Class action lawsuit against Instagram - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2012/12/24/instagram-lawsuit/

<comment><USER2> Another word for lawsuits like these is 'blackmail'. You're big enough so pay up or we'll sue.

If you use a free service the way to seek redress unless they've already gone and used your content in a way that you disagree with (and that would definitely not be a class action suit) is to vote with your feet.

Instagram sucks, their policies suck and now that they're owned by FaceBook they suck even more. But that doesn't mean that suing them for providing a free service makes sense.

When you're a company that is visible lawsuits like these (or at least their announcements) are part and parcel of doing business in the United States. This goes so far that the CEO of a multinational that I know that has an operating arm in the United States whereas the parent company is located in Switzerland told me that they just count this as a cost of doing business in the United States.

In their case their products were simply a bit more expensive in the US because of the hostile legal climate. In the case of FaceBook it means that the legal team costs are being taken out of the shareholders pockets or that the ads are a bit more expensive than they need to be.

In the end this is a zero-sum wealth reallocation scheme with a blackmail and a lottery component thrown in.

The lawyers that take these kind of cases are the business world equivalent of ambulance chasers.

<comment><USER3> You're so off it's not even funny.

First, it's wholly incorrect to characterize this as a suit over a free service. Instagram is a for profit business and its users traded valuable personal information in return for Instagram's service.

Second, "voting with your feet" is what you do a priori. This suit involves people who already have a relationship with Instagram, have already shared their personal information, and are asserting that Instagram's new policies violate the understanding of the original transaction.

Third, yes lawsuits are a "cost of doing business" in the U.S. but comparing it to Switzerland is comparing apples and oranges. The Swiss have far more regulation and government oversight of companies than in the U.S. European countries in general set detailed standards and guidelines for consumer products and services, while the U.S. prefers to handle such things through litigation.

<comment><USER2> > You're so off it's not even funny.

Nothing you wrote contradicts a single word I wrote.

Whether instagram is for profit or not has nothing to do with their agreement with their users. Copyright applies, no matter whether you upload your data to a free service or to a paid one. In the case of instagram, part of your 'payment' is that you sign away rights. If you're not comfortable with that then you should not use their service (I'm not, and I don't. Ditto FaceBook).

As far as the users are concerned instagram is a free service. If you wish to redefine the word free in creative, new and exciting ways then you'll be having a very interesting conversation, but mostly with yourself. We define words in a certain way so that we can have a meaningful conversation. Instagram is a free service by the generally accepted definition of the word free.

On their homepage they write:

      "Oh yeah, did we mention it's free?"

It seems as though your not in agreement with that, maybe you are talking about a different company, the one I'm talking about lives at <http://www.instagram.com/> and does not have a paid program.

> Second, "voting with your feet" is what you do a priori. This suit involves > people who already have a relationship with Instagram, have already shared > their personal information, and are asserting that Instagram's new policies > violate the understanding of the original transaction.

Yes, so they now have the option to remove their data from the service and to deny instagram the right to the use of that data. If they continue to use it (and I think that this is where there is a very subtle point of law involved, which is that you can't just retro-actively change the terms of service and claim that if people don't remove their data that they are accepting your new terms of service) then they are implicitly in agreement with the new terms. Obviously, there are some cases where this will lead to trouble:

\- people won't re-read the terms past the point where they originally signed up on the off-chance that someone pulled a bait and switch (instagram specifically prompts you in their terms-of-service to review the terms periodically for changes)

\- people may be incapacitated (or even dead) (instagram has a process for dealing with that)

\- such retro-active changes may be illegal depending on the jurisdiction (but adding a clause about continued use past changes in the terms of service will certainly not hurt and of course instagram has just such a clause in place)

Whatever the case, the only way you'll get that settled is by suing them directly over an infringement of the copyright on your content uploaded under the original terms. Doing that pre-emptively is weird, ineffective and serves only one purpose, to give the lawyers that are promoting this class action suit free publicity. This will go absolutely nowhere.

Lawsuits over non-specifics that have not taken place, that you can avoid and that may never take place without specific damages are not good candidates for class-action.

> Third, yes lawsuits are a "cost of doing business" in the U.S. but comparing > it to Switzerland is comparing apples and oranges.

For a multi-national this is everyday life. They compare the cost of doing business from country to country and this factors into pricing the product.

> The Swiss have far more regulation and government oversight of companies > than in the U.S. European countries in general set detailed standards and > guidelines for consumer products and services, while the U.S. prefers to > handle such things through litigation.

Indeed. Whether or not that is the better way is up for grabs. But class action lawsuits on free services _before_ actual infringement takes place is a load of bull.

