was hoping this was a programming language to help do spreadsheets, not the other way around.

What would such a language look like? R? Pandas?

<comment><USER7> I'm glad you asked ;)

[https://github.com/robzyb/velis- gplv3/blob/master/velis/veli...](https://github.com/robzyb/velis- gplv3/blob/master/velis/velis.py#L101)</comment></comment>


Excess-3 - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess-3 <comment><USER2> I've read this three times, and I confess I still don't understand what Excess-3 is or how it's encoded. While this isn't my area of expertise, I have a degree in computer science so one might reasonably assume this should be trivial to comprehend.

This seems to be a challenge for Wikipedia: certain types of technical and mathematical material are explained in terms that are esoteric enough ("pseudo-tetrade"?) that only the people who already understand them can follow the explanation.

Even something simple enough to be taught at middle-school level (e.g. Fibonacci sequence) becomes a page of dense mathematics on the Wikipedia page: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number#Matrix_form](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number#Matrix_form)

I wonder if this can ever be addressed with some form of adaptive content?

<comment><USER3> A decimal digit is encoded in 4 bits as its usual encoding plus 3. Thus 0 is 0011 and 5 is 1000.

Some nice things which happen are…

\- the carry bit out of your 4 bit adder is the carry bit from the decimal add. (Your two digits plus their two threes makes sixteen)

\- you never have more than three identical bits in a row (5 if you concatenate digits). This can be important for any kind of self clocked data stream. Too long without transitions and you aren't really sure how many bits the sender meant because your clocks are a little off.

\- it has a reasonable way to represent negative numbers.

One significant downside was that on each add you had to take a 3 back out.</comment></comment>


David Brooks and the Mind of Edward Snowden - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2013/06/david-brooks-and-edward-snowden.html <comment><USER2> Anyone can write what David Brooks wrote, dodging anything of importance about the situation. Here, I'll do with David Brooks what he did with Snowden -- avoiding looking at the situation, slighting someone's character without knowing anything important. I'll just work with his Wikipedia page.

Here goes...

David Brooks sounds like an intelligent guy, but if you look at his background you see his true colors. Raised in suburban Philadelphia's ultra-wealthy Main Line, he started and has never wavered from an ultra-elite, insider status, leading to today living literally inside the Beltway, the quintessential system man, his status-quo "opinions" on every issue a foregone conclusion.

His intelligence sadly belies his consistent conclusion-first-supporting- argument-second reflexive responses. What else would you expect from someone so ingrained in the establishment -- Yale, Duke, University of Chicago, Wall Street Journal, New York Times. This man may have never said a single word to someone who didn't know where their next meal might come from, drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil with a creme fraiche brulee.

This nation could use discussion of important issues, debate, thoughtful exchange. He delivers rubber stamp answers. We as a nation lose out. While he can't single-handedly deserve credit for our slide into partisan bickering and bureaucracy, he proudly contributes more than his share. And why not, with lucrative speaking fees and book options paving his way.

If you want a pundit to unthinkingly deliver a preconceived notion supporting keeping things the way they are, David Brooks is your man. Sadly, if you want thoughtful consideration of complex issues, he'll stand in the way of whoever would deliver.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>---

There, how was that? Can I have a job as the knee-jerk conservative guy at the New York Times now?

<comment><USER3> I think you've actually described David Brooks pretty accurately.

<comment><USER4> Lest we forget, Reason nailed Brooks already: "Do something. Is there a two- word phrase in politics more loaded with disguised ideological content? Embedded within is both an urgent call for powerful government action and an up-front declaration that the policy details don't matter. The bigger the crisis, the more the urgency, the sparser the detail."

[http://reason.com/archives/2011/11/22/the- simpletons](http://reason.com/archives/2011/11/22/the-simpletons)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Surprised no one has pointed out the worst of Brooks' warped logic:

        > If federal security agencies can't do vast data sweeps, they will inevitably
        > revert to the older, more intrusive eavesdropping methods.

and

        > He betrayed the cause of open government. Every time there is a leak
        > like this, the powers that be close the circle of trust a little tighter.
        > They limit debate a little more.

This is exactly like something a friend from the former Soviet Union told me a few years ago. People in the community would self-censor, and moreso censor each other by saying explicitly: "If we don't censor amongst ourselves, the central authorities will be forced to step in and impose even tighter and more strict measures than we are under now."

This goes beyond a simple fear of consequences. It's a pervasive acceptance of the aggressor's malevolence in which the victim ritualistically cowtows in order to appease it.

This is ICD-9 code 995.81 "Battered person syndrome". [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battered_person_syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battered_person_syndrome) :

* The abused thinks that the violence was his or her fault.

* The abused has an inability to place the responsibility for the violence elsewhere.

* The abused has an irrational belief that the abuser is omnipresent and omniscient.

EDIT:

See also [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome) "a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors or abusers, sometimes to the point of defending them. [...] One commonly used hypothesis to explain the effect of Stockholm syndrome is based on Freudian theory. It suggests that the bonding is the individual's response to trauma in becoming a victim. Identifying with the aggressor is one way that the ego defends itself. When a victim believes the same values as the aggressor, they cease to be a threat."

<comment><USER6> Great quote ... and we are all kind of susceptible to Battered Person Syndrome, post 911, post Boston.

It takes a concerted effort to resist the feeling we are guilty : our government and military and legal systems are there to protect us.. if I'm noticed and singled out when I cross a border, for criticizing Cheney on twitter, then maybe its me.. maybe I'm out of line.

Maybe the huge embarrassment at having to take my belt off in public at TSA checkpoint was my fault.. after all, I chose to wear a belt that had a metal buckle.. I brought it upon myself.

I think this happened to David Brooks.. I think the state sponsored 'terror' scheme of putting hackers and journalists away for 10 years for acts of conscience.. has been effective in keeping Journalists in line. Speak out and you too could end up rotting in a cell.

<comment><USER5> I'm not from the Northeastern US, but it seems to me like it might not really be the old 9/11 and Boston traumas. Surveillance and harassment of reporters certainly didn't start then.

For example, in 1971 the Nixon administration broke into leak-conduit reporter Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office in an attempt to obtain medical files with which to publicly discredit him.

Of course, recent administrations have pushed for and obtained laws _requiring_ that all medical records be stored electronically.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg#Fielding_break...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg#Fielding_break- in)

<comment><USER7> Daniel Ellsberg turned himself over to the authorities, was released on bail, and saw the charges against him thrown out. Today I imagine he would be held indefinitely in degrading conditions, brutally interrogated, and sentenced to decades in prison if the government ever bothered bringing him to trial.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/09/h...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/09/has- the-us-become-the-kind-of-nation-from-which-you-have-to-seek-asylum/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It irks me a little how everyone keeps dropping the " _high-school dropout_ " bit. If you watch the video of him speaking [1], it is readily apparent he is no flunky. At any rate, he was taken under the wing of CIA/NSA/Booz Allen, who must have seen something in him, and given a highly specialized and job specific education.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yB3n9fu- rM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yB3n9fu-rM)

<comment><USER9> It's simple: it's an easy way to belittle him. It's part of the broad character assassination we always see when somebody tries to make waves.

How many people now hear of Julian Assange and think "he's kinda creepy and megalomaniacal?". They believe that precisely because the media relentlessly worked that image into every story about him.

<comment><USER10> _They believe that precisely because the media relentlessly worked that image into every story about him._

It's not hard to get a similar impression from his own writing and speaking, or from people that worked with him.

<comment><USER11> It's still a form of ad-hominem. Ignore the messenger, evaluate the message.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Brooks is the ultimate apologist for this kind of corrupt military, industrial, surveillance state crap. What a tool.

This article about Brooks (written by Greenwald and dating back to 2009) is pretty illuminating.

* David Brooks: our nation's premier expert warrior [http://www.salon.com/2009/09/25/brooks_6/](http://www.salon.com/2009/09/25/brooks_6/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Totally unimpressed with Brooks' character assassination piece.

