Time to ditch the arrogant tech blogs - <AUTHOR> http://www.kernelmag.com/comment/opinion/1799/time-to-ditch-the-arrogant-tech-blogs/ <comment><USER2> Arrogance, I don't care about. The shameless corruption, I do. PandoDaily, in particular, is funded by VC firms that also fund tech startups. They're basically buying coverage for their investments- it's taking the system that got Arrington fired and putting it on steroids. It works out great for the investment company, it works out great for their companies, the only person it doesn't work out for is that actual reader of the blog. It's why I will never read a PandoDaily article.

As a slightly more on-topic aside- an app I made was recently featured in the NY Daily News. The results were great- I got some useful feedback from real users, rather than hypothetical users more interested in gossip.

<comment><USER3>
      PandoDaily, in particular, is funded by VC firms that also fund tech startups.
      They're basically buying coverage for their investments

I would like to point out that HackerNews is run by a VC firm and YC alumni effectively get free coverage here.

<comment><USER4> But the difference is that HN content is posted by any random user. It is not employing a staff of self righteous, egotistical reporters to post crap about YC firms.

The content on HN is more honest, if you will...

<comment><USER5> Except for the administratively front-paged YC ads.

<comment><USER6> Except for the _easily distinguishable_ front-paged YC ads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think it's important to note the OP's beef is apparently with TechCrunch EU, not with the "US" version of TechCrunch we all know and love/loathe.

As far as I know, eu.techcrunch.com is magnitudes smaller than techcrunch.com.

EDIT: Looks like they folded eu.techcrunch.com into the main site at some point (after writing about eNovella, before writing about Jottify?).

eNovella post on TechCrunch: [http://eu.techcrunch.com/2009/08/10/enovella- gives-aspiring-...](http://eu.techcrunch.com/2009/08/10/enovella-gives- aspiring-authors-and-poets-somewhere-to-share/)

Jottify post on TechCrunch: [http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/07/techcrunch-tv- three-startup...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/07/techcrunch-tv-three- startup-pitches-from-the-future-of-web-apps-conference/)

Other reasons that could explain the low referral traffic: the eNovella post was very brief (and, again, on the European site at the time) while the Jottify mention was literally only one sentence in a brief post that also included 2 other startups.

EDIT2: Just noticed the author of the TechCrunch post on eNovella, Milo Yiannopoulos, is now the Editor-in-Chief of the OP site, "The Kernel" (and author of the 'editor's pick' article at the top of the right sidebar).

Maybe it's a coincidence, maybe it's a hatchet job on his former employer. Either way, I think it should merit a disclosure in the OP's article, no?

<http://www.kernelmag.com/editorial-staff/>

<comment><USER8> I picked up on the same point because the numbers just sounded too stupid low not to look into, I should have checked the comments here first.

I didn't pick up on the editor of Kernel and the author of the post being the same person - something that should be disclosed.

Explains why they didn't link to the posts!

Shame because in the previous thread about tech blogs The Kernel was mentioned as a good, new alternate source. Turns out they are not too different ..

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've reached the conclusion that a particular subset of the big tech blogs are to our industry as the celebrity gossip rags are to the entertainment industry.

<comment><USER10> With the obvious difference that gossip rags don't have a financial stake in the stars, starlets, models, semi-celebrities and wannabees on which they're reporting.

While it's simple dreck, it's not so insidiously corrupt like the tech blogs.

<comment><USER11> I think you're quite wrong on this, about the financial stake part, at least.

Gossip rags' fortunes thrive when there are big stars in the media. No Brangelina, Lindsay Lohan, Suri Cruz, Lady Gaga, etc., means overall less interest in gossip/celebrity news, thus fewer pageviews. So, there's an implicit interest to drum up fervor/attention, including coining attractive- easy branding phrases like, "Brangelina."

Celebrity agents work in tandem with publications all the time, offering them "scoops", such as, "Lindsay is going to be eating at [swank restaurant] at 7PM with her new respectable BF" in exchange for favorable coverage that makes their client look good.

And then of course, there are the many instances in which a publication will outright pay millions of dollars for exclusive rights to photos: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_(magazine)#Competition_f...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_\(magazine\)#Competition_for_celebrity_photos)

> _"People reportedly paid $4.1 million for newborn photos of Shiloh Nouvel > Jolie-Pitt, the child of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.[2] The photos set a > single-day traffic record for their website, attracting 26.5 million page > views._

<comment><USER10> There's still a difference between being in a symbiotic relationship with the subjects you cover and the rags that cover you and having a direct financial interest in the subjects (or companies) you cover.

The latter being arguably the biggest journalistic sin.

It would only really be the same thing if (say) Gala has a 10% stake in "The Brangelina Project" or an option on the gross receipts of their next movie.

I'm not claiming that those rags are lillywhite. For example: I know for a fact that reviews are sold for cash.

However, in my opinion that's not the same level of corruption then a "journalist" covering a company in which he has equity.

<comment><USER12> Well, if the movie industry is advertising in said rag, doesn't that translate into a financial stake? It may not be direct investment, but talking (even negatively) about celebrities is still buzz that draws audiences to the movies those celebrities are going to be in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Let's just assume for the sake of argument that tech blogs aren't inherently wrong/evil/corrupt/worthless/etc.

I don't see why this has to be an either-or proposition...absolute number of referrals aren't the only "good thing" to come out of any promotional activity. Isn't it possible that a prominent mention gets you views/usage from people who are in a position to propel you forward?

Ask an investigative journalist: their 10,000 to 20,000 word, 1-year-opus will likely generate fewer page views than the high school basketball playoff recap. But as long as those viewers consist of politico staff members, agency policymakers, and judicial enforcement people...then absolute number of viewers is not the only vital metric.

</comment><comment><USER13> Corrupt practices are only possible if they are hidden. Journalists like WSJ's Mossberg are able to maintain their credibility only because they keep it simple by not taking cash or freebies and restating that policy frequently.

If Blog X wants to take cash and freebies and then let me know about it in a nicely formatted web page, that's fine. I can keep reading and make a case by case judgement of their opinions. If not they are playing the game of monetizing their reputation and will one day be asking their hidden patrons for a job, or finding a new industry. Note the key driver in all this: transparency.

</comment><comment><USER14> > Time to ditch the arrogant tech blogs

No. Time to stop disguising attacks at media outlets as constructive advice.

If the author had wanted to be constructive, the article would have read along these lines: "It's a tough problem to find out what media your audience consumes, and then cater your PR toward that media outlet. Here's how we screwed that up, here's what we did to fix it, and here's how you can avoid making the same mistake".

</comment><comment><USER15> I've been covered on Techcrunch, Mashable, ReadWriteWeb, TheNextWeb, GigaOm, Lifehacker, etc., multiple times, and I can say for sure that this guy doesn't know what he's talking about.

Sure it's not as effective as long time ago when there used to be this thing called "being Techcrunch'd", but it's nowhere as ineffective as that guy pointed out. It doesn't matter if his original statement included the part about "techcrunch UK" or not. His argument is based on his limited experience of being covered on TechCrunch UK which no one even reads, and a little mention from a short story.

I wouldn't say "ditch the arrogant tech blogs because they're not effective", if I've never been really covered by one. If you get covered properly, it still brings in tons of traffic.

<comment><USER16> I am bitter and jealous. :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Those numbers sounded too low, which prompted me to look into it.

They were both featured on other editions of Techcrunch, not the main site. One was on Techcrunch UK[1], with a short post, the other on Techcrunch TV (way down with a single link in a short story)[2], both before the merge.

To say that it is important to the point of the story to mention that they weren't featured on the main Techcrunch site is an understatement. While the EU and TV properties pre-merger were doing well, the main site is an order of magnitude larger.

I used to work at TC, but I still refer a lot of startups there for stories and have been keeping up with the numbers. You can expect referrals in the range of a few thousand to up to 40k. In terms of the 'startup' space (that is anything funding related, launch announcements, hiring announcements etc.) there is usually no better outlet, since every single venture capitalist, journalist, blogger, entrepreneur, potential executive employee etc. reads the site.

The exception is if you are in a niche which can be better served by other blogs.

Being featured on Techcrunch usually leads to a couple of more blog posts from other sites, and it can usually lead to appearing on Techmeme - which every tech blogger and journalists checks regularly every day.

There is no doubt that with a good product a mainstream media feature will get you more long-term users. Every startup and announcement is different, you need to take all fo this into account when considering where and how you want to release your news.

What I can tell you is that a feature on TC definitely doesn't send referrals in the dozens - I think the post should be updated to clarify that.

\--

Update: I just got a response from the author of the OP on Twitter. When I asked him why there was no mention of his stories being on TC Europe and no links to them, he replied[3]: "I actually did, I'm not sure why but they seem to have disappeared in the editing process. I'll try to get them put back in." and "Btw, both were featured on the TC Europe homepage in the main stream. I appreciate it probably should be more clear."

It is probably worth mentioning at this point that 'the editor' of The Kernel (although he may not have been the editor of this post), Milo, was the same guy who wrote the story on TC[1] referred to in the post. He worked at TC Europe and is now the editor at The Kernel - they somehow talked around this fact in the post without mentioning it.

I just pinged him on Twitter to ask if he removed the references or if they were simply just lost somehow.