The one thing that I don't get is why people are still surprised over things like this. It's par for the course, and has been for more than a decade now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm amazed by how many of the comments here are missing the point entirely.

It's not about the money. It's about privacy.

When Google offered a good email service free of charge, I took them up on it. That does not mean that I would be even remotely okay with them re-writing their privacy agreement to they could start selling my personal emails to corporations or people willing to pay. If that day came, I absolutely would want to sue. Since it would be nearly hopeless to take on a company with the resources of Google on my own, a class action lawsuit would be an attractive option.

The fact that a service is provided for free is completely unrelated to obligations regarding privacy. Some here might ask, how does the service make money? Figuring that out is the responsibility of the owners, not the customers.

<comment><USER2> Google will monetize your personal emails in ways that are much more subtle than what FaceBook/Instagram are doing with the content that users upload to their service.

If you are going to sue then you have to wonder what it is that you want to achieve! Do you want to achieve that they'll stop doing it? Ok, then deny them your content, and start doing that today. Terms and conditions as a rule contain a clause that says that they can be amended at some point in the future. That alone makes most t&c completely meaningless and giving a company a large amount of data on you is a risky proposition at best.

Google is probably not dumb enough to try to sell your data direct, in spite of that you have to wonder if a free email service is worth the downside of giving some corporation such a tremendously detailed insight into who you are, what you do and who you communicate with. The safe assumption is that they'll datamine it as much as they can get away with, to monetize it as much as they can get away with just short of infuriating you enough that you'll quit.

If a service is provided for free the coin _is_ your privacy, any assumptions to the contrary are naive. The only question is whether or not you think the trade-off is worth it. For me it isn't.

<comment><USER4> I have no problem with Google sending me targeted ads. If they do it well, I'll happily support the business model and make them money. That's a completely different proposition than giving away personally identifiable information.

> _If you are going to sue then you have to wonder what it is that you want to > achieve!_

In the above scenario of them illegally selling my private communications to the highest bidder, I would want damages to 1) sufficiently compensate me for any violations of my privacy and 2) provide a powerful disincentive to other companies who might consider taking similar actions, thus shifting the game theory of mass consumer social businesses. In order to achieve the second of these aims, criminal charges for the offending parties would be more effective than mere financial penalties.

> _Terms and conditions as a rule contain a clause that says that they can be > amended at some point in the future. That alone makes most t &c completely > meaningless and giving a company a large amount of data on you is a risky > proposition at best._

Fortunately there are laws beyond T&C click-throughs. I support strengthening those laws in regards to any kind of of privacy bait and switches. In cases where I have a reasonable amount of trust in the company (e.g. Google), I'll use the service. But I'll still support legal protections, the EFF and those who call out underhanded companies.

Call me naive if you like, but I prefer that response to taking an RMSesque one-man stand by simply not using the tools the rest of the world is adopting.

<comment><USER2> > That's a completely different proposition than giving away personally > identifiable information.

That's just one hack or a terms-of-service change away from happening. Again, google being hacked at that level is unlikely (but they've had an instance of an engineer going rogue and accessing customer accounts for stalking purposes), and google changing their TOS in such a customer hostile way is also unlikely but I would never bet against either of those happening in the longer term.

> In the above scenario of them illegally selling my private communications to > the highest bidder, I would want damages to 1) sufficiently compensate me > for any violations of my privacy

You're going to have to define 'sufficiently'. What price would you put on your privacy? A few hundred bucks (the typical take in a class action suit is much smaller than that, except if you're a lawyer of course). A few thousand? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? For me it is high enough that I won't consider taking the risk. And if I did take the risk I'd have implicitly granted google the ability and possibly even the right to screw me over. Using the legal system to seek redress over something that I can avoid in a much simpler way seems to be the easy solution to me. Convenience has a price, but my privacy is worth a lot more than the value of convenience.

> Fortunately there are laws beyond T&C click-throughs.

Sure there are. But especially in the United States those laws regarding privacy are pretty weak. And these are all US companies we're talking about here.

> I support strengthening those laws in regards to any kind of of privacy bait > and switches.

I would too, but right now bait-and-switch is perfectly legal, as long as you warn up front that you can change your terms you're in the clear.

> Call me naive if you like, but I prefer that response to taking an RMSesque > one-man stand by simply not using the tools the rest of the world is > adopting.

For me it isn't worth it, for you it is. If you look back in a few years with regret then you have to wonder what real grounds you have for a lawsuit, after all this is apparently something you are aware of, you can't use the law to fix such things after the fact. The loss of your privacy can not be undone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I get the criticisms against Instagram. There's a lot of validity there. But seriously, at the end of the day, if you don't like the changes...stop using the service. There's no entitlement here.

