Tor exit node operator gets raided by police - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/04/04/472992023/when-a-dark-web-volunteer-gets-raided-by-the-police <comment><USER2> > Seattle police spokesman Sean Whitcomb says the department understands how > Tor relays work, and they knew Robinson was a Tor host.

> "Knowing that, moving in, it doesn't automatically preclude the idea that > the people running Tor are not also involved in child porn," Whitcomb says. > "It does offer a plausible alibi, but it's still something that we need to > check out."

> Whitcomb also says Seattle police were "artful" in the way they did the > search. Instead of impounding all of Robinson's computers, which the warrant > would have allowed, they offered to search them on the premises as long as > he consented to turning over his passwords. He did, and they let him keep > his machines after they scanned them.

This is the important part. They didn't shut down the exit node. They didn't even take away the computer. This sounds bad, but in all honesty, it could have gone at lot worse.

<comment><USER3> It's still stupid though. It's like raiding the mailman's house for delivering an illegal letter with no return address. Sure, it could have been sent by the mailman, but it could have been sent by _anyone_. There isn't any more reason to suspect the exit node operators than anyone else in the whole world who could also have used the exit node.

<comment><USER4> No it sounds actually like good police work.

Running a Tor exit node shouldn't give you some blanket against police investigations.

<comment><USER5> I would have said the same, if it were not for the police's unnecessary and demeaning execution of their warrant at 6:00AM. If the police knew he was a tor exit node operator, then surely they could have executed this search at a more reasonable hour?

<comment><USER6> When planning an operation like this you need to plan for a time when the suspect is likely to be home. I imagine the most likely time someone is to be home is right at their regular waking time (people often get home at different times). Additionally, 6:00 AM is not excessively early for a large swath of the population. It's not a _convenient_ time, but when is?

<comment><USER7> I couldn't help but imagine the police sending a request to view his outlook calendar while reading your comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Someone I know (in the UK) was arrested and spent a day in a cell when some criminal postings to Twitter were traced to his Tor exit node.

When the police interviewed him and admitted they _knew_ what a Tor exit node was, and that he was unlikely to be responsible for the traffic. But they did want him to know that running a Tor exit node makes their life harder, and would land him in this sort of trouble.

(I can't remember the exact words he reported, but it was outright intimidation).

</comment><comment><USER9> > Robinson admits it might be safer, legally, to host the Tor relay on rented > space from a commercial Internet service to avoid mingling his personal > traffic with Tor, but he says he shouldn't have to.

It'd probably be safer still setup a nonprofit group to own and run the exit node(s).

<comment><USER6> I don't understand this. If the police see the law being broken, they have an obligation to investigate, even if it's _probably_ just the tor exit node.

Allowing any random person to forward mail through your address may not end up well for you either, but I think people are more willing to accept that they've opened themselves up to the liability in that case.

<comment><USER10> > If the police see the law being broken, they have an obligation to > investigate

I have seen no reporting--not even in Detective Daljit Gill's affidavit in support of her application for search warrant (which I've read)--that police observed any violation of law related to the search. They claim to have received a tip, from 4chan, filtered through a national clearinghouse, that about seven weeks prior someone had allegedly transferred to 4chan a video of an unidentified woman abusing an unidentified child in an unknown location at an unknown time, allegedly from an IP address that they discovered was assigned by an ISP to David and that they learned prior to the search was the exit point from an anonymizing proxy network.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure what this has to do with my comment. Is your point that they should not have bothered to investigate further because they found that there happened to be a TOR exit node? If so, I'm not sure it's a better situation, where the police say "eh, he's probably not trading in child porn himself. We can let this one go." That's just sloppy policing.

The point is not whether he was responsible for the child porn traffic, but whether they have an obligation to investigate, and I think they do. In this case, that means a raid, since it's an individual and not a business (a business would likely have people that would speak out, and individual mean that if he's guilty, there's no reason for him to incriminate himself). Even so, raids on businesses happen as well, when there is a belief a evidence might be destroyed.

<comment><USER10> Your assertion was based on the flawed premise that police observed a violation of law in this case. I have seen no indication that they saw such. They reportedly acted on a fourth-party tip about a third party claim that an unknown person transferred a file apparently containing evidence of a past crime to that third party's computer. I edited my comment to quote yours in clarification of this.

<comment><USER6> You are correct, but I think it's well within the purview of the police to decide to investigate a tip like that, even if it is a TOR exit node.

That is, I'll amend my earlier statement. If the police have been notified about a law being broken, it's within acceptable behavior to follow up on that tip.

In this case, while inmy eyes the existence of a TOR exit node might reduce the likelihood that the person running it was responsible for the traffic, it also raises the likelihood that the traffic existed in the first place in my opinion. That puts the police in an interesting position, in that depending on how they weight those items, they may decide to investigate further.

In any case, I think my point stands, which is that when you make yourself responsible for delivering other people's traffic without oversight, you are increasing the chance that something problematic may result. Thinking it should have no effect on you is unrealistic.

<comment><USER10> Imagine that police got a tip from some clearinghouse about contraband someone else claimed to have received via FedEx delivery of a sealed container, so they convinced a judge to authorize them to go into the FedEx depot to search for and seize any delivery vehicle, shipping carton, shipping label, or related documentation in sight. That's roughly what happened here, but worse, the Tor exit relay operator _could not_ trace backward from the package they delivered to the person from whom it originated, and the police knew it.

Sure, the package could have been injected by somebody at the FedEx depot, but there is no evidence of such, and thus no cause for search.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure why you're using an example I specifically addressed a few comments back in a way that accounts for nothing I said.

A business with multiple employees is not the same as an individual when investigating a crime, depending on whether you think it's likely that they are colluding.

The traffic of the suspect and TOR was mingled, therefor it is not possible to say whether the offending traffic was from TOR or the suspect. If it was from the suspect, there could have been traces on his systems.

A low probability is not the same as no possibility, and there _was_ a possibility he was trading in child pornography. Your threshold for how high that probability should be compared to the investigating officers, or their superiors, may differ. At this point, it's _subjective_ , which is what I was getting at in my prior comment.

In any case, this is _irrelevant to my original point_ , which I already clarified in my prior comment. But to address what may have been your intent, yes, I believe that a package forwarding service may have some problems with the police from time to time. It may not be to the level you describe, but my point clearly does not require that.

To put it _plainly_ , if you in any way enable illegal activity, even unknowingly, it's not entirely unexpected that at times you may face increased scrutiny, or legal misunderstandings. For the suspect in this case to say he "shouldn't have to" is not realistic. That would allow a de-facto smokescreen for real criminals to hide behind.

<comment><USER10> > I believe that a package forwarding service may have some problems with the > police from time to time.

Yes, of course, they may. Police act in unethical or even unlawful manners from time to time. At question is not whether judges may warrant searches by police that they should not warrant, it is whether those searches should be warranted.

A fourth-party tip relayed through a third party about someone allegedly transferring via a computer network that provides locational privacy a file that apparently contains evidence of crime committed by an unidentified person in an unknown place at an unknown time is not any indication that the operator of the machine from which the file exited the anonymizing network onto the open Internet is party to any crime, whether that operator performs the service for fee, for free, at a commercial property, or at a residential property, as an individual, or as part of a group.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm blown away that someone (obviously so security savvy) would willingly hand over their passwords. There's little sense accepting their assurances at face value in potentially serious matters. LE can and will lie pursuant to their duties. I suppose I'm even more surprised they didn't end up impounding all the equipment anyways.

<comment><USER12> It seems to me the risk is almost entirely on the police in this scenario, meddling with running equipment is far from forensically sound and potentially leaves ample room for doubt in court. Volunteering to comply with the police request would also seem to exemplify the searchee's own presumption of innocence

(IANAL!)

<comment><USER13> No no no no.

You never corporate with the police. It doesn't matter if you're innocent. It doesn't matter if you're guilty. The police are not your friends. They are not there to help you. They don't give a shit about you. Never comply with police. Never consent to a search. They had a warrant in this case so it wouldn't have mattered, but he still shouldn't have consented. He should have never given them his passwords. He should have waited for a lawyer. He made so many mistakes that I'm surprised he isn't in jail for incompetence.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc)

<comment><USER12> I think you're misinterpreting that idea, it's about not granting the police privilege they did not already possess. In this case the police are offering to trade the privilege of airtight, forensically sound evidence collection in for the chance to grab secrets hiding in RAM. If the machine had no such secrets, there is nothing to lose and everything to gain

<comment><USER11> I'm a little confused. So you want to potentially give the police access to additional evidence (via your passwords/decryption keys) in the hopes that they will fuck something up or make a custodial error in the process of recovering it? You have everything to lose by giving them your passwords, even if you are innocent of the charges. You're under no obligation to give them your passwords or empty the contents of your brain in their presence. Why give them the opportunity to find something else? Who knows whether the machine has something they will find interesting. You shouldn't be providing LE with anything like this absent the advice of your attorney. There's too much to lose.

I really want to encourage you to read the following: [https://www.eff.org/issues/know-your-rights](https://www.eff.org/issues/know- your-rights)

<comment><USER14> No, he potentially gives the police access to additional evidence (via your passwords/decryption keys) in the hopes that the police don't do what they usually do (and what is in their right to do): confiscate all his electronic equipment and data including all backups of photos, videos, work projects, documents-in-progress, archives etc and not give it back for years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I went to law school at the University of Washington and graduated in 2013 and I actually did a little research about Tor while I was there and we talked to some people fairly high up in Seattle area law enforcement and honestly I'm surprised at how fast they've come along.

