What open source project should I join? - <AUTHOR>

My main interests are: Machine learning Computer vision Datamining Search
I am interested in everything tech though and I'm just basically looking for anything interesting in the open source world.
I have looked a little bit at Linux-development.

  * Portage is written in Python.
  * Kernel-hacking is for invites only?
  * Any other important Linux-project?
 Mozilla

  * I have only skimmed over it but I didn't find out how to actually contribute to the browser-development. Only found documentation and higher-level/sude-stuff.
 I know Python, C, Haskell, Lisp, Java and a little of all the other popular languages too. I basically would just like to get experience working with in a big project and be able to hack on it a little bit whenever I feel like.
Edit: I'm lookin for suggestions of things I don't know of. Should be easy to contribute to and get into. <comment><USER2> The one that interests you. We can't tell you that.

I'll tell you what I did, and you can take it or leave it. About a dozen years ago, after a few months of using Linux on my desktop, I knew I wanted to be involved in Open Source (it was still just called Free Software at that point...the Open Source moniker was yet to be coined for the more pragmatic arm of the movement). So, I started tinkering with all of the projects I found interesting. Squid was one of them, and I spent several years as a developer on the project. Webmin was another, which turned out to be the one I really had an affinity for. I also submitted small patches to yum, various Perl modules, Extropia (before it was called Extropia), LVS, quite a few audio and sound packages, and a few others I don't remember at this point. I also maintained my own kernel patches for several years, until the functionality I needed made it into mainline.

I found the various projects more or less amenable to my input, and more or less suiting my personality and strengths (some projects have a strong leader, others expect lots of discussion over even minor changes, etc.), and I found myself working more and more on the ones that suited me and less on the ones that didn't. And sometimes, I'd submit a single patch to a project for purely selfish reasons (I needed the problem fixed, and could see a way to fix it), and never looked at the code again. That's OK, too.

There are obvious "rock star" projects...the ones that impact almost everyone everywhere. Apache, Linux, Firefox, any of the P languages (PHP, Perl, Python, and the honorary member Ruby). With Perl you could work in a pseudo high level language called NQP (Not Quite Perl) to work on the language itself...which is pretty cool. I've never felt an urge to work on anything that low-level for fun before, but that's something that does appeal to me. A lot of interesting low-level stuff seems to be happening in the Haskell world, as well, but it's still esoteric enough to be unlikely to reach a lot of people for a few years...but being involved early in something that explodes later is a good career move.

So, my advice: Don't pick one project. Try many. You'll eventually find the one that suits you, and the one that you can be a valuable contributor to. Don't try to settle on one too soon, because you might miss out on some great learning experiences.

</comment><comment><USER3> You should not pick a project because it is built on a language you know. You should pick a project because you like what it does, you like using it, or you want to improve it. Hopefully you use free software if you are asking this, so just look at what you use and evaluate becoming a contributor.

</comment><comment><USER4> Whichever one you like. Next questions.</comment>


J.J. Abrams on the Magic of Mystery  - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-05/mf_jjessay?currentPage=all <comment><USER2> J.J. gave a TED talk on the same subject a while ago: [http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/j_j_abrams_mystery_box.ht...](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/j_j_abrams_mystery_box.html)</comment>


A New Model for Financing Nonprofits - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/business/dealbook/a-new-model-for-financing-nonprofits.html <comment><USER2> This seems more of a method for a group of people to profit from a non-profit than it does a new method of actually financing non-profits. The non-profit is still receiving a donation. Also, the thought of investors profiting $100K from "inmate hours worked" does not sit well with me. Are the inmates being paid a decent wage?

<comment><USER3> _> This seems more of a method for a group of people to profit from a non- profit than it does a new method of actually financing non-profits._

It is both. If the method works, this group of people won't profit from non- profits in exchange for nothing -- they'll get paid for picking non-profits that accomplish their declared goals.

Suppose $X is spent on non-profit donations, and Y% of non-profits don't meet their goals. Then only $X * (1 - Y) is deployed in a meaningful way, and $X * Y is wasted -- it's the hidden cost (Hc) of today's allocation mechanism. So long as the investors get paid less than Hc, contributing $X to the donor fund instead will result in a strictly better world.

I think this is promising. I would definitely consider contributing to this fund.

<comment><USER4> Or shorter: You donate 1$. Of that only 0.9$ go to the cause and 0.10$ is used as premium to insure that goals are met.

I don't see how the insurers have any leverage to make the non-profits meet there goals. That means that they will probably only pick non-profits with a very good reputation. But then the donors could just give 100% to the non- profit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it's not clear which org is responsible for performance management of each bond, e.g. such an org requires both individual talent/expertise and institutional memory. What incentive does the nonprofit have to meet the target goals, if they get paid in all scenarios?

Here is a 2016 white paper on their process for setting up a fund, [https://npxadvisors.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/NPX- White...](https://npxadvisors.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/NPX-Whitepaper- vFINAL.pdf)

<comment><USER5> I'd guess that additional funding is harder if you don't meet goals. A lot of this seems to be pushing towards better measurements and priority alignment in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is a pattern, I think.

Business School types look at the nonprofit sector. "Market feedback" seems to be missing. Nonprofits can be effective and efficient on the ground, but unpopular with donors. They can be popular with donors, while being ineffective on the ground. In some _reductio-ad-absurdum_ cases, the majority of an NGO's budget is allocated to donor relations and fundraising.

IEIn other words, they are trying to solve capital allocation inefficiencies. There have been several efforts at solving this, often attracting interest/support from high profile business "gurus," writers and such.

For example..

GiveWell does "Cost-Effectiveness" analysis, so that willing donors can make choices on this basis. Earlier iterations "analysed" cost structure, highlighting admin/budget ratios. The Acumen Fund had/has an approach whereby many recipients are (at least partially) _for profit,_ so that market mechanisms can come into play. Much of the "micro-credit" excitement was around this issue. Donors/Lenders would experience feedback. If a loan successfully bootstraps a business, it will be repaid.

This idea seems particularly financier-oriented. It implies a lot of confidence in financial instruments' (innovative types of securities) ability to capture and deconstruct things like risk, upside, downside, volatility expected value and such. The average banker is more likely to believe it than the average person, I suspect.

I'm both sympathetic and skeptical of this idea overall. I agree there is a lack of natural feedback loop, correcting and optimising capital allocation. I agree capital allocation and (moreso) incentives is a serious problem. OTOH, I'm skeptical of "financial engineering." There are always side effects to securitisation. This donor-bondholder model (being bond-based) would be risk avoiding, for example. I think that was/is a problem with micro-lending too. The "best" borrower is one who doesn't really need it, or has other options. They have the lowest default risk, but the loan probably makes a smaller difference to them.

Maybe the best idea is to simply donate money to people, instead of NGOs. I think free market systems and thinking has a lot going for it, but the financial markets side of it is not really one of those things. I'm more curious about ideas that involve market feedback mechanisms which makes aid recipients consumers, rather than making donors more like investors. There is room for both, but my chips are on the consumer side, personally.

</comment><comment><USER7> The concept of social impact bonds is not used often enough, but not new [1].

I first read about them about a decade ago, tried to get some politicians and civil servants engaged but alas.

And then in 2017 my firm, regular profit-seeking listed insurer, suddenly participated in one... I was amazed.

We give a subset of insured the option of a different treatment with regards to working while dealing with cancer (we insure the employer), a university takes care of the experiment and experimental power, other business partners deliver interventions and the banks have structered a SIB. All in motion right now. I got together with my colleague: his biggest take away: structuring a deal like this takes two to three years. He pulled it of partially because we had investments in the business partners and hence a better relation to start with.

If they can make that time to market go down, the amount of possibilities are endless. Most entrepreneurs don't have the time navigating literally 4+ different tables (banks, corporations, university, government agencies) all with agendas at the same time.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_impact_bond](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_impact_bond)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> More about Last Mile, [https://thelastmile.org](https://thelastmile.org)

 _"Because of his background in venture capital, he was invited to speak to a group of men about business and entrepreneurship. He was so impressed by the men's level of business knowledge and desire to learn, he began to nurture the idea of creating a Technology Accelerator inside the prison ... Since its inception The Last Mile has generated a groundswell of support for criminal justice across America. Never before have we experienced such a cooperative, non-partisan effort to curb the problem of mass incarceration.

Imagine if we could break the cycle of incarceration and instead of spending tax dollars for prison, we could spend these tax dollars on higher education, and provide educational opportunities for youth in underserved communities.This would enable them to choose a different path than one of crime. With education and career training opportunities we could break the generational cycle of incarceration. There's plenty of proof that the impact of one man's incarceration is felt by families and communities for decades."_

</comment><comment><USER8> My opinion is that once you tie the shorter term goals of the nonprofit to investor return on investment you've introduced a dangerous incentive for investors to exercise leverage over that nonprofit and potentially misalign its long term goals.

<comment><USER9> The traditional financial model has dangerous incentives on its own. Non- profits need to show more accountability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> One of the primary ways in which charity performance is measured today is on the percentage of money, from operating budget, spent on benefit programs, and not on administrative expenses. This allows donors to know that their money is reaching the intended beneficiaries and not administrators who are lining their own pockets in the name of the needy.