<http://xkcd.com/1150/>

<comment><USER6> I don't personally use Instagram, but I do use other services that share a similar monetization structure. (Google, et al.)

Although the entitlement mentality shown by users is certainly an overreaction, primarily by users who don't understand the corporate structure that they've bought into by their use of the services, I can't say that xkcd comic you quoted in support of your position is valid.

These companies turn the data we the users produce from our individual actions and queries into a marketable asset that they can (if everything goes according to plan) profit from. This means that their service is not offered altruistically or even unwillingly; their persistant existence relies on our using their services.

I don't want to come off like a privacy nut, because first of all it would be hypocritical given that I am a user of Google and Gmail, but something just doesn't smell right to me about this situation we have all gotten ourselves into by using these products.

<comment><USER7> To paraphrase someone wiser than me: "If you're not paying for it, you're not the customer, you're the product."

Period.

<comment><USER8> Oh for god's sake, just STOP with this trite bit of idiocy. Every time a service that relies on users IP to do business does something users dislike, some brainless moron repeats this goddamn cliche as though it were an actual contribution to the conversation.

What you need to understand is this: IP has real value. Period. So when a company secures limited use of yours in return for a specific service under a specific set of terms, they have no business retroactively changing those terms, any more than they would in the case of a cash transaction. And stating that the terms can be changed simply means the company is free to evolve the service, and renegotiate accordingly. It doesn't mean that they can secure your agreement under one set of terms, change everything, and retain unbroken consent.

Every contract is based on an exchange of value. Both parties provide something, and both parties take something away. While it's fair to classify as "customers" those who pay cash, it's a mistake to think that other parties to the transaction are less than fully protected by the laws that govern exchange in general.

<comment><USER7> That's not how most TOS are written and since you're not paying for the service (not that that would make a difference in reality) you're not going to get the protection you think you're entitled to. That's not how the law works in reality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Living outside the United States, it is difficult to understand the mindset that leads to these class action lawsuits - especially so in this case where people did not pay to use the service in the first place. While my original reaction was to question the relevance to HN of this post, I realise that it can serve as a warning to all those interested in starting a business that will have US customers.

<comment><USER10> Essentially there are lawyers that seize on the opportunity to take advantage of populist anger against corporations to get a payday (a cut of the settlement). While class action lawsuits are good for holding companies accountable generally a lot of people get a few bucks and a few lawyers get a lot more.

<comment><USER11> Don't forget corporations' fear of class-action suits. Even when the average plaintiff gets $nil the presence of class action suits might save their life by dissuading a corporation from doing harm in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Presumably, Instagram's terms of service, like most others, say that they can change the terms of service at any time simply by notifying you of the new ones. If that's the case, I don't see how there could be a breach of contract.

</comment><comment><USER13> There will be a few more of these filed by a few more of the usual firms, then the defendant will fight to get them consolidated into one case, then the various plaintiff's lawyers will fight over who gets to be lead plaintiff and how to divide the potential spoils, and then, if the case is going poorly or the defendant figures the endless discovery is just too much of a nuisance, the defendant will settle.

Over nine-tenths of the proceeds will go to the various lawyers, a couple grand will go to whatever plaintiff they managed to scrape up, and the rest will go to some ineffectual non-profit initiative everyone will forget about the moment after the lawyers are paid. Class action trolling at its finest.

</comment><comment><USER14> What actionable results would someone who doesn't pay for the service be able to gain by this litigation?

Can a free user actually receive financial compensation from a lawsuit like this? How would a company's liability even be measured in dollars for this service?

Bandwidth expenses incurred by the user?

<comment><USER15> I don't think there will be much in the form of compensation/restorative damages, but there is a likelihood that they can be held for punitive damages if there is some breach of privacy as a result of the potential breach of contract. It will be a very difficult case to make, since first they have to prove Instagram breached contract (they didn't), and then they have to prove that the breach of contract amounted to a violation of law (privacy, property, or otherwise).... Even then, they won't be looking at much: Facebook's "Beacon"-related class action lawsuit only amounted to the single-digit millions, not exactly a windfall for anyone involved and little more than a slap on the wrist to the company.

<comment><USER2> The one thing I can see in all this is that instagram specifically states that they are '[It's] a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your photos with friends and family.'

Their terms of service are in direct contradiction of that, but it will still take a lot of effort with likely nothing left for the members of the class to put the lie to that. After all, if their homepage says 'friends and family' and in their terms-of-service they state that they'll share your data with a whole pile of others, including advertisers then they're clearly not billing themselves right. But to translate that into a damage amount is going to be a tough and very uphill battle. After all, we all read the terms of service to all the services that we use, right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> They maintained the mandatory arbitration clause. That's a lot worse than selling pictures. I'm glad someone is standing up to FB (it is FB now period).