At the time, we couldn't find anyone who had even heard of Tor (not to say there weren't lots of people who were familiar, just that we didn't find any of them), let alone thought through the implications of someone running an exit node so I find it interesting that they didn't just seize all of his equipment. Based on my experience, I would not have predicted such an "artful" search, to use words from the article, even just a couple years ago.

</comment><comment><USER16> Thought I'd leave it here:

[https://blog.torproject.org/running-exit- node](https://blog.torproject.org/running-exit-node)

Also, how risky would it be to host an exit node that is HTTPS only?

<comment><USER17> If the FBI was able to monitor your traffic they would still see the IP addresses to which your node was reaching out. Same goes if they are running a honeypot[0] that your IP is hitting (as could be the case in this instance[1]).

That might not be much in the way of concrete evidence, but if your exit node is hitting carder forums all day long it might be enough for them to still knock on your door.

0: [https://theintercept.com/2016/03/30/fbi-honeypot-ensnares- mi...](https://theintercept.com/2016/03/30/fbi-honeypot-ensnares-michigan- man/)

1: [http://www.techworm.net/2016/01/fbi-child-porn-sexually- expl...](http://www.techworm.net/2016/01/fbi-child-porn-sexually-explicit- users-arrests.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Someone tell Apple that they can purchase a lot of privacy street cred if they hosted or funded a major TOR hosting initiative.

<comment><USER19> No, Apple should definitely not be in a position of running TOR nodes. All it takes is one National Security Letter and a Secret Court ruling that makes it so they have to compromise that endpoint for law enforcement / anti-terrorism organizations.

They need to keep doing what they have been doing with the recent FBI case and bringing these things out into the public's view. There is far too many things happening to subvert our privacy that we know nothing about...

<comment><USER18> Are you suggesting that nobody (companies or individuals) in the US or five eyes countries should run TOR nodes since the government can slap them with a court order?

<comment><USER20> From a personal safety standpoint, that is what I would suggest at least. Running a Tor exit means that you're the one who's going to get the knock on the door when a crook uses your connection for crookery.

I'd rather not deal with the police at all, in any capacity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> In his position, I would immediately cease operations after that police software was used on the system. Resume operations only after restoring from a clean backup taken prior to the raid.

<comment><USER22> I'd purchase new devices and/or components, and do a full rotation of all my credentials.

In fact, I should probably build a "invalidate every credential I have on all my computers and accounts" checklist. That and a tested backup strategy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Should the police be allowed to do this? I don't know. Obviously the line has to be drawn somewhere right? Child pornography isn't like narcotics. It isn't in any way a victimless crime and I would prefer that the police be able to inhibit its distribution. But then again if they had taken the same actions because someone was purchasing drugs I would be totally opposed. Severity of a crime is subjective, but a the law is still the law no matter how unfair it may seem. My point is that either the police should be allowed to take these actions or they shouldn't and the crime in question shouldn't really enter the picture. Actions taken based on one type of crime can be fairly easily justified for another. This is why in the US free speech is limited as little as is possible. It's a slippery slope. So I think the real question is if you operate a Tor exit node and something illegal passes through it should the police be able to compel you to release the passwords to your servers. I think they probably shouldn't. You would be hard pressed to find a Tor node that something illegal hasn't passed through. Does that give police carte blanche to access any information on any Tor node they want? Maybe.

<comment><USER24> Seattle, and most of cascadia for that sake, is a complete police state. They are far enough and fringe enough from the rest of the population to get away with whatever they would like.

Tor exit nodes in the PNW are a very bad idea.

</comment></comment><comment> SG- I'm disgusted the detectives carried around child porn even tho it's evidence and not only brought it to a potential crime scene but offered to show it to him.

Would they bring around cocaine or a gun from another scene? I'm assuming the police officer is exempt from distributing child porn as long as he's accusing of something before showing it.

<comment><USER25> Having read various police forensic reports, I'd say this is normal. They need the hash of the image to do a forensic sweep of his computer. The search for porn would be mostly automated, especially considering they are searching for one specific image which is probably what the warrant was limited to.

Then they would probably want to compare the image itself if it was detected on the harddrive, instead of relying purely on the file hash.

<comment> SG- I agree, but this isn't something the detective would perform himself, it would be the 'tech' guys and he still shouldn't offer to show it around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why would anybody give up their password & allow the police to work on your computer? Let them take the systems and accept the risk that running a TOR node in this day and age will get you a visit from the police or similar.

This guy gave up the password & now doesn't trust what they did to his systems. He has to get rid of them now? This is no different if they took his computers away without knowing his passwords.

What if this guys was working with the police all along. Now some guy decides to give away his password to the police so they can check his computer? Sounds fucking suspicious to me. I guess they are testing the waters to see if other TOR node exit maintainers are going to do the same.

Listen up! Never give your password out. Encrypt your systems & keep them separated if you are running a TOR node. Let them take your systems, because you will have to trash them anyway if you grant them access.

</comment><comment><USER27> Illegal numbers are my favourite kind of numbers.

How many bytes do I need? In the countries that have laws against cartoons, can I make an illegal favicon? Can I design a neural network which generates illegal favicons?

More seriously, criminalizing data is a terrible, terrible idea, simply because it provides a backdoor into the justice system.

</comment><comment><USER28> The german criminal police (in US: FBI) once called me and insisted on a good talk because of something. They finally visited me sensibly at my workplace, dressed up as customers (promised not to tell my coworkers who they really were). Then they told me there had been terror threats for thr Ukraine coming from my TOR server (they knew about Tor...). Bad thing: the terror threat had been some weeks ago and I had reinstalled the server three days before (without Tor) and all logs/evidences had been destroyed. Luckily, they believed me and left me after I simply gave them all passwords concerning the case. I have not run a Tor server since then. I support the concept, but it can bring you real trouble.

</comment><comment><USER29> > At one point, a detective offered to show him the image, but Robinson > refused.

I can't tell if the detective is a moron or just really hoping to induce a pedophile

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm not familiar with how Tor works; would it be possible to run an exit node but have it behind a filter to limit the liability?

<comment><USER31> You can tell the exit node which out-bound ports you want to allow. So for example, you can deny port 25 traffic so people can't send spam (as easily) anonymously via your exit.

If I ever get the balls to host an exit node myself, I'd likely only allow port 22. Even allowing 443 seems a bit risky after reading this.

<comment><USER32> Only allowing port 22 seems pretty limiting. How many people ssh over TOR? Sure they can setup tunnels, but that can't be very common.

In any case, you are always in danger of being identified by honeypot servers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is an area where public libraries could take a lead role by running Tor exit nodes.

Running an exit node as an individual is going to be a dicey proposition.</comment>


ClojureScript Core.async Dots Game - <AUTHOR> http://rigsomelight.com/2013/08/12/clojurescript-core-async-dots-game.html

<comment><USER2> This is a beautiful piece of code documentation and it's great to see core.async used on less trivial examples, fantastic work!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'd like to use this as a base problem to alter and improve as my knowledge of ClojureScript progresses.</comment></comment>


American Airlines retires classic MD-80 planes - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/american-airlines-retires-md-80/index.html <comment><USER2> Wow, I had no idea American was still flying these.

Back in 2013, SAS retired their last MD-80. The last flight was a special "museum flight" with the cabin filled with flight enthusiasts. They flow quite low-height over beautiful places in the Nordics during this flight.</comment>


A Smallcore Manifesto: Help Us Build a Better Teddy Bear - <AUTHOR> http://developmentseed.org/blog/2009/oct/28/smallcore-manifesto-help-us-build-better-teddy-bear

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, from <http://smallcore.org>

honing drupal into a viable web framework, one patch at a time: fewer dependencies, fewer required modules, and a robust packaging system for tailored, targeted distributions.

why? because the only thing between us and world domination is blog module.</comment>


"Life of a Silicon Valley Hipster" Picture Book - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jaksic/life-of-a-silicon-valley-hipster <comment><AUTHOR> Startup culture has become fairly mainstream, thanks to shows like "Silicon Valley"; but there aren't any humorous books about "making the world a better place" by becoming seemingly rich, so we decided to create one. It's an epic tale about a stereotypical hipster named Theo and his disruptive startup, which I'm sure many of you will find heartwarming :)

Comments and "investment capital" welcome :) Also, feel free to share with your hipster and non-hipster friends.</comment>


House Schedules Vote on Eliminating Consumer Online Privacy Rights Next Week - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/congress-debates-reversing-course-decades-consumer-privacy-protections?link_id=8&can_id=a6c53469a0fc060cebd5a72ffb651879&source=email-vote-is-tomorrow-6&email_referrer=vote-is-tomorrow-6&email_subject=vote-is-tomorrow <comment><USER2> The "next week" referred to in this article happens today.

[https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/28/internet-...](https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/28/internet- service-providers-sell-browsing-history-house-vote)

For this to get through the Senate the way it did makes it pretty clear to me that the Senate is way beyond corrupt. Especially considering the piece of this legislation that goes way too far in prohibiting future privacy rules from enacted if, for some reason, this did end up going through and being a total disaster.

<comment><USER3> Leaving the politics aside for a second, wouldn't using a VPN fix this?

<comment><USER4> Yes, provided you are prepared to pay for one, know why you should want one in the first place, can put up with the increased latency, and are competent enough to set up your computer to use it. Most people are some combination of aren't/don't/can't/aren't.