Charities which adopt this model will be itemizing quick access to capital as an administrative expense being passed onto their donors, in lieu of increased benefit shown to donors who donate their money to charities not using this scheme. It seems to me like this is a solution to a problem which does not exist: if I, as a donor, want to donate my money to make a difference in the world, why do I have to choose between a proven charity with lower administrative costs and an unproven charity which is pushing its operative risk onto me, by forcing me to compensate professional investors for the risk? Why is that a difficult choice - why wouldn't I just go with the proven charity?

I suppose this makes sense for you, as a donor, if you have a single issue which drives your donation decision - say, somebody close to you died of some disease or condition and you want to donate to an organization doing specific work to cure that specific disease/condition, because you are motivated by results in that specific area. So having institutional investors guarantee results will help you make the decision to donate, because you see it as a necessary cost for the specific results you're looking for. But I think most people just want to know that their money is being spent well, and for those people, percentage spent on benefit combined with reputation is a much better metric.

<comment><USER11> > "One of the primary ways in which charity performance is measured today is > on the percentage of money, from operating budget, spent on benefit > programs, and not on administrative expenses."

The problem is, this is flawed. It's the wrong KPI. It's the wrong carrot.

For example, in order to maximize this ratio, the NPO "hires" an volunteer to design and build their website. Unfortunately, this person, while kind hearted and generous, is not very talented / experienced.

Long to short, the website "loses" over $500 per week in donations. Had the NPO paid for a better site their ROI and general goodwill would be much better.

Btw, the NPO does the same for their social media marketing. More "opportunity" is left on the table.

Chasing the false god of mission to admin ratio __is__ one of the key mindsets that undermine plenty of NPOs.

<comment><USER12> > Long to short, the website "loses" over $500 per week in donations. Had the > NPO paid for a better site their ROI and general goodwill would be much > better.

> Btw, the NPO does the same for their social media marketing. More > "opportunity" is left on the table.

This is true in the cases where the money not spent with this organization is spent either with a less efficient (by some metric) organization, or on non- charitable causes such as a new car or a new cat for the potential donor instead. If the more expensive website simply relocates charitable donations from one important cause to another, the total goo might actually decrease even if the ROI on the website was good for the individual organization. If an investment brings in "new" money, it's obviously worthwile.

I guess my point is that it's good to compare organizations on various metrics, but not to the degree where they start using their resources to outcompete each other instead of doing good.

<comment><USER11> Measurement / incentive __always__ runs the risk of "be careful what you wish for." The idea that the mentioned ratio creates more good is a bad assumption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sounds like a cool idea. I run [https://hackclub.com](https://hackclub.com) and can tell you first hand how much of a nightmare nonprofit fundraising is for early nonprofits. Talk about an inefficient market.

I wonder how they're dealing with due diligence. Organizations lying about their numbers is rampant, especially in early stage. I once met with an administrator of one of the larger prison workforce development programs in SoCal and they told me that when they measured and reported program participants, they actually only measured the number of inmates that entered their program. They didn't measure completion rate, let alone long term outcomes.

What does "inmate hours worked" mean? How do you prevent a race to the bottom where the org optimizes for butts in seats instead of actual outcomes?

</comment><comment><USER14> The finance industry essentially succeeds by jumping between two people making an exchange and skimming off as much profit as they can get away with. A giant vampire squid if you will.

So of course someone has looked at the billions going to charity and tried to figure how they can get commissioned on it as well.

While it's of course theoretically possible that this increases donor efficiency somehow, that's an extraordinary claim which requires evidence and proof. The initial reaction should be _extreme_ skepticism.

<comment><USER6> To play devils advocate..

Better capital allocation could make the NGO sector way more effective, and help it actually solve issues like extreme poverty, infant nutrition and basic healthcare. Currently, one charity could be doing the same thing (say, rural inoculations in Bangladesh) 10X more effectively, but raising far less money.

If a financial market can skim their 6% while solving this problem, the return in terms of the number of people inoculated could be 60% or 600%.

I share your skepticism though, of solving these issues with with a new type of security. I think money markets may be the best example of free market failures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There is a strong tendency to tout new, unproven methods as "revolutionary" and (shudder) disruptive. In reality, many non-profits have been continuously trying many different financing models, and those that don't work are quietly discarded and moved on. Celebrating something unproven doesn't really help -- Theranos, anyone?

</comment><comment><USER16> At first glance this seems like a silly idea. It requires raising over twice as much money, since at least half of it gets paid back to bondholders.

But I think what may be happening us that it allows the donors to delay payment? The charity gets the money right away and the donors can pay later.

I'm not sure the high-stakes incentives are a good idea? The donors have incentive to claim that the goals technically weren't met (even if they mostly were) while the bondholders have incentive to hide any problems. It would be interesting to know more about how the deal was designed.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is interesting but could generate perverse incentives. Hard-to-measure _impact_ KPIs are a major reason why social ventures form around non- instead of for-profits (perhaps because very few individual investors see short-term economic benefit from an increase in the "greater good"). Combining $$$ ROI with philanthropic success means fewer and fewer nonprofits funded to solve hard, messy challenges.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is a good idea, but not new at all. For more details on the concept and some examples where RBF (Results based financing) is already successfully used, refer for example to Instiglio, a NGO consultancy in this space:

[http://www.instiglio.org/en/publications-and- resources/](http://www.instiglio.org/en/publications-and-resources/)

</comment><comment><USER19> I hope this works out, but it's easy to see how it can be abused. When those abuses are addressed, the fix will undoubtedly lean on the usual fundamentals behind investing in both non-profit and for-profit ventures: due diligence on the idea and team deploying it, taking risks, hard work, and a good bit of luck.

</comment><comment><USER20> Does software foundation counts towards nonprofits ?</comment>


MIT Tech Reviews 35 Innovators Under 35 - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/innovators-under-35/2020/ <comment><USER2> Does anyone know how the selection process here actually works? What are the criteria?</comment>


Ask YC: Who would be the most interesting people to meet in the SF Bay Area? - <AUTHOR>

I'm in San Francisco for the next 7 days and since our startup is based in London i would like to use the opportunity to network and get to know interesting people in the Bay Area. Who would be the most interesting, creative, inspiring people to meet? Is anyone else interested in exchanging some ideas with a UK based startup? <comment><USER2> It might help if we knew what your startup did, or anything else about you.

<http://startupweekend.com/> is in SF next weekend.

<http://www.web2expo.com/> starts on tuesday.

<http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/2133429> on monday.

Shameless plug: I found these using my webapp <http://www.gocerebro.com>

You could always take the Caltrain down to Stanford for a day. There's always something interesting happening on campus, but don't try too hard to "network", otherwise you might scare people off.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hi, sorry for not getting into more details about us. Our startup is developing a social network aggregator for the iPhone and Android. We allow our users to search across social networks and keep track of conversations within their social graphs. We are in closed beta at the moment and about to release in the next couple of weeks. This is why I would like to meet as many interesting people as possible. I thought that YC would be a good start. Bastian

<comment><USER2> Forgot to mention that there's a weekly hacker meet up in the mission on wednesdays: <http://www.archivd.com/open-hacker-house/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Going off on a tangent here but how is the startup scene in UK ?

I might have to move there soon (for personal reasons) and was wondering if there was a way to keep track of what was going on in the community, who were the players, etc etc. Are there any UK specific job boards for startup jobs there ?

<comment><USER3> Startup scene in london is very good. I will reply with more details but sadly have to board my plane to SF now.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which is the best Ruby on Rails book? - <AUTHOR> I am not new to development (built apps in dozens of frameworks/languages) but looking to create more elegant code and one of my friends recommended Rails. So, which book describes the best practice from a newbie -> expert. <comment><USER2> Prefer first to brush up ruby primers and then you can start with Agile Web Development with Rails

</comment><comment><USER3> Agile Web Development with Rails 5.1, but don't forget to learn enough Ruby before that.</comment>


How the Internet is Changing Economics - <AUTHOR> http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-internet-is-changing-economics.html

<comment><USER2> The problem with this article is he lacks any historical perspective. The offline companies he quotes have all been around for a long time (relatively speaking) and that contributes to their position.

For example, Coca-Cola existed for 17 years before Pepsi even came on the scene. That's longer than all but two of the online "monopolies" he referenced (see the "great new monopolies" link). Beyond that Pepsi has been around fighting Coke for dominance for the past 100+ years.

Same with McDonalds (1955) and Anheuser-Busch (1852).

In all these stories the initial company had as much dominance as online companies do now. Pepsi was founded by a guy who wasn't willing to pay Coca- Cola's prices and realized he could produce Pepsi and sell it for half the price of Coke while still making a profit (See "Twice as much for a Nickle")

On the tech companies you're already starting to see erosion in the older monopolies. Windows is starting to see serious losses from increasing Mac sales, Intel has been beating AMD back with a stick and even Google is having to make improvements to keep Bing at bay.

So it will literally be decades before we can know if the author's thesis is even remotely valid

<comment><USER3> I agree with this opinion. The author lacks historic perspective. New successful businesses automatically are monopolies since they create new markets. This can obviously be seen in tech nowadays since this is all technogicially new.