\--

Update 2: Further, from the author: "Mm, but this was a while back (2009), Milo has made no secret of being frustrated with TC Europe. I'm writing of my own volition." [5] and "I don't think missing links was intentional. I had also linked to Jottify and a few other things and they're also missing."[6]

From Milo: (when asked if he was editor on that post): "Hi there. No I wasn't - but I will nip in and make clear"[7]

The links may have been dropped, but there is still no distinction in the actual content that the post isn't about the main Techcrunch site.

\--

 _note the link is now to techcrunch.com but that is because the sites have been merged_

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/10/enovella-gives-aspiring- aut...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/10/enovella-gives-aspiring-authors-and- poets-somewhere-to-share/)

[2] [http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/07/techcrunch-tv-three- startup...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/07/techcrunch-tv-three-startup- pitches-from-the-future-of-web-apps-conference/)

[3] <https://twitter.com/#!/jacklenox/status/190121611578441728>

[4] <https://twitter.com/#!/jacklenox/status/190122178547691520>

[5] <https://twitter.com/#!/jacklenox/status/190126807595495425>

[6] <https://twitter.com/#!/jacklenox/status/190127630606020608>

[7] <https://twitter.com/#!/Nero/status/190127568152838144>

<comment><USER17> Every time a random blog like this surfaces on HN I make a point of _considering the source_ , by clicking through a few of the other articles. In this and many other cases, scratch the bland surface of the linked post and you'll find this kind of nutty political screed: [http://www.kernelmag.com/yiannopoulos/1786/extreme- cognitive...](http://www.kernelmag.com/yiannopoulos/1786/extreme-cognitive- dissonance/)

So handle with care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Whatever you do, if you get traction you are king.

If you don't no matter how much coverage you get you will go down.

The only precursor for traction are users, tech blog coverage wont do anything about it: even consumer gadget blogs are niche compared to the mainstream media, and even then most people care a lot more about gadgets than webapps.

.........unless all their friends are using them, that's when they care, but that's growth which comes after.......that's right, TRACTION.

</comment><comment><USER19> Analyst firms and analyst publications are a related business area where some folks might be surprised at the processes and procedures that are used to construct the papers and recommendations.

The analyst data collection process can involve some very bizarre fill-in-the- spreadsheet questionnaires that are distributed to vendors by the firms, and there are sponsored technical reports and sponsored product reviews widely available, to what could be termed a product push poll. More than a little of what's printed in various publications and that's available at various web sites is little more than analyst- or vendor-provided text, too. Reworked press releases.

Informed and impartial product reviews are expensive. Which means they're comparatively scarce at the "free web site" product tier.

Corruption? No. It's a (sausage-making) business. Look for the disclosure statements where required, and generally follow the money. If you're not paying, then you're the product, after all. It's all sausage.

</comment><comment><USER20> Ironic that this is coming from The Kernel. The editor is one of the most arrogant members of the London tech scene - just look at his Twitter feed. He is one of the very worst offenders when it comes to writing about stuff to try and cause a stink.

</comment><comment><USER21> What is supposed to be being ditched here?

If it's the pitching to/grooming of tech blogs, then companies themselves will decide what's effective for them. Number of referrals is surely just one measure. Credibility ("as featured on TechCrunch"), SEO (backlink from TC sounds good to me?), the fact that other journalists read TC, metablogs and so on.

If we're supposed to be ditching reading the blogs, well then folk will do that naturally over time if the quality of content falls.

More than anything, we should probably ditch the idea that one well-placed referral from a powerhouse could be the shot in the arm that might make a service "go viral".

<comment><USER22> I've always wondered on "my startup is credible because I was on TC"...

Wouldn't actual user count and other metrics be more credible than "I was able to schmooze to some editor"?

<comment><USER21> Sure they would. But if a company has a complimentary quote from a reputable source then I'm more likely to find it credible than one without.

<comment><USER22> Reputable to whom? To the end user?

Unless the end user is a TC reader the endorsement is irrelevant. And that's my entire point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This article from February talks about the business model used by tech blogs: [http://www.realdanlyons.com/blog/2012/02/13/hit-men-click- wh...](http://www.realdanlyons.com/blog/2012/02/13/hit-men-click-whores-and- paid-apologists-welcome-to-the-silicon-cesspool/)

Interesting discussion about that article here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3587730>

</comment><comment><USER16> Anyone with a start-up should leave the tech blog schmoozing to the professional CEOs/VCs who do it on a daily basis.

The bootstrapped start-up with no connections in the industry has slim chances of being featured in any tech blog.

My best advice is to keep your head down and keep coding and improving your product.

</comment><comment><USER24> You should hit Techcrunch and the likes when you're about to go fund-raising because the audience definitely feels like other startups and VCs. If these are are not your audience you're just wasting your time.

</comment><comment><USER25> Aren't there a number of publications covering this space that are run well and provide ethical coverage? Just read them instead.

<comment><USER26> Are there? How do you know if they do ethical coverage?

Not trying to be a jerk, seriously asking. How does anyone make those determinations?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Does parislemon feature here?

<comment><USER12> Adding to your list... how about Calacanis and Scoble?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> So being featured in a tech blog is not a silver bullet? Good to know.

</comment><comment><USER29> Kind of amusing that this article has such a link baity headline. I was expecting to see more tech blog bashing, which imho is well deserved. Nonetheless, this articles point that you should target journalists in your specific industry, rather than the tech blogs, is sound, but a bit boring.</comment>


Dafny: A Language and Program Verifier for Functional Correctness - <AUTHOR> http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/dafny/ <comment><USER2> Good to see it show up on HN. It's a nice language and their rise4fun project brings such stuff to a wider audience. I wonder if any readers with a lot of hands-on experience in these can tell me how it compares to SPARK Ada. About the same? Behind in capabilities? Ahead in some ways?

SPARK would seem to be the definitive baseline to compare all the others, too.

</comment><comment><USER3> Source: [http://dafny.codeplex.com/SourceControl/latest](http://dafny.codeplex.com/SourceControl/latest)

</comment><comment><USER4> I like it. The Dafny annotations seem straightforward and approachable.

Anyone know of a similar system for Javascript?

</comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone have an estimate to the difficulty of using Dafny as an annotation to programs written in another programming language? I'm thinking of one on a different OS (Linux) than the MS Windows OS for which Dafny appears to be written.

</comment><comment><USER6> Eruhm

Is it just me, or is describing the functional correctness of a program with another programming language asking for more problems?

<comment><USER7> Not to me. I've found unit tests to be indispensable in establishing and maintaining code correctness -- and my unit tests have always been written in a PL, too.

<comment><USER8> There are two cruical properties you want, I think:

A) It _must_ be possible to automatically and completely mechanically ensure that implementation & proof don't get out of sync. Having a formal proof for an algorithm which isn't the algorithm that you've actually ended up implementing doesn't really help you one whit :). This is relatively simple for unit tests and property-based tests like QuickCheck: Just observe that the number of tests run actually increases over time and never decreases unexpectedly. (Actually, it seems to be rather rare to have support from Continuous Integration tools for tracking the latter.)

B) There must be (in some sense) at least some non-trivial difference between the implementation & "proof". (At the absurd extreme: bisimulation doesn't really work as proof of anything if the implementations are one and the same.) For example, in Idris the implementation is basically just code while the proof is the accomanying types -- which ensures that they're not basically just saying the (trivially) same thing, even though the types greatly _constrain_ what the implementation can do.

I think that the allure of "practical" dependent types (e.g. Idris) may be that such languages trivially obey both properties. Of course you still end up with a "trusted computing base" which is non-trivial in such cases.</comment></comment></comment>


"Tongue in cheek" icons for your web app in progress - <AUTHOR> http://blog.caboo.se/articles/2007/3/29/tongue-in-cheek-goes-to-1-1 <comment><USER2> There must be a bit of latent demand for _cute_ or whimsical icons or cartoons. I remember back a while I saw an on-line _'wanted'_ advert for blog cartoonist. So I'm not surprised ~ <http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/213561726/>

If you are, please read the about how Hugh MacLeods' "gaping void ", is used as an attention grabber for marketing other products ~ <http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/002670.html></comment>


Ask HN: Should I reengineer my membership a bit? - <AUTHOR>

== What I have ==
http://www.bitesizeirishgaelic.com membership site. Custom-coded 2Checkout.com INS integration. Adds new members fine. Has a hard time pruning out-of-date members. I don't have proper statistics so far: I'd have to either manually dig out customer life time value into a spreadsheet, or have it coded up.<p>== The alternative == Reengineer parts of the structure of the site in order to install aMember http://www.amember.com/ . Custom theme its pages, link to its login script. Port existing members. Then pay $20/month on http://membershipsiteanalytics.com/ to get the statistics.<p>What would you do? <comment><USER2> A lot would depend on size of membership, profit made per member, whether or not you have time for manually going through the database.

If you can justify the cost of you 'alternative' then that seems a good idea.</comment>


The iPad needs its HyperCard - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/03/the-ipad-needs-its-hypercard.html <comment><USER2> That would be iBooks Author, right?

[http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/ibooks- author/id490152466?mt=...](http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/ibooks- author/id490152466?mt=12)

(Which is no less proprietary or more cross-platform than HyperCard was, is aimed at creating content for Apple's walled garden platform -- iOS, that is -- and for the products of which the viewer app is given away free to Apple customers, just like HyperCard Viewer was back in the day.)