<comment><USER16> I agree. Users have until January 19th to opt out of arbitration only! We wrote a blog post tonight about how to opt-out. I'm more upset about that clause then their intent to sell pics. AT&T does the same thing to their customers and I witnessed first-hand how far they will go to make sure you do NOT go class-action. [http://blog.publikdemand.com/instagrams-new-arbitration- clau...](http://blog.publikdemand.com/instagrams-new-arbitration-clause-how- to-opt-out/)

<comment><USER7> Paypal just did this to a lot of their users, of course making you opt out by mail (which I have no doubt that said mail, though sent, has been "lost in the mail.").

But it's Paypal. They're above the law. Just like stubhub. Well no surprise there.</comment></comment></comment>


HeidiSQL – GUI client for MariaDB, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server and PostgreSQL - <AUTHOR> https://www.heidisql.com/ <comment><USER2> Feel like I've trialled every multi-DB client under the sun. Spent a good deal of time with Valentina, then DataGrip but firmly in bed with TablePlus ([http://tableplus.com](http://tableplus.com)) now. First class Mac native experience and it's hard to see ever giving it up! There's a Windows build I've not used.

<comment><USER3> Want to also plug TablePlus — I got it in my SetApp subscription but it's one I would have no problem buying outright. Really good stuff and consistently developed.

<comment><USER4> Huge fan of SetApp here. I subscribed months ago and absolutely love being able to just search, install, and get on with my work. Sure it is much cheaper to directly buy software you will use forever but that's not why I use SetApp. I use it because it makes the hunt for apps obsolete. Any time I think I need software to do something, I have been able to find it instantly on SetApp. From PDF search to simple image editor to TablePlus, it makes me so much more relaxed about finding and installing the right app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's a Windows app. Github repo is here: [https://github.com/HeidiSQL/HeidiSQL/](https://github.com/HeidiSQL/HeidiSQL/)

The repo doesn't show releases, but the heidisql.com site has nightly builds done directly from the master branch.

<comment><USER6> FWIW, it does work on Wine

<comment><USER7> Works very well with Wine (but only with non Hi-DPI displays when and the Windows Version is set to 2003). It's my favourite client on desktop Linux / Windows.

<comment><USER8> Is there any way to improve the HiDPI support? I remember that Wine was doing some work on that in recent versions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you are on macOS and use Postgres, give [https://eggerapps.at/postico/](https://eggerapps.at/postico/) a try. Haven't used a better DB GUI Client and it looks great with Mojaves new dark mode :-)

</comment><comment><USER10> For working with MySQL on Mac, I really enjoy Sequel Pro [1]. Full native (and kinda old-skool, if you dig that kinda thing) Mac experience/design. Works fast. Is free.

[1] [https://sequelpro.com](https://sequelpro.com)

<comment> pi-rat I use Sequel Pro almost daily, pretty damn good, and you can't complain about the price :)

<comment><USER11> I used the regular Sequel Pro for years but just recently switched to the nightly version, which usually it's stable and has more updates. I recommend the switch to nightly. They share the same DB configurations you have created, so no need to worry that you have to import/export.

<comment><USER12> It's buggier as it crashes on me every few days but can't connect to MySQL 8 otherwise but the way development is going on, the product seems like a dead end which is too bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have a slightly off-topic question: what tool do you recommend for creating Entity Relationship Diagrams (also known as database models)?

<comment><USER14> DBeaver has built-in support for diagrams based on an existing database schema:

[https://dbeaver.io/](https://dbeaver.io/)

<comment><USER15> For linux, dbeaver is the least ugly thing I found. DataGrip looks ugly in 4k with 2.0 scaling, and I dont like the electron based GUIs. Looks like heidi is windows-only, will check with wine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> One of my favorite features of HeidiSQL is its "Find text in database", see [https://www.heidisql.com/forum.php?t=1006](https://www.heidisql.com/forum.php?t=1006)

It'll search through all text fields of all tables of whichever database you specify for a given string, and displays a nice per-table summary for each matching record. I haven't found anything like this in any other DB client.

<comment><USER17> There's an extension for SQL Server Management Studio that does it (MSSQL) as well. I don't think it's really recommended for prod DBs though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> So many people sleeping on DB Visualizer. It's been around forever, can connect to anything with a JDBC driver, has a ton of features, and is updated frequently. My favorite is the ability to quickly full text search any query I've ever run.