Historically it was the same and these companies still benefit from their competitive advantage (or were crushed by the state) just to name Standard Oil, Bell/AT&T, BASF, Ford. Just over time did competititors take market share from them, because they became huge beurcratic monsters (as all monopolies do).

<comment><USER4> Agree with parent and gp. Not only that, the article lacks an Econ 101 understanding of microeconomics. Most markets have a few big firms because of the pervasive effect of economies of scale[1]--generally, bigger firms have lower cost per unit. That's why 1-3 is common in many markets. (For an interesting discussion of why it's socially advantage to have N>=2, see the notion of "deadweight loss" that happens when there is only one firm[2]).

Article is right in one way: software is very different from physical goods. The marginal cost of each additional unit of software is 0. And there's evidence (such as appears frequently on HN) that a bigger firms do not necessarily produce software more efficiently. I've always suspected the software industry is more dominated by network effects[3], which has a similar effect on the market as returns to scale: a small number of firms & high likelihood of natural monopolies.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale>

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadweight_loss>

[3] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect>

<comment><USER5> I think a big difference though is geographic segmentation. Pepsi could dominate the Southwest and Coke could dominate the Northeast; there's no reason why that would be true of amazon vs. buy.com.

We _do_ see that with internet companies only for national or language boundaries, e.g. baidu in China, gumtree dominates in the UK vs. craigslist in North Am, Yahoo beats google in some asian markets, Orkut is popular in Brazil, etc, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Network-based business models have always tended toward monopoly (AT&T, ConEd, and Western Union, to name a few early US examples). The internet doesn't change this dynamic at all; rather, by providing the first (more or less) open network in history, it simply removed what used to be the greatest impediment to a networked business: the construction of the transmission network.

The internet hasn't "changed" economics, it's just enabled a specific type of business model.

</comment><comment><USER7> To a certain degree this is true. I think the major reason for why we see a "winner-take-all" effect on the internet is because of data persistence. Usually the usage pattern for brick-and-motor stores is that you visit it, get what you need, get out. With online services, however, the more data a site has, the more useful it becomes (e.g., social networks or Amazon's recommendation system). I think people subconsciously realize this and start to focus on one attractable service over another.

On the other hand, the ease of dissemination of products/services to users via the internet makes it so that niche markets are more efficiently served. This is usually harder to do with brick-and-mortar stores due to locality constraints. So even though, there might be "one big winner" there seems to be a growing market for niche products.

<comment><USER8> I agree with you. While McDonald's can be the "winner-take-all" for food on the highway, being able to serve smaller and smaller niches due to larger distribution means that there may be only one winner for a very particular product. This niche may well open up entire new markets for further products and services. Instead of trending towards oligopolies I would argue that the internet allows what would otherwise be a tiny unprofitable niche to develop into an entire market on its own with related services.

<comment><USER7> Exactly. I will also add that having one "winner takes all" is not necessarily a bad thing. Think about Wikipedia. The reason it is so useful as a tool is because it is the central portal for information retrieval and submission.

<comment><USER5> It's a classic network effect. Wikipedia is popular because it is popular. Because its popular it gets more users, with more users it gets more and better articles written, with more articles written it gets more popular. Once that critical mass is achieved its very difficult for anything else to provide a better service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What I think the author misses is how short lived these monopolies can be. AOL was a near monopoly. So was Netscape. And Internet Explorer. So was Altavista. Or was it Excite? Or Yahoo? Was it Nintendo that had the gaming console monopoly or Sega? Wasn't there a great Scandanavian monopoly on phones? Until there wasn't.

Companies can lock down their market for a generation, or perhaps half a generation, but few hold onto it forever.

</comment><comment><USER10> There are many examples of mature online businesess that dont have one winner. For example, think of online project management systems like campfire - hundreds of competitors with a very long tail.

<comment><USER11> I was thinking the same thing. Then again, this is a B2B space. As an entrepreneur I personally like B2B precisely because it's _not_ winner-take- all.

In the late 90s I sold my B2B dot com to another B2B dot com. We made the mistake of believing that, like the consumer dot coms, B2B companies should grow at all costs and try to dominate the market. In the meantime a bunch of smaller players took a more sensible approach.

Our company cratered, but most of those grow-at-a-sane-pace companies are still around and very profitable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The author asserts a weak correlation, yet does not explain the reason. Very very flimsy argument, I would say.

</comment><comment><USER13> I wonder how being bought out, which is surely a far greater occurence in the online world than the offline world, plays into this idea? If you consider that perhaps the major players have bought between 10 and 30 other companies then the opportunities are still abound, just different. I would tend to think that to most people being bought out or absorbed is a suitable alternative to the more difficult task of rising through building a sound business which could take a half-decade or more. Thus I would agree that yes, the model is different, but one is not necessarily more nurturing to opportunities than the other.

</comment><comment><USER14> In the early days of automotive manufacturing, Ford was a monopoly. That's just tech - it takes a long time to reach technological parity with someone who has a 10 year head start. Microsoft and Yahoo have now almost caught Google, and will claw back some customers. Apple and GNU/Linux and the BSD crowd have more or less caught up with Microsoft (thanks to everything important now being on the web). In another 10 years time, perhaps people will buy a computer (slash TV) based on fashion and price, not OS features.

</comment><comment><USER15> Minor correction:

> In beer, you have 90% of the market controlled by just three companies: > Anheuser-Busch, Coors Molson, and SABMiller.

Not since 2007. Now it's just 2 ventures: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MillerCoors> and <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anheuser-Busch_InBev></comment>


Ideas on Marketing the OLPC - <AUTHOR> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071125113058548 The article is a response to the Wall Street Journal's article on the OLPC.
<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote a response:

I came in contact with an article summarizing Stephen Key's technique for licensing new inventions: [http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/11/26/a-beginners-...](http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/11/26/a-beginners- guide-how-to-rent-your-ideas-to-fortune-500-companies-plus-video/) [Yes, thank you news.YC]

Stephen Key is a serial inventor. He comes up with ideas then licenses them to large corporations. One of the key tools he uses is that he does not sell inventions, he sells benefits.

What is the benefit of the OLPC XO?

I'll tell you this in one sentence:

The OLPC XO gives your child a significant competitive edge.

I read the the hardware specs. Those were nice but not compelling. When I read the software specs, I realized that the XO contains many of the ideas that the MIT Media Labs had been trying to get into mainstream computing for years, but failed. A great example is garbage collection. LISP programmers have been using garbage collection for over thirty years or more, but its benefit has only recently reached the programming communities at large through languages such as Python, Ruby, and C#.

However, the XO takes garbage collection one step further. It will automatically save revisions of your files and garbage collect that too. When you run out out space, it tells you what junk you should throw out, and you decide what you want to 'keep'. Otherwise you never worry about having to save because the computer might crash in the middle of writing something. There is no other OS that is built to do that from the ground up out on the market. It is one of the many things about the XO that will give a child a competitive edge, having grown up with it.

More importantly, when they become adults, they will demand this functionality from mainstream operating systems. Some of them, having grown up with the 'view source' key will have the technical skills and the perseverance to make it happen. If the adults are too clueless to want it, they will go ahead and make it. How's that for competitive edge?

When I realized that the main benefit of the XO is to give a child a competitive edge, I found it highly interesting that the original plan called for distributing the XO exclusively to developing nations. Think about that.

There has been a long-standing discussion over the decline of the US educational system. A device that gives a US child a non-trivial, competitive edge should have its doors beaten down by their parents ...</comment>


Archaeologists discover 'sorcerer's treasure trove' trunk at Pompeii - <AUTHOR> https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7349669/Archaeologists-discover-mysterious-sorcerers-treasure-trove-trunk-Pompeii.html <comment><USER2> Can we switch the link to the BBC [0]?

Dailymail, being the Dailymail is its normal over-the-top-self: "The Pompeii sorcerer's trunk: Archaeologists discover mysterious treasure trove in buried Roman town filled with dolls, skulls and miniature PENISES"

[0] [https://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-49325627](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49325627)

</comment><comment><USER3> No, it's not a 'sorcerer's treasure trove'. It's a trunk full of trinkets the archaeologists don't (yet) know what it was used for. Archaeologists have this incredibly annoying and frankly, quite dumb, tendency to call anything they cant identify 'ritualistic' or 'religious' or apparently now even to do with magic.

Just imagine if someone digs up a jewerely box. Or the box of baubles a child has collected over the years. Or a box of Dungeons and Dragons dice and figurines. How dumb would it be if it would be called a 'sorcerer's box'? Because that's the equivalent of what's happening here.

The box is interesting enough on it's own, there is really no need to try and make it more than it is.

<comment><USER4> Not so sure. These are all 'made' objects, which were pretty rare and probably valuable. Not trinkets and toys, which were made of clay and lead and not carefully hand-carved minerals and natural materials.

Sorcerers were much closer to the public consciousness back in the day. They didn't have National Geographic and the History Channel then, to help the whole world understand one another. They worked hard at interpreting the world, and generally got it wrong and came up with strange notions about life and the universe. Calling that 'just Dungeons and Dragons' is probably pretty far off the mark.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Other thread (based on Atlasobscura):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20709985](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20709985)

</comment><comment><USER6> Of course the daily mail would all-caps PENISES</comment>


Towards an Open Profile Standard - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/the-future-of-the-web/b209acdbcd37

<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote this post over at Medium. It seems like a really obvious idea, but it's not something I'm in any position to make happen by myself.