<comment><USER3> My foray into VPNs was good.. pretty much download, install, and play.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I may not be versed in this but does calling your congress man work? Do you leave a message or do you actually get a person on the line to talk to?

I hear people say "let's flood the line". Is that something the elected official look for to make those decision? I'm seriously asking the question.

<comment><USER6> "I worked for Congress for 6 years, and here's what I learned about how they listen to constituents": [https://twitter.com/editoremilye/status/797243415922515970](https://twitter.com/editoremilye/status/797243415922515970)

<comment><USER7> For us without the access to twitter, can please somebody write what the hell the person learned? "Here's what" titles are the worst I know.

<comment><USER8> Conversation Nov 12 Emily Ellsworth @editoremilye I worked for Congress for 6 years, and here's what I learned about how they listen to constituents.

Nov 12 Emily Ellsworth @editoremilye First, tweeting or writing on Facebook is largely ineffective. I never looked at those comments except to remove the harassing ones.

Nov 12 Emily Ellsworth @editoremilye Second, writing a letter to the district office (state) is better than sending an email or writing a letter to DC.

Nov 12 Emily Ellsworth @editoremilye But, the most effective thing is to actually call them on the phone. At their district (state) office. They have to talk to you there.

Nov 12 Emily Ellsworth @editoremilye We repped half a million people, it was impossible to read and respond personally to all letters. Impossible.

Nov 12 Emily Ellsworth @editoremilye This was something in particular that I cared about as a staffer and worked very hard on, but the sheer volume of emails is overwhelming

Nov 12 Emily Ellsworth @editoremilye So, we batched them with computer algorithms and sent out form letters based on topic and position. Regardless of method received.

in reply to @editoremilye Emily Ellsworth @editoremilye But, phone calls! That was a thing that shook up our office from time. One time, a radio host gave out our district office phone # on air.10:09 AM ·

Nov 12 Emily Ellsworth @editoremilye He was against our immigration policy and told our constituents to call. And they did. All. Day. Long. All I did all day was answer phones.

Nov 12 Emily Ellsworth @editoremilye It was exhausting and you can bet my bosses heard about it. We had discussions because of that call to action.

Nov 12 Emily Ellsworth @editoremilye If we started getting a pattern of calls, I called up our DC office and asked if they were getting the same calls and we talked.

Nov 12 Emily Ellsworth @editoremilye Also, recognize that your letters and your emails get seen by staffers, just like your phone calls get answered. That's the way of it.

Nov 12 Emily Ellsworth @editoremilye If you want to talk to your rep, show up at town hall meetings. Get a huge group that they can't ignore. Pack that place and ask questions.

Nov 12 Emily Ellsworth @editoremilye We held town halls consistently that fewer than 50 people showed up for. And it was always the same people. So, shake it up.

Nov 12 Megan Broderick @megbrod12 @editoremilye I'm literally making an excel right now of all my reps contact info, this is great to have! Esp the DC vs district office

Nov 12 Emily Ellsworth @editoremilye As always, please be kind but firm with those staffers. They will listen and talk to you. I always, always did.

Sorry about the lack of formatting, I'm on my smartphone.

Edit: added line breaks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love the EFF, but sometimes I don't understand their bifurcated approach to online rights.

On one hand, they support and distribute tools like Tor and Privacy Badger. On the other, they write, in the boldest print of this article:

> There is only one way to stop them from winning.

> We must speak up and call our elected officials to reject H.J. Res 86 and > S.J. Res 34 and preserve our legal rights to consumer online privacy.

Well... no. There's more than one way of winning.

In fact, it's not at all clear that the state _can_ "eliminate" our online rights. They can _infringe upon them_ sure, and in fact can be counted on to do so.

But the internet organism must be made to protect us from the state, and this happens by collaboration of inventors and philosophers and dreamers who create the tooling of the internet, not by a vote in congress.

Notice I'm not saying _not to call your reps_ \- it can be a very effective tactic. What I'm saying is that "there is only one way" seems to go against the multiple-front strategy that the EFF (awesomely) employs.</comment>


Viber - Millions of users without making a buck. Should it really be that way? - <AUTHOR> http://gilsadis.com/2012/01/24/millions-of-users-without-making-a-buck-should-it-really-be-that-way/ <comment><USER2> It´s simple Viber is worthless if your friends don't have it, therefore free.

Maybe someday they will flip the free on/off switch, and loose the majority of the users. Or they could do something smart with ads maybe, listen to the conversation and put appropriate ads in the app?

One thing they don't have, I think, is P2P as Skype and therefore must have more operating costs.</comment>


Ask HN: As a digital nomad how do you manage your bank accounts? - <AUTHOR>

As a digital nomad how do you manage your bank accounts from abroad, what is the best bank to make an account with, that also has worldwide coverage and easy to find ATMs so I am not charged every time I withdraw cash. <comment><USER2> This is an increasingly important issue, especially for US citizens. Many foreign banks will not open accounts for US citizens (or residents) because of FATCA reporting requirements. This means that opening up a local account for local payments is problematic.

Additionally, if you truly are a digital nomad, you may find that your bank inexplicably cancels or suspends your ATM or credit card because it is being:

\--used for the first time on an 'unknown' computer (i.e., at an Internet café) \--is being used from a country that you have previously not traveled to.

The bank security procedures usually require an automated telephone call to the SIM number in the US that you haven't used in months during US business hours (it doesn't matter to them if you are on the other side of the world) and if you do not answer they will reverse the charges if you were lucky to complete the transaction in the first place. There is, of course, no number to call because the lost and stolen card section is different from the funds authorization section. Worse, if you have a small community bank in the US, they may outsource card services and that company has no relationship with you at all.

The only banks I am aware of that are not flummoxed by international transactions (and whose debit cards may routinely be processed as credit cards, greatly facilitating US car rentals) are Swiss banks. But good luck trying to open a Swiss bank account as an American.

In SE Asia, to apply for certain types of visas you must show financial stability and this means cash in local currency in a local bank. Not being able to open a local account means further discrimination.

One would think that in this day and age a bank would set up an expat desk to handle these things. I've heard that Channel Islands banks are good at this, but I really don't know.

Law enforcement assumes that foreign banks=criminal activity. You would think that the US hadn't joined the WTO.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm a customer of a local bank in the village where I grew up (in Germany). They offer of course online banking etc like any decent bank, but the really good thing is: they know me and my familiy quite well and vice versa. So, when travelling, and when Internet and everything fails, it's easy to get the right people on the phone to find a solution. Also, it's easier to negotiate with them if you know them on a personal level (e.g. for reductions on all kind of fees etc). It's funny, but I found my village's bank a reliable fallback, no matter in which country or city I had lived.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm a US citizen and I've had this issue in the past. There are banks that issue debit and credit cards that refund ATM and do not charge foreign exchange fees. IIRC Charles Schwab checking, USAA, Citibank, Chase, HSBC offer these services with a large enough balance. If I could, I would set up a USAA account.

reddit.com/r/churning or r/personalfinance might be better places to ask.

There are some other considerations though. If there's an emergency and you need to get in touch with someone, you will be bound to US operating hours. If your ATM card gets fraud charges while you're out of the country, you won't get a replacement card for weeks. There might be access problems to online accounts in suspicious countries or unknown devices. Certain banks like to proactively suspend your card and call your old phone number for suspicious activity, even when you have already listed out the trip ahead of time.

I now carry multiple debit and credit cards, and cash for international trips.

</comment><comment><USER5> Half of my money in Ally, the other half in Barclays Online. (Both offer around 1% savings accounts, among the highest in the business.) Schwab is my go-to ATM account, since it offers reimbursements on all ATM fees, including the 1% VISA tax, even abroad. Moreover, they're very good with not blocking your card: I called them once, they put my card in "training mode", and it's worked flawlessly in about 10 countries since. Ally also has an ATM card that works abroad, but it has the VISA 1% and only offers reimbursements in the US. Both Ally and Barclays offer free ACH transfers. I also use Vanguard for a few investments.

None of my banks have physical branches abroad, but this does not bother me. I also don't have to cash foreign checks or accept deposits from foreign banks, which may be a problem for you. I don't believe that Ally accepts international wire transfers, for example.

I've been using this system in Europe for about half a year.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been living abroad in a dozen different countries for years, and I use credit card for most daily transactions, since I'm not charged a fee, and the exchange rates are competitive.

When it comes to cash, I just pay the $5 ATM fee. When I visit an ATM, I pull out at least a few hundred dollars in cash, leave the majority at home, and carry what I need.

Groceries are by credit card, rent is online, so my only cash expenses are street food, going out to pubs, and other minor things. Therefore, let's say I take out a few hundred dollars a month. That's a $5 fee per month, or $60 per year. In my opinion, that's incredibly cheap, and I get the freedom to use any ATM for my cash withdrawals on my travels.

</comment><comment><USER7> The Swiss Post Bank allows me to withdraw from ATM all over the world without any fees. But I have to have an overall minimal balance of 25K USD or I have to pay a monthly fee of 12 USD. I can actually have an infinite number of different accounts with different currencies. But these conditions are only available for Swiss citizens. For foreigner additional fees apply per account (5-10 USD). And yeah, Americans have a hard time getting an account here. Actually a friend told me, that you even have a hard time keeping your Swiss accounts if you move as a Swiss citizen to the United States.