This college dropout did what those at the NSA with PhDs failed to do in their responsibility to ensure that their organisation stayed within the spirit and laws of their mandate.

He did what Brooks failed to do as a journalist, ie. to draw attention to a worrying centralization of absolute power, and abuse of law.

Lets describe Benjamin Franklin, John Rockefeller, Walt Disney as high school dropouts, rather than look at what they achieved.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "The press is not among the elements of civil society that Brooks lists; and yet it is the one to which Snowden turned."

Real journalists should be ashamed of "pundits" such as Brooks

</comment><comment><USER13> Brooks deserved a response like this. Just looking at the very top comments voted up on the NYT:

> _This column reads like ... Nixon 's Enemies List._

> _This is something right out of Nixon 's secret tapes ranting about that > Daniel Ellsberg fellow._

> _Mr. Brooks, this is one of your more bizarre commentaries._

> _Brook 's article is nothing more than a shallow and poorly thought through > character assassination_

> _What a bizarre column._

> _Brooks column is the most awful piece of smear journalism I have ever > read._

To be honest, I'm almost surprised the NYT ran it. I've read a lot of his columns, never thought much of them, they just seemed fairly "normal". But this one is truly just bizarre, just bizarre. I really want to know what on earth he was thinking?

<comment><USER14> He's doing his part to help diffuse the situation. It's his show of loyalty to the powers that be. He's thought of as influential and this kind of thing is expected of him.

He won't be held accountable for this piece. He's done his duty and would never submit to any kind of rational questioning of his motives or his beliefs. I guess what it boils down to is that he's an actor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> What I can't understand is how anyone can respect the NY Times with stuff like this being published. This guy is one of the paper's star writers and he writes this kind of thing.

It's one thing to be conservative and wish to defend atrocities committed by governments, but it's completely another to do so using the kinds of techniques Brooks employs.

I'd go so far as to say that the NY Times is complicit in the moral wrongs that it spreads propaganda to help cover up.

</comment><comment><USER15> David Brooks is a glorified typist. What the hell does he know about anything, let alone the human mind.

</comment><comment><USER16> The Rockwell painting mentioned in the article for anyone who is interested: [http://www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western- Art/27_Popula...](http://www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western- Art/27_Popular_Modern-Realism/Rockwell/Rockwell_1943_'Four- Freedoms'_Speech.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER17> One story here is about what a "hacker" is. What the word represents, what people who identify with it value, and what role those people play in private industry, in government, and in the military/security/intelligence world.

Here on Hacker News, where most of the top stories, threads and comments are favorable to Edward Snowden, you might have the impression that there's some unspoken "hacker code" just below the surface, encompasing ideals like sharing source, promoting freedom of expression and privacy, understood by anyone whose work closely concerns the internet.

When it comes to the intelligence community, this impression would be sorely mistaken. If you are a regular on hacker news, NSA types already have a stereotype for people like you:

"Remember, folks, IT weenies are the code-clerks of the 21st century" [https://twitter.com/20committee/statuses/343812020992372736](https://twitter.com/20committee/statuses/343812020992372736)

After this incident, they'll probably step up efforts to keep people who sympathize with these sorts of values away from classified information. They'll find plenty of other able candidates who don't share these values.

[http://qz.com/92509/edward-snowdens-lesson-to-both- businesse...](http://qz.com/92509/edward-snowdens-lesson-to-both-businesses- and-the-nsa-your-it-people-are-your-biggest-risk/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Brooks's entire business model is getting people to respond to what he writes, however stupid it is. "Trolling for money" (a trite observation, but there it is). It's unfortunate that even sound rebuttals like this one feed into the cycle that makes him a successful columnist.

</comment><comment><USER19> Ha, that's nothing. Just wait till Friedman weighs in.

</comment><comment><USER20> _Is the information so grave that it's worth betraying an oath, circumventing the established decision-making procedures, unilaterally exposing secrets that can never be reclassified?_

Isn't the fact that this story has had such strong "legs" a great indication that this act of whistle blowing was justified?

</comment><comment><USER21> Thank you for including the name of the pundit (David Brooks) in the link. Saves me the effort of opening link.

</comment><comment><USER22> What I can't figure out is how it always takes 1000 words for David Brooks to explain a concept simple enough to convey in 10. I'm not that big of a fan of the TL;DR...but with David Brooks, you don't actually gain anything by reading the whole thing.

</comment><comment><USER23> With his column David Brooks loses his title of "The Liberals' Favorite Conservative."

New title: "Betrayer of a Genuine American Hero." And I can think of worse.

</comment><comment><USER24> David Brooks is a well-known institutionalist.

This is why you cannot listen to him about when the government behaves badly.

</comment><comment><USER25> I tend to think of this immediate reversion to _ad hominem_ attacks as an extension of the bike-shedding impulse.

Is PRISM a good idea? Did Edward Snowden do the right thing? Where is the line between unacceptable disclosures (that should be punished severely) and, e.g., the Pentagon Papers. These are complex issues and few people are courageous enough to take a stand on them, especially under their real names. There's just too much uncertainty. I sure as hell don't know what the right answer is, on many of these questions.

But everyone feels entitled to an opinion of whether Julian Assange is "creepy", "arrogant", et cetera.

As a lesser degree of whistleblower, I went through something similar. People make all kinds of speculations about why you did what you did, and they're usually far off the mark. Granted, in my case I made some mistakes along the way. For one example, I probably should not have implored Google to "choke on a taint" at one point (if only because it distracted attention away from the valid message there) even if, on that particular issue, my indignation was justified.

People get into bike-shedding discussions about personalities and possible motivations because it's a lot easier than discussing the underlying and often more complicated issues.

</comment><comment><USER26> "betrayed the Constitution. The founders did not create the United States so that some solitary 29-year-old could make unilateral decisions about what should be exposed."

Actually, if you look at the Constitution, it says - "The Congress shall have power...To declare War...To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years...To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions...To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia"

If the US was going to have a permanent standing army, an intelligence service monitoring its citizens and so forth, why specifically limit appropriations to two years? Why place power in Congress's hands? Why have citizen's militias repelling foreign invasions?

The US has a professional army more akin to Czarist Russia than anything the founder's imagined.

I never really thought that much about Ai Weiwei, but what he just said is right. There's really no fundamental difference between the kinds of monitoring the government of China does and what the US is doing with things like PRISM.

</comment><comment><USER27> The mind of a Savior of Humanity.

<comment><USER28> HN Poll: Are you `properly embedded in gently `gradated' authoritative structures'?

Who'd be a better friend. Choose one:

Edward Snowdan: unmediated, indeferent, catalyst `Savior of Humanity'?

or

David Brooks: `mediated', `deferent', genuflecting despicable toady?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is going on at Apple? - <AUTHOR> The recent quality of software coming out of Apple is atrocious. I now have to routinely restart my iPhone several times a day just to open applications like Mail or iBooks. Photos that I've taken are randomly removed from the photos app only to show up days later (and sometimes not at all). After hanging up a phone call my phone continues to vibrate until the caller gets sent to voicemail. Not to mention the security issues with OS X.
And these are just the issues I can think of off the top of my head and that I've had direct experience with. If I produced even one bug of this severity I'm pretty sure my employer would never let me work on anything important again.
Has something changed internally at Apple that's caused this? <comment><USER2> Apple better get their act together. Their image that Steve Jobs fought so hard to create has been slipping since he passed. One problem is that the other options aren't great (depending on what you're looking at). In terms of operating systems, if Windows 10 becomes the better option, that's pretty bad. Because Windows 10 is bad.

<comment><USER3> If MS fixes Edge completely (it's already pretty good) and improves their design (on the way with this "fluent"[0] stuff) and also creates a laptop with just as good trackpad.

I think then people will actually switch back to Windows.

[0] [https://fluent.microsoft.com/](https://fluent.microsoft.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> No code reviews. One single developer owns a lot of code. Extremely tied deadlines with very high expectations. Things get pushed out all the time. No real team work. Just code in time, send it to QA, they'll find 10000 bugs... problem, you only have a week to fix everything. Guess what, *hit gets pushed out.