I'd be really interested to see what others thought about this idea, and find out how feasible it would be to implement.</comment>


Tell HN: Sorry I broke the server - <AUTHOR> Experimenting with some code this evening and got so into it, I didn't notice that I broke story submission for two hours. Argh!
Sorry everyone.
Edit: While you're here... you can now view the comments you've upvoted by clicking on "saved comments" in your profile. It works like "saved stories". Thanks to porker for the suggestion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9050374. <comment><USER2> Where there's people working there are bound to be mistakes. Don't sweat it, this is a free service after all and the service level for a non-advertising supported free service is absolutely incredible. I'd be more than happy to pay for HN as it is, you guys are doing a better job than most paid services when it comes to customer support, uptime and courtesy combined.

<comment><USER3> Seriously. I use HN as my "am I connected to the internet?" check, as it always loads instantly even when Google takes a while.

<comment><USER4> Hah, glad it's not just me. It's also the thing I hit if I'm trying to think of what I was doing/am idle for a moment... typing 'news.' just seems to flow from my fingers if they're unoccupied.

<comment><USER5> Ctrl-T, N, Enter :/

<comment><USER6> same here, I visit this site so much that only typing 'N' does the job.

<comment><USER7> Ditto. Done with catching up on other stuff? CMD-T n enter. When it's perpetual tab gets closed, that is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Saved comments throws an error trying to view page 2 of saved comments.

(change the below to your own ID ofc.)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/saved?id=eterm&comments=yes&p=2](https://news.ycombinator.com/saved?id=eterm&comments=yes&p=2)

Actually, it looks like page 2 of saved stories also breaks? Is it just finding something not cached and the site is currently broken for non-cached content?

<comment><USER9> Thanks! We were trying to track down an error message we were seeing, and you found it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> That's ok - you did it while I was asleep :)

I seem to remember that last year there was talk of re-doing the markup for HN so that it would be more mobile-friendly. What came of that idea?

<comment><AUTHOR> We've been working on it lately and don't expect it to take _too_ much longer, so stay tuned.

<comment><USER10> Great, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> And I missed it in code review and testing. Sorry!

<comment><USER9> And now I'm doubling down. HN is once again running an entirely new HTTP pipeline.

Please let us know if you run into any issues, especially related to cookies and logging in/out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> When is the responsive style sheet coming :)?

<comment><USER12> Oh lord, I hope it will not force some annoyingly huge text on us. I am perfectly happy with the site as it is, works well with text-reflow.

<comment><AUTHOR> As a fierce advocate for information density on Hacker News I can pretty well guarantee you it will never have annoyingly huge text.

<comment><USER12> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Saved Comments" is valuable and long wished-for, thanks for adding the feature!

Will it be possible to extract these as JSON, e.g. via the API?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea. The API doesn't support all the lists (edit: and logged-in state) properly yet, and when we fix that, it should be natural to include both variants of /saved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Stories submitted per time" seems like one of the five-ish metrics that you should always keep an eye on while making any changes in production, coming back to your desk after a coffee break, or coming in to the office in the morning.

If it is not trivial to look at these metrics (ideally you just glance up to a dashboard monitor), it would probably be a good idea to throw that together.

All of this is to say nothing of proper alerting to go with monitoring, but I mention the above because its by far easier to set up and you get a lot of bang for the buck.

All of _that_ said, thanks to dang any anybody else working on making HN better.

</comment><comment><USER15> Nice to see test-driven development at the height of its powers. :-)

</comment><comment><USER16> I love how ironic your account name is in this context :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7494093](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7494093)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Ah, you clearly need a proper review process!

Just joking - thanks for the work you guys put in, this is definitely one of the most interesting place on the web :)

</comment><comment><USER18> If only there was some way to quickly get told when production hiccups... And if only there was some way to prove each feature works automatically... :-)

</comment><comment><USER19> You were experimenting with code on the production server? If not, do you have automated tests?

</comment><comment><USER20> I noticed saved stories but why are comments showing up twice on the account page.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's the comments you've upvoted, as opposed to those you've posted. I just changed the label to make that clearer.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9050374](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9050374)

<comment><USER21> It'll be interesting to see whether this has an effect on the nature of upvoting. If saved comments were slightly more structured, rather than just one big list, I could imagine them comprising some sort of 'personal knowledgebase'. In turn, that might decrease the amount of 'I agree with that' opinion upvoting, in favour of 'that's useful information'. Whether that's to be encouraged is, of course, a personal opinion.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting point. HN mostly _is_ a collection of lists. You might almost call it a list processor.

<comment><USER22> What a brilliant idea! A "List Processor"!

Oh, wait...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Curious what effect this will have on comment upvotes.

</comment><comment><USER24> Easily done! :)</comment>


Nicest SOAP client/wrapper you've seen in a scripting language? - <AUTHOR>

I'm working with Salesforce's PHP SDK at the moment, which frankly is horrible. So is Infusionsoft's (though XMLRPC). Enough that I want to have a go at designing my own.<p>So, where do you recommend I look for inspiration? Does any language that isn't C# or Java have a nice way of consuming and interacting with SOAP webservices? <comment><USER2> SOAP itself is not pretty, no wonder there are no pretty and simple SOAP wrappers. All you can get is some automagic generators that nobody has a clue how actually work.</comment>


User Inyerface - <AUTHOR> https://userinyerface.com/game.html <comment><USER2> I found this through another channel and was going to post it. I didn't get far and simply bailed.

So interesting how we assume so much about web interactions.</comment>


Philippines to Roll Out Nationwide Free Wi-Fi Service by 2016 - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-07/philippines-to-roll-out-nationwide-free-wi-fi-service-by-2016 <comment><USER3> Peru announced that all its poorest residents would be hooked up to full solar power. In the end, a huge amount of money was spent and a couple hundred houses were hooked up to very low wattage systems shared by entire villages.

India announced they were going to produce a $15 computer for the masses of poor. Well we now have $15 computers, but not from this program, and India still is lacking stable electricity, clean water, and other basics throughout much of the nation.

"The Philippines is planning free Wi-Fi services to half of its towns and cities this year and nationwide coverage by end-2016"

So the claim being made is half the towns and cities by this year, 2015, within a few months. And total coverage by next year.

Most of the land area of the Philippines is remote and rural. Much is mountainous. It would be a remarkable engineering project to have total wifi coverage through the _entire_ country by 2016. Accomplishing it with $32 million in funding would be especially amazing.

The chance that this will happen I estimate at 0%. The chance of a modest amount of coverage in certain neighborhoods of larger cities is good. Total coverage by next year isn't going to happen, isn't going to ever happen for the cited price, and the data point that it is being claimed it will happen by next year shows that those in charge of this program don't understand the problem, which means that the actually doable claims (coverage for 50% of all towns and cities by December 2015) are questionable as well.

<comment><USER4> To be honest I would propose even simpler approach: offer free high speed Wi- Fi in every library. Connect every library in the country to high speed fiber and make libraries relevant in digital world again. Since libraries are usually spread evenly around the country I believe this would serve better purpose than setting unrealistic targets.

<comment><USER5> You don't have a network of free public libraries in the Philippines...

<comment><USER6> There are, however, a lot of churches. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just skimmed, TLDR, the article and IDC links is slim on the technical details. The DOST arm of the gov't has a little more detailed doc here: [http://icto.dost.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Free- Wi-F...](http://icto.dost.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Free-Wi-Fi- Project-TOR.pdf)

The doc details that coverage is limited to public places (gov offices, schools, libraries, etc), and aimed towards underserved users. Data cap is measly 1GB per month per device ID, unless you have Gov't passport/ID (up to 3GB/mo); where a national-ID system required here means a decrease in privacy and increased surveillance possibility. One can also smell a strong possibility of this being backed a foreign-state.

</comment><comment><USER8> "The new service is expected to push data charges lower in the Philippines. Access to the Internet costs about $18 a megabit per second in the country, more than three times the global average of $5, according to research firm International Data Corp. or IDC."

I don't think this will happen considering PLDT owns all the infrastructure:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Philippines/comments/2aurzq/how_pld...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Philippines/comments/2aurzq/how_pldt_deliberately_keeps_local_internet)

</comment><comment><USER9> Free ubiquitous Wi-Fi would be an effective tool for tracking citizens' internet habits and physical locations.

<comment><USER10> And that's why the world needs to switch to HTTPS.

<comment><USER11> HTTPS has no bearing on the ability to track traffic volume, sites visited (DNS), and device location (mac address).

<comment><USER10> Correct. It's still better than nothing I guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > The free Internet service will cost the government about 1.5 billion pesos > ($32 million) a year and will be available in areas such as public schools, > hospitals, airports and parks, said Monchito Ibrahim, deputy executive > director of the Information and Communications Technology Office.

It's not free. It's subsidized.

This is the same debate I have with neighbors that want free wifi in the city. Sure. Do you want higher property taxes, too?

<comment><USER13> If it means better services for me and the people around me, yes, give me higher property taxes.

Being terrified of taxes is just peculiar - it's certainly not an argument- winning trump card.