TL:DR; it's an article from early 2010 and the author's belief was supported by a subsequent software release 15 months later. Whether he is provably correct remains an open question ...</comment>


Extracting Super Mario Bros levels with Python - <AUTHOR> http://matthewearl.github.io/2018/06/28/smb-level-extractor/ <comment><USER2> I made this a few years ago. It's pretty much all of Super Mario Bros. in one image: [https://i.imgur.com/g6JQ2WV.png](https://i.imgur.com/g6JQ2WV.png) / [https://twitter.com/Doomlaser/status/1004802864433147904](https://twitter.com/Doomlaser/status/1004802864433147904)

I want to do more of these and experiment with training generative neural nets on that kind of thing when I get the chance.

<comment><USER3> As a kid in the early 1990s I always thought 8-1 was unusually long and I always seem to get down to the 99s warning music before I can finish the level, even running at full speed. This visualization really shows clearly how much longer that level is compared to the rest.

<comment> T-hawk Besides the physical length, 8-1 also starts you with 300 ticks on the timer rather than the usual 400.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very nice. A few years back I wrote [http://mariocraft.club/](http://mariocraft.club/) for fun (Super Mario in Javascript). Allows you to build your own levels. Very basic and unfinished but people love building levels.

If anyone has interest in picking up the project, and auto-generating the levels, ping me.

</comment><comment><USER5> @matts_ramblings approach is great to get a perfect authoritative reference we can use to test and/or train other tools.

Other tools mapping the Super Mario Bros. levels:

1\. animmerger [1] by bisqwit

Written in C++.

Takes png images as input.

This tool seems to be the reference in creating level maps for Super Mario.

Matt's tool seems to use animerger to generate the color palette according to the source code [2]

2\. ALMA [3] by BZH314 (disclaimer: our baby project)

Matt mentions using this approach as a possibility in the post.

Written in Python using the OpenCV [4] computer vision library.

ALMA takes videos as input, generates the map levels as images (png and animated gifs) and also generates the videos to show the algorithm in action [5]

(shameless self plug: need more YouTube subscribers to get that sweet sweet vanity URL please :-)

ALMA applies background subtraction to remove the moving enemies in order to keep only the background (a problem Matt's tool does not have)

3\. Manually stitched

If you're looking for good SMB1 level maps stitched manually, there are some good work out there:

Rick N. Bruns' nesmaps.com [6]

Mariowiki: example of World 1-1 [7]

Are you aware of other tools out there?

\---

[1] [https://bisqwit.iki.fi/source/animmerger.html](https://bisqwit.iki.fi/source/animmerger.html)

[2] [https://gist.github.com/matthewearl/733bba717780604813ed588d...](https://gist.github.com/matthewearl/733bba717780604813ed588d8ea7875f)

[3] [https://bzh314.com/alma/](https://bzh314.com/alma/)

[4] [https://opencv.org/](https://opencv.org/)

[5] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wanvx0PpE1w&list=PLa4uefpt5W...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wanvx0PpE1w&list=PLa4uefpt5WhLxWtTluGVEP5utqysh_PDy)

[6] [http://www.nesmaps.com/maps/SuperMarioBrothers/SuperMarioBro...](http://www.nesmaps.com/maps/SuperMarioBrothers/SuperMarioBrothers.html)

[7] [https://www.mariowiki.com/World_1-1_(Super_Mario_Bros.)](https://www.mariowiki.com/World_1-1_\(Super_Mario_Bros.\))

<comment><USER6> Thanks for this trove of resources! :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> How difficult would it be to do the same with Super Mario World on the SNES?

<comment><USER8> I am not by any means an SMW expert but lately I've developed a keen interest on the SMW romhack scene.

If what you want to do is extract a level and/or play around with level creation the golden standard tool is Lunar Magic [0].

There are some forums with information about rom hacking, level creation, music creation and so on for SMW, like SMWCentral [1].

[0] [https://fusoya.eludevisibility.org/lm/index.html](https://fusoya.eludevisibility.org/lm/index.html)

[1] [https://www.smwcentral.net/](https://www.smwcentral.net/)</comment></comment>


AWS Launches CloudHSM, Hardware Security Module For Managing Cryptographic Keys - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/26/amazon-web-services-launches-cloudhsm-a-dedicated-hardware-security-appliance-for-managing-cryptographic-keys/ <comment><USER2> That is really expensive. You can start provisioning your own HSM for well under $5000 (of course, you can spend as much as you want :).

I'm guessing Amazon is counting on people who have large AWS deployments and want a closer HSM. You are paying a _lot_ to reduce latency.

<comment><USER3> The Luna SA they are using doesn't come cheap. For an H/A setup with all the extras (backup tools, service contract) I was quoted ~$80k.

<comment><USER2> But the majority of people don't need that much HSM. And that's the interesting problem I see with this: the enterprise can afford it, but is going to be wary of using a cloud provider for this sensitive of data; and it's outside the budget of most startups. There is probably a tier in the middle, though, that Amazon expects will happily use the product.

<comment><USER4> If you're using an HSM for full DAR of your servers, you need all the H/A you can get. IF that HSM is down, you can't boot your systems, period. If that HSM crashes or is destroyed, you potentially lose everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is about a month old, now.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's relevant to the discussion regarding living social's recent hack.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Disclaimer: I've never been a fan of storing my data on someone else's hard drives, but many others seem to think it's a good idea.

At any rate, how is this more secure? Amazon has physical access to S3 servers, and physical access to these new HSM things. So what exactly is the benefit? Is this just so companies can meet some security compliance regulations while keeping all their data Amazon's hard drives?

<comment><USER7> Yeah it's just compliance. But Amazon having physical access doesn't matter because this level of CIA (confidentiality, integrity, availability) is enforced by Amazon also, by contract.

<comment><USER8> How can you know that your instance is talking to the real CloudHSM and not a software emulation that can reveal the keys? At some point Amazon might be forced (by some wiretapping lawys, or subpoena) to fake the HSM presented to your instances and give others access to your keys.

Of course the attack window is considerably reduced, if they want to perform this attack they have to do it when you initially set up the CloudHSM, they can't replace it later with a fake HSM, but still...

<comment><USER9> Generally HSMs have manufacturer keys, too, so you'd need to compromise both Amazon and SafeNet (admittedly, both US companies which could be subject to court order...). The weak point is initial provisioning, as you point out.

<comment><USER9> Fuck, sadly I just talked to safenet at their booth at aws and they don't do this, so you are totally vulnerable to giving keys to a fake hsm, essentially making cloud hsm useless. Unless their booth dudes were misinformed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell How do these devices differ from a £50 Cryptostick <https://www.crypto- stick.com/> or a £10 OpenPGP SmartCard? <http://g10code.com/p-card.html>

<comment><USER9> Security, performance, and functionality/features.

They're generally FIPS 140-2 level 3 (and a couple are 4), so protected against physical and logical attacks.

Generally they have modexp accelerators and have performance equivalent to a main CPU (they used to be way faster than CPUs...).

Mainly, they have tools for multi-party key management, crypto fill, reset, etc. Some of which can work remotely/over the network, which is the main weakness of the low end smartcard in this environment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Should be entertaining when this gets hacked.

<comment><USER11> The entire idea behind HSMs is to reduce the potential for them being hacked. These are FIPS 140-2 Tamper Proof devices. You rarely hear about these being hacked, if ever.</comment></comment>


Machine Learning and Data Science Applications in Industry - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/firmai/industry-machine-learning <comment><USER2> _To encourage active participation, I have created a private repo where all future edits and entries will be made starting November 2019 after which this project will be deprecated. To join indefinitely you have to submit two unique open source python ML or DS projects to email@example.com (unique to this list only, it needen 't be your own). Please submit them now so that I can put you on the list. How to know if your contribution is unique: search the Google Sheet file for the respective URL._

So the intent is to "lock out" anyone who doesn't contribute before November 2019 by keeping all new content in the private repo? Seems kind of sketchy, unless I'm misunderstanding. Maybe the intent behind releasing this publicly is just to build up the email list mentioned in the readme?

<comment><USER3> It's public, all you have to do is contribute. No one is excluded, you just have to lift your hand and open the gate to the park.

<comment><USER4> If it's a shared resource why is there a need for one contribute in order to view the resource? The underlying implication of a private repo in this context is that the owner can at anytime lock the gate and make it pay to enter.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Friendtainer – get reminded to meet with friends regularly - <AUTHOR> http://friendtainer.com <comment><USER2> Going to start using it immediately. Thank you!

Edit: the starting, blank page (with the plus icon in the bottom) made me think the app failed to load. Some guidance for a first-time user would be great.

Also, those buttons on the bottom right are a UX anti-pattern, in my opinion. They're hard to notice, and it's not always clear exactly what they do. On a larger screen, they're a tiny footnote on the bottom right side of the page that is hard to notice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for the feedback!

I will add some text to show in case of empty list. I agree the button (FAB) is difficult to find on large screens but it is part of the Material design guidelines ([https://material.io/guidelines/components/buttons- floating-a...](https://material.io/guidelines/components/buttons-floating- action-button.html)). I will think of some other approach.

<comment><USER2> Why is following Material guidelines important to you?

<comment><AUTHOR> My reasoning is that since it made it into the guidelines, some people believe that it's not a UX anti-pattern :)

<comment><USER2> Google isn't some all-knowing authority on UX/UI. In fact, their UI is pretty terrible for most applications. It's hard to tell what you can or can't click. There are hidden controls everywhere.