<comment><USER2> Julian Assange and Wikileaks opened an account with the Swiss Post Bank. Under US pressure, they shut down these accounts and said that in the future they would allow Swiss citizens or those with local bills (i.e., utilities) to open these accounts. Has this changed?

<comment><USER8> no I don't think this restriction for "Swiss citizens only" really exists. I'm resident in Switzerland as a non-Swiss and can get the same privileges being an EU citizen (I have a permit to reside in CH with my work).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> limit your use of cash altogether. find a credit card deal that won't charge you extra fees or give you non-market rates when making transactions in other currencies.

<comment><USER5> Not always possible. Many cities (Berlin, cough cough) don't seem to use credit cards very much, especially for quick fast-food-type places.</comment></comment>


Monopoly The .com Edition - <AUTHOR> http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/10/monopoly-com-edition.html

<comment><USER2> My in-laws gave me Monopoly: the .com Edition when I started at my first startup. We get a game going about once a year. The best part is that the denominations are HUGE. That's a part of the bubble they really captured well and leads to tons of unintentional humor during each game: bloated values of nothing companies bought with play money.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. You get $200m for passing go :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's funny that GOOGLE isn't even part of that.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's interesting to see how much the world has changed in 10 years and what's left of the companies that were hot back then.

<comment><USER5> Makes you wonder if the 'hot' companies today - facebook, twitter, myspace etc etc will be around in 10 years time, or will have fallen.

<comment><USER6> Given that the business models are largely the same, I doubt it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The only thing that didn't change? Taxes...

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm surprised by how many of these sites are still around.

<comment><USER9> Geocities is, but not for long! They're scheduling it to disappear on the 26th.</comment></comment>


Ukraine has decided to abandon the taxes - <AUTHOR> Ukraine has decided to abandon the taxes. They want to enter just two taxes. 5 per cent of sales. And 10 percent of the social. Cool!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM09dVeHxGI <comment><USER2> I'm not sure that Ukraine is the best example of 'good governance' right now.

<comment><USER3> Leeeeeet me get this straight. If I was to move to Ukraine, and I make $1 billion, $1 million, or $1 thousand in income, I will pay 10% income tax, and 5% sales tax? That's it?

This is exactly what progressive tax is fighting! Because the rich get to keep their extra $ while the poor pay the $ they really need.

Good times.

<comment><USER4> although interestingly that could be solved my making it illegal to pay anyone more than say 5* the lowest employees salary.

If the problem is great disparity remove it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> BS by a party that can not cross even 1% in support. Now if you are in IT you generally work as private entrepreneur and pay basically flat 3% tax.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is this really happening, or it is just some political party advertisement?

</comment><comment><USER7> I wish it was true! Any big news site confirms this?

Is it not just what [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.10](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.10) wants?

</comment><comment><USER8> This is great! you should only have taxes that you can collect anyway. Any tax that the state collects only partially, is only making the people that are willing to bend the rules, rich.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM09dVeHxGI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM09dVeHxGI)</comment>


Ten Hundred Words of Science - <AUTHOR> http://tenhundredwordsofscience.tumblr.com/

<comment><USER2> It's an interesting idea, certainly. But reading the descriptions I can't help but feel that these ideas could be more easily explained using a less restricted vocabulary and still be accessible.

Jargon can make an explanation more eloquent as it does not have to be filled with contrived collections of less suitable words. If the jargon is explained before it is used it still can be readily understood.

<comment><USER3> If you haven't seen it before you should search YouTube for Feynman Fun to Imagine. I am extremely impressed with how accessible his explanations are, and I would have loved to see what he could have done with the given restriction. Probably not as well as he did without it but probably better than most could do with it.

edit: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3pYRn5j7oI&list=PLC351CC566C...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3pYRn5j7oI&list=PLC351CC566C21C884)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can't view the page. Is it inspired by this: [http://xkcd.com/1133/](http://xkcd.com/1133/)

<comment><USER5> That's exactly what it says. It's favicon is also an xkcd drawing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't feel that any of these ideas are complex. For example, explain the meaning of nonsymetric permitivity when we are talking about phaser solutions. Maybe even rvalues in C++ :-)

<comment><USER7> When we tell a computer how to do something, we write a set of orders for the computer in a way that the computer can read. These orders can ask the computer to remember things, like numbers and names and places and so on. We can ask the computer to set up spots where it will remember things for us, and each such spot will have its own name. When we write down a thing for the computer to figure out, and the computer goes on to actually figure out what we are talking about, the thing can turn out to be either of two types. It can be the name of a place to store things, or it can be a thing to be stored (like a number or word or letter or a few of any of these). If it is a place to store things (which we can call a "left hand type of thing"), we could ask the computer to store other things in that place. If it is a thing that can be stored (which we can call a "right hand type of thing"), we could ask the computer to store it somewhere.

The reason why we use the names "left hand" and "right hand" in this way is that we can write orders for the computer like

cat should become two times two

In this case, the word "cat" appeared on the left hand side of the order, before "should become" (or "gets"), while the words "two times two" appeared on the right hand side of the order, after "should become". This makes sense because in this order we use "cat" as a name of a place to store things, while "two times two" (which turns out to be the number four) is a number that could be stored so that it can be used later on. Here, we would call "cat" a left hand type of thing, and "two times two" a right hand type of thing.

In some orders for the computer, the way to talk about where to store things is much more confusing (like we could say something like "right after this place", "right before this place", "ten spots after this place"), but still, if something works out to point to a place where you can store facts, then that thing is a left hand type of thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I always liked the fact that the word "thousand" itself is not among thousand most common English words.

<comment><USER9> The same is true of, e.g., "one" and "two".

According to the frequency list at www.wordfrequency.info (the free top-5000 one; for more than that you need to pay them), the only numbers below 1000 for which all the words making up _n_ are among the _n_ most common English words are 800..808.

Proof: the ranks of numbers 1..9 are 50,79,134,250,299,425,735,743,1163; the ranks of 10..19 are 840,4318,3246,X,X,3019,X,X,X,X (where X means "bigger than 5000"); the ranks of 10,20,...,90 are 840,2103,2855,3767,3064,X,X,X,X; the rank of "hundred" is 621.

So: all number-words have rank >= 50 so nothing below 50 is "good". Anything from 20 to 99 has rank >= 2000 because of "twenty" etc., so nothing below 100 is "good". For the same reason nothing below 2000 whose tens digit isn't 0 or 1 is "good".

Nothing from 100 to 620 is "good" because of "hundred". Nor any higher 6xx, as above; nor 700..720 because of "seven"; nor higher 7xx, as above. The small 8xx are as stated; higher 8xx are no good as usual; no 9xx is good because of "nine".

This word list actually puts "thousand" in position 650, which makes lots of 1xxx numbers good: the little Common Lisp program that actually gave me the results above says it's these: 1000 1001 1002 1003 1004 1005 1006 1007 1008 1010 1100 1101 1102 1103 1104 1105 1106 1107 1108 1110 1200 1201 1202 1203 1204 1205 1206 1207 1208 1209 1210 1300 1301 1302 1303 1304 1305 1306 1307 1308 1309 1310 1400 1401 1402 1403 1404 1405 1406 1407 1408 1409 1410 1500 1501 1502 1503 1504 1505 1506 1507 1508 1509 1510 1600 1601 1602 1603 1604 1605 1606 1607 1608 1609 1610 1700 1701 1702 1703 1704 1705 1706 1707 1708 1709 1710 1800 1801 1802 1803 1804 1805 1806 1807 1808 1809 1810 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910.

Of course all large enough numbers are "good". I can't tell where "large enough" starts because that wordlist doesn't go far enough to include even "thirteen" or "sixty". Perhaps somewhere around 10000 onwards?</comment></comment>


Winamp-ish YouTube music player - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@Duj/my-youtube-music-player-3611f0732759#.5eschwafk <comment><AUTHOR> Hello, This is a music player that I made for myself. Its very rough but looks promising. Its mac only, I'd appreciate it if you downloaded it and gave it a whirl.

Thank you!</comment>


Stateless Network Functions (2017) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/nsdi17/nsdi17-kablan.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> I believe the concepts in this paper have been commercialized at this company: [http://www.bestateless.com/](http://www.bestateless.com/)

Not affiliated, other than by being based in the same town. I also chatted with one of the founders a year or so ago.

</comment><comment><USER2> Thanks for your comments everyone. I'm one of the authors of this paper and the co-founder and CEO of the company, Stateless. We graduated from techstars Boulder in 2017.

ben509 comment about our name makes sense. The network functions still using the state, we just decoupled it into a separate location to achieve elasticity and high resiliency. We just liked the name since its short and made us unique to some degree.

Our platform developed way beyond what you see in the paper. It is developed now into a microservice architecture using zookeeper and masos to handle state decoupling and other aspects in a much scalable and robust fashion.

As for RAMCloud, it is very interesting but the challenge that it is not robust enough so we had to hack into its code to make it more stable. But yea it is so fast.

If you are interested to learn more, please free to keep asking questions or contact us through our website www.beStateless.com

</comment><comment><USER3> Sun ONC RPC was used to implement the (famous) stateless NFS server over UDP.

NFSv3 added TCP (and brought minimal network state) into the protocol.

NFSv4 rolled all the external stateful services (stat, mount, idmap) into the main protocol.

Bearing in mind this progression, are stateless services difficult to maintain in production, and will there be a strong tendency to reintroduce state?

<comment><USER4> What they're doing is not making these stateless. I think labelling it stateless is a bit misleading and diminishes what they've done: worked out consistent mechanisms to decouple the state from the devices.