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

<comment><USER19> Sounds interesting, but what are good examples of "Visualizer" part? Screenshots section [1] only has 6 (pretty primitive [2]) images out of about a 100 total, but maybe that is outdated?

[1] [https://www.dbvis.com/features/software- screenshots/](https://www.dbvis.com/features/software-screenshots/)

[2] [https://www.dbvis.com/images/features/screens/chart3.png](https://www.dbvis.com/images/features/screens/chart3.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> If you're on Mac, Try PopSQL: [https://popsql.io/](https://popsql.io/) . It's excellent.

</comment><comment><USER21> So what's the best x-platform SQL client these days?

<comment><USER22> DBeaver is solid and supports the most DBs with lots of handy features: [https://dbeaver.io/](https://dbeaver.io/)

Jetbrains Datagrip is popular too, more intelligent but less DBs than DBeaver: [https://www.jetbrains.com/datagrip/](https://www.jetbrains.com/datagrip/)

If you want a web-based tool, especially for Postgres, then OmniDB is a good choice: [https://www.omnidb.org/en/](https://www.omnidb.org/en/)

<comment><USER23> I'll second DBeaver.

<comment><USER24> third!

<comment><USER25> fourth dbeaver db support and data model diagramming

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's one of the best free apps I've used when I was still developing on Windows, and it's one of the few tools I miss for development when on other platforms. If you haven't yet, give it a try!

</comment><comment><USER27> A while back, I was fixing up procedures in PL/pgSQL for a company. The procedures had to be rewritten, and they all sort of looked like this:

create function...

"""

declare some string "'"this string"'" int

"""

end;

The cross-database client didn't support or comprehend $$ escaping, so the people who wrote everything had no choice but the write with loads of quotes everywhere. I didn't realize this, so I passed some code back to them and they couldn't run it at all.

The client-specific programs are all optimized to the RDMS you are using, so I never was able get on board with these products.

</comment><comment><USER28> I have been using this ever since SSMS (when it was built with WinForm IIRC) was a pain to use in my old job and my OS was Windows XP.

Plus, I can update single column field from the query result by double clicking it.

</comment><comment><USER29> I have been using HeidiSQL with Wine for couple of years now, works great! It does have some bugs though, like after running a large SQL file the UI just freezes and you have to kill the program.

<comment><USER30> I really love using HeidiSQL as well, but I have the same issue. If I'm running large SQL files, I'm either using workbench or the CLI app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This has been around a long time. I used to use it when working with DBs in awkward places, like RDP accessed Windows servers. Since it doesn't require an install, it was handy to just put it on a shared local folder and run it from there on the remote server.

Never had any real complaints but it wasn't anything I'd used for regular work. I tend to prefer using the DB plugins in IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate or, if they aren't great, then something specific to the DB at the time.

</comment><comment><USER32> Props to Ansgar Becker for maintaining this awesome SQL client pretty much by himself.

HeidiSQL is hands down the best SQL client I've used.

</comment><comment><USER33> I still think the best sql client in existence is sequelpro. It only works with mysql but the ui and feature set is incredible.

<comment><USER12> UI polish and snappiness can't be beaten, which in turn locks me into using MySQL..

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I usually use this on Windows but now that I have all JetBrains tools I opt for DataGrip the most since its cross platform. But also this gets tricky when you want to open a MSSQL db thats local for development I forgot what Microsoft calls it but it may as well be called MSSQLite.

</comment><comment><USER35> If I need a GUI for MySQL, I find MySQL Workbench to work great:

[https://www.mysql.com/products/workbench/](https://www.mysql.com/products/workbench/)

But in 90% of cases, I do find that the cli sql client for your DB of choice is sufficient.

<comment><USER36> I wish I had the same experience as you. I use MW at my work and it is constantly crashing, hanging, freezing, and otherwise puttering out. We don't have a stupidly large database either. Lately I've been hounding my team to switch to another product, such as HeidiSQL or DBeaver.

<comment><USER23> >HeidiSQL or DBeaver

I've used both, and they're both good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Downloads are programmatically disallowed while you're viewing the page under an ad blocker.

Of course, it only disallows the downloads via _clicking_ the link. Easily circumventable.

<comment><USER38> You can install it with chocolatey without ever visiting the site.

<comment><USER37> You're seriously overestimating my ability to operate command line.

I'm only here for a serious discussion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'll have to check out some of these I havent heard of. I use SQLYog (there is an opensource community edition)

</comment><comment><USER40> Is there a gui client that can do both "normal" databases (like postgres and oracle) and Hive or Presto?

<comment><USER41> Induction [1] was supposed to be that, but the webpage is long gone, and it looks like there's just a source dump on GitHub with "alpha" code that hasn't been touched in 5 years.