You can decide to blindly follow standards or do some real user testing and see how well your UI works for people. Stand over someone's shoulder while they use it for the first time and see how quickly they figure it out. Do some A/B testing.

For the record, the UX/UI community in general had a lot of negative reactions to Material when it was introduced:

[https://medium.com/tech-in-asia/material-design-why-the- floa...](https://medium.com/tech-in-asia/material-design-why-the-floating- action-button-is-bad-ux-design-acd5b32c5ef)

[https://medium.freecodecamp.com/material-design-and-the- myst...](https://medium.freecodecamp.com/material-design-and-the-mystery-meat- navigation-problem-65425fb5b52e)

[http://blog.usabilla.com/flat-design-going- far/](http://blog.usabilla.com/flat-design-going-far/)

[http://www.matthewmooredesign.com/almost-flat- design/](http://www.matthewmooredesign.com/almost-flat-design/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, it's really helpful. I have very little experience with UX so I decided to start by sticking to the guidelines. But what you are saying makes a lot of sense and I will definitely look into doing some tests with real users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice job on the site. Am I the only one that can't help but read the name as "Friendtainter".

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

Hmm, I'm not a native English speaker and the similarity didn't occur to me. Might not be the most fortunate name after all... ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So this is sort of like CRM for your friend relationships?

<comment><AUTHOR> Haven't thought of it but yeah, it nicely summarizes the idea.</comment></comment>


.bloomberg gTLD Registration Policies [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://data.bloomberglp.com/company/sites/26/2016/09/db-registration-policy.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Noticed that mike.bloomberg redirects to the Bloomberg2020 campaign, and then found the registration policies on nic.bloomberg.

This is the section that outlines the acceptable use of the TLD:

 _The Registry is intended to function as an online platform for the BP_ [Bloomberg Philanthropies] _and BLP_ [Bloomberg L.P.] _brands and, as such, the registration of Domains must support the goals and missions of BP and BLP and their brands._</comment>


ES6 Coding Style Guide - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/elierotenberg/coding-styles/blob/master/es6.md

<comment><USER2> I agree with and appreciate nearly all of these suggestions. Just a few well- intentioned quibbles:

> Arrays MUST be created using the Array syntax literal.

This does enhance readability when vending an empty array, but when you know how large an array will need to be in advance, new Array(someLength) is an important pattern. Consider this naïve implementation of Clojure's "reductions" or Haskell's "scanl":

      let reductions = (callback, initial, array) =>
        array.reduce( (memo, element) => {
          memo.push( callback(memo[memo.length - 1], element) );
          return memo;
        }, [initial]);

This will call push() array.length times. If the backing store for Array is a typical vector implementation that reallocates every time its length exceeds a power of 2, this means incurring log₂(array.length) reallocations, and suffering the concomitant heap fragmentation. However, if we pre-allocate an array of the appropriate size once before entering the loop,

      let reductions = (callback, initial, array) => {
        let result = new Array(array.length + 1);
        result[0] = initial;
        array.forEach( (element, index) =>
          result[index + 1] = callback(result[index], element)
        );
        return result;
      };

we can avoid creating unnecessary work for the VM.

> Regular (named and hoisted) function declarations SHOULD be used instead of > anonymous functions by default.

I think this is really bad advice. Hoisting makes imperative code harder to reason about; any time that it would actually make a difference, the un- hoisted behavior is the one I would want. The verbosity of let myFunction = function(x,y) {}; over myFunction(x,y) {} is definitely unsightly, but it's worth my peace of mind.

> undefined MUST NOT be used, void 0 MUST be used instead. [...] Pure > convention. Also void 0 looks more l33t.

undefined should be preferred on grounds of readability. If ES3 compatibility is really important, you can configure babel to emit void 0 in place of undefined with the spec.undefinedToVoid optional transformer.

</comment><comment><USER3> Really nice (and a fantastic JavaScript overview in general), though the MUST and SHOULD's get a bit wearing on the eyes after some time; perhaps a simple __bold __would suffice?

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice !</comment>


Ask HN: What's up with the site being slow? - <AUTHOR> Even the logged-out Ask HN page was slow to load.<p>Is this a temporary or as yet unknown/ongoing condition? <comment><AUTHOR> Cache appears to be cold:

      ubuntu@ip-172-31-65-138:~$ time curl -si 'https://news.ycombinator.com/newest?next=18651706&n=181' >/dev/null

      real	0m19.139s
      user	0m0.012s
      sys	0m0.003s

      ubuntu@ip-172-31-65-138:~$ time curl -si 'https://news.ycombinator.com/newest?next=18651706&n=181' >/dev/null

      real	0m0.357s
      user	0m0.015s
      sys	0m0.000s

</comment><comment><USER2> I was playing the, "Is it my third world internet or HN" game for a second.

</comment><comment><USER3> 13 seconds for the initial response, that's pretty brutal

</comment><comment><USER4> Its back to its usual speed now. real 0m0.012s user 0m0.000s sys 0m0.001s

</comment><comment><USER5> Yep, was quite slow there for a bit.

</comment><comment> d--b Ooph, super slow here too...

</comment><comment><USER6> Yep, super slow for me too.</comment>


Show HN: SoundMoose – open source music discovery app based on Angular 2, Redux - <AUTHOR> http://www.soundmoose.com <comment><USER2> Neat! I'm usually very cynical of JavaScript based projects but a lot of my life outside of work I spend digging deep into obscure genres from strange small towns around the world, I generally find the best discovery mechanisms are last.fm (yes it's still got a fantastic recommendation engine), what.cd used to lead me to a lot of new artists / albums, digging through various forums and subreddits and pandora's music genome project has been quite useful as well (also they just finally launched their all HTML5 interface because flash.... well it's flash) and I end up posting and sharing music with friends on [https://mondotunes.org](https://mondotunes.org) because everyone knows me as the music digger and geek and asks what I'm listening to all the time, ironically for the sake of ease I generally link to poor quality YouTube clips of songs which is somewhat intentional so that if people enjoy it they might purchase the album or go to a gig etc... I currently subscribe to Pandora, Apple Music (which is improving very, very quickly), Spotify (which I might drop soon) and last.fm because I like to support their work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! This being Angular 2 we actually used TypeScript, with some Django on the backend (with some Node.js and Ruby for generating the waveform data using ImageMagick). We also used Three.js for the 3D visualizations -- the sphere one is especially cool. Put on on some music and check it out by clicking the menu and then the circle icon on the top left.

We also have some cool 2D visualizations in the equalizer (click the arrow on the left of the player to access).

All in all this was a very fun stack to develop on, once we had all the initial pieces in place (getting ngrx/store set up mostly) we added new features very quickly. We got to where we are right now over the course of less than 3 weeks.

This is all hosted on a tiny DigitalOcean droplet and we use external APIs with daily limits, so hoping it all stays up while it's on the front page here!

<comment><USER2> Awesome! Well done that's quite a sprint ;)

MI'm unable try it out today but can't wait to tomorrow perhaps, my personal music collection is sitting around 1.4TB and until recently I had a big wall of 1600 or so records as well as the usual obsessive compulsive hifi hardware everywhere.

I personally ensure that I dedicate at least 8 hours of uninterrupted time each week to music discovery, in reality it often ends up being a lot more than that likely often averaging around 20+ hours a week and is often just commonly limited by how many times I feel / wish to listen to a newly discovered artist or album before I sort of mentally have them etched into my mental catalog of music if that makes any sort of sense.

Music, musical discovery and interrelationships are such deeply rooted, important part of my life that when things come along that actually help that process it can have an immensely profound impact on my energy and happiness, if this tool / toolset ends up helping me I will forever be in your debt and if it doesn't I will try to hold back on logging millions of isssues against it ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm more interested in the discovery or recommendation algorithm than what language you used to develop it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I like this, it looks like it could be useful.

However, one issue: I'm on [this screen]([https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/45512231/ShareX/chrome_2...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/45512231/ShareX/chrome_2017-01-26_08-24-04.png)) which is a track's detail page and another track has started playing, I can't seem to get to the currently playing track's detail page from this...

Also, not sure if you could fix it but Soundcloud's "Genres" is utterly broken, try it, go on Soundcloud's "Charts" page and try ANY genre from the dropdown and all the tracks are just hip-hop/trap. I don't have an issue with hip-hop/trap it's just I don't want to listen to it all the time and I might want to explore the latest indie rock tracks. Maybe you can pull that from last.fm too and fix this? That would make this a daily-use app for me!

</comment><comment><USER5> I find it odd that you mention the web-framework as the interesting feature of a music recommendation / discovery system.

Surely, the interesting thing ought to be where you get the data and how you create recommendations.

Anyway, on Safari 9.1.1 nothing works: If you start typing in the search bar too early it doesn't search. The search icon is not clickable, ever (have to use enter). Clicking on a song takes you to a blank page, clicking the play icon does nothing, reloading pages doesn't work (takes you back to the front when it does manage to reload)

</comment><comment><USER6> I just get a blank page with cookies disabled, it would be nice if I didn't need to offer you cookie storage but at a bare minimum if you rely on cookies: please say so when cookies are disabled.

</comment><comment><USER7> Link to the projects github [https://github.com/SoundMoose/SoundMoose](https://github.com/SoundMoose/SoundMoose)

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't get how you discover things there though, or is it to make playlists for diggers Maybe check out [https://openwhyd.org](https://openwhyd.org) as an example ?