<comment><USER14> It isn't being terrified of taxes. It is saying "things have a cost. Lets start talking about the cost and asking if we're really willing to pay it."

<comment><USER13> It's not actually saying "let's start talking about the cost". "Do you want higher taxes?" is a rhetorical statement that means "this is bad, because it will raise our taxes, which I think is inherently bad"; there's no real interest in a genuine discussion of the pros and cons.

<comment><USER15> The con is it's very difficult to get a government to lower taxes, not so difficult to have them increase it. Also that thing P.J. O'rourke said: giving money and power to politicians is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

I'm not aware of having met anyone who has ever said "I want to pay more tax", but I've met plenty of people who have said "that other group of people should pay more tax".

<comment><USER16> _> The con is it's very difficult to get a government to lower taxes_

This isn't true at all. It's very difficult to get a government to decrease the services it provides. If you decrease taxes without decreasing provided services, then that would be extremely easy to do -- until you run out of money. Look at the cluster fuck that is Kansas.

 _> I'm not aware of having met anyone who has ever said "I want to pay more tax"_

In that case, you must either not live in the US or else live in a place with either really shit or really parasitic public schools. A huge percentage of school districts are majority funded by local (not state) tax dollars, at rates that are approved directly (i.e., by ballot measure).

Schools are the most obvious case because increases in (local) taxes that fund schools are typically ballot measures, and usually affect the population in a pretty homogenous way (except in very urban areas, but even then, property owners are usually a key voting block in local elections). But there are other taxes that a _lot_ of people support increasing and would end up paying -- gas tax, alcohol tax, etc.

If you've really never met someone who said "I want to pay more taxes", then that's really just an indication that you're living in a bubble. It's not at all an uncommon sentiment. In fact, I'd say that "some of the taxes I pay could be higher if it's spent on the right things" is a far more common sentiment than "taxes bad, period".

<comment><USER15> Thanks for the reply. You're quite right, bit of a bubble here in Launceston, Tasmania. Population of about 100,000and relatively benign government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Yawn... go to Philippines... their international bandwidth sucks. Wifi will change nothing.

<comment><USER18> I get 2-3 megabits into most international sites on my 10 megabit line, im in manila. Not amazing, but not that bad. They are just rolling out 20mb - <USER2> fibre.

The only major issue i have is that PLDT's dns is shit, so i have to reroute everything to google dns.

<comment><USER19> Hey, off topic but are you based in Manilla? I'm headed there soon, would love to chat! (no contact info in your hn profile)

<comment><USER20> If you find out where engineers can work remote in the RP with acceptable up/down speeds, I'd be interested in hearing about it.

<comment><USER21> There are a few co-working spaces around Makati in Metro Manila and a few in Cebu. These are probably also the only areas where you will be able to find decent internet connection speeds.

Also OT: I'm a student from Germany who studied in the Philippines for a while. I'm always interested to go back for a few months. If you have an office in PH and looking for motivated developers, don't hesitate to contact me.

<comment><USER20> Thanks; there's also "Negros First CyberCentre" in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental: [http://www.negros-occ.gov.ph/current-events/press- release/ph...](http://www.negros-occ.gov.ph/current-events/press- release/photo-release/inauguration-of-negros-first-cybercentre.html)

It would be great if it were possible to rent office space there, assuming you could get decent up/down speeds. Bacolod City is a nice jumping-off spot for the rest of the Visayas (and things like island-hopping and scuba diving).

<comment><USER21> If you are looking for a jumping-off spot for the Visayas, Metro Cebu is the place to go. It is a hub for the Philippine Nautical Highway and has the 2nd largest airport in the country, with cheap flights to everywhere in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

<comment><USER20> Cebu is also good. Easy to get from there to Palawan, Dumaguete City, Bohol, Negros, Guimaras, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is Facebook paying for this behind-the-scenes? (There might be some precedent for that.)

<comment><USER23> Maybe. But my first thought was the opposite, i.e. does the government _not_ want Facebook to provide free Internet for some reason?

<comment><USER21> You can already use Facebook for free on mobile. I don't think FB has big interest in providing free internet for everyone.

<comment><USER24> It appears their interest lies in:

(a) having a competitive advantage in raw, large-scaled _metrics_ that Google does not have (see also: Facebook's emotion and behavioral studies[0])

(b) Being able to monetize their advertising platform better. They are well aware that their current numbers are blown up by fake likes, and clickfarms [1]

At least this is just my take. I'm sure there are also other interests behind the scenes.

[0]: [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/technology/facebook- tinker...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/technology/facebook-tinkers-with- users-emotions-in-news-feed-experiment-stirring-outcry.html?_r=0)

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> the US government should do that too... to make it easier to do mass surveillance without having to go through hoops ...

<comment><USER26> I think in light of the Snowden revelations, everyone in the U.S. would be right to be suspicious of such an offering. Except of course those that have nothing to hide. Of course, if you're not using the nation's free wifi, then you're clearly up to no good and deserve a warrant for suspicious behaviour ;)

<comment><USER27> If your threat model includes a well funded government then it doesn't matter what wifi network you use.

<comment><USER26> At this point, _everyone 's_ threat model should include a well funded government. Of course, like everything else, you have to weigh convenience against the cost of security. At some point you have to throw your hands up in the air and say "whatever!" if they want to find _something_ against me, they will surely find it. I think it was Cardinal Richeleu who was supposed to have said "Find me 6 lines by the most honest man and I will find in them something to have him hanged." [I paraphrase]

<comment><USER27> The point is that moving away from free government provided WIFI does _nothing_ to prevent the US government from getting anything they want, and it is dangerous and irresponsible to suggest otherwise. We know this because the US doesn't have government provided WIFI and they have an estimated 3 to 12 exabytes of planned storage at the Utah Data Center. (Where 5 exabytes would be "all the words ever spoken by humans").

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If you're not paying for the product, you are the product. I can't think of an easier way to monitor everything that's going on online than have every one of your citizens use your wifi access points...

<comment><USER28> That's such a glib saying that has no relevance here. You're not paying to visit the park - you are the product. You're not paying to use the local library - you are the product. Oh wait you are. That's what taxes are used for.</comment></comment>


Bitstamp, give me access to my money - <AUTHOR> http://rasmuzen.com/bitstamp

<comment><USER2>
      I'm writing about this because yesterday I was a firm believer that Bitstamp is
      a company that is responsible for the power it has as the biggest bitcoin exchange,
      and I'd like to set them back on track.

Why exactly did you expect that?

None of these BTC exchanges are obligated/compelled/forced to do anything for any of their clients. Bitcoin is no different from any other payment method in the sense that you still have to go through some middlemen who always have to balance customer service with preventing fraud - real or imagined...

</comment><comment><USER3> He's the one who stored his coins on an exchange. What does he expect?

</comment><comment><USER4> You probably also posted on bitcointalk? Good luck

</comment><comment><USER5> Also, your website is unreadable on mobile due to that damn sidebar.</comment>


How the Bantu people surged across two-thirds of Africa - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/05/how-the-bantu-people-surged-across-two-thirds-of-africa/ <comment><USER2> I'm "double Bantu" \- as a Kenyan I speak our national language Swahili, and I'm also from the Bantu Bukusu tribe of Western Kenya on my father's side.

This migration history is even more complex because the migration was in waves - Bantu who went to South Africa later migrated north again, meeting Bantu who were already there from earlier migration. You can tell this from the fact that some southern African languages have closer linguistic relationship to some East African ones, than they do to other Bantu languages in their region.

My dad (Bukusu of Western Kenya) once met a gentleman from the Venda tribe of South Africa, and they conversed in English for an hour until the South African got a phone call that he answered in Venda. My dad understood practically every word that was said on the phone, and they each discovered this tribe they'd never heard of before had more language overlap than their neighbouring Bantu tribes back home.

It's fascinating if you consider just how big an area we're talking about, and how much opportunity existed for other languages to wipe out Bantu dialects. I'm no linguist but I think Africa has a propensity for multilingualism that has kept these tribal dialects alive, and aside from DNA this gives the strongest evidence of the past migrations of Bantu people.

<comment><USER3> Vipi Lesiki?! Nice to see you here.

>My dad understood practically every word that was said on the phone

It is quite uncanny how South African languages sound like Swa. I always find it amusing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > _analysis and archeological evidence suggest that the Bantu originated near > the border of Nigeria and Cameroon...._

When Mandela and Winne were in the midst of their divorce, I read an article which reported that Winnie got the matrimonial home as part of the settlement because _' the placenta of her children were buried there....'_ This practice is widespread in West Africa. It surprised me that it was a thing in South Africa as well and spurred my (amateur) search for other similarities in culture.

Turns out there are many : inheritance laws, burial customs,traditional government organization.

This article does a lot to explain why we are so similar. In particular, the culture and traditions of central plains dwelling Nigerian tribes (Tiv, Berom, Jukun etc) are very similar to that of the Eastern and South African Bantu (Swahili, Xhosa, Zulu)

(I am Nigerian)

</comment><comment><USER3> Very interesting read. I am a Bantu from Kenya and I'd like to tack on something to this.

First of all, it's incredible how intellectually insatiable the HN community is; I never imagined a post like this would end up on the HN's home page because of how niche it is.