[1]: [https://github.com/pothibo/Induction](https://github.com/pothibo/Induction)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Does this app actually export to CSV correctly, because MySQL Workbench and SSMS both screw it up?

<comment><USER43> Though I'm not familiar with the CSV export of those two tools, I've had adventures in CSV parsing from other tools. How do they screw it up? Is there a canonical "correct" way defined somewhere?

<comment><USER42> I cannot remember exactly how they each screw it up, but the issues I have had are, but not limited to,

a) truncation of data b) removal of line breaks c) not escaping enclosing values, ex. " as "" d) using \n or other values in place of actual line breaks or tabs e) using \N for NULL values (which isn't too bad, but it would be nice to be able to configure this) f) in general not complying with [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> The Postgres support was no good last time I tried. I'm using dbeaver now on linux

<comment><USER45> You might consider DataGrip -- it's got surprisingly good Postgres support and even does ssh tunneling quite nicely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Oh! This is still a thing? Cool! I lost track of it when I switched over to Linux.

</comment><comment><USER47> Heidi, DbVisualizer, and DataGrip are all great.

</comment><comment><USER48> So how does this actually compare to Datagrip?

</comment><comment><USER49> It doesn't support Mac OSX?</comment>


The 15 dumbest names for Web 2.0 startups - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.org/2008/10/13/the-15-dumbest-names-for-web-20-startups/ <comment><USER2> Some of those were only moderately bad, some were awful. Without a doubt the worst was ooooooooc (and I'm not going back to the page to figure out exactly how many "o"s there were supposed to be in there).

<comment><USER3> I agree. I don't think he knows how hard it is to obtain a non ridiculous domain name these days.

<comment><USER4> You're not going to be able to get the one you want for $7.95, but you'd be surprised what you can get for under 1k.

You could also take the 37signals route and slap an hq at the end of your domain and call it day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 1\. Google - They didn't even spell it right!

2\. Yahoo! - Named for "a boorish, crass, or stupid person" OK, given the Microsoft episode, maybe.

3\. Amazon - A river? Are you freaking kidding me?

</comment><comment><USER6> Weebly is pretty good as you can at least assume someone will know how to spell it when they go home and Google the term.

</comment><comment><USER4> I vote for Doostang and whatever Ebay's craigslist competitor is.

<comment><USER7> You don't think Kijiji is a reasonable name? Reddit and Digg are hard to spell right at first, too.

From their list I don't think Thoof or SocialThing are bad names at all. SocialThing in particular is easy to remember and describes what it does.

<comment><USER2> Kijiji is a name you can stare straight at, and _still_ not be sure how to spell it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Who cares about names? As long as you can copy/paste them they work, right?</comment>


How You Do Anything Is How You Do Everything - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/thrive-global/how-you-do-anything-is-how-you-do-everything-bc6e264e40ee <comment><USER2> This reminds me very much of the rhetoric put forward in Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday (or stoic philosophy in general). I always try respect people who take pride in what they do, not matter what it is.</comment>


How to replace the new lame Hipchat icon with something less lame - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/12e262bb6d0f

<comment><USER2> Awesome. I know it's a small detail and I know a lot of people think I'm crazy, but the new icon _really_ _really_ _really_ bothered me. Ugh. I'm glad to have something a little nicer. Thanks for the tip!</comment>


Rubik's Cube inventor is back with Rubik's 360 - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/4412176/Rubiks-Cube-inventor-is-back-with-Rubiks-360.html <comment><USER2> For me, a big part of the original cube's appeal is the aesthetics of moving the physical object around and also the cleverness of the mechanism which, on first seeing it, is a bit of a puzzle of its own.

A puzzle with balls banging around in plastic doesn't have either of those appealing aspects and there are plenty of other difficult puzzles around.

</comment><comment><USER3> Neat, but unlikely to beat the popularity of the original cube. By my recollection, Rubik's has had several other puzzles in the interim, none quite as successful (although the Rubik's Magic was pretty cool).

</comment><comment><USER4> They are doing a lot of PR work, if they make it easily available, most people here will buy it even just out of curiosity.

</comment><comment><USER5> _It has 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible combinations on its six faces._

That's wrong, there are only 22 pieces on a Rubik's Cube. 8 edges, 6 faces, 12 corners. 8! * 6! * 12! = 1.3905608 × 10^16 and even here there is a lot of symmetry. For example dividing by 6 faces and 4 rotations of each face you get 5.79400335 × 10 ^ 14 unique combinations.