You can't run NAT without tracking what device and port the return ports map to. So what they're doing is working out how to distribute that. And, naturally, mapping port numbers to devices is highly amenable to circular hashing.

They've also identified some algorithms that require only very transient state or whose "state" can be determined dynamically.

Load balancers, for instance, are inherently tolerant of errors, and they load balancing is well understood to perform better when you _don 't_ track load closely. If you send work randomly, it will pile up on some nodes, but if you ping two nodes at random to see who is less busy, that additional information is enough to balance the work.

I think the difference between these and NFS is that for NFS to do its job, it has to be fully implemented on the client to work. I would definitely anticipate people wanting to add additional features, but if those can be factored out as separate components, you limit the issue. And, further, if they can manage their state in a distributed fashion, the network components themselves would remain decoupled, and you still get the elasticity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> RAMCloud looks interesting. Does anyone have any experience with it?</comment>


Show HN: What a non-designer can do with a Bootstrap template and an afternoon - <AUTHOR> http://willholloway.net

<comment><USER2> Nicely done... Also kudos for being a CT Native.</comment>


Sex and Financial Risk Linked in Brain - <AUTHOR> http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FINANCE_AND_SEX?SITE=WIRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

<comment><USER2> the study was conducted on 15 people only.. i think that is grossly inadequate to come to such a conclusion</comment>


WikiLeaks film script leaked to WikiLeaks - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/assange-wikileaks-film-script-leaked-wikileaks-221839919.html

<comment><USER2> Pretty standard, if effective, propaganda tactic. All "they" have to do is stick the words "Based on a True Story" somewhere in there, and they can diverge however far they want from the facts, yet people will still gobble it up.

<comment><USER3> Agree. However, I have doubts on Assange's credibility. Although I am inclined to believe what Assange had said, Assange absconded bail which was posted by his friends and supporters.

<comment><USER4> Given the circumstances, I know no individual who would have done otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Probably a delibrate act to get publicity on the part of the filmmakers!

</comment><comment><USER6> Link for the lazy 'Julian Assange at the Oxford Union': <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vQNWYnQjUE>

</comment><comment><USER7> Will the movie touch upon this particularly meta plot point?

<comment><USER8> And then will that get released to WikiLeaks?

<comment><USER9> Recursion!

<comment><USER7> Not sure if there's recursion yet. Will the movie touch upon this particularly meta plot point?

(Okay, trying too hard on that one, heh?)

<comment><USER10> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5118838>

(There. Now it's an infinite recursion.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Poetic!

</comment><comment><USER12> INCEPTION

</comment><comment><USER9> This seems appropriate.</comment>


APLcart – Find Your Way in APL - <AUTHOR> https://aplcart.info/ <comment><USER2> APL aside, I really like this general presentation and ux of a cheat sheet.

Dump out a table of a few thousand items, at most, and then narrow to relevant as the search box is filled. This would also work for APIs and CLI options, for example.

I just wish the rows had some clickable elements leading to examples or maybe a live try it box in the case of an interpreted language.

<comment><USER3> Both links to documentation and examples are on my to-do list ([https://github.com/abrudz/aplcart/issues](https://github.com/abrudz/aplcart/issues)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Incidentally, in the last month or two, Dyalog have made their APL interpreter available for non-commercial use with no signup and no regular nagware popups when using it, and no disabled features, it's a simple download of the current version just reminds you that it's unlicensed when launched:

[https://www.dyalog.com/](https://www.dyalog.com/)

(It used to be something you could ask for and exchange personal details for, if they agreed)

</comment><comment><USER5> I suggested[1] for someone well-versed in APL to add it on the Learn X in Y minutes site to attract more beginners, allowing the quicker dive. So if someone wants to do that - feel free ;)

[1] [https://github.com/adambard/learnxinyminutes- docs/issues/358...](https://github.com/adambard/learnxinyminutes- docs/issues/3580)

<comment><USER3> There's this ([https://github.com/nooodl/learnxinyminutes- docs/blob/master/...](https://github.com/nooodl/learnxinyminutes- docs/blob/master/apl.apl)) fork.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I played around a bit with J as a language and found it really lovely but unfortunately not really applicable to my problem domain (CRUD Enterprise Apps)

I guess maybe some people are really in love with the symbolic notation of APL (vs J) but I would think it would be terribly limiting.

<comment><USER7> Personally, I wish the APL ideas had been taken more seriously, not only as a programming language, but specially as an algebraic notation.

I would like to be able to open any text editor and write formulas, and it is not a minor thing to be able to directly use those formulas to solve the problem in the computer. I can do that with J or K, but it does not feel natural at all when using paper or the blackboard, for example. On the other hand, I indeed love the APL symbols (you get used to them much faster than it may look) but, even although they are part of unicode, it is still much less convenient to use than ASCII.

<comment><USER8> Would a special keyboard help that much?

<comment><USER9> A special keyboard at least puts you in a situation where you can fall back on hunting and pecking until you get used to where they are at your own pace. An IDE could help imprinting what the symbols actually mean.

<comment><USER3> There are tricks to remember the locations ([https://i.imgur.com/57wRuUS.png](https://i.imgur.com/57wRuUS.png))</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: XMLHttpRequest, Cross-site scripting and JSONP - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
I encountered a nasty surprise while coding an app ... wanted to discuss the issue and get thoughts from others. In short, I assumed that it was possible to use XMLHttpRequest from a Javascript application to call Twitter, Facebook and other web-enabled APIs. It turns out that for a service that returns JSON or XML, you can't call a web service (from javascript running inside a browser) that is not in the same domain as the original webpage. (Well ... IE lets you do it, but it gives you a nasty security warning. Other browsers I tried seem to block the request completely). It turns out that there is a workaround ... if the web service returns JSONP, you can use a script tag to make the web service call.
I have some specific questions, but would certainly appreciate related thoughts.
1) Is this really how it is supposed to work? Am I missing something? If this is how "it" is supposed to work, then "it" is lame. 2) How common is jsonp in web service APIs? Is this a non-standard hack or widely used by web companies. 3) One obvious workaround to the whole mess is to just make the web service calls from the server side and relay data to the client browser. Is this the standard practice?
Thanks for any light you may be able to shed on current usage and best practices! <comment><USER2> I think you'd find a site like stackoverflow to be a more helpful place to ask a question like this. Certainly there are JS experts around here, but people tend to be in a different mode when browsing HN and are more up for discussing tech at a 10,000 foot perspective.

Here is a good summary from SO: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2067472/please-explain- js...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2067472/please-explain-jsonp)

To quickly answer:

1) Yes - Its the browser security model enforcing this rule and not anything directly related to the DOM. In theory the rule is in place to make cross site scripting harder. It is bizarre that there is an easy work around like JSONP, but I'd say lets just be grateful that it exists.

2) Common. Its a hack, but its also useful enough that its widely used.

3) Yes - thats proxying your data. Very common.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2067472/please-explain- js...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2067472/please-explain-jsonp)</comment>


Day of Week Algorithm - <AUTHOR> https://www.programmingalgorithms.com/algorithm/day-of-week <comment><USER2> This algorithm didn't appear out of nowhere. Maybe this page should mention the source?

I had pictured this as being essentially Gauss's algorithm, but if Wikipedia is correct, this particular implementation is due to Tomohiko Sakamoto in 1993.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determination_of_the_day_of_th...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determination_of_the_day_of_the_week#Implementation- dependent_methods)

<comment><USER3> Agreed, source of algorithms would be cool to include for these...but still, i think its pretty cool concept to have such a website.

Anyone know of other, similar websites but for python? Or even if not for python, just another website like this.

<comment><USER2> Does Rosetta Code count?

<comment><USER3> Rosetta code is awesome! I especially like the "Similar Sites" page <[http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Help:Similar_Sites>](http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Help:Similar_Sites>)

Thanks @cokernel!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here's some code I wrote years ago using a different algorithm called Zeller's Congruence[1]. The advantage of this is it doesn't require a lookup table:

      public int dayOfWeek(int year, int month, int day) {
        day += month < 3 ? year-- : year - 2;
        return ((((23 * month) / 9) + day + 4 + (year / 4)) - (year / 100) + (year / 400)) % 7;
      }

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeller%27s_congruence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeller%27s_congruence)

<comment><USER5> I'm pretty sure the post's solution is wrong.

Examples:

2008-06-11 (Wednesday). Post's function returns 2 instead of 3.

<comment><USER6> When inputting day of month in range [1,31] and month in range [1,12] the function seems to work fine. Verified here from 1900-01-01 through 2020-01-01:

[http://ideone.com/te3ywm](http://ideone.com/te3ywm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice Page!

But, in my opinion, it would be nice to know "why". Sure, i can digg into it, spend a day to understand or can use Google to find the answer; But it would be awesome if they will provide that information on the pages to the algorithms.

I.e the SHA 256 Page: I really like it. But if i'm new in this field, and don't even know about it a simple Wikipedia link would be enough to give me an "introduction" to the Algorithm. And, without it: It stays nice :)

</comment><comment><USER8> All this discussion, and I'm over here simply being mock-annoyed that Sunday is being listed as the first day of the week.

I know it's a personal choice, but why do some people think the week starts on a Sunday? I'm curious as to what the explanation is?

<comment><USER9> The bible says saturday is the last day of the week, which means societies with a strong christian tradition use sunday as the start of the week.

Sunday is defined in law as the start of the week in some bits of English law, so there's that.