In other words, there's no time to right quality code at Apple. Either you're an extremely talented and organized developer, or, you'll keep shipping ugly code.

<comment><USER5> I would've thought a company with the near-infinite resources they have strove really hard to hire extremely talented and organized developers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yep. Steve Jobs died. There hasn't been a bulldog like him to keep things on the rails. It's just taken this long for the cracks to show.

I commented on this here as well. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15805100](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15805100)

I switched to Windows 10. The move is painful, to say the least.

</comment><comment><USER7> Have you tried 'Reset All Settings'? This solved a ton of my woes and my 2.5 year old iPhone 6S so much faster.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll give it a try. I have a 6S as well.

<comment><USER8> Is there a way to remove or bypass Apple ID from the iPhone x I found one in Central Park and kept it on me as I commute through the park every day for 3 weeks with no call or text sent to the phone so I decided to restore it since I did not know the passcode

<comment><USER9> What you have there sir, is called stolen property.

It doesn't matter that you didn't steal it. You took it, and didn't turn it in as lost property to a police station, therefore, you stole it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I agree quality has gone down.

But new features abound, and while you may not need all of them, some are great.

My advice is to keep up to date on 1 device.

Browse photos and other things into a separate device that doesn't update to the latest and greatest.</comment>


Show HN: Zero-fees global international money transfers, Magno - <AUTHOR> http://www.magnocash.com <comment><USER2> This is their 8th "Show HN" for this in the last 13 days.</comment>


Ask HN: What to do when CloudFlare is on an Adult block list - <AUTHOR> We got a call this morning from a client that couldn't access his website from his home broadband (Sky UK). After an hour of investigation it turned out that one of the IPs that CloudFlare returns for the DNS query for the site is on an "Adult Content" blocklist.
Moving off CloudFlare is difficult now as Google has identified the clients site as SSL and the client doesn't have the budget for the $20 a month it costs to add SSL to Heroku.
I have contacted CloudFlare about this, but thought I'd mention to HN that some of the CloudFlare IPs are blocked in the UK on certain ISPs. <comment><USER2> Shared SSL certificates from CloudFlare are also loaded with porn sites. For [https://www.binarysludge.com](https://www.binarysludge.com)

SANs: sni29282.cloudflaressl.com, _.askporno.com,_.binarysludge.com, _.dzej.eu,_.grem.eu, _.hmtransportation.com,_.joowaal.com, _.kuwaitinfo.info,_.le-foie-gras.eu, _.mnmjewellery.com,_.mobxnxx.com, _.philippines2050.com,_.pornfax.com, _.pornhideaway.com,_.pornmovies101.com, _.shokweb.com,_.tennistemptation.lt, _.tennistt.lt,_.the-porn-videos.com, _.timenewroman.com,_.tutoringunlimited.com, askporno.com, binarysludge.com, dzej.eu, grem.eu, hmtransportation.com, joowaal.com, kuwaitinfo.info, le-foie- gras.eu, mnmjewellery.com, mobxnxx.com, philippines2050.com, pornfax.com, pornhideaway.com, pornmovies101.com, shokweb.com, tennistemptation.lt, tennistt.lt, the-porn-videos.com, timenewroman.com, tutoringunlimited.com

[https://www.sslshopper.com/ssl- checker.html#hostname=https:/...](https://www.sslshopper.com/ssl- checker.html#hostname=https://www.binarysludge.com)

Time to finally get that StartSSL cert I've been talking about...

<comment><USER3> Wouldn't help in general. Firstly, lots of sites on Sky's default block list _aren 't_ porn.

Secondly, StartSSL is a terrible certificate authority who charges for revocations (even after Heartbleed) in clear contravention of CA/B Forum guidelines. Perhaps wait for Let's Encrypt later in the year instead.

Thirdly, this also affects shared hosting. We are now out of IPv4 addresses in RIPE, and we need encryption everywhere - IPv6 is one solution but SNI and shared hosting is an essential transitional tool. That's why CloudFlare have deployed it the way they have. Censorship simply can't be allowed to stand in the way.

Sky need to fix their shit here, which is to say, turn it back off by default.

<comment><USER4> > charges for revocations (even after Heartbleed) in clear contravention of > CA/B Forum guidelines

The guidelines don't state that revocations must be free of charge, where are you getting that from?

<comment><USER5> Point 184.108.40.206 states that "the CA Will revoke the Certificate for any of the reasons specified in these Requirements". This is a warranty made by the CA towards all "Certificate Beneficiaries", which includes "All Relying Parties who reasonably rely on a Valid Certificate", i.e. the general public.

Unfortunately, it is not made absolutely clear what "reasons specified in these Requirements" means. There are a couple of occurrences of "the CA SHALL revoke if X", but these are obviously not binding.

However, nowhere does it say that failure to pay on the side of the certificate recipient would be a reason for the CA not to do their job. I would also find it very weird if the quality of warranties made by a CA towards me depended on someone else paying the CA some money – in other words, I'm fine with the CA charging its customers to revoke certs, I'm not fine with the CA not revoking if its customers fail to pay.

EDIT: Link to PDF: [https://cabforum.org/wp- content/uploads/BRv1.2.3.pdf](https://cabforum.org/wp- content/uploads/BRv1.2.3.pdf)

<comment><USER4> But if you look at the bylaws of the CA/B forum [1], they explicitly exclude discussion of "pricing policies, pricing formulas, prices or other terms of sale" as part of their mandate.

So we can't assume a position for or against revocation charges - it's just not within the scope of the guidelines. Which are non-binding and advisory anyway.

[1] [https://cabforum.org/wp-content/uploads/CA-Browser-Forum- Byl...](https://cabforum.org/wp-content/uploads/CA-Browser-Forum- Bylaws-v.1.2.pdf)

<comment><USER5> I'm not against revocation charges per se, I'm against charges being paid prior to revocation. So a CA including something like "if we have revoke this cert, you have to pay 20$, we will revoke under these circumstances: …" would be perfectly fine with me – terms in legal contracts requiring one party to pay a certain amount if certain situations arise are not uncommon, so I don't think this would have legal issues.

My problem is really that a CA says "we know this cert is bad but won't revoke it, sorry about that", just because the owner of the cert (someone absolutely irrelevant to me) doesn't pay up.

<comment><USER4> Could you outline a scenario where you make a request that someone else's certificate be revoked, yet it's of such little importance that you refuse to pay the $25 fee that may possibly be charged?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You can get the client to disable this via the My Sky page here: [https://secure.sky.com/mysky-homepage/indexb](https://secure.sky.com/mysky- homepage/indexb)

This is opt-in so they clicked a button somewhere when Sky asked them if they wanted adult content blocking.

If anyone opts in to blocking; it's their funeral. It doesn't work. Sky's blocking even kills ThinkPad wiki.

<comment><AUTHOR> It seems that for the three people I have contacted, they have no recollection of being opted in to this adult blocking service

<comment><USER6> It asks you when you first connect the router. I suspect most people you have contacted are likely to have subconciously (or thoughtlessly) opted in.

If you let me know the URL, I can test from here as I'm on the end of a Sky connection without the opt in blocking so that would confirm if it is that or not.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can't let you know the URL, but [http://medfirstalert.com/](http://medfirstalert.com/) is one of the other seemingly okay domains on this IP

<comment><USER6> That's fair.

The domain above resolves fine with and without the block: [http://i.imgur.com/AIqtrxF.png](http://i.imgur.com/AIqtrxF.png)

DNS cache was flushed between each hit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd spin it differently - "Sky has put some of your site on the Adult block list."

This way you make it clear that it is Sky's fault and to make it work you just have to opt-out of the adult blacklist.

<comment><USER8> Getting the IPs remoed from Sky's list might be a viable solution, but I think just opting out of the adult blacklist isn't. The client probably cares substantially about whether his site is visible to the (I assume) many people in the UK who haven't opted out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does anybody else think that $20 a month for a SSL certificate is way too much, Heroku or not? I can get a domain-validated SSL certificate for $5.95 _per year_ and even providers of shared hosting are able to install it at no cost (WebFaction and NearlyFreeSpeech come to mind).