<comment><USER6> No--not only are the faces fixed, but the orientation of the 12th corner and 8th edge are dependent on the previous 11th and 8th corner and edge respectively.

The quoted number is known to be fairly standard amongst cubers. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubiks_cube#Permutations> has a decent description of why.

<comment><USER5> _oriented independently_ , doh.

Thanks.</comment></comment></comment>


A Jewish girl hid from the Nazis in an Alpine ski resort - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Missing link. One such is to the BBC at [https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-50828696](https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-50828696) from 3 days ago.</comment>


Tinkercoin: Buy Bitcoin with Credit Card (But Limited Quantity Only) - <AUTHOR> http://btcgeek.com/tinkercoin-buy-bitcoin-credit-card/ <comment><USER2> This was on the front page today.</comment>


One may purchase a lifetime nsa.org account for the price of $100 - <AUTHOR> http://nsa.org

<comment><USER2> Let's search "lifetime" on HN and see how well that's worked out in the past..

</comment><comment><USER3> Ok. How is this not spam?

I've seen better websites done by a 12 year old on Geocities back in the day... And me, pay them $100? Are they out of their gourd?

<comment><USER4> I'm pretty sure it's a joke.</comment></comment>


The rise and fall of the PlayStation supercomputers - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/3/20984028/playstation-supercomputer-ps3-umass-dartmouth-astrophysics-25th-anniversary <comment><USER2> The Playstation 1, 2 and 3 are each in their own way Sony's take on an alternate history of computer graphics. It was Sony's intent with all three consoles to put the "special effects" (that in 2019 are performed using shaders) _in the CPU_ , and not the GPU.

As a result, the PS1, but especially the PS2 and PS3 were engineered to have amazing vector capabilities in the CPU. The PS2's Emotion Engine had extremely high performance vector processing units, and was so optimized for compute throughput it used two different floating point formats, neither of which are compatible with the IEEE754 standard that every other piece of hardware you've ever touched uses. The PS3 was the culmination of that philosophy, with the Cell being explicitly developed to put as much raw number crunching hardware in something that can still be called a CPU. It was just a single unimpressive POWER-compatible CPU core, and 60% of its die area went to specifically engineered number crunching units. This is what made it "supercomputer grade".

There's a persistent rumor that the Cell was so powerful that Sony had intended for the Playstation 3 to be equipped with _two_ Cell chips, and no true GPU at all. But it seems Sony realized during development that their philosophy had no future. Sony compromised and introduced a standard Geforce GPU. Compared to the more conventional architecture of the Xbox 360, the compromised design still had slightly more potential but it was a lot more difficult to work with for games, and more expensive to produce as well.

Starting with the last generation of consoles, homegrown graphics architectures aren't tried anymore. You can only get performance and especially good developer buy-in on commodity hardware. As a result, the PS4 and Xbox One have PC hardware. Their successors will too. The Nintendo Switch shares a chip with the Nvidia Shield TV and Google Pixel C tablet. Console hardware is not really interesting anymore if you ask me.

<comment><USER3> > As a result, the PS4 and Xbox One have PC hardware.

Does this mean the Xbox was pretty revolutionary for showing that you really can make a console with commodity hardware?

<comment><USER4> Didn't they have to kill it only a couple of years in because it wasn't cost- effective? IIRC it was sold at a huge loss that they never managed to get back.

<comment><USER5> The original Xbox had some contractual problems that prevented it from being cost-reduced. I don't think MS cared if they broke even since they were in it for the long haul. Everybody knows Xbox 3.11 for Workgroups was the first good Xbox anyway.

<comment><USER6> Very different from the Windows Phone philosophy, then.

<comment><USER7> Not necessarily. PS2 dominated its generation; Xbox did OK, but only a company Microsoft's size could have sustained it (and even Microsoft superseded the console in four years, unusually short for that generation). Xbox 360, Microsoft's second try, was hugely successful, beating PS3 everywhere outside Japan. Had it only been as successful as Xbox was, though, Microsoft might not have tried again.

No Windows Phone iteration ever had more than a few percentage points of share. iOS and Android both clearly destroyed it in the market. Had WP seen a few years of sustained success it would still be around today, sort of like how BlackBerry the brand is still around, albeit for Android-based devices.

<comment><USER4> The Xbox 360 only beat the PS3 in English-speaking countries. By the end of the generation the PS3 had outsold it world-wide, if only barely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This was the moment that Sony could have made something useful out of themselves here for allowing Linux to be used on a popular games console at the time, as in improving the accessibility of installing Linux on a computing machine. (Or even basing GameOS on Linux).

Instead they cowardly remove it due to a 'hack' by Geohot and locked it down for 'security purposes' and potential researchers, scientists and those without access to supercomputers are the ones to suffer from this decision.