I happen to speak up to 4 languages - Eng, Swahili, my native language Kikuyu and very rusty French. It may surprise you to know that when I listen to other Bantu tribes even from countries as far as South Africa, one or two words will often stick out and I might even get the context of a conversation even though it is indeed true that we Africans don't all speak the same language. As a matter of fact there thousands of languages and were it not for a language like Swahili, it might have been very difficult for a region such as East Africa - where Swahili is largely spoken - to have any sort of cohesion and communication.

Swahili emanates from a mix of Bantu languages and Arabic. When you hear greetings like 'alaikum salam', the first thing you probably think of is Islam but when I was in school - and I was brought up as a Christian(now not so much but that's another day's tale) - we'd greet our Swahili teachers that way everyday.

Lastly, there are two other families other than Bantu; Cushites and Nilotes. We have both families in Kenya. Cushites are mostly comprised of Somalis and similar tribes from neighboring Ethiopia.

Nilotes come in three sub-groups; River-Lake Nilotes, Plains Nilotes and Highlands Nilotes.

There has been a lot of hatred between the Bantu speaking communities and Nilotes in Kenya. Growing up I didn't know this. Our parents largely shielded us from negative ethnicity until the year 2007.

For those of you who remember, in 2007, it was the bloodiest post election violence (PEV) experienced in Kenya. Growing up, I had friends from other communities and never gave it much thought. In fact, my best friend and double-decker-mate in boarding school was from a Nilotic community known as Luo. However, when there was the contested election in 2007, it became apparent that there was deep rooted hatred between our communities. For those unlucky enough to live in 'cosmopolitan' areas, neighbors were turning against each other, looting and killing one another like nobody's business. I was a tad mad at myself for such naiveté - how could I not have seen it all around me was the question I asked myself. It was always there; my bringing up just shielded me from its apparent nature.

My neighbor's grandparents lived in an area surrounded by Nilotes(Kalenjins to be more specific) and when the PEV came about, their grandfather was shot with an arrow in the chest and he died a very painful death. The grandma survived as she had left earlier before things got thick. She had to relocate and they lost their land. There were countless similar stories - some more horrific than others.

I despise negative ethnicity regardless of who's doing it and I think it's incredibly myopic, just to set the record straight.

Things are relatively calm now but there's an upcoming election in August. Based on previous experience, I will take a vacation in Tanzania come election week. I will only return once things are certainly calm.

<comment><USER5> I like very much your post. I look forward for your submissions on those topics!

<comment><USER3> Thank you for that. And besides all that PEV nastiness, Kenya really is a lovely country. If you're ever here, you might want to visit Mombasa - it has a very rich heritage and artifacts that are still intact from as early as 1593. Look up fort jesus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm another bantu on Hacker News but living in the US. The migration continues...

<comment><USER7> Lol. I'm another one from Burundi. East Africa.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of the more pernicious myths that continues to sustain ideological racism in South Africa (and its more vile outposts on the internet) is the _terra nullius_ equivalent: that whites and Bantu-speaking blacks arrived in South Africa at the same time, and therefore large-scale dispossession of the black population didn't take place with the outward expansion of white colonials. The point about intermarriage with the San is interesting as well, because it falsifies another myth: that the dispossession of the San/Bushmen is an indication of moral equivalence between colonialists and the Bantu blacks.

Hopefully these sorts of studies, and some well constructed timelines clarify things and lay some of the self-delusion to rest.

<comment><USER9> The Khoisan have occupied much of Africa for much of human history. [1] I don't know exactly how the Bantus displaced the people that they came across, but I suspect some form of foul play.

1: [http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms6692](http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms6692)

<comment><USER8> How would you explain the integration of Khoisan click consonants in Bantu languages if foul play was involved?

<comment><USER10> Things like that come from "cultural contact" which can be peaceful or violent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Since we also talk about languages here. I once found a post in African ( Afrikaans), I thought it was strangely written Dutch, then saw the tld and looked it up.

Then learned that Afrikaans is based on Dutch. It's really funny that you can read the main language of a country so far away, since Dutch isn't that spoken by that many people ( 28 million)

<comment><USER8> Afrikaans isn't the "main language" of South Africa. It is 1 of 11 official languages, 9 of which are Bantu languages.

Until 1994, it was one of two official languages (along with English). I've also never seen it referred to by the name "African". One of the main causes of the 16 June 1976 Soweto riots was an attempt by the apartheid government to change the medium of instruction in black schools from English to Afrikaans. Although it has never been the first language of the vast majority of black Africans, it is the first language of a large percentage of whites, and mixed- race people (the Coloureds), and especially in rural areas, was a popular second language, however it seems to have been displaced as a second language by English, and most Afrikaans universities and many Afrikaans-medium schools now also offer instruction in English.

That said, I learned it at school, and it was fairly straightforward to pick up as a native English speaker.

<comment><USER12> IIRC "Afrikaans" literally means "African" (in Dutch and, uhm, Afrikaans).

<comment><USER13> It does, but it may sound derogatory because African has a much wider and broad meaning than a specific Dutch word (used in a singular colonized area).

<comment><USER14> And in any case, it's Afrikaans in English as well as Dutch, so 'African' while perhaps a literal translation into English is not really something with meaning in English.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Very inspirational Story

</comment><comment><USER16> Isn't this similar to the Proto Indo European expansion across the Eurasian steppe?</comment>


Why Most of America Is Terrible at Making Biscuits - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/11/better-biscuits-south-thanksgiving/576526/ <comment><USER3> I moved to Germany ten years ago. One of the nice things in this country is that they have a numbering system for classifying flour and they have lots of different varieties that are available in most supermarkets. A few years ago I got into making pizza's from scratch and sort of did a deep dive into what these numbers mean and in the process figured out what to look for in flour.

In the case of a pizza you want finely milled white flour with lots of protein. That means in the numbering system the Germans have you don't want to go too high. The numbers refer to dry ashes (mostly minerals) that remain after burning a certain amount of flour. Dark breads tend to have higher numbers. The darker the higher. Germans really love their dark breads. Forget about making pizza with whole wheat flour or rye based flours.

So, for pizza you want to go low. But you should not go too low either because that means you have cake flour which has less protein. You need protein to form gluten and you need gluten to get a nice stretchy dough. Crumbly pizzas are not a thing.

So, that narrowed it down substantially. German supermarkets generally carry at least 3 different types of white flower: two regular flours with 405 and 550. And a spelt flower with the number 630. The 550 and 630 flours look very similar and they have similar protein content. The 405 has a lower content and is not really great for bread. I mostly use the 630 but have also used the 550. Technically the latter is probably closer to what an Italian would consider acceptable.

What is sold in the US as all purpose flour is highly processed stuff (bleaching is a thing) that has medium protein content and is relatively low in nutritional value. The problem is with the "all purpose" part. That means it must have some protein, otherwise it would be useless for things that require that. Probably it is not super high either otherwise it would be useless for making cakes or indeed biscuits. It's a compromise in other words. Optimized for people that are mostly clueless about this stuff trying to make things like pancakes, muffins, waffels, and other staples of US cuisine.

<comment><USER4> I don't think this numbering system is specific to Germany, it is also used in Poland so it must be European thing. What's more even in smaller stores you can get at least two varieties.

Edit: the systems seem to differ modulo specific numbers, but principle is the same

<comment><USER3> I've not seen it elsewhere in Europe. But makes sense if other countries do this as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've heard that this is also why American baguettes are so brutally hard (even when fresh). They're supposed to be closer to crispy, not a dental hazard.

<comment><USER6> Baguettes are supposed to be made with high-protein wheat / bread flour. Proper Southern Biscuits are supposed to be made with low-protein flour.

I'm somewhat surprised: in my grocery store, there are "cake flour", "bread flour", and "all purpose flour" in the flour section. It only took a brief search to learn the difference (and which had higher or lower protein counts).

Further research (actually book: "On Cooking"), describes the uses of each flour. In effect: high-protein causes gluten formation, which is necessary for a proper "doughy" bread like Baguette, but is counter-productive for southern- style biscuits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Cake flour is also a lower gluten flour and can be used to make lighter biscuits. It should be available just about everywhere.

<comment><USER8> I was also going to mention this: cake flour for it's low protein levels. In determining what you're cooking/baking, the brand matters far less than the actual type of flour.

Cake / 'biscuits' (my idea of a biscuit is a solid thing to dip in tea, how British of me, but anyway) flour: about 8-9g of protein per 100 grams of flour.

All-purpose flour: 11-12 grams of protein per 100 grams of flour.

Bread flour: 13-14 grams of protein per 100 grams of flour.

'Pastas' vary a lot. Italian-style uses high-protein durum wheat, which is about 14g/100g. On the opposite end, Chinese jiaozi (steamed/boiled dumplings) use low-protein content (8-9g/100g) to give a very smooth texture.

I'm curious if flour in the US is sold with such nutritional labeling: protein, carbohydrate, fat, salt, etc, measurements per standardised measure (in the EU and much of the world, this is per 100g)?

<comment><USER9> Makes you wonder why we don't sell flour by protein content. Meaning, instead of "cake flour", sell "flour, 6% by wheat protein, good for cakes."

Maybe flour producers ought to have to label protein content on the label (even in small text), so that it's easier to find the right flour for recipes.