<comment><USER10> Heroku doesn't do a great job explaining what that $20/mo provides - it's not for a SSL certificate. It's for a SSL terminating load balancer that sits in front of your app instances.

<comment><USER11> That's still very expensive, Cloudflare offers it for free, with a free certificate.

<comment><USER12> That Cloudflare offers it for free doesn't change the economics for everyone else. They do a lot for free that anyone else would charge for. IP allocations are not free, extra load balancers are not free, labor to set up custom certs on load balancers is not free. If you put a CDN in front of your site and want SSL termination on it, then _every_ node in every location needs to have that cert installed and potentially an extra IP address for it, each. Companies aren't charging extra for SSL solely because they think they can gouge you on it; it's really not free to deploy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If it is his home broadband, why not get your client to speak to sky and opt- out of the adult blacklist.

<comment><AUTHOR> He's worried that other Sky broadband customers cannot access his site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Happily CloudFlare has offices in the UK, so it is a good thing you brought this issue up with them. I'm sure they'll have some quick mechanisms to fix this already.

</comment><comment><USER15> Maybe you can contact the shitty-blacklist and inform them ?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm guessing that there is actually Adult content on this IP, but also 100s of other websites.

<comment><USER15> You can block the domain-name ?

The same thing can be said for shared-hosting.

Even vps recycle ips(ec2) ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Collateral damage from David Cameron putting pressure on ISPs to block inappropriate content.

<comment><USER6> Actually this is likely Sky's opt-in adult content filtering. It really isn't mandatory.

Any content blocking is prone to false positives and people will learn that eventually.

<comment><USER17> Sky's filtering is now opt- _out_ :

> What we're doing now is simply making sure that the automatic position of > Sky Broadband Shield is the safest one for all – that's 'on', unless > customers choose otherwise.

src: [https://corporate.sky.com/media-centre/our-blog/2015/sky- bro...](https://corporate.sky.com/media-centre/our-blog/2015/sky-broadband- shield-rolling-out-to-all-our-customers)

<comment><USER18> When the whole opt-in opt-out thing hit the news I remember all the press was insisting it was opt-in. Simply insisting, then basing their arguments off that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Buy a cheap SSL cert from RapidSSL ($11/year via namecheap). Get $5 DigitalOcean server, and reverse proxy whatever you're serving with nginx. Done for $5/month.

Bonus points: get the guy a private VPN on there too.

</comment><comment><USER20> Why did it take an hour of investigating -- I mean, What message was the client getting from the filter? (And why are clients so terrible at reportin error messages?)

I submitted the page you get from BT if you try to visit KAT. It might be useful if there's a collection of similar pages somewhere?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8989964](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8989964)

<comment><AUTHOR> We had to find some more people on the same ISP to find it was SKY that was the problem

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> You haven't really stated why they're using CloudFlare - is it for the free TLS?

To be honest if they can't afford the $240/year to get TLS added to Heroku perhaps they've got bigger problems?</comment>


Ask HN: What is the lifespan of a Raspberry Pi Model A+? - <AUTHOR> I know the SD Card has a defined period of useful life. Besides that, if you run this model continuously, How long will it las? <comment><USER2> There are reliability estimates based on parts. The one I am slightly familiar is a military standard MIL-HDBK-217F [https://www.google.com/search?q=+MIL- HDBK-217F&ie=utf-8&oe=u...](https://www.google.com/search?q=+MIL- HDBK-217F&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)

Doing some searching turns up an online calculator: [http://aldservice.com/en/Reliability-Software/free-mtbf- calc...](http://aldservice.com/en/Reliability-Software/free-mtbf- calculator.html)

FWIW, my expectation is that the above will give you a very precise, but totally inaccurate, number.

The problem is:

1\. MTBF (and other reliability estimates) are based on a statistical sample of a large number of items. If your number of items is small(ish), your statistics become useless.

2\. MTBF is not actually computable until you have a meaningful number of failures.

3\. Failure rates are very poorly understood, so projecting failure rates before they occur is difficult.

4\. Projecting the failure rate of a very complex item (recursively - not only a RPi, but the processor and memory in the RPi) based on estimated failure rates of each individual part that makes up the item is a combinatorial nightmare.

To support my assertions above, see Feynman's Appendix to the Rogers Commission Report on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident [http://www.ralentz.com/old/space/feynman- report.html](http://www.ralentz.com/old/space/feynman-report.html) NASA spent a large fortune estimating the reliability of the space shuttle and was off by several orders of magnitude. Granted, the space shuttle was more complex than a RPi, but expect your estimates, based on the above calculations, to be equivalently (in)accurate.</comment>


Mandriva Linux 2010 Review and Commentary - Linux Critic - <AUTHOR> http://linuxcritic.com/stories/20-Mandriva-Linux-2010-Review-and-Commentary.html <comment><USER2> What is the defining characteristic of Mandriva that sets it apart from Ubuntu and Fedora?

(As an aside, I think one of the worst things to happen to Mandrake/Mandriva was the awful naming choice.)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The naming came from Mandrake's purchase of Connectiva which happened a number of years ago, I agree. Bad name choice. this is a great distro though.</comment>


The Evolution of Bitcoin Hardware [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~mbtaylor/papers/Taylor_Bitcoin_IEEE_Computer_2017.pdf <comment><USER2> Nice history of money printing machines. Very nice and very easy FPGA application back then, just 2 sha256 pipes.

Is there something worth pursuing nowadays for FPGAs? Machine learning?

<comment><USER3> FPGAs are worth it for anything that's too fast for software and is too niche for an ASIC. In my experience they are very popular for "pro tools" which are too specialized and don't have a large enough volume to justify creating an ASIC and are so expensive that the price of the BoM is not really a concern. For instance I work on products that do a lot of video processing on FPGAs (way too high bandwidth for software, too specialized for an ASIC).

Now if you look at consumer electronics you obviously won't find many FPGAs. Too expensive, too power hungry, too costly and at large scales ASICs are a better match.

<comment><USER4> Bernie Meyers of IBM once told me that he believed FPGA would be the future of Moore's law. he felt strongly that they provided a performance and flexibility tradeoff that made them ideal for using in virtually all servers as coprocessors for certain functions. The fact that the FPGA code can be audited was a plus as well.

<comment><USER3> I'm curious about what Intel will do now that they own Altera. Maybe they'll be able to push FPGA technology into mainstream CPUs.

<comment><USER2> Not sure about economics, but separate PCIe card with FPGA and it's own storage is not that hard to build. Such setup could accelerate big data operations for sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Amazing what innovations naturally spring out from nothing once the incentives are in place.

<comment><USER6> There's absolutely 0 innovation in creating new hardware for Bitcoin mining: the only thing that stop us from having it is the economies of scale. Please stop mistaking one for another.

<comment><USER5> I think bias is making you more unfair than you need to be.

<comment><USER3> I think he's being fair. The real difficulty in making an ASIC is justifying the huge price to start production. The good old "the first chip is worth $10 millions, the second is worth $5" or something like that.

Designing a bitcoin mining IP is not exactly difficult, it's basically two rounds of SHA-256. It's still some work of course, but as far as ASICs are concerned it's very low on the difficulty scale.

<comment><USER7> It took much less money than that to develop the first Bitcoin ASICs.

 _~150k USD for 130nm, 200-300k USD for 110nm, and ~500k USD for 65nm, as of 2013_ [http://blog.zorinaq.com/asic-development-costs-are-lower- tha...](http://blog.zorinaq.com/asic-development-costs-are-lower-than-you- think/)

<comment><USER8> I doubt that 65nm would be able to beat a GPU (which are all 16nm class or better) at the task however. If you make an ASIC but if the $3000 Titan V is more power efficient anyway, then you've wasted your time and money.