<comment><AUTHOR> We use the Last.fm API for music discovery through the track detail pages, you can get there by clicking the tiles or the track titles.

Openwhyd looks very cool!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How do you discover music here? I could not figure it out. Do I have to log in? Why only via Google?

I am a huge music buff so I am always interested in ways to find new stuff to listen to.

I tried almost every recommendation service I could find.

So far, my favorite source of new music is [http://www.gnoosic.com](http://www.gnoosic.com)

If there is a way for me to try SoundMoose without a Google account I will happily check it out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Go to the detail page by clicking the tiles or track titles, and look at related artists/tracks :)

Spotify also has pretty good recommendations, but requires people to be authenticated to use their recommendations API. Our recommendations currently come from Last.fm.

<comment><USER10> Is there a way to add the recommendations for an artist/track to the stream playlist?

i.e. if I search for an artist and press play on one of their tracks and let the stream keep playing it goes onto other tracks by that artist, but is there a way to get it to add related tracks too? Like the old last.fm artist radios.

edit: it's now doing that for me so maybe there was just something weird about the recommendations set earlier. Unfortunately I searched for some chilled out electronic stuff and the recommendations are all aggressive hip hop but that's not your fault I guess...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Somehow i can't find The Creatures - Standing There It's a great song and it's being hosted onto youtube.. why can't i find it? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYQqN_nVstc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYQqN_nVstc)

<comment><AUTHOR> We debated putting YouTube music in the search results but decided against it for now, some of the coolest features involve the built in audio player.

<comment><USER8> Youtube might be hard to autoplay.. openwhyd is having issues sometimes trying to play songs in the background (i mean by that in a not focused/ not in the foreground thumbnail in chrome)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> pretty cool, like that Auth0 thing, do you pay for it or free?

random question. I've built up a playlist of almost 1,000 songs on YouTube, although I have Google Fiber for like $50.00/mo I feel bad that I use YouTube as a music player when the video for the bandwidth is mostly wasted unless I don't understand how that works.

I'm wondering how difficult it would be to scrape/bring in that to mix in with my user's playlist/favorites. Assuming the same song I'm looking for exists in your site.

To provide some insight, I could probably scrape the youtube playlist myself, and assuming perhaps you had a url-based search/submit(favorite) maybe you could automate this process. Just curious.

<comment><AUTHOR> Free. Auth0 is definitely very cool, makes it easy to implement Github/Facebook authentication (or any other service) as well. A bit of a pain to implement in Angular 2 right now if using hashes for routing (see [https://github.com/auth0/lock/pull/790#issuecomment-27426628...](https://github.com/auth0/lock/pull/790#issuecomment-274266282)), so we used popups as a temporary workaround.

<comment><USER11> I don't follow with the hashes, Auth stuff is on my list to do thanks for responding and providing insight on that.

edit: unless you're talking about hash like password hashing but I don't think so?...

Not sure if you saw the rest of my comment, I edited it after regarding merging playlists from YouTube into the site. It's too bad some of the songs are only 30 seconds long (I think this was mentioned regarding using SoundCloud for example as a source of music) anyway I'll try it out, already found a new song so thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> In non-HTML5 browsers you need # for routing single page applications.

The 30 second tracks come from spotify. Their API doesn't provide for a way to get the full track even for authenticated users, so we use an iframe widget for that :/

<comment><USER11> I see, I'm behind in tech so I don't even know I don't develop with Angular/factored in HTML5 though from what I've seen it's pretty cool what HTML5 does and makes some jQuery things "obsolete?" like draggable for example.

Anyway thanks for the information. Cool site. The 30 second song thing sucks, songs "eratically jump" I get that it's a preview/suggestion though. Music isn't "free" haha artists have to be paid.

edit: I want to stress the 30-sec gripe isn't to you, it's not your doing but you know things aren't free haha.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nice. Although, Angular 2 and Redux are irrelevant here.

<comment><USER13> It's hacker news, some of us are interested in the tech stack!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Great website ! Already made 5 great discovery ! Would give you a donation if a wasn't so poor

</comment><comment><USER15> How is the discovery compared to SoundCloud?

<comment><AUTHOR> Our top tracks come from SoundCloud and search gets tracks from the SoundCloud and Spotify APIs -- detail pages contain links to related artists and tracks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Minor suggestion, focus the search field when it first loads so I can 'just start typing'.

(Looks slick!)

</comment><comment><USER16> I think something's up with your genres because Lil Uzi Vert is under alternative rock...

<comment><USER13> As another commenter pointed out it's SoundCloud's genres that are at fault, they're at #9 here: [https://soundcloud.com/charts/top?genre=alternativerock](https://soundcloud.com/charts/top?genre=alternativerock)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I just get a never ending spinner. Not sure how long I'm supposed to wait for it to load.

</comment><comment><USER18> Best of luck, we need more non-commercial options for fundamental things as this!

</comment><comment><USER19> Why does title say Redux?

<comment><AUTHOR> We used ngrx/store for state management, the main redux implementation for Angular 2. Having centralized state was very powerful, helping us implement more features in less time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > open source music discovery app based on Angular 2, Redux

I'd be more likely to read TFA if it told me what makes it different. I don't care what it's written in.</comment>


The best companies to start a career in tech - <AUTHOR> https://florentcrivello.com/index.php/2018/11/29/the-best-companies-to-start-a-career-in-tech/ <comment><USER2> Blogspam of

[https://blog.wealthfront.com/2018-wealthfront-career- launchi...](https://blog.wealthfront.com/2018-wealthfront-career-launching- companies-list/)</comment>


How did Facebook guess my email address? - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/c2ko3/how_did_facebook_guess_my_email_addresses/

<comment><USER2> I've written about this in the past: <http://blog.jgc.org/2009/12/facebooks- creepy-privacy.html>

And, not mentioned in that post, is that fact that that email was sent to an address that Facebook does not have. They sent it to a valid email address for me, but not one I had told Facebook about.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting blog post, actually because it gives us a glimpse into exactly how serendipitous Facebook is with your data. I remember someone making a comment in another FB thread here on HN to the effect of "I might opt-out of the social graph, and lock my profile down, but my data would still leak out of the cloud because of ONE photo a friend tagged me in".

I think it's time for me to alert my closest contacts and let them know where I'll be. Facebook and I are done.

<comment><USER3> _let them know where I'll be_

Where are you going after Facebook? I'm interested in this because there is a nice opening niche to attract all the Facebook emigrants. Do you have a specific place in mind that you will join, or are you open to join a new social network startup built by HN members for example?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I was thinking of spending more time with Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer, and going back to email and text messaging but if you've got something planned I'd love to hear about it.

<comment><USER3> I'm currently working with another HN member to develop a startup based around doing things in real life with your real life friends. It is planned to be exact opposite of Facebook. Whereas Facebook is about playing Farmville, and other virtual distractions, our startup is aimed at helping you coordinate real life offline activities and events with your real life friends. Where Facebook harvests your info and violates your privacy, our startup will allow you to have complete privacy, and choose which info you want to share with your friends and which you want to share with the rest of the world.

The code is only about 25% percent done (I'm working on this in my spare time around college classes and freelance web design work) but I hope to get it done within about a months time. I'll definitely be posting it here on HN for you and others to review and join if you desire.

<comment><USER4> Two pieces of advice:

1) plan to never monetize via ads, if you don't want to turn evil.

2) plan to gain traction in universities.

<comment><USER5> I often wonder how well ads work for social networks in general. I don't have problem with ads like facebook,twitter uses - promoting the apps on their platform.

Yeah, but if someone intends to monetize using ads, which are out of context or just plain annoying, probably just to get better CPI, that seems evil enough for me not to use the website.

<comment><USER6> Facebook ads are usually creepily relevant because they feed off keywords in your chat logs and interests.

<comment> X-Istence Even if they are creepily relevant most users ignore them. I got some ads for something that was only mentioned in my Facebook chat with another person, not posted on a wall or anywhere public.

It annoyed me that they were scrapping my Facebook chats for keywords in an attempt to get me to click on their advertisements.

<comment><USER6> I've had better results with Facebook Ads than with Google AdWords... but that could be due to any number of things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The answer is simple. When someone creates a new account, Facebook offers to find friends that are in their contact list. If the user wants to do this, they can put in the userid and password of their (say) gmail address. Then Facebook downloads the contact list from that user's email account. If your previously-unknown-to-Facebook email address is in the user's contact list, Facebook now has it. No guessing needed. Note that the "user" I'm talking about in the above scenario is not you; it is someone else who has one of your email addresses in their contacts info.

<comment><USER8> Exactly. This isn't a new or even particularly cunning trick, and -- contrary to lots of comments in this thread -- it won't die off if people leave Facebook, because it's not something you have any control over. If someone else has the address, they can give it out, and if it's the only address they have for you and they're using something which scans an address book or lets you look up potential contacts by email address, well, that's that.

The only way to avoid this is not to have an email address in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Someone in that reddit thread brought up this particular startup that Facebook acquired in February

[http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/19/octazen-what-the-heck- did-f...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/19/octazen-what-the-heck-did-facebook- just-buy-exactly-and-why/)

<comment><USER9> Yep. Octazen make a great scraper at a good price. However, unlike Rapleaf's product (which goes through their servers and they admit they keep a copy of everything), you at least get standalone code that keeps the data on your servers. So I'm not sure they actually gained any new data from Octazen, just a smart team well-versed in scraping.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It seems like Facebook is a real-life implementation of the Six Degrees of Separation. Their graph algorithms must be running on insane hardware.