<comment><USER10> I don't think that's right, do you have any links?

Italy, Spain, Ireland, England... actually all european countries (AFAIK) use Monday as the start of the week. All countries with a strong christian tradition.

The only countries I know that use Sunday as the start of the week are the US and Israel.

A quick search in wikipedia[0] also mentions that it's used as the first day of the week in Hebrew tradition and in some muslim countries.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday#Position_in_the_week](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday#Position_in_the_week)

<comment><USER9> Traditionally England does not use Monday as the start of the week. This is easy to see if you look at older calendars.

At the moment there's some inconsistancy:

Sunday to Saturday: [https://www.gov.uk/maternity-pay- leave/pay](https://www.gov.uk/maternity-pay-leave/pay)

Monday to Sunday: [https://www.gov.uk/guidance/statutory-sick-pay-manually- calc...](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/statutory-sick-pay-manually-calculate- your-employees-payments)

Googling for ["sunday to saturday" inurl:gov.uk] or ["monday to sunday" inurl:gov.uk] shows a bunch of examplesof each.

EDIT: You asked for links, so here's something from 2009 asking why it's so hard to find a calendar that starts on a monday: [http://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-200944,...](http://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-200944,00.html)

> Why is it so hard to find a calendar that starts the week on a Monday, not a > Sunday? It can't just be my family who gets outraged by this.

And here's something else from 2009 which (weirdly) explaining why it's so hard to find calendars that start on Sunday, not Monday.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/6495398/Officiall...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/6495398/Officially- Sunday-is-not-the-first-day-of-the-week.html)

tl;dr England used Sunday as the first day of the week until they started using ISO standards for time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder, is this more efficient than Microsoft's implementation?

       DateTime.Today.DayOfWeek;

       public DayOfWeek DayOfWeek {
                get {
                    Contract.Ensures(Contract.Result<DayOfWeek>() >= DayOfWeek.Sunday);
                    Contract.Ensures(Contract.Result<DayOfWeek>() <= DayOfWeek.Saturday);
                    return (DayOfWeek)((InternalTicks / TicksPerDay + 1) % 7);
                }
            }

        public enum DayOfWeek {
            Sunday = 0,
            Monday = 1,
            Tuesday = 2,
            Wednesday = 3,
            Thursday = 4,
            Friday = 5,
            Saturday = 6,
        }

[http://referencesource.microsoft.com/#mscorlib/system/dateti...](http://referencesource.microsoft.com/#mscorlib/system/datetime.cs,f6ea9c9a0d4b5e43) [http://referencesource.microsoft.com/#mscorlib/system/dayofw...](http://referencesource.microsoft.com/#mscorlib/system/dayofweek.cs)

<comment><USER12> That's a different problem; it doesn't take year/month/day, but _InternalTicks_ (and, nitpicking, doesn't appear to handle leap seconds, an issue that doesn't exist for functions taking ymd as input)

<comment><USER13> It's a different implementation, not a different concept. InternalTicks are how datetime data is represented in a C# datetime object (actually dateData which is a 64b bitfield: the first 62 bits are the internal tick, the last 2 bits are the kind).

<comment> mark-r So all the hard work of converting year/month/day to InternalTicks is done at creation time, greatly simplifying the weekday calculation occurring later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In Python:

[https://repl.it/B6os/5](https://repl.it/B6os/5)

<comment><USER13> Why would you bother with that when you can just call `date.strftime("%A")`? (or `date.isoweekday()` if you want the numerical index)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is real easy in Java:

        private DayOfWeek getDayOfWeek(int year, int month, int day) {
            return LocalDate.of(year, month, day).getDayOfWeek();
        }

        @Test
        public void getDayOfWeekTest() {
            assertEquals(DayOfWeek.FRIDAY, getDayOfWeek(2016, 3, 25));
        }

It's a built-in function in Java 8. Under the hood, one can see what it's doing is converting the given date to an `EpochDay`, taking the `floorMod` of that by 7, and then returning the index of the DayOfWeek enum. Basically:

        public enum DayOfWeek { MONDAY, TUESDAY... }

        int dow0 = (int)Math.floorMod(toEpochDay() + 3, 7);
        return ENUMS[dayOfWeek - 1];

<comment><USER16> Wonder why you were downvoted

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If you want to do it in your head, there's Conway's Doomsday Rule: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_rule)

</comment><comment><USER18> Here's how it's implemented in Ruby:

      static int
      calc_wday(int year, int month, int day)
      {
          int a, y, m;
          int wday;

          a = (14 - month) / 12;
          y = year + 4800 - a;
          m = month + 12 * a - 3;
          wday = day + (153*m+2)/5 + 365*y + y/4 - y/100 + y/400 + 2;
          wday = wday % 7;
          return wday;
      }

Source: [https://github.com/ruby/ruby/blob/5396d8a1ab52b4da4f51991094...](https://github.com/ruby/ruby/blob/5396d8a1ab52b4da4f5199109472fe7f8ea43085/time.c#L1260)

<comment><USER19> perl!

      sub GetDayofWeek {

        my ($year, $month, $day) = @_;

         my @monthTable = (0, 3, 2, 5, 0, 3, 5, 1, 4, 6, 2, 4);

         my @DayofWeek = qw(Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday);

         $year -=  ($month < 3) ? 1: 0;

         return $DayofWeek[($year + $year / 4 - $year / 100 + $year / 400 + $monthTable[$month - 1] + $day) % 7];

      }

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> A function you sometimes need is to convert date to business week of year (output is year, week number) where "week 1 is the week with the year's first Thursday in it (the formal ISO definition)".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601#Week_dates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601#Week_dates)

Week numbers are useful for comparing equal length business quarters. Each quarter has 13 weeks except the last which can have 14 (but not much business last week of year).

<comment> mark-r That's on the site too: [https://www.programmingalgorithms.com/algorithm/week- of-year](https://www.programmingalgorithms.com/algorithm/week-of-year)

Seems a bit over complicated though, I wonder if it could be simplified the way the day-of-week calculation is simplified.

</comment></comment><comment> mark-r I really like the trick of subtracting one from the year for January and February, it makes leap days come at the end of the year. This simplifies the calculation greatly.

</comment><comment><USER21> This fails for dates prior to adoption of the Gregorian calendar (~1582).

<comment><USER22> To make things even more confusing, it depends on the particular location, as different regions adopted the Gregorian calendar at different points in time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> If it doesn't use left-pad, I don't believe it.

</comment><comment><USER24> It's a fun problem to think about, but I'm just going to use the date library because it's really easy to screw up.

</comment><comment><USER25> In JS we can rely on the Date.getDay prototype. Here's the ES6 flavour:

      weekDay = (dateObj) => ['Sunday','Monday','Tuesday','Wednesday','Thursday','Friday','Saturday'][dateObj.getDay()]</comment>


China's biggest ridehailing company will bar female passengers after 8 p.m - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/hitch-relaunches-bars-female-passengers-after-8-pm-2019-11 <comment><USER2> The source of the problem is that these ride-hailing companies want to expand so fast, that they do not perform any substantial screening for their drivers.

Another ride-hailing company, Hitch, was suspended for this reason.

Likely they do this for liability reasons, not safety reasons. Because if a female customer is not able to get a taxi ride after 8pm, they have fewer options for transportation.

</comment><comment><USER3> "after 2 women were murdered"

is the rest of the title (truncated due to space limitations). No company wants to limit its sales to 1/2 the population, but if it thinks it is necessary to do so for safety reasons, I don't think the government should interfere.

<comment><USER4> WTF type of logic is this? You can stop your employees from killing people, so the decision is ban the types of people your employees like to kill?

It's insane how much of an echo chamber HN has become in justifying any action that ignores any grounded reality as long as it means more revenue.

And the obligatory "government shouldn't intervene" aside.

<comment><USER5> Screening is expensive and puts pressure on work force availability resulting in higher wages, nobody has time for that in China.</comment></comment></comment>


The Coldest Winter - SF - <AUTHOR> http://thecoldestwintersf.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is a new startup selling firewood in San Francisco (it's my neighbor) - <USER2> really like the clever/creative website.

<comment><USER3> So, selling _firewood_ now counts as a startup as long as they have a website?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if the name is a reference to the remark attributed to Mark Twain that "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco".

(Snopes says Twain never said that. Still, a lot of folks give it as a Twain quote.)</comment>


My Hardest Bug - <AUTHOR> http://www.peterlundgren.com/blog/my-hardest-bug/ <comment><USER2> IBM OS gets loaded into memory which the hardware marked as "read-only". However, a bad bit in the memory caused a change which caused the hardware to mark the page as "dirty" so it got paged out with the failed bit copied into the disk image... The OS took "core dumps", leaving a pile of paper with a binary printout of all 16Mbytes of memory at my door, because core dumps automatically printed. Paper piles every day. It was a long week.

PL/I had a language feature to copy-by-name from one record to another record. However, it didn't work as advertised and the only way to find it was from core dumps. A grant-funded project was failing.

The IBM 370 wouldn't boot up for 3 days. It turned out that the 3270 display controllers on channel 0 were causing a fault at power-up (found only after we flew in one of the designers). It turned out that the hardware maintenance guys were swapping boards between the dozens of controllers but the controllers were at different levels of "yellow wire patches" so they were not compatible. So 72 programmers (who shared the machine) did nothing for 3 days.