65nm and other "old node" designs primarily are about mass-manufacturing a design. They probably can beat an FPGA in cost and margins once mass produced. But for performance and power-efficiency, you gotta be way better. Maybe 28nm or 22nm class or better to beat the GPUs (or even standard CPUs like EPYC and the SHA256 accelerators built into it)

Also, you gotta beat your competition. If someone else makes a 10nm-class BTC ASIC ([https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/31/samsung-confirms-asic- chip...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/31/samsung-confirms-asic-chips/)), then your 28nm or 22nm design is obsolete.

<comment><USER7> A 65nm or even 130nm Bitcoin ASIC handily beats a 16nm GPU at mining, in terms of perf per watt and perf per dollars. And by handily I mean 1 or 2 orders of magnitude.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How long will it take till I can buy GPUs again?

<comment><USER10> GPUs are no longer used for Bitcoin mining. The recent GPU shortage is caused by the raise of thousands of little altcoins. It's obviously unsustainable, and it's going to end in a big crash, and all these GPUs will flood the market. It's hard to predict when it's going to happen (I'm guessing this year), but if you're patient you will be able to buy GPUs very cheaply.

<comment><USER11> I wouldn't consider Ethereum to be "a little altcoin". While there may be a correction in the market, I don't think it will be "bitcoin vs. everything else"; at this point it would probably be all cryptocurrencies, or something more specific (individual coins, or classes, but probably not "scrypt-based coins as a class")

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Michael Bedford Taylor misrepresents the most important aspect of these "ASIC clouds" and the bitcoin algorithm; the puzzle of the algorithm is incredibly simple. Every implementation of a Bitcoin miner simply generates a bunch of random guesses to the hash equation.

On page 60, graph (a) Professor Taylor uses distorted manipulative log charts for finance.

The chart on page 61 is the most insanely manipulative chart I could ever imagine to represent the history and progression of Bitcoin mining in relation to hardware speed.

Try charting

      watts per block over time.

      ROI in BTC for a core i5 over time

      newly minted coins per user over time

Michael also doesn't understand or chooses to misinform the reader and the journal about "computational demand scaling with the number of users"

The Bitcoin network grows increasingly inefficient with any additional computer hash power added, and as more users use it, it clogs due to limited bandwidth and inefficiencies of the algorithm. Additional hardware speed does nothing to scale with network growth, actually the complete opposite occurs as it requires more (energy, computer resources) to do the same thing (transactions) per second for less (rewards per user). The result of all these aspects point towards a system of rules that exploits new, uninformed users to benefit "early adopters".

Sad but not surprising to realize this guy is a professor at the University of Washington.

Is Michael Bedford Taylor promoting something here through intentional misdirection and omission of basic facts to manipulate readers?

Would Professor Michael Bedford Taylor be under a conflict of interest if he sells Bitcoins?

<comment><USER13> Using log charts is appropriate for data that spans multiple orders of magnitude. I don't know why you complain about distortion, unless you think the data itself is wrong?

<comment><USER12> The log chart is used to hide volatility.

<comment><USER13> I guess it depends on how you are used to eyeball volatility, but for relative swings (percentages) log charts are actually best, since constant differences in the chart correspond to constant percentages.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Seven Figure Seattle – Mapping King County Real Estate Sales - <AUTHOR> http://www.seattlejoy.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Made with Leaflet, and data sourced from King County GIS.

Github repo here: [https://github.com/michaelcolenso/seattlejoy](https://github.com/michaelcolenso/seattlejoy)</comment>


Report: Facebook considering NYSE proposal for stock listing, source says - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/23/us-facebook-nyse-idUSBRE84M1CI20120523

<comment><USER2> IF something like this was possible, would they just change the exchange where FB is listed or will they somehow annual the first IPO and redo the entire thing?

<comment><USER3> I upvoted, but wanted to add that I'm interested in knowing this as well. Is there anyone that could speak to how a company would approach moving from one stock exchange to another?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I would pay $X for Y (July 2018) - <AUTHOR> I would pay $15/month to join a virtual Robinhood traders chat room.
I would pay $3/month for google spreadsheet custom macro tutorial videos.
I would pay $1/month for 3 legitimate cookbook suggestions per month. <comment><USER2> I would pay $50/mo for a website that showed me apartment/real estate listings within some driving time of a specified location.</comment>


Ask HN: To-Do/GTD extensions for browsers? - <AUTHOR> I have seen many recommendations for CLI tools for ToDo/GTD workflows but not many for the browser. Do you use your browser (offline, locally) as a platform to keep track of your tasks? <comment><USER2> I use a web app (Asana) for GTD because I can access it from anywhere and it's always up to date. The mobile app can be used offline and syncs back up when you have a connection again.

An additional browser extension wouldn't be much help since the app is always open and just a cmd-tab cmd-~ or a double tap of the home button plus a few swipes away from what I'm currrently doing.</comment>


Show HN: GlyphSearch – Search for icons from Font Awesome, Glyphicons, Ionicons - <AUTHOR> http://glyphsearch.com/

<comment> c-oreills See also: [http://fontello.com/](http://fontello.com/)

Lets you download a webfont with the glyphs you specify.

</comment><comment><USER2> How serendipitous. I'm heavily using Font Awesome at the moment, and finding the right search terms to use has been kind of frustrating. Not super frustrating, but this will definitely save me time!

PS. Might I suggest adding Font Awesome More? [1] I'm not sure it is still maintained, but it has a bunch of very nice icons that the base Font Awesome doesn't.

[1] [https://www.riversports.com/hg/plugins/font-awesome- more/doc...](https://www.riversports.com/hg/plugins/font-awesome-more/docs/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the heads up about Font Awesome More. Looking to add any other libraries that are in heavy use out there.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I made this to scratch an (admittedly very mild) itch I've had for some time. But I'm betting some of you have had the same itch.

I posted some details about GlyphSearch here: [http://thomaspark.me/2013/11/glyphsearch-improving-the- searc...](http://thomaspark.me/2013/11/glyphsearch-improving-the-search-for- icon-fonts/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Did you checked [http://blendme.in/](http://blendme.in/). BTW this is directly in Photoshop!

</comment><comment><USER4> Great! As neat as Icomoon is, this is a much needed feature. Could you add the other icon sets from Icomoon?

</comment><comment><USER5> Super! Saves so much time looking through all those folders.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is awesome! Really looking forward to use this!

</comment><comment><USER7> Great. Thanks. I hope the list will grow and grow.

</comment><comment><USER8> Love this!</comment>


Clue: an ANSI C compiler targeting high level languages - <AUTHOR> http://cluecc.sourceforge.net/ <comment><USER2>
      What's the 'c' target? That's C code emitted by Clue. That is, we're compiling C into C. Clue's output code uses double precision floats for all numbers, but even then it's impressively fast.

To me that sounds like they're changing the program semantics. Switching to different types of floats will change your program.

<comment><USER3> I've just tried a simple case in which a program prints the output of an integer division and the output of an integer addition which overflows in 32-bit integers.

       (Clue C version)
        7/3 is 2, remainder is 1
        2147483648 + 2147483649 is 1
        The sum 1 is greater than 2147483648

       (pure GCC version)
        7/3 is 2, remainder is 1
        2147483648 + 2147483649 is 1
        The sum 1 is less or equal to 2147483648

       (of program)
        #include <stdio.h>

       void show_division(int x, int y);
       void show_division(int x, int y) {
          printf("%d/%d is %d, remainder is %d\n", x, y, x/y,   x%y);
        }

       void show_add(unsigned int x, unsigned int y);
       void show_add(unsigned int x, unsigned int y) {
          unsigned int z = x + y;
          printf("%u + %u is %u\n", x, y, z);
          if( z > x ) {
            printf("The sum %u is greater than %u\n", z, x);
          }
          else {
            printf("The sum %u is less or equal to %u\n", z, x);
          }
       }

      int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
         show_division(7, 3);
         show_add(0x80000000u, 0x80000001u);
         return 0;
       }

The division rounds in the expected way expected because the intermediate result is cast to integer; the addition overflows only internally in printf.