<comment><USER11> You need insane hardware to do a reverse lookup in someone else's address book?

<comment><USER12> Somewhat. Many of these graph problems with millions of points do get rather complex as each one adds to the complexity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> On a related note; Facebook seems to use all manner of metrics to suggest friends. Here's a view I have been able to pin down:

\- common IP addresses (this occurred after about a week of common IP address between two accounts)

\- constant geolocation commonality (as above, two accounts with no links, two different IP addresses but geolocated to the same place)

\- having a certain number of groups in common (unsure of this one, but it is the only link I can make for one suggestion)

<comment><USER14> I know facebook tracks how users browse their site and which profiles they look at, how often and how long (from articles facebook staff were interviewed in). I wonder if they have starting using that data to recommend friends? If someone is searching for a particular person frequently enough, or regularly visiting the public parts of their profile, they probably know each other.

I'm not saying it's appropriate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Several weeks back, Facebook started suggesting a few people from a mailing list I've lurked on for years. I've never posted to this list. I get how they'd suggest people with whom I've been in contact, even indirectly (e.g., via a mailing list); I want to know how they're suggesting people with whom I've never interacted _in any fashion_ , that I happen to know (or at least know of).

</comment><comment> a-priori I once had Facebook suggest a former freelance client as "someone you may know". I found him over an online job board (Elance, I think), did a job, and hadn't heard from him in about 6 months. He lives on the other side of the continent and has no common connections.

How the devil did Facebook know I knew him? To this day I'm creeped out by that.

<comment><USER16> You're in his address book. He let facebook have access to his address book. He skipped sending you a friend request, but facebook is giving you the option to do it in reverse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If you use the iPhone app, it can sync your friend's pictures on Facebook with the corresponding contact in your address book. How does it do this? By having you upload all contacts to Facebook including their name, email address and phone number.

Your privacy is at the whim of those who you choose to communicate with, online or off.

<comment><USER10> Note - they are addressing this in iPhone OS 4.0 - but the security on contacts given to iPhone native apps is non-existent. Any app has full access.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> That's nothing! Soon enough, Facebook will be capable to infer one's secret lovers. A great opportunity to monetize for sure.

</comment><comment><USER19> This can occur when somebody tries to invite their friend but they type the address wrong. I get lots of emails that were intended for somebody else and 100% of the time it is because they left a character out of the email address. I've received 2 facebook invites in the last 2 months from people who thought I was this other person.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Not my submission mind you, but it would appear that the FB privacy debacles are extending far beyond the OpenGraph, unless someone actually knows an answer to this.

This is relevant to my interests because something very similar happened with one of my throw away emails that's never been used/published.

</comment><comment><USER20> Didn't Facebook recently acquire some Malaysian company that specializes in screen-scraping data?

I'm guessing they have put them to good use.

</comment><comment><USER21> From the thread:

"I was trying to figure this out earlier last week. You see, Facebook recommended six people that I should become friends with, six people who I have no other friends in common with. Six people I have never worked with. One guy is a guy I play TF2 with who lives in Alaska, and another guy is a guy I rented an apartment from. It was the apartment guy that clued me into how Facebook made those recommendations. It got them from gmail. Which baffled me, I never authorized Facebook to look at my gmail for friends I might want to add, not once. Turns out, I wasn't the only person who had their contacts list scraped by Facebook. I deactivated and started the pending process for account deletion immediately."

Uggg, sounds like Buzz all over again.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think that they use the social graph linking you with your friend's accounts, and the information they get when your friends give FB access to their GMail account. Makes sense, right?

<comment><AUTHOR> Even that bugs me out. It's like in school where you'd do anything to get Cute Cassie's phone number, including asking her best friend what it was because you'll be damned if Cassie gave it to your herself, and then running around to all your buddies telling them you finally got the golden nugget.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> They do this for Yahoo as well. In addition, they go by IP or session or something of that nature---someone who created a profile on my laptop found many of my friends recommended.

</comment><comment><USER24> I've observed the same behaviour in LinkedIn. It recommends connections to me based on one-time e-mail conversations I've had.

</comment><comment><USER25> they bought a site/piece of software a few months back that enables all of this.

</comment><comment><USER26> Eerie.</comment>


Facebook ordered to stop collecting user data by Belgian court - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/feb/16/facebook-ordered-stop-collecting-user-data-fines-belgian-court <comment><USER2> Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16392608](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16392608)

</comment><comment><USER3> Its times like this I wish I lived in Europe.

I was recently hit with the facebook 2fa spam, and it was infuriating.</comment>


Is the world ready for the waterless urinal? - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/06/ff_waterless_urinal/ <comment><AUTHOR> Normally I wouldn't post something about urinals to HN just because it's in Wired, but this is actually a fascinating article about a new technology's introduction being delayed by resistance from trade unions (in this case, plumbers).

<comment><USER4> Although I thought the insistence on running pipes was a waste, it turned out at my university to be a good thing they installed the pipes (capped off initially) even though they were installing waterfree urinals, because after they kept clogging up and cost way more in maintenance costs than they were saving in water, they switched back to low-flush urinals. If they hadn't run the capped-off pipes initially, they would've been stuck.

<comment><USER5> It seems as though if they're properly (and regularly) maintained, they don't clog. Sounds like your university's periodic (compared to acute - <USER2> janitor) maintenance workers were improperly trained on how to care for them. The second page of the article explains this.

(edit: on second thought, it _was_ a university. Knowing what university students tend to put in urinals, I'm not surprised they clogged even with proper maintenance)

<comment><USER4> I agree it's probably possible to maintain them well, but it seems it's still a cost. If nothing else, you have to pay for better maintenance workers, or more oversight of them.

<comment><USER6> I've seen these toilets in action and from my few encounters, they work as advertised.

But after reading about how they work, I have reservations on the design. Depending on maintenance for keeping sewer gases from escaping seems failure prone. Humans err (and get lazy). I'd much rather depend on plumbing codes that have been tested over decades and work "automatically" than depending on changing a cartridge.

What happens if a bathroom with a waterless toilet is abandoned or isn't maintained regularly?

<comment><USER7> The traditional U-trap can fail if abandoned or isn't used regularly too. The water eventually evaporates.

<comment><USER8> Happened to me regularly when returning from summer holidays.

<comment><USER9> To prevent it, put a small amount of mineral oil (baby oil) in the trap.

It will float on top and prevent the water from evaporating.

<comment><USER8> I guess vegetable oil should also work? By the way, I heard of the same trick for keeping water in your vases.

<comment><USER9> Vegetable oil will oxidize and turn into a sticky mess.

<comment><USER8> OK, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One of my last undergraduate reports as an economics student at the University of Michigan in 2007 was on the "true cost" of watered urinals vs. waterless urinals for the campus. The waterless ones were primarily used in the Dana (Environmental Sciences) building, which even had expensive composting toilets- basically large, windy abysses which you defecated into.

We spent nearly a month doing research on vendors for waterless urinals as well as attempting to model the cost of negative externalities from the water use (sewer system upgrades, water treatment) and the waterless ones (manufacturing and disposal of cartridges, smell and hygiene.)

Whilst I can't locate a PDF of the report anymore, the evidence came out overwhelmingly in favour of the watered urinals. The cost of the waterless filters and hardware, even if all of the waterless urinals were installed new, was still over 2x the cost of running watered urinals at the University, externalities included (I think it was nearly 6x IIRC.)

I can't imagine these being useful for many municipalities – including the more water-scarce ones — unless costs have _really_ dropped.

<comment><USER11> I think the cost they are trying to solve for is the environmental cost, not the cost in dollars.

<comment><USER10> Three things:

1\. There are a bunch of environmental costs that still make them largely impractical:

\- the environmental cost of making the filters (plastic injection molding, etc.) \- the environmental cost of disposing of the filters \- the environmental cost of waste produced by installing new waterless urinals in place of the old watered ones

These costs are surprisingly high for something trying to be "green". You can model these positive externalities as such in a "dollar amount" by taking into account things such as offset taxes toward pollution (from manufacturing,) costs of disposal over the decomposition life of the object, etc.

2\. Unfortunately, the environmental cost is almost never the one that wins in any real-world scenario unless the personal utility of the person owning said waterless urinal is greater than the cost of running the watered one — i.e., the person that installed the waterless urinal enjoys the waterless one enough to compensate for the extra costs involved in running it over a watered one. They are more expensive right now, and will be for quite some time if we're talking about replacing the watered ones with waterless ones. Dollars are the bottom line, especially when negative externalities are not offset in the costs of the watered product.

3\. I'm a general skeptic of many of these types of green things due to #2 - it's the "Prius syndrome" in effect. Many of these types of things have little real-world environmental impact when the full cost of ownership is taken into account. Once you add up all of the costs involved:

(manufacturing costs of old watered urinal) + (disposal costs of old watered urinal) + (opportunity cost of purchasing waterless urinal and installing waterless urinal) + (cost of new waterless urinal) + (cost of filters) * ((uses / single filter life) * (life of waterless urinal product))

When all is said and done, the overall real cost - even environmentally - <USER3> many of these "green" products ends up being far greater than just using the old product. People don't buy many of these types of things for anything other than their own psychological benefit of _feeling_ greener, such as is the case with the Prius - I read somewhere if you _actually_ wanted to maximise for environmental cost, you'd buy a used Toyota Echo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> An office building I used to work in tried this a few years ago. Within a few months they replaced them with flush urinals because the men's room was starting to smell like downtown San Francisco. Oddly enough, when I was in SF last month I noted that the outdoor smell of stale urine has largely been replaced by the smell of burning marijuana. It really is an improvement.