<comment><USER8> So this isn't done? Wow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Here's a recipe for buttermilk biscuits that includes a video showing the technique.

[https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/220943/chef-johns- buttermi...](https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/220943/chef-johns-buttermilk- biscuits/)

It's fairly close to the old school southern recipe, although lard was traditionally used in addition to butter and many recipes added a teaspoon of sugar and a quarter teaspoon of baking soda.

You can add a couple of teaspoons of bacon grease with your buttermilk to get closer to the traditional recipe.

<comment><USER11> The lard from traditional "lard" hogs that most of those old recipes were written towards is not the same chemical composition of lard rendered from today's meat hogs. Not a knock against your recommendation of bacon grease...lard hog lard was healthier and had a lower melting point.

<comment><USER12> Lard is rendered from the leaf fat, near the kidney of the pig. Takes about 4 hours and is well worth it! We have a freezer full of leaf fat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Note that the are not cookies which British-English refers to as 'biscuits'. These are what brits would call scones.

<comment><USER14> similar to scones, but they have a much different consistency. generally softer and more moist

<comment><USER15> What Americans call scones are entirely unlike a British scone. A British scone is closest to an American biscuit.

<comment><USER16> And add to the confusion Scone is also a place in Scotland of some historical significance (not for baking though).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I was slightly dubious (what sort of monster would use bread flour to make a biscuit?) so I investigated further. King Arthur all purpose flour is made from hard wheat (as is their bread flour). BUT their self-rising flour is made from soft wheat.

<comment><USER18> A few years ago I spent some time learning to make breads and similar baking. Hobbyist level stuff. King Arthur was recommended brand. I have made biscuits once but found it difficult to get them light and airy. It wouldn't surprise me if the White Lily brand is just phenomenally better for biscuits, for some reason related to the plants used or production process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> When I lived in Austin I tried several times to make biscuits. While I love the tortillas and kolaches you can get in Central Texas, I was homesick for a good biscuit. And I never could get them to rise like they should. I tried all the different kinds of flour available (Gold Medal, the HEB "Hill Country" all-purpose flour, and so on) and none of them produced anything but hockey pucks.

<comment><USER10> Baking powder and/or baking soda need to be added to biscuit dough to make biscuits rise.

Self rising flour is sold premixed with some baking powder, but I tend to add an extra half teaspoon of baking powder per cup of self rising flour when I make biscuits or pancakes with it.

All purpose flour doesn't include any baking powder or baking soda.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> An aside...they quote Sarah Simmons in the article. She's a restauranteur in my city (Columbia, S.C.) and has done amazing things for the city's food scene in the last couple years.

</comment><comment><USER21> Or you could alter the recipe. I've made baking powder biscuits any number of times (flour, salt, baking powder, milk, and butter) with very serviceable results.

<comment><USER22> I've always had good results just using the recipe from the back of the Clabber Girl bakung powder tin. I've found making fluffy biscuits has more to do with how you cut in the butter and work the dough than much else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Instead of going to Amazon, you should see if the manufacturer has an online store. It's usually significantly cheaper.

[https://onlinestore.smucker.com/display_category.cfm?cat_id=...](https://onlinestore.smucker.com/display_category.cfm?cat_id=63&prbrand=10)

</comment><comment><USER24> Use buttermilk, use self rising flour, or make your own, or use cake flour. Use aluminum free baking powder(If making your own self rising flour) and don't overwork the dough and make sure its cold as well as whatever fat you use(Shortening, Butter, Lard, etc), and you should end up with delicious biscuits.

</comment><comment><USER25> TLDR: Different kinds of wheat in the flour (softer, with less gluten). The soft wheat flour is sort of hard to get if you aren't a commercial baker, but you can get it on Amazon, although it's $10 instead of $2.50 like regular flour.

<comment><USER26> Soft wheat flour is easy to find. It is available as cake flour in any grocery store.

<comment><USER27> Cake flour is low gluten, but also very fine milled. I don't know if that is a problem, but it might be!

<comment><USER28> It might be, BUT, there are also a large number of hits from places that seem like they should actually know what they're doing and test things.

biscuit cake flour

Seems plausible.

<comment><USER27> Go forth and report back!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If you live in Tokyo the baking goods chain, Tomiz, probably has at least 80 kinds of flour depending on what you're trying to bake.

</comment><comment><USER30> So tldr is most US flour is bread flour, but you want plain flour for biscuits(scones).

First question that arises. I've never come across an US derived recipe that uses bread flour. Am I using the wrong flour when I make cobbler or 'cookies'(as in the soft bake chocolate chip kind)?

The second. Do you put jam and clotted cream on your bicuits(scones)? And in what order?

<comment><USER31> First: most common baking recipes use all-purpose flour, which is around 10% protein. This type of flour is widely available and is best for most cookies, quick breads, some types of cake, pancakes, waffles, etc. It's also acceptable for enriched bread doughs (because gluten development is going to be inhibited anyway) and for fatty/laminated doughs like typical pie crust or puff pastry (for basically the same reason).

Bread flour is 14-16%. It will be explicitly called for if necessary. It's more of a specialty product, but it's often available in grocery stores. You'll mostly find it in more 'artisan' bread recipes, especially lean European-style breads like baguettes, ciabatta, etc. Works fine for enriched bread as well -- probably better, but not so much that I'd run out and buy it if I was out if I had AP flour on hand. Useless/counterproductive in basically everything but bread.

Cake flour is a low-protein (8% or less) flour that is more finely milled and is usually bleached. It's suitable for cakes and for biscuits of the Southern variety.

Finally, self-rising flour is usually an all-purpose flour that has baking powder (chemical leavening) mixed in. This makes it more convenient to use for a lot of common American baked goods -- pancakes, waffles, and biscuits, in particular. But it also is unnecessary/harmful if you're using a recipe that doesn't call for baking powder. ('Pancake mix' is similar, but it also contains baking soda and sugar. Just add milk and eggs.)

That was long, sorry. Regarding your second question: jam is a common topping for biscuits, but clotted cream is not a commonplace food in the US. (More's the pity.) One would usually butter a biscuit before adding jam. Or honey, if you're me. Or sausage gravy.

<comment><USER30> Ah ok. The article read as if high protein (bread) flour was the default in the US.

Checking my plain and sr flour, protein content is 9% and 8.9% so seemingly a bit closer to your cake flour. Sponge flour is a thing here but I think its just finely ground, and not very common.

So that would suggest a 20%/80% mix of bread and plain flour would get closer to your AP flour.

I assume all this is because the American climate is better for producing high protein wheat? I know the Chorleywood method was developed to make bread with low protein flour, because that is what was commonly produced in the UK. Bread flour was imported from Canada, and so was in short supply post war. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process)

<comment><USER32> only if by "US" you mean north of DC.

<comment><USER30> So high protein flour is default in the north, low protein in the south? Are they labeled differently?

<comment><USER31> It's more that there are specific brands of low-protein flour intended for biscuit-making that are commonly available in the South and less available elsewhere. And, just for clarification, it's important to remember that when Americans refer to 'the South' or 'Southern' culture, they're referring to the southeastern states, east of the Rockies, and sometimes even to a narrower subset of these states. (For instance, biscuits are not a staple in Texas or Oklahoma.) Regional naming is often contentious in the US -- just ask which states are part of the Midwest and you might start an argument:

[https://www.vox.com/2016/2/16/10889440/midwest- analysis](https://www.vox.com/2016/2/16/10889440/midwest-analysis)

Thanks for the info on the Chorleywood process, by the way. I'd never heard of it.

<comment><USER30> Just when you thought they couldn't make more simple things complicated :)

I might make a submission of the chorleywood process at the weekend then. (its basically sliced bread btw )

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Terrific article

</comment><comment><USER34> I just wish Most of America would stop calling them biscuits.

[https://www.buzzfeed.com/lukebailey/scones-and- jizz](https://www.buzzfeed.com/lukebailey/scones-and-jizz)

<comment><USER35> And we wish you'd learn that not every Latin-derived word with a long "e" spelled it "oe" or "ae". And that you'd stop insisting on "dual carriageway" as a term for roads that have only ever existed in the age of internal combustion. And that you'd learn what a jumper actually is. And how to pronounce the letter "r". And that you'd understand that if you've "lost a stone" it means a jewel fell out of your ring, not that you're on a diet. And for that matter, that you'd pick a system of weights and measures and _stick to it_. And that you'd clarify whether there is in fact any type of food in existence that cannot somehow be classed as "pudding".

And... well, shall we go on?

<comment><USER30> I've lost the stone. Can you see it? I've looked everywhere and can't find it.

Re weights an measures. We changed it so we wouldn't be doing something different to the rest of entire world.

Puddings are good, why not make everything a pudding? More seriously a pudding used to be a meat based thing (Yorkshire pudding had dripping in) that went sweet. Kind of like why mince pies don't have mince in them.

With the jumper, I assume you would like us to call it a 'sweater'? If its making you sweat, take it off!

I don't know what you're talking about with my r pronunciation. I pronounce my arghs perfectly. I assume you probably pronounce them weirdly though.

America and Britain. Two nations divided by a common language. Winston Churchill.