However, if you expect any particular overflow behaviour of your C integers, chances are you're not following ISO C to the letter. ISO C doesn't even guarantee two's complement representation of integers.

[edit: layout] [edit again: layout, wishing there was a preview]

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't really get it, is it 1) C language that gets translated into other languages ? 2) A C compiler optimized for the high level languages mentioned ? 3) Something else ?

<comment><USER3> It compiles C programs to perl or to Lua or to Java or to Lisp.

The author seems to hope that improvements in JIT technology will finally make the JIT-compiled translated programs faster than the original C program. That sounds optimistic to me, but I see two areas where this may be of use:

1\. Portable execution of C code in a sand box on a web client -- just like Google Native Client, the provider of a program needs to change its build process, but the security of the VM is easier to check.

2\. Checking that what you've written is ANSI/ISO C and not just, say, C for gcc on little-endian 32-bit x86 machines.

<comment><USER5> You are right on with most of what ou said. However, from the project description page, the author states the purpose as more of a "because we can! its a cool hack!" and talks about even wanting to target shell script eventually. It is just a fun hack!

<comment><USER3> And UNIX was a fun hack to play "Spacewar" :)

<comment><USER6> That's Space Travel: [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Space_Travel_...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Space_Travel_\(video_game\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It is refreshing to see a C project that is not totally obsessed with premature optimization.

But nonetheless interesting to watch the improvements in the JIT engineering.

</comment><comment><USER8> Unfortunate name collision: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLU_(programming_language)>

</comment><comment><USER9> Very neat hack! I am surprised Java did as well as it did.

</comment><comment><USER10> Wouldn't it be smarter to target jvm/parrot/clr directly instead of languages on top of them? Afaik it should still get full JIT optimization and portability, which should be major points.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think the reverse of this would be pretty useful. I'm pretty sure it exists for perl - would be nice for php also.

<comment><USER12> If I may self-promote a little bit:

<http://phpcompiler.org>

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> epic shave</comment>


Experiments find higher social class more likely to have inflated sense of skill - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/science/social-class-confidence.html <comment><USER3> When I took a social psychology class long ago, they mentioned that the most significant cultural difference between Canadians and Americans was that Americans take overconfidence as a sign of competence whereas Canadians perceive it as an attempt to intimidate or take advantage of someone.

Seems to apply to this article as well. Maybe 'high-class' overconfident people become more convincing as wealth disparity widens due to the magic sauce they must obviously possess to be so rich in the first place. It's like Gob's bragging from Arrested Development: "The guy in the $4,000 suit is holding the elevator for a guy who doesn't make that in three months. Come on!"

I'm having a hard time finding a paper about the US/Canada difference now though, so maybe I'm wrong.

<comment><USER4> Anecdote from when I was in China. My friend and I were walking down the street in Jinan (a big city though not one of the Major Chinese cities - <USER2> Pittsburgh in the US) when a yellow Ferrari fishtailed around the corner, squealing its tires and speeding away down the street. My immediate reaction - which I imagine to be the average American reaction - was "what an asshole". However, the Chinese around us on the street had quite a different reaction: "wow what a cool guy/car". Not really sure what this means about the perceptions of displays of status between the two cultures, but it's something that has stuck with me ever since.

<comment><USER5> Same in India. Wealth is seen as a status symbol. The cultures value it, and whoever has more is considered to be high status.

Its not hard to see why though. In industrializing countries with a lot of income inequality, wealth is rare, and anyone who has that is seen as either getting it through hard work, or getting it via their parents' hard work.

BTW, Americans are hardly better, see all the yatches and private jets that corporate executives own.

<comment><USER6> >Its not hard to see why though. In industrializing countries with a lot of income inequality, wealth is rare, and anyone who has that is seen as either getting it through hard work, or getting it via their parents' hard work.

I see it more that in these societies, the difference in quality of life between being rich or poor can literally make the difference between living or dying. In those conditions, the first thing you probably care about when assessing a potential partner or friend is whether they have clean shelter and know where their next meal is coming from, so the signaling value of money is extremely high. Whether they have excellent taste in music is a long way down the list.

In most developed societies, the difference between being lower middle class or upper middle class is relatively minor, and gives people the luxury to consider conspicuous displays of wealth to be crass, and to choose partners based on more subtle characteristics, like their ability to write funny comments.

<comment><USER5> That definitely makes sense.

On a similar vein, wealth often also brings protection against the State which often abuses its own citizens (e.g. corrupt Government and police officers). This does happen in the US as well (e.g. violence against African Americans) but not to the same extent.

<comment><USER6> It brings protection in general. Protection against sickness, famine, servitude, and so on. The more present these threats are, the more valuable the signaling power of money becomes.

In a world where most people are infected by a zombie virus, it might become very important to be able to signal that you're not infected. In this world, the fact that I'm not infected by a zombie virus is literally one of the least interesting things about me and will rarely warrant even a passing mention.

Likewise, to me, your t-shirt that just says the word GUCCI in massive letters tells me that you have rich parents and no aesthetic sense. In other circumstances, to other people, it might signal that their quality of life could be improved many times over by being with this person.

The irony becomes that these signals of disposable wealth can be so coveted that in certain places, people's priorities will shift such that they'll sacrifice all areas of their lives, eat nothing but the cheapest instant noodles, and spend a year's savings on, say, a Louis Vuitton wallet which, sadly, they'll no longer have any money to put in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Distrust of overconfident people is a skill that needs to be taught. A class on this might include film clips of famous con men and failures, from Bernie Madoff to Shai Agassi.

Here's Bernie Madoff, after he was a crook but before he was caught.[1]

Here's Shai Agassi, before Better Place went bust spending about half a billion on their battery swap system and putting about 30 cars on the road.[2]

What can you see there?

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

[2] [https://www.ted.com/talks/shai_agassi_on_electric_cars/trans...](https://www.ted.com/talks/shai_agassi_on_electric_cars/transcript?language=en)

<comment><USER8> A BS detection class would be interesting. It's too easy to look at videos of famous liars like Madoff or Bill Clinton and say its easy to tell they are lying because of their body language, in hindsight.

I would love to videos of non famous people telling lies about themselves and try to see if I could spot the liars at greater than average percentages.

Maybe that's an idea for a fun website....

Of course event this course wouldn't help you when the liars actually believe their own bullshit, which seems to be fairly common among the most successful fraudsters.

<comment><USER9> Trump could be the whole class.

<comment><USER10> Between trump and elon you would never run out of examples.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Humans have extremely skewed perception of risks and rewards. As such, "more confidence" doesn't necessarily mean "overconfidence", but might actually mean "less underconfidence". For example, talking to strangers and/or crowds carries almost no _actual_ risks, and has a lot of potential benefits. On the other hand, driving is quite risky, but we don't think twice about it...

But psychologically, most people have their perception anchored to the average behavior, so things that are actually rational (meeting strangers) appears as "overconfidence" and things that are actually quite reckless (driving, not exercising, eating sugar, drinking alcohol) we think of as "normal".

<comment><USER12> Public speaking holds a high risk of embarrassment in front of a crowd (although it's a self-fulfilling prophecy). It's telling that humans care more about risk to their image than risk to their bodies, as a major difference from most other less social species.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I had an interview experience not too long after I finished college. I don't remember the specifics, but it was for an entry level administrative assistant role. I had plenty of experience in retail, customer service, event planning and working at the front desk of my college - so totally relevant stuff.

The interviewer asked me why I was so confident. And why I had the nerve to want to dig into the terms of the job (salary, growth opportunities and the like - I was a late stage candidate).

Full disclosure - I can't think of a time where I have been perceived as arrogant at all. I am generally well-liked and personable.

The interviewer seemed to have some sort of implicit bias - I think she really didn't think that black people should be confident in a professional environment. I can't imagine that she would have taken similar offense to a white guy asking those sorts of questions.

<comment><USER14> Just one piece of anecdata. I'm white as snow and got the same question from HR before. I also found it weird.