<comment><USER13> I've heard urine is sterile, the smell occurs because of bacteria that grows after it has been passed.

The urinal cake in waterless urinals (and you'd think even in the flushing variety) kill the odour causing bacteria and should stop any odours.

I'm mot sure if this is true though.

<comment><USER14> Agree that urinal cakes are the answer -- isn't the smell just chemical? Ammonia, etc?

We have these at the office space my employer just built-out. Does have a slight stale-urine smell all the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There's a lot of them (dozens) at various office buildings where I work. They're good for an office setting, where people get used to the quirks, which are mainly: nothing but urine in the urinal (in particular, no saliva, which can clog the one-way-flow mechanism). At an airport, it would be asking for trouble.

<comment><USER16> We have them in the building I work in. People seem to fairly routinely continue to spit into them, which frankly, I don't understand at all. Maybe my physical makeup is just different, but I don't feel a pressing need to spit throughout the day, and if I did, it would almost certainly not occur to me to spit into a urinal, waterless or otherwise.

<comment><USER17> People who smoke (or use chewing tobacco) are much more likely to spit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> They have these in the Adobe offices. They are all about being "green". Anyways, something never set quite right with me about them... something about the piss just sitting there, not being washed away. Not that regular urinals are clean either.

</comment><comment><USER19> _"Falcon recommends pouring a bucket of hot water into its urinals to flush out deposits before putting in a new cartridge."_ (<http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/06/ff_waterless_urinal/2/>)

Maybe it would make sense to make a hybrid version option that flushes with water every x days. Attacks the idea of pure "waterless", but maybe more practical?

</comment><comment><USER20> I remember when these were deployed in Terminal G at O'Hare a few years back, with lots of signage hoopla in the bathroom about it. Then they disappeared with no public explanation. Interesting to hear the reason was pipe clogs.

Given that they did cause clogs, I'm not sure I think the plumbers' skepticism is as unreasonable or necessarily self-interested as the OP implies.

<comment><USER21> _Chicago City Hall and O'Hare International Airport have also removed their waterless urinals, citing clogged pipes._

Apparently that design calls for hot water to be dumped down the urinal when the cartridge is changed to control an oily substance that builds up in pipes. The speculation is that not all janitorial staffs embrace this extra task.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The world might not be, but the United Kingdom seems to be. I've seen a few of these over the last year. I must admit, it didn't stand out as anything particularly revolutionary or interesting at the time, but I guess it must be.

<comment><USER23> Agreed. Where I went to college (Germany), they also had waterless urinals. The biggest problem seemed to be that people would throw cigarettes and stuff into them.

<comment><USER24> One of the biggest problems for sewerage systems in general is people putting things down there that aren't meant to be there.

<comment><USER25> Well yeah, but how do you communicate what is meant to be there and what not? Diapers, well it's obvious that that shouldn't be there. But ground up biological waste actually improves the functioning of water treatment stations (depending on the technology used). So now is a tea bag OK to grind up and flush? What if it's one of those newfangled plastic tea bags? Those are not OK but it's not obvious that they aren't (I wouldn't have known if one hadn't got stuck in my grinder...).

An interesting problem - improving on a system that is so behind the scenes that hardly anyone ever thinks about its functioning. To make changes to that, you need large scale social engineering techniques to implement those changes - a 'message of general interest' or two on TV isn't going to cut it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > The US Army Corp of Engineers took notice and mandated in 2006 that the Army > install only waterless urinals from 2010 onward.

That's what an ROI can do for you!

It's important to find the particular customers who can benefit from your product, and have the power to act. Usually, the military is a hard market - but in this case, their control of their own facilities helped.

Changing community attitudes - such as towards water usage - can benefit or harm you. Here, the long-term trend was predictable (and predicted). _Skate to where the puck is going to be._

This whole saga was purely adoption (ie marketing). The product was already done.

They didn't give up.

</comment><comment><USER27> It didn't quite surprise me that this was based on one German engineer's ideas. We're really crazy about our toilets. (Ever seen the fabled "poo shelf"?)

<comment><USER28> Yes! In all the years I spent in Germany, no one was able to adequately explain to me the reasoning behind the "poo shelf". It was the biggest WTF about my whole Deutsch experience.

It seemed like someone sat down and said to himself, "now how can I make this toilet worse? I know!"

<comment><USER29> I thought it was intended to make it easier to inspect for worms which, due to the diet, were more common in Germany.

<comment><USER27> I really would like to know where that rumor came from. Yes, Germans tend to eat lots of meat, but that's more a common Western trait, and I doubt that it was this "bad" when the "Flachspüler" was first introduced. We do like our sausages, but don't tell me that British meat pies and puddings are less likely to cause worms and other parasites.

Inspection is one reason, so while the shelf toilet is getting less common, doctors and hospitals still tend to have them. Maybe that was a craze at one time, I don't really know a lot of people who inspect their stool -- or that of others, to dispel those South Park rumors...

It does have one added benefit: Reduced splash-back for #2. US toilets are really nasty in that regard, as the water level seems to be higher than in Europe.

<comment><USER9> You can change the water level by adjusting the fill tube. Clamp it lightly to cause less water to flow into the bowl.

<comment><USER27> Of course it's not big technical issue, but one wonders why the average setting seems to be that much higher. Probably because it saves some cleaning (toilet brushes are also less common here), at the cost of more water wasted.

And as My First American Toilet(tm) was in a hotel, I didn't feel like going all Super Mario on it anyway...

<comment><USER9> Hotels don't count, especially the fancy ones.

Did you try out any home toilets? (Knock knock - can I look at your toilet sir?)

I'm willing to put a ruler in mine, if you will.

<comment><USER27> Being caught measuring the water level of toilets would be something I'd never be able to live down. As if Hasselhoff, Nazis and fecal porn aren't enough food for stereotypes...

And no, it wasn't a fancy hotel, it was a Holiday Inn Express. Since then, I staid in quite a few company apartments, been invited in a few homes etc. I didn't measure any water levels in Germany (or England, Greece, Italy...), either, so this isn't exactly scientific. But considering that I haven't seen that many toilet brushes here in Jersey (and NYC), you probably _need_ a higher water level.

I bet it's different in states where wasting water is worse. And if I remember correctly, Dave Barry wrote quite a bit about water-saving toilets a couple of years back.

<comment><USER9> > seen that many toilet brushes

I don't think that's representative. All the houses I've been in had one. It's possible people just put them where they are not very visible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm always surprised when visiting the United States that there's a _lot_ more water in every toilet than over here (Israel). One of those small things you never think about, but when you visit another country you discover there are other standards.

<comment><USER11> As an American that has spent time in Israel, I have to say that the bowl may be more empty, but the amount of water used to flush is quite a bit more.

In commercial toilets in the US you commonly get the pressurized toilets that use a significant amount of air to flush, not just water. This cuts way down on the amount of water used.

However, I do like the "little flush / big flush" buttons you see in Israel and other places.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Never underestimate maintenance costs.

The traditional urinals have at least the advantage of self-maintenance. You flush them - they clean-up. If you don't flush, someone eventually will. You don't need someone to look them over or replace the liquid sealant for at least three reasons I can think of right now.

It's similar to what you get when you replace intersection lights with LED to save _electricity_. They don't get hot. In the winter they get covered with ice and snow enough to not see them. You then go and clean them yourself and realize that what you saved on electricity doesn't even match the cost of gas and labor you used. Or you don't clean them and you have one or more collisions and you're still no better.

How much water you say you save? It is peanuts compared to the water on the toilets...

<comment><USER32> Re: Intersection lights: So for cities with snow issues, heaters may need to be installed for the heavy snow days, which will add to the cost but may still yield long term savings. And for all other cities, it should be a fine proposition.

It's okay, they released early, they can release often. Bugs will get sorted out as user comments pour in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I totally understand this in southwest states like Arizona and New Mexico, where water conservation is really important. But the bulk of the country essentially has infinite, cheap water. It doesn't make sense to me why you would need this in Iowa.

<comment><USER34> Even where you have a lot of cheap water, sewage still has to be proccessed.

<comment><USER35> What happens to the cardriges?

<comment><USER31> When people want to save water they think... I'll use water-less toilets! Now they have two problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Australia's also using them in a lot of places. No problems here to date.

But then, we've been conservative about water for a while with good reason to be.

</comment><comment><USER36> They have these at the Owen Business School at Vanderbilt University. They stink.

Literally.

They smell like urine. If we are going to use these on a wide scale then I think that men need to drink the water that is saved so that they have less pungent smelling piss.

<comment><USER37> The problem with that solution (dilution) is that then we would have to spend more time going.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Obligatory reference for our female geeks: "The Princess and the Pee" (<http://www.ampnet.co.uk/femorabilia/pee_standing.html>).

</comment><comment><USER38> In Australian buildings this is already very very common. In the recent drought many urinals were converted (temporarily) but some are now back to water.

When maintained it is ok, but it does smell more. Generally not popular.

</comment><comment><USER39> They had these at the national parks in the desert parts of Colorado and Utah. They do seem to smell like urine. I think a part of it is that the background mildew/mustiness is gone from the environment, so one notices the urine smell more. Also, nothing is washing the urine down the drain anymore except for more urine, so there is more smell of dry urine on the urinals themselves.