Back in the 1970s I hooked a Unimate robot to a PDP 11/03 which caused the PDP to freeze. Turns out there was a "ground loop" (electrical fault) that caused the PDP backplane to carry 440V rather than 5V. It takes a long time to decide to check voltage levels on a backplane.

Our Robot control board required a "useless read" to initialize the board. The data was garbage so the result was ignored. All following reads were valid. But it didn't work. The hardware guy swore we were not doing the initialize read. I showed him the code. We finally put a scope on the wires to settle it. The software was NOT doing the initial read, despite what the code said. Turns out the new Bliss optimizing compiler decided it could remove the read because the result was never used.

My paper tape failed to load from the TTY just before we were going to demo for our major customer. Turns out the memory address control chip died. Fortunately Radio Shack had the chip and a de-soldering gun so we replaced the chip and it worked.

There were SO many more... Except for the last one, they cost me several days of "being in the hot seat".

A subtle bug can ruin your whole day.</comment>


Boston University masters in engineering for bachelors in non-engineering field - <AUTHOR> http://www.bu.edu/eng/academics/special-programs/leap/

<comment><USER2> are there other programs like this but with a focus on aerospace/aeronautics?</comment>


Show HN: Klipse- a JavaScript plugin for interactive code snippets in blog posts - <AUTHOR> http://blog.klipse.tech/klipse/2017/03/28/klipse-explained.html <comment><USER2> The sticky header is way too large on mobile - why do you even need it? I'm capable of reading the page headline and not forgetting it for 2 minutes. As it is, the page is just downright inconvenient to use.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would this easy 'blogging' network be of interest to you? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking to address a pain point that I have come up against often - having thoughts that would make great blog posts but no time or motivation to go through the hassle of having a full blown blog.
I've outlined what I have created here: http://idea.kickofflabs.com/
If you are interested please sign up there or drop me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com.  It would be great to hear from you. <comment><USER2> At one end, people have their own blogs. (And Blogger, WordPress.com, and Tumblr are simple enough that large numbers of non-technical folk use them regularly.) At the other end, many people are happy to lurk without writing anything.

In the middle, people post comments on others' blogs or on meta sites such as HN.

I can't be sure, but from what you've said so far, I'm not seeing much unaddressed pain in the space.

</comment><comment><USER3> I find this interesting enough. I've been myself involved in those kind of ideas... but never got to anything.

As other said, there is a big expression space in the web, with room and options for everyone. But the fact is that, as you, many don't like the idea of starting a blog, or just want to be part of something bigger than what they are able to build. Anyways, figuring out exactly where in the map you will fit is very important.

Others forgot to mention old fashioned forums, that also allow people to post thing, open threads, etc. I imagine your product as something in between a forum + posterous easiness + blog network. What could help it a lot is thinking in a specific subject or niche, because that will make the sum of all posts something interesting to dive in (as HN is for some subjects and not others).

And of course, as michaelpinto said: go build a prototype as soon as you can.

</comment><comment><USER4> I would be interested if the posts where categorized. For example, I have an idea for one post on video games. I write the post, and send it off, and it gets posted to the video games section of the site. Then people interested in video games could find it. Maybe the next day, I have a good idea for a food blog post.

</comment><comment><USER5> Suggestion: Don't look for suggestions here with an essay, instead you should prototype your idea and then get feedback. The problem with your essay is that it's abstract and too easy to say something like "what about Tumblr" so in this case the devil is in the details...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you - I guess that's the push I need to take that step.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://idea.kickofflabs.com/>

</comment><comment><USER6> Posterous did this, but tumblr won the mindshare, and posterous was acquihired by Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm pretty sure that's what Tumblr was made for.

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps I didn't explain it as well as I could have done (or I don't fully understand Tumblr) but this would be more of an opportunity for people to put out a single post, without needing the full on "their own tumblr". I'm thinking especially people like me (and much of HN I imagine) who don't have the time to put in in maintaining a blog. With Tumblr and Posterous, you never really own the canvas either - I am looking at something whereby you can choose whether you have ads or not or you can pay etc.

Thank you though for your thoughts - it really helps.

<comment><USER8> I think it's a good idea. The problem with Tumblr is that you're encouraged to theme your blog, e.g. fitness, hunger games or whatever, so you end up having to make different blogs for each topic you're into because people that follow you aren't going to want to see workout logs mixed in with hunger games gifs.

It is a nifty idea to just be able to toss down some random idea on to a blog with no other pressure. With tumblr there is the pressure of having to blog regularly, queue up posts to publish every hour and keep to a theme etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks ciarog, you said it much more clearly than me!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Worm infects millions of computers worldwide - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/technology/internet/23worm.html?hp

<comment><USER2> "The worm has reignited a debate inside the computer security community over the possibility of eradicating the program before it is used by sending out instructions to the botnet that provide users with an alert that their machines have been infected."

I'd personally rather see that happen than see the botnet gain in strength, but what's your assessment of the technical risks of doing that?

</comment><comment><USER3> This story has been all over the tech web + CNN, etc. But you pick up the one issue that I find most interesting to debate: what about unauthorized pre- emptive strikes against the worm. Michael Argast at Sophos says that such intervention "can cause" worse problems than the worm. Yes. If written poorly. And tested insufficiently. Maybe a legal change is needed: to allow certain organizations to have government clearance to intervene ONCE sufficiently tested. As for the occasional victims for whom there is some unpleasant side- effect to the de-worming: maybe that's the price of practicing "unsafe sex" ? In some territories it might be appropriate to impound cars whose owners leave keys in ignition (as an "attractive nuisance"). Thoughts?</comment>


How to hire the best people you've ever worked with (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://pmarchive.com/how_to_hire_the_best_people.html <comment><USER2> _Specifically, I am unaware of any actual data that shows a correlation between raw intelligence, as measured by any of the standard metrics (educational achievement, intelligence tests, or skill at solving logic puzzles) and company success._

I don't mean to be nit-picky but I enjoy an internally consistent burden of proof in a blog post. In this post he seemed to move the goal posts. He dismisses intelligence as valuable because it doesn't meet an impossibly high burden of evidence. But then argues you should instead should use drive, curiosity, and ethics without substantiating his claims.

 _For example, test programmers on basic algorithms -- linked lists, binary searches.

Just in pseudocode -- it doesn't matter if they know the relevant Java library calls._

Programming and algorithms are two different sets of skills. Writing a stable, easy to use, useful java/ruby/python/javascript library is a very different skill set from solving algorithmic puzzles, which are both unrelated to recreating a linked list from scratch in 10 minutes on a whiteboard.

<comment><USER3> Yes arguing from your own ignorance is not the most reliable way to convince someone of something.

In regards intelligence it is the only thing other than work tests that has been shown to have any major correlation with job performance.

Edit. This paper make for a great read on this topic.

1\. [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227600464_Stubborn_...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227600464_Stubborn_Reliance_on_Intuition_and_Subjectivity_in_Employee_Selection)

<comment><USER4> Conscientiousness is also correlated with job performance, and is about on par with IQ for predicting lifetime earnings. Agreeableness (also a Big-Five trait) is also quite important in cooperative settings (though both have small effects relative to IQ for single shot task performance).

[http://www.gwern.net/Conscientiousness%20and%20online%20educ...](http://www.gwern.net/Conscientiousness%20and%20online%20education#conscientiousness) has a nice overview of the literature. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientiousness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientiousness) does a reasonable job describing the trait.

 _Edit: while we 're listing large causal factors for work performance, I feel appalled I forgot to mention genetics... [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9739126](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9739126) _

<comment><USER3> The problem is conscientiousness is heavily g loaded so what you are mostly measuring is the effect of g.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> His thing about reading too much into references is pretty bad. Like "moody" = "clinically depressed." Pretty big jump there! Could you really say that about a stranger based on a tepid reference? Maybe their project was stupid, or they had a bad seating arrangement where they were stuck next to an annoyingly chatty person, or they just weren't naturally bubbly, or ... whatever, there's like a thousand possible reasons to consider before you jump to "clinically depressed" with regard to a stranger.

I also think the thing about drive is a bit naive. If you're dealing with a young unknown quantity than sure, drive can be a useful metric, but on the other hand if you're dealing with a proven reliable professional with domain expertise, who cares if they have drive? I've worked with plenty of really good people that don't want to touch a computer after they go home, and yet are incredibly capable at their jobs, and that's totally fine.

<comment><USER6> Similar to that, when he mentioned constantly interrupting = egomaniac. I've noticed that I'm fairly bad about interrupting people, but I don't think it's because I feel I'm way better than everyone else and my opinion is so important, but that's what my parents and some of my close friends do as well. When I do it with people besides them, I usually stop myself and maybe apologize, but by then it's too late.

I know I must be annoying, but surely that doesn't mean I'm a bad developer.

<comment> nommm-nommm Interrupters are people who don't listen to what others are saying. Playing nice with others is usually is required to be a good developer (depending on what you're working on, software is rarely a solo effort).

Not only that, you can learn something from other people as you don't know everything all the time. Constantly learning is __required __to be a good developer. You can 't learn when you interrupt.

I worked with an interrupter, he was one of the most incompetent programmers I've ever seen but wasn't capable of understanding his own incompetence because he was too busy interrupting others.

<comment><USER7> > Interrupters are people who don't listen to what others are saying

In contrast; I listen to people intently, and love learning new ideas and opinions. However, most people take _sooo_ long to get to the point that I often know how their sentences will end before they do. So I interrupt them.

Some people get offended, and insist on finishing their sentences. In about 99% of the cases, I correctly predicted their point.