<comment><USER13> It's entirely possible she didn't think that way. But prior to and after that experience I did have people (outside of an interview context) that explicitly told me I should not have my level of confidence due to their perceived racial expectations. So I could be overly sensitive to the whole thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > _"We may also need to punish overconfident behavior more than we do," she > said._

Who is "we?" Maybe overconfident behavior is adaptive in a world where risk- taking works out enough of the time. Not all overconfidence takes the form of "I rationally know I can't do it but I'll try anyway," it is often closer to, "I rationally don't know whether or not I can do it, but I'll assume that I can and press on."

<comment><USER16> I think it's very often not adaptive. Eg some parents are very confident in their ability to conduct medical research in their spare time, and the result is measles outbreaks.

<comment><USER15> Those parent's aren't "conducting medical research," they are believing what they are hearing from sources they trust more than medical researchers (their own friends and families). In fact, it would take _more_ self-confidence in their ability to do research in order for them to learn the information necessary to step back from their community evaluate the risks on their own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> When you will still be wealthy regardless of the outcome of any decision you make, you can try more things and take more risks. This fosters as confidence. If you are competent in your risk-taking, it shows up. If you are not, it manifests as overconfidence.

Wealth does not create overconfidence; it only reveals it.

<comment><USER18> Can you share some evidence for that claim? It doesn't seem intuitively true to me, but I could be convinced that higher risk-tolerance tends to be rewarded. I'd be curious to hear more about where your idea comes from.

<comment><USER17> The "It's hard to take risks if you don't have a safety net" thread that's been active today has plenty of evidence for it ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19958301](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19958301)).

My argument is the flip side of (and generalization of) the usual claim that poor people are discouraged to try anything entrepeneurial.

Another competing claim could be that rich people are honestly less competent than poor people. I could easily argue against that one; IQ and conscientiousness are highly positively correlated with income, based on numerous sociological studies. People who dispute this fact have an agenda.

<comment><USER19> > My argument is the flip side of (and generalization of) the usual claim that > poor people are discouraged to try anything entrepeneurial.

Being poor is what made me an entrepreneur! When you have nothing to lose, then there's little risk in rolling those dice.

<comment><USER20> At least in my sphere of influence, the word "poor" has changed from "has nothing to lose" to "is in a position in which they have already lost quite a bit".

For example, I and many of my colleagues are battling large amounts of student loan debt; if we were truly starting from 0 and had absolutely nothing, pursuing entrepreneurship would be at worst 0 gain and wasted time, but at best a successful endeavor.

Realistically, however, many of the young and poor are starting from a disadvantaged state where in reality, taking a large risk is dissuaded by the risk of defaulting on student loan payments or shredded credit scores.

What I'm getting at is, many people would love to be truly poor rather than in the pit, and being in the pit brings a lot more risk to the average person (who otherwise might have the drive or skills to really make something worthwhile)

<comment><USER19> > the word "poor" has changed from "has nothing to lose" to "is in a position > in which they have already lost quite a bit"

I'm not sure that I understand the distinction you're making here. Yes, one path to being poor is losing what you have. But in the end, such people are just as poor as those who never had anything in the first place. They both have nothing (more) to lose.

> many of the young and poor are starting from a disadvantaged state where in > reality, taking a large risk is dissuaded by the risk of defaulting on > student loan payments or shredded credit scores.

Most poor people are living in a trap of debt -- that tends to go hand-in-hand with being poor, as is having shredded credit scores.

<comment><USER20> My distinction is that, for many, being poor isn't starting from the bottom, but rather being in the hole. While they both have nothing to lose, someone starting from the bottom has a lot more to gain given they aren't paying into the trap of debt, and debt is very prolific given that student loan debt has been on the rise.

<comment><USER19> > someone starting from the bottom has a lot more to gain given they aren't > paying into the trap of debt

It's very hard to find a poor person who isn't saddled with debt, whether they have student loans or not. Being poor is very expensive, after all.

That said, I don't think a person's monetary wealth can be measured by their income alone. It has to be measured in net terms: assets (including income) minus overhead and debts owed. A lot of people who consider themselves wealthy are actually poor and living on borrowed (i.e., somebody else's) wealth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> From what I've personally seen the people who get away with incompetence the most are high-charisma people. I've countless times seen people with a certain "reality distortion field" kind of charisma spew utterly inane nonsense in front seasoned professionals who really do know better and they just nod and swallow it. Charisma seems to bypass the rational mind completely. It tells the brain stem "the person speaking is an alpha primate" and the neocortex switches off.

The inverse is also true. People with low charisma can say incredibly wise, rational, and insightful things and they're often ignored.

IMHO a _lot_ of what is wrong with our world can be explained by this. At the same time it also creates a contrarian opportunity to benefit by calling bullshit on charismatic charlatans and paying attention to quieter people who know what they're talking about.

</comment><comment><USER22> Something in our evolution must have rewarded people who listened to that guy in the cave who was a big talker. Seriously.

<comment><USER23> That's plausible. A good explanation would be that in general consequences back then were a lot more lethal. So the guy who was overconfident beyond their abilities and rushed into battle, or into a hunting situation, or a conflict with a neighbor, would probably end up dead pretty quickly.

So if they were expressing confidence, and still around, it would likely be pretty directly correlated with actual ability.

It's a bit of a just-so story but it has some resonance to it.

<comment><USER24> Or the guy who was good at convincing others that it is foolproof got to live another day if it wasn't while they died. Survival by bullshitting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Lot of comments are saying confidence, not __overconfidence __. Very different things. Confidence is great, in both you and others you are "entrusting" somehow. The problem is lack of competence.

What is the definition of overconfidence. I'd argue being less competent than your confidence warrants. Where as if you're competent then being confident is "correct". The difference is whether someone is competent or not. Not if they are confident or not.

The problem is not confidence. It's peoples in ability to gauge competence / using confidence as an indicator of competence. Which is what the OA says, but many comments here are diverging from that and going off on tangents about confidence.

</comment><comment><USER26> Nyt can now detect private mode browsing? Seems like a bug in Chrome.

<comment><USER27> It's because the browser disables certain features (I believe FileSystem API) which makes it easier to fingerprint.

One workaround is to clear storage in devtools (Application tab) whenever visiting NYTimes and smile that you're messing with their analytics and tracking data.

<comment><USER26> Can't do that on mobile ugh...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I think that the article didn't do a good job of explaining why a person's overconfidence is "interpreted by strangers as competence." Maybe there are many dimensions to competence and a deficit in one area of competence might be made up for by a surplus in another area. Maybe "High-Class" is a multivariate description that often includes high social competence that gives other people an impression of generalized competence. As examples: 1. Oppenheimer's poisoned apple and 2. Having a towel.

1 [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/09/04/no- mercy](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/09/04/no-mercy)

2 [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/the-hitchhikers- gu...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-the- galaxy-the-best-douglas-adams-quote/douglas-adams-on-the-importance-of-towels- from-the-hitchhikers-g/)

</comment><comment><USER29> This paper was published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. That's interesting for two reasons. The first is that it's a rather well regarded journal with a very high impact rate. The other is because it's one of the journals that's driven the replication crisis plaguing psychology. [1]

In particular the journal this was published in was found to have an overall replication rate of 23%. Another way of putting this is that if you assumed anything you read in this journal was _not_ true, you'd be vastly more accurately informed (nearly a 4:1 rate!) than somebody who genuinely believed what was published in the journal.

Anyhow, back to your regularly scheduled series of anecdotal accounts validating confirmation bias.

[1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis#Psychology_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis#Psychology_replication_rates)

</comment><comment><USER30> Sounds like a special instance of the _omne ignotum pro magnifico est_ proclivity of human nature.

[https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/omne%20ignotum%20...](https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/omne%20ignotum%20pro%20magnifico%20est)

<comment><USER31> "the unknown appears to be amazing" or something along those lines: apparently a Sherlock Holmes reference.