If I do ever build my desert getaway, I'll be putting in Clivus Multrum composting units and not one of these.

</comment><comment><USER40> No, world is not ready. I worked in the building with such urinals and they stink. (And believe me, there is no need for smoke bomb to smell where the stink comes from)

</comment><comment><USER41> I laughed a little when I read that they reached a compromise with the plumbers by continuing to require the plumbing to be in the walls (in case they want to switch to standard urinals).

Smart compromise - not wasting water, and the plumbers keep their jobs.

<comment><USER42> Since they're running pipes anyways, I wonder whether it would be better to have a urinal that auto flushes itself once a day or so. The water savings would probably be comparable to a plain no-flush, but it seems like it might save some of the maintenance issues the article talks about.

<comment><USER43> I was thinking the same thing, if you give up the idealistic goal of "no water usage at all" you can possibly find a compromise of "very close to no water usage".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Waterless urinals are everywhere in Australia. Although water is a much more precious resource in this big brown country than most other western nations.

</comment><comment><USER35> Why the cartridges, wouldn't it be easier to drain the urine down a pipe? Is processing of the cartridges waterless?

<comment><USER45> The cartridge replaces a traditional trap, as the diagrams on the second page explain. If you just have a straight pipe, sewer gases come out, which you really don't want.

As far as I know, there is no "processing" of the cartridges; they are just thrown out after they reach the end of their lifespan.

<comment><USER31> So instead of more water down the drain you fill the dumpster with the cartridge... which you then recycle, of course.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> _Those units have been in operation since 2004. So far, there have been no urinal-related deaths._

Quote of the day. :)

</comment><comment><USER47> Only if I can use the "pee on the inside edge" trick to prevent splashback.

</comment><comment><USER48> Is the world ready for the first wireless urinal?

</comment><comment><USER49> Bucky Fuller invented one in the '40s.

</comment><comment><USER50> We have these in our office building too. They're fine but our building management has them cleaned twice a day, otherwise they stink up the place.

</comment><comment><USER51> Attempting to innovate is always good.</comment>


GitHub was experiencing a DDoS - <AUTHOR> https://status.github.com/?utm=1

<comment><USER2> Do we really need to be notified every time GitHub or Twitter go down temporarily? It's inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

<comment><USER3> There is a reason there are controls to allow you to upvote, or downvote stories. If you don't like a story, and have nothing to contribute to the story, downvote it. If the story is in the top few, it's because people (that aren't you) are interested in knowing that github is getting attacked.

EVERYTHING is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

Edit: Heh, there are no downvotes on HN for stories. My bad.

<comment><USER4> OT: How much karma do I need to have to see the downvote button?

<comment><USER5> There is no downvote button on submissions only upvote and flag.

<comment><USER6> Should there be downvote buttons for submissions?

<comment><USER5> Maybe? I could go both ways. I think downvoting is important but it's also very easily abused. I like stackexchange's downvoting system where it comes at a cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> dj-wonk Chances are good that the attackers are DDOS'ing Github using software consisting of some open source components... hosted for free on Github.

</comment><comment><USER7> Why would someone DDoS GitHub? Is there some movement against GitHub? Or is it just for fun?

<comment><USER8> I manage newgrounds.com which gets quite a bit of traffic. We'll get what I think are DDoS attacks at least once a month. I can see our connection tracking stats go up to the millions and traffic spikes way up of course.

I don't know WHY they do this, but last time it happened we got an abuse report saying that we were reported for port scanning from our main firewall / proxy box. Somehow they had reflected traffic off our firewall / proxy to make it try to connect to a bunch of IPs on a known trojan port.

I have no idea how they did this, but it appears that this time around we were being used to scan ports. This is just a stock Debian box with a firewall and port 80 open. Scary.

<comment><USER7> > _I don 't know WHY they do this, but last time it happened we got an abuse > report saying that we were reported for port scanning from our main firewall > / proxy box. Somehow they had reflected traffic off our firewall / proxy to > make it try to connect to a bunch of IPs on a known trojan port._

How did you solve it?

<comment><USER8> Not sure it's solved, but I added some additional firewall rules to block certain types of ICMP packets that they were sending and added some additional logging for when it happens again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is your periodic reminder that deploying directly from Github is a bad plan.

</comment><comment><USER10> Isn't Github having it's annual employee family picnic this week in SF?

This is literally going to ruin someones picnic.

</comment><comment><USER11> Coincidentally, I just finished setting up Gitlab and Gitlab CI on a private server. If I could set up repo mirroring between it and Github, it would add a layer of protection for getting critical work done (security by distribution?).

<comment><USER12> Just have both gitlab and github as upstreams and push to both every time. aka in your .git/config:

        [remote "origin"]
          url = https://github.com/somerepo.git
          url = https://gitlab.yourdomain.tld/somerepo.git
          fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

And nothing to worry about when github is down.

<comment><USER13> Huh. I wasn't aware you could do that.

What happens if the repos aren't in sync and you pull?

<comment><USER12> I honestly don't know, should test it and find out. Will look at it later today.

Edit: curiosity got the better of me [https://gist.github.com/mitchty/0c2089445c1400d46cb9](https://gist.github.com/mitchty/0c2089445c1400d46cb9)

Basically exactly what you'd think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Someone doesn't like GitHub, this has been going on for months.

<comment><USER15> there are individuals/groups out there who launch a ddos attack against a site, then contact the owners demanding money and they will stop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Subversion rebels attack again!

<comment><USER17> They joined force with the Bazaar empire!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Even if there are attacks everyday everywhere, I wonder how/if it can be linked with recent attacks of Apple, Ubuntu forums, and OVH networks.

That's a lot of techies services attacked for such a short time.

EDIT: typo

</comment><comment><USER19> Who would do something like this?

<comment><USER20> Russian mafia?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> everyone ping github to show your support

</comment><comment><USER22> If you are looking to host an internal git server, then you should watch my screencast, where I talk about how to configure a central git server and manage user access with gitolite.

[http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/11-internal-git-server- wit...](http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/11-internal-git-server-with- gitolite)

</comment><comment><USER23> I really need to start monitoring GitHub vrs Bitbucket for uptime. I can't think of the last time Bitbucket was down.

<comment><USER24> It was down a few weeks ago, right in the middle of the last big deploy I did. Just had to laugh honestly.

<comment><USER25> That was scheduled maintenance, however. They had big banners with warnings everywhere on Bitbucket for several days before the event.

<comment><USER23> I think the problem with BitBucket and GitHub is that i never need to go to the website for most things. All the interfacing I do is thought the Git or mercurial Interface.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Anyone know what they put at the front of their stack? Nginx? Varnish? HAProxy?

</comment><comment><USER27> There was another one of these, slightly older, that just got deleted...

Also the red banner looks a bit off to me, the "More Status History" just seems plonked in the middle of it.

</comment><comment><USER6> Github seems to attribute every issue initially to a DDoS

<comment><USER28> I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and operate under the impression that they know more about their network than you or I do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Does someone now what "Pages Builds Failure Rate" means on the page? 4.5% Server errors is a bit much...

<comment><USER30> I think they could be talking about github pages. Considering that's user uploaded content 4.5% seems pretty low.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> If there is a hell, anyone who would attack GitHub has an express ticket there.

</comment><comment><USER32> Looks like everything is still up though. What is being DDOS'd exactly?

<comment><USER33> Distributed Denial of Service - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ddos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ddos)

<comment><USER34> I don't think that was the question. The question was, I assume: Which services are being ddos'ed?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> You must be really evil if you are attacking github!

</comment><comment><USER36> This is akin to robbing a police convention.

</comment><comment><USER37> Seems to be working again...

Hopefully didn't type too soon

</comment><comment><USER38> ah no! plzzzzz hackers don't ddos github! this is just not fair</comment>


Innovative Apple Watch Series 5: OLED LTPO Display, Compass, Always on Feature - <AUTHOR> https://reportagram.net/gadgets/1284-innovative-apple-watch-series-5-new-ultra-low-power-ltpo-display-compass-always-on-feature.html <comment><AUTHOR> I upgrade my Apple Watch every other iteration: so 1, 3, and now 5. Apple's heart-rate monitoring has been generally found to be the most accurate amongst smart watches which makes the Apple Watch a great fitness tracker. The new always-on display will be a major plus for me. I still find software upgrades on Apple Watch to be hit and miss, it's a quite a slow and laborious process. Cellular roaming for normal usage needs to be addressed, it prevents me from buying the cellular version.</comment>


'Metal moles' begin work below London - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17365934

<comment><AUTHOR> Aren't these the same thing they used for digging out the "channel tunnel"?

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

<comment><USER2> They look damn similar.

And we left one (or two) down there as well, it wasn't cost effective to bring it back up to the surface (At the time)... I wonder if they still think that having had to pay for another one.</comment></comment>


Cuil Search Engine Launches - Does Google Care? - <AUTHOR> http://www.cuil.com/

<comment><USER2> I tried it out. It looks nice and polished, it just isn't as simple as google. I'm not exactly sure where I'm supposed to look for my results and what the order is.

Also, just a personal opinion. Black is a very, very bad colour to go with as focusing on a bright object on a dark background produces eye strain. It instantly made me dislike the front page... where its main purpose and function lives.

</comment><comment><USER3> The search results suck.</comment>