<comment><USER8> I feel the same way. And I would like to imagine that I wouldn't be too bothered if someone cut me off and quickly expressed how we were 'on the same page'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > _Now, you might say, Marc, that 's great for a young kid who has a lot of > spare time to stay current, but what about the guy who has a family and only > has time for a day job and can't spend nights and weekends reading blogs and > staying that current?_

> _Well, when you run into a person like that who isn 't current in their > field, the other implication is that their day job isn't keeping them > current._

> _If they 've been in that job for a while, then ask yourself, is the kind of > person you're looking for really going to have tolerated staying in a day > job where their skills and knowledge get stale, for very long?_

If they've got a family to feed, the answer is "yes," right? Or "That's why they're looking for a job with your company."

Alternatively, if they've got an H-1B...

</comment><comment><USER10> > REST vs SOAP, the new Facebook API, whether Ruby on Rails is scalable, what > do you think of Sun's new Java-based scripting language, Google's widgets > API, Amazon S3, etc.

Really? Why would anyone learn any of that unless they actually need it to make their work done?

<comment><USER5> Because learning that kind of thing increases the possibility space of what you can do. Insights usually come from a diversity of knowledge, if you only learn what you need to know you'll be exceptionally average.

<comment><USER11> I agree in theory, but the problem is that everybody has their own personal "10 most interesting things right this moment" list, and they often don't match up even (or especially) among excellent programmers.

So the fact that somebody isn't spending time with your favorite new toy doesn't mean they're not constantly learning, especially when the top 10 list is as ridiculously subjective as the one in the article.

<comment><USER12> That's not his point. He doesn't care that your list is different than his; he cares that you _have one_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My top hiring metric is grit. Wikipedia says it's an individual's passion for a particular long-term goal or end state, coupled with a powerful motivation to achieve their objective.

This perseverance of effort promotes the overcoming of obstacles and challenges... and serves as a driving force in achievement realization.

<comment><USER14> I'm no expert in this area, but when I look for potential co-founders I always think the best metric is how self driven they are. It's so easy to find people who went to school, got the grades and graduated. Its harder to find people who go and do things outside of the standard.

<comment><USER15> I take it you don't care much for employees that do things besides programming? Like I dunno.. hobbies, and family, and stuff?

Call me lazy if you wish but I almost never want to program during the weekend. That time is better spent with family, or playing games, or washing the car. Or something. Anything really. If I come into work having burned my brain out over the weekend programming something, then I don't produce results that satisfy me. Hehe.

<comment><USER16> I do some hobby programming for fun, but I don't expect everyone I work with to do that. I do it for fun and wouldn't otherwise. When I interview developers, I ask them about their hobbies in general. Sure, I throw in some technical questions depending on the position (usually language/platform agnostic), but those aren't the focus or the best way to hire to me. I want to know if they have an interest/curiosity into how things work (problem solving/debugging skills), can communicate effectively (can work as a team) and are passionate about something in their life (tells me they can focus on something when needed).

I follow up with questions about how they solved some difficult problem in their life (could be programming or could be just learning how to change their oil). I ask them how they came up with a solution and what they learned about it. I want to see if they learned enough from it to be able to explain it to me or anyone else in the interview.

Doing that gives me an idea of how their communication skills are. I want to gauge their problem solving and debugging skills during the interview, because I think almost anyone can be taught to be a better programmer, but it's much harder to learn to be an exceptional troubleshooter/problem solver and that tends to be a majority of what software developers do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > Google, on the other hand, uses the metric of educational achievement.

> Have a PhD? Front of the line. Masters? Next. Bachelor's? Go to the end.

That's... That's not really true at all. While I interned there (during my bachelors) I met a lot of people without their masters. One guy had only his high school diploma.

<comment><USER18> Although a degree seems to be a poor predictor of performance in a software engineering role ([http://blog.alinelerner.com/how-different-is-a-b-s-in- comput...](http://blog.alinelerner.com/how-different-is-a-b-s-in-computer- science-from-a-m-s-in-computer-science-when-it-comes-to-recruiting/)), I am sure the percentage of people with degrees at Google is higher compared to "normal" companies.

I have some insights in Google-Zürich and the percentage of Masters and PhDs is above average compared to other companies. (Disclaimer: I live in Zurich and I used to code for a living. Now, I hire engineers for different companies in Switzerland. If you look for a tech-job in Zurich, check out my story "8 reasons why I moved to Switzerland to work in IT" on [https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i- moved-t...](https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-to- switzerland-to-work-in-it-c7ac18af4f90) or ping me at the mail-address in my HN-profile.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The blog post says, "Specifically, I am unaware of any actual data that shows a correlation between raw intelligence, as measured by any of the standard metrics (educational achievement, intelligence tests, or skill at solving logic puzzles) and company success."

That's just an argument from ignorance. According to Hacker News comment karma scores, one of my most popular comments ever was a comment that included a FAQ about what the research shows about company hiring procedures.[1] What the research says is that for hiring workers for any kind of job, a work-sample test and a test of general intelligence are about tied for effectiveness in identifying good job candidates. ALL hiring procedures sometimes miss good workers, and all hiring procedures sometimes result in hiring lousy workers, but if you want to optimize, the way to optimize is to hire workers who are good at doing the specific tasks you are hiring for (that's what a work-sample test shows you) and how have good general cognitive ability, which shows as well as any indicator that they can learn to do new tasks in the future. References to the research literature are available in my previous comment, linked in the footnote. Anything else you do in hiring, for whatever reason, has less benefit to your company than checking whether job candidates can do the job tasks and checking whether the job candidates are smart or dull.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613543](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613543)

<comment><USER20> It seems most people have missed what he actually said, which was that he's not aware of research linking employee intelligence to "company success". Employee intelligence may well be linked in research to employee success, but he didn't suggest otherwise.

Employee success and company success are two different outcomes of interest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I know it's Marc Andreessen and I know it's a nit-pick, but did he never learn how to use a paragraph? Short, standalone sentences can be powerful to make a point, but they can be tiring when used every single paragraph.

</comment><comment><USER22> > Most people softball deficiencies in people they've worked with when they do > reference calls.

Everything these days is so PC that I wish people would even softball the deficiencies. We are in the age of recommendation inflation. Everybody is "great". There is no "but...".

</comment><comment><USER23> TLDR: There are thresholds for intelligence and pre-existing ability, but focus on three things: Drive, Curiosity, and Ethics.

I have also heard "Hire for intelligence and attitude", which I also agree with. A good attitude will take you far.

</comment><comment><USER24> just in case people miss that: this was written by Marc Andreessen</comment>


Will Surf Air soon stop flying? - <AUTHOR> https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2018/06/22/will-surf-air-soon-stop-flying <comment><AUTHOR> Surf Air is a startup disrupting flying.

That's a disruption I can appreciate! Flying into SQL (San Carlos) instead of SFO or SJC, and no TSA nonsense? Yes!

Unfortunately, it seems that they are in a bit of trouble now. I wonder if this is a cautionary tale for entrepreneurs disrupting other industries?

Previous discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3812415](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3812415)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16112670](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16112670)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16112670](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16112670)</comment>


Misconceptions about Meteor - <AUTHOR> http://themeteorbook.com/2013/03/12/5-meteor-misconceptions/

<comment><USER2> > Myth #1: "Meteor doesn't have data security"

Agreed; this is now a myth because it was based on the pre-0.5 implementation state.

> Myth #2: "Meteor is bad for SEO"

I'm pretty skeptical about PhantomJS, but I guess it could work. I tried using it on my Meteor site, and PhantomJS failed because I use the HTML5 audio feature ("new Audio()") and apparently PhantomJS doesn't implement it. Which parts of HTML5 can we use on a Meteor site if we want it to also be spiderable?

> Myth #3: "Meteor doesn't support third-party packages"

I want and need to use NPM packages, and this is the largest downside of Meteor for me at the moment. When people say this, they're talking about NPM packages, and I think it's disingenuous to point to Atmosphere as a disproof.

> Myth #4: "Meteor is a walled garden"

Again, I think this is a problem that actually exists and should be owned. If, as you suggest, the solution is "we're going to support NPM packages later and the developers just haven't got around to doing the work yet", then phrase it that way instead of saying that the complaint represents a myth.

> Myth #5: "Meteor is only for prototyping"

This complaint seems approximately correct, and your rebuttal doesn't even disagree with it; you just say "yes, that's because it's only a year old". That means it's not a myth.

Sorry to write a griping reply. I love Meteor and want to continue to use it for new apps. Your argument style of taking the strongest criticisms of a project and declaring them to all be a set of misconceptions strikes me as arrogant and unproductive, though. (In every case other than "Myth #1".)

</comment><comment><USER3> PhantomJS solution for rendering landing pages on the server is so gross!

<comment><USER4> Why is it gross?

<comment><USER3> It emulates the browser on the server side in order to generate the HTML tags then send the HTML tags back to the browser. Overly complicated. Why can't Meteor generate the HTML tags like DerbyJS or Yahoo Mojito???

Look elsewhere if you want an SEO friendly JS framework.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Why use custom packages in the first place when thousands of Node packages are already out there? Isn't this going against the spirit of open-source? ... The reason a lot of packages are Meteor-only is simply that they only make sense in the context of Meteor."

Most of the browserify modules are in NPM (see <https://npmjs.org/package/buffer-browserify> for an example) so the meteor justification is far from satisfactory.</comment>