[https://study.com/academy/answer/what-does-sherlock- holmes-p...](https://study.com/academy/answer/what-does-sherlock-holmes- phrase-omne-ignotum-pro-magnifico-mean.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> A quote from George Foreman about longshoremen. What is real wealth?:

Mr. Foreman, who stared down financial collapse as an adult despite a troubled, impoverished childhood, said he knew real wealth when he saw it. "If you're confident, you're wealthy," he says. "I've seen guys who work on a ship channel and they get to a certain point and they're confident. You can look in their faces, they're longshoremen, and they have this confidence about them...I've seen a lot of guys with millions and they don't have any confidence," he says. "So they're not wealthy."

<comment><USER33> It's easy for a multi-millionare to say "money isn't wealth."

<comment><USER19> True, but that doesn't make it false.

"Wealth" is one of those terms (like "success") that is pretty squishy, though. People can, and do, disagree about what they mean.

<comment><USER34> For me, knowledge is wealth - it's the universal currency and has a long shelf life. If you strip away all worldly possessions of any two people, the person with more knowledge is wealthier. The best part is that you can't simply trade money for knowledge - you have to work for it no matter how rich you are.

Bill Gates could dump a billion dollars into a world class Japanese course and still struggle to attain fluency if he doesn't work at it with his own sweat and mental energy.

In other words, true wealth in my opinion is the ability to generate value if your brain/soul were dropped in a random homeless person's body in a random era. Something tells me Paris Hilton wouldn't fare as well as Leonardo DaVinci.

<comment><USER35> >> In other words, true wealth in my opinion is the ability to generate value if your brain/soul were dropped in a random homeless person's body in a random era. Something tells me Paris Hilton wouldn't fare as well as Leonardo DaVinci.

If that random era is in the _past_, that's far from being true. Knowledge doesn't mean much if that random homeless person's body belongs to an identifiable group that is discriminated against by that era's society.

<comment><USER34> I meant more along the lines of: "what if you had to start over with a new identity with nothing but your knowledge? How far could you get?" I'm guessing a lot of currently rich people wouldn't fare well because they inherited the money and have very little knowledge or skills.

<comment><USER36> Pretty high chance everyone is poor then because you'll be born poor in India, China, or sub-Saharan Africa half of the time and just not get the chance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I believe the article is confusing chutzpah for overconfidence. Most wealthy high - class people are business owners. If you can't project confidence to the point of being overconfident, you can't be attracting people, investments for your next venture. Look at the entrepreneur class vs the salaried class? Wealthy people teach their kids to be supremely confident, while poor people teach their kids to be doubting Thomases!

<comment><USER38> Did you read this in Enclopedia Fromthebuttica?

<comment><USER36> Top banter. A light-hearted way to illustrate the ridiculousness of this assertion presented without evidence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I think the takeaway here is that people that talk a lot and think they know it all ultimately have more opportunities for success, and are less impeded by their limitations than their peers so the odds favor them over the long run. That personality trait is handed down from parents to children through breeding, most likely intentionally.

<comment><USER40> The article mentions that this is only the case if the person is well off to start with since they can mess up without many consequences so it isn't nearly as damaging to have overconfidence.

</comment></comment><comment> q-base I think part of it can be explained or attributed to a life of people "catering" to you. Higher social class will in a lot of circles mean that a lot of people look up to you or wants to be your friend. One way of doing that is always giving the higher social status peer a lot of praise for anything he/she does.

If you always receive a lot of praise for anything you do, no matter the actual significance of it, then naturally your own perception of your skills inflates unproportionally to reality.

</comment><comment><USER41> > "We may also need to punish overconfident behavior more than we do,"

Unfortunately, the article doesn't expand on this idea. How or why doing so would produce better results?

</comment><comment><USER42> Related: Blue-collar workers who become white-collar later in life

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19946759](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19946759)

</comment><comment><USER43> Some of the baseline assumptions and conclusions are off in my opinion.

Specifically, it was never addressed if individuals had an inflated view of their own skills or their ability to complete a given task.

Regardless of an individuals skill in reference to a given task (listed as average among high-class individuals post testing), due to their wealth, high- class individuals absolutely have a greater ability to accomplish any given task as they have demonstrably greater social access and a larger pool of resources to throw at any given problem.

Confidence is not a flat gauge of raw ability but also availability of resources to accomplish a given task.

Using the "Parks and Rec" example, Bobby Newport utilizes his wealth to hire Jennifer Barkley, an elite political campaign manager.

</comment><comment><USER44> Nowhere does the research imply incompetence - the word only shows up in the title and the last paragraph of the article...

Overconfidence != Incompetence

</comment><comment><USER45> Class is an accent, not a bank balance.

<comment><USER46> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tXBC-71aZs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tXBC-71aZs)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Duh they get away with everything. Include politicians in the category.

</comment><comment> cirrus-clouds I'm from the UK where British politics is dysfunctional and rotten to the core. Politics is overstuffed with wealthy "upper class" individuals of breathtaking incompetence and a nasty, dishonest, duplicitous nature. Yet, despite that, if you have a well-spoken, articulate voice and accent, the public will perceive you as competent and sensible no matter what bollocks you spout. Depressing.

<comment> barry-cotter > I'm from the UK where British politics is dysfunctional and rotten to the > core.

Oh God, it's a disaster to watch. The Tories are repeatedly kicking themselves in the balls publicly and Labour is run by someone who has almost no support from MPs and who comes third after "Don't know" in the rankings of potential prime ministers.

<comment><USER48> Are you talking about Corbyn? The guy with broad support despite an unremitting smear campaign from every single corner of the media from The Grauniad to the Beeb, never mind the tabloids? The guy who has been astonishingly effective standing up to the Maybots and revitalised Labour?

I'm very curious what poll you're referring to there that has him after "don't know".

<comment><USER49> YouGov survey for the Times: [https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/polling- shows-voters...](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/polling-shows-voters- opt-for-may-but-even-more-don-t-know-dmm8sghrg)

I used to like him. I wish he _was_ all that you call him.

<comment><USER48> An online poll. Huh.

What did I 'call him' that you disagree with?

<comment><USER49> That he has "broad support", that he has "been astonishingly effective", and that he has "revitalised Labour". I wish all those things were true.

Unrelated: while YouGov is indeed online, it chooses which people to send the surveys to and has long-term profiles on each of them, so unlike a silly Twitter poll it has decent statistical relevance and the biases seem to be persistent, well quantified, and generally accounted for — you shouldn't dismiss it just because you don't like what it's saying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> People who achieve success were often initially derided as delusional, overconfident, etc. Overconfidence, in other words, gave them the impetus to try, and it's amazing how trying gets results in achieving the impossible.

On the other side, I see time after time competent people giving up at the very first (and often trivial) obstacle.

> We may also need to punish overconfident behavior more than we do

This smacks more of a desire to tear down people one is envious of than a recipe for improving society.

</comment><comment><USER51> I find it odd how Americans try to convince themselves there are a lot of ways to be high class. A doctor might have slightly better standing than a plumber but ask yourself this, who would be served first in a restaurant, the doctor, the plumber, or the millionaire who just drove in on a Ferrari with a model on each arm?

<comment><USER52> There are more American millionaires than you imagine. Heck, I bet half the people posting here qualify.

I'm not sure your point, as stated, makes sense.

<comment><USER53> > There are more American millionaires than you imagine.

Mainly because the word means less-and-less wealth over time, due to inflation. The millionaires of 1959 were easily 6 times wealthier than the millionaires of 2019.

<comment><USER54> 8.69x just by inflationary measures ($8,693,183.39, [https://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=1...](https://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=1&year=1959))

<comment><USER53> Whoops, I think I intended to write ~1969 to get it to 50 years (and was using a different estimator) but regardless of exact measure, the trend is clear: "Millionaire" has been undergoing continual debasement ever since it was coined around the 1820s, and means objectively different things within different generations.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook Taking Open-Source Software Ethos to Drones - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/30/facebook-taking-open-source-software-ethos-to-drones/?_r=0 <comment><AUTHOR> "Facebook is developing advanced telecommunications, complete with autonomous laser-firing drones, and it is doing it as if it were a big software project." \---- pretty cool!</comment>