<comment><USER16> We are fairly inconsistent about use of metric in general use in the UK - <USER2> example: last weekend I drove 79 miles at 60 or 70mph to walk 21km and climb about 900m to go up two hills at about 930m and 940m which I feel compelled to climb as they are more than 3000ft high!

<comment><USER30> I want to make a comment about not being able to decide whether we are fully adopting European things or not, but I won't.

I think a part of it is that imperial units are human sized and quite useful. A pint of beer is the natural correct unit of measurement. A cm is just a bit too small for a guessed at measure, an inch or foot can be understood to be inaccurate generalisations. Metric equivalents not so much. Road signage is a mess though. Distance: Miles, except shorter distances: Metres. Both shortened to 'm'.

<comment><USER36> Litre, cm, metre - all are human-size units that are useful. It's easier for me to ad-hoc measure a cable in metres than in feet because the distance between my hand and my opposite shoulder across my chest is about 1 metre. Similarly, a kg of sugar weighs about the same as a litre of milk, and I've been drinking milk from litre cartons all my life. (As a kid in Ireland, there were three main sizes in the shops, 1 pint and 1 litre cartons and 2 litre bottles. 1 pint was always too small for a family of three - you'd run out before it went off.)

I think you're labouring under parochialism of measurement. Grow up under a different system and you'll see there's nothing special or advantageous about the imperial system at all.

<comment><USER16> I find the imperial system totally confusing - I'd actually prefer if we moved to metric for driving - we've used metric for petrol/diesel volumes for ages.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


OVH CEO forbids publishing patches to keep his developers - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/olesovhcom/status/357585291801935872 <comment><AUTHOR> Translation:

Last time we shared a patch, someone poached our developer, since then I've forbidden to publish patches.

To someone asking if it wasn't more of an internal issue:

      https://twitter.com/olesovhcom/status/357588819287093248
      I'm not interested in talking about that.

Then later he rant about "the true motivation of GitHub".

<comment><USER2> He must be a great boss to work for. Next step: forbid developers to tweet and to write blogs…

<comment><USER3> ...and block access to Hacker News!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think the whole 'poaching' term is hilarious. If you're afraid of 'poaching' you should just... you know... treat your employees with respect and make sure they are happy with their job. If they are they won't get poached. Simple.

<comment><USER5> Your perspective is just as naive as this guy's, just in the other direction.

If your employees are so happy and you are so confident that they won't leave, might as well publish their resumes and contact info on your website.

 _If you 're afraid of 'poaching' you should just... you know... treat your employees with respect and make sure they are happy with their job_

Even if you have happy employees and you are treating them with respect, you should be afraid of them being poached.

<comment><USER6> Why not? It's not as if it will make a difference - developers are already bombarded daily with many recruiters, some of whom actually represent good positions at good companies.

The market for programmers right now is very efficient. If someone isn't being paid well enough, or treated well enough, than they can get on the free market, this problem will resolve itself very shortly.

What this company is doing is basically security through obscurity, except made hopeless by the fact that I have no doubt all of his developers are being courted frequently via non-company channels.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Oles is a very "nice" guy. I had a couple of servers at OVH and one time we've been DDoS'ed, we hade no idea why, but Oles wrote an email to us telling us that he's terminating our contract and banning us (after 2 years there). We had no clue about who that was that attacked us. I replied and asked him why he was doing that. He told me: "You should ask yourself. You've made some enemies, deal with it".

</comment><comment><USER8> The main job of any CEO is to destroy the career aspirations of his most talented employees.

<comment><USER9> Right. Because by doing that he is sure to greatly increase the value of his organization.

As I understand Hacker News (... this is just my opinion ...) it is a forum for people who want to found companies based on technology and grow them big, and the people who want to work for them or with them on those ventures.

If your mindset (as a founder or as an employee) is that the CEO's job is to "destroy career aspirations" or otherwise exhibit PHB-like qualities, then that's not an attitude worth keeping. Why? Because if that's how you feel about CEO's and bosses in general then you'll end up being a bad CEO/boss or working for bad CEOs/bosses.

The job of a CEO is to build a great team, secure them the appropriate resources to do great things, and make sure they are motivated and focused on a shared set of goals.

In other words: the main job of a CEO is to advance the career aspirations of his most talented employees--because that will create value for the organization in the long-run.

<comment><USER10> I think you missed pdog's sarcasm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> OVH Salaries are known to be super low (25k-40k€) ... this is may be the reason why they do not want to stay in the first place.

<comment><USER12> I think it's in the norm of French salaries (or I don't know good companies)

<comment><USER13> It's more or less the norm since most French companies are crap for tech workers, when you find a good one you can be paid a good salary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I tried to translate some of his tweets. could somebody French check out what is he talking about there?

[http://translate.google.com/#fr/en/%C3%A0%20nouveau%2C%20tu%...](http://translate.google.com/#fr/en/%C3%A0%20nouveau%2C%20tu%20n%27y%20es%20pas.%20je%20ne%20me%20suis%20pas%20plaint%20d%27avoir%20perdu%20%22ce%20gars%22.%20j%27ai%20dit%20que%20%C3%A7a%20nous%20a%20permit%20de%20voir%20le%20vrai%20github%0A%0Aatrement%3A%20ton%20tweet%20devrait%20%C3%AAtre%20%22non%20partage%20de%20code%20sur%20github%22%20%22refus%20d%27avoir%20des%20enqu%C3%AAtes%20juridiques%20li%C3%A9s%20au%20TOR%22.%20c%27est%20mieux%20%3F%0A%0An%20encore%20un%20qui%20ne%20lit%20pas%20ce%20que%20j%27ai%20%C3%A9crit.%20je%20me%20plains%20de%20enqu%C3%AAtes%20juridiques%20que%20TOR%20provoque.%20relis%20..%0A%0Apub%20gratuite%20de%20wikileaks%3F%20la%20merde%20%C3%A0%20g%C3%A9rer%3F%20retard%20de%206%20mois%20sur%20les%20USA%3F%20prend%20la%20ta%20pub%20gratos%2C%20n%27en%20veut%20pas.%0A%0Ala%20semaine%20pro%20on%20pourra%20les%20publier%20..%20mais%20chez%20nous%20sur%20nos%20serveurs.%20pas%20sur%20github).

 _again, you 're not there. I do not have complained of losing "that guy." I said that it allowed us to see the real github_

 _atrement: your tweet should be "not sharing code on github" "refusal to have legal investigations related to digital." is better?_

 _No one yet who does not read what I wrote. I complain about legal investigations discrete causes. reread .._

 _Free pub wikileaks? shit to deal with? 6-month delay in the USA? takes your blackjack pub, not wants._

 _week we will publish pro .. but here on our servers. not on github._

 _a guy who tries to leave, leave. I have not, it is to fuel the bigdata from github_

<comment><AUTHOR> A few corrections:

again, you're not there. I do not have complained of losing "that guy." I said that it allowed us to see the real github

atrement: your tweet should be "not sharing code on github" "refusal to have legal investigations related to TOR."

Yet another guy who does not read what I wrote. I complain about legal investigations TOR causes. reread ..

Free advertisement from wikileaks? shit to deal with? 6-month delay in the USA? keep your free advertisement, not wants.

next week we will publish them .. but here on our servers. not on github.

a guy who tries to leave, leave. What I forbidden, it is to fuel the bigdata from github

NB: It's forbidden to run a TOR node on OVH.

<comment><USER15> The TOR discussion is totally unrelated ;D

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, because of this tweet he takes a lot of backfire from other stories. eg IIRC a few years ago it was forbidden to host an IRC server on OVH.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What does this relate to?

If it is kernel updates or anything installed on a customer's machine and he refuses the customer access to the code, he is in breach of the GPL.

 _I think it is time I looked for an alternate location to host the things I have on OVH servers, I don 't want to be offering financial support to this sort of thing if I can help it._

<comment><AUTHOR> It relates to some patches for openstack.

<comment><USER17> He has another problem with OpenStack; he made this claim:

> @tcarrez on nous a fait clairement comprendre qu'il y a aucun espoir de > reprendre nos patchs sur MOVE si c'est pas dans la roadmap/sponsor.

We were clearly made to understand that there was no hope to take our MOVE work if it wasn't in the roadmap/sponsor.

> on veut pas de nos patchs. nos besoins ne sont pas dans la roadmap. il faut > payer pour la modifier.

Our patches aren't wanted. Our needs aren't on the roadmap. You have to pay to change it.

Thierry Carrez is the OpenStack release manager, sits on the technical committee, and posted some links on OpenStack's open governance (which don't mention a roadmap; the term may have been used loosely). As long as they keep talking[1], this may still end well for everyone.

[1] [https://twitter.com/olesovhcom/status/357881953661353985](https://twitter.com/olesovhcom/status/357881953661353985)

<comment><USER17> He also claimed that he didn't exactly object to paying, but I'll believe it when I see it.

> on pensait d'être le gold chez openstack, mais il y a des obligations qui > nous refroidissent

We thought about becoming gold at OpenStack, but there are some obligations that cooled us off

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm having flashbacks to the Python trademark mess. From what I know of OVH, the CEO is the owner, so there's no effective oversight. He'll drag the company down with him.

</comment><comment><USER19> OHV? over-head valve?</comment>