Sony had to appeal to their gaming community over the science community so that's that.

Also it's 'OtherOS' not 'OpenOS'.

<comment><USER9> (I'm sure I'll lose karma for explaining Sonys side, since some people just want to be mad)

Linux support was not removed due to Geohot. It was a driver and business priority issue. Geohot just sealed the deal.

Having worked there during the kerfuffle, I can confirm their reason was valid for not supporting Linux going forward. It was a non trivial effort and they wanted those engineers to make it support the new hardware turns. It was a company wide goal to hit break even at retail pricing at that time (Sony was amazing at running hardware coat forecasting internally and iirc hit their 7 year Target by a week). This required the new hardware. So they dropped Linux. That part is real.

Then they effed up by not messaging it well and by dropping promised back support.

And then a bunch of the community responded as petulant children and attacked sonys main business and released products that allowed others to infringe Sony and other game studios property with impunity. These actions killed any chance Sony would engage with this community for the next decade or so.

Sony was also backed into a corner technically as I recall as the thing hot hacked (by realizing it was a null crypto key on the one processor), and thus allowed Linux was also the thing that did the drm. Sony had to choose between another year or so of drm or Linux support.

As in many cases not parties are at fault. Contracts can and are broken. Sony paid multiple prices for it. So did the Linux/hacker community.

<comment><USER10> I am taken aback a bit by this characterisation:

        And then a bunch of the community responded as petulant children and

Sony supported linux in public, people bought their hardware for it, and then, without warning, sony janked the rug from under them. Of course people tried to take back their hardware, for which they paid. The blame here is 100% on Sony.

Sony has a massive internal conflict of interest by being both a content creator and a hardware provider. They sabotage their own products to the detriment of their customers again and again.

Sony worked with the community for a few years, and had the longest unhacked console to show for it. Then They slapped the community in the face and paid dearly for it, as the should. Sony should beg the community for another chance.

<comment><USER9> When you have a legitimate beef or problem with someone, you don't take illegitimate and illegal actions against them. I'm all for reverse engineering. That's fine.

Extorting a company by threatening them with release of an exploit if you don't get your way is not legitimate, that's blackmail or extortion.

All of the hackers attacking Sony for months, disabling PSN, is not legitimate, and should never have been supported by anyone.

Just let the courts handle it like they should and did.

<comment><USER11> > illegal actions against them

What's illegal about reverse engineering a physical product you sell to someone?

> Disabling psn

Are you kidding me? The PSN was notriously insecure. Sony didn't give a crap until they were embarassed.

<comment><USER9> Read my post.

Reverse engineering legal and to me moral.

Extorting a company with a threat of release of a thing to get what you want: extortion and illegal. This was done by people around hots.

Agreed: psn was insecure. Hacking is still illegal.

By taking these actions we lost the moral high ground as hackers. The class action by itself would be just fine

<comment><USER11> The class action only happened because it was hacked. Sony just threw up it's hands and said "we don't care" until they were forced to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> When reading through this I was sure this was about Folding@Home but turns out this was a different project! Strange that Folding@Home isn't even mentioned, if I recall it correctly, you could install Folding@Home easily via the store on the PS3, and a normal user could contribute. The Verge article seems more focused on customized machine (rooted to run Linux and stored at location) instead of using the standard OS and letting the contributors have the machine at home. Folding@Home seems to still be running to this day as well! Plenty of information about it here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding@home#PlayStation_3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding@home#PlayStation_3)

<comment><USER13> Off-topic, what's the current state of protein folding simulation? Is it still an unsolved problem? It was mentioned pretty often as a hard problem but I stopped hearing about it a couple years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The entire interest in this came from the fact that Sony was selling PS3s at a loss, hoping to make up for it with game sales. They were willing to put up with people buying them for compute for a little bit for marketing but it was never going to be sustainable system.

</comment><comment><USER15> "Supercomputer projects needed the original PS3, not the PS3 Slim, because Sony had removed Linux support from the console in response to hacks — which later led to a class-action settlement. This article originally stated that it was because the PS3 Slim was less powerful. We regret the error."

Wonder what made the writer originally assume that? Mid-generation console refreshes would be the one occurence where much care would be taken to keep the performance not faster, not slower, but completely identical against the original hardware. I remember reading somewhere that the Xbox 360 refreshes had some hardware to intentionally add latency for inter-chip communications to keep performance identical.

</comment><comment><USER16> Seriously surprised that the article didn't mention Iraq buying 4,000 PlayStation 2's in the year 2000. I think Saddam was doing some supercomputing.

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/12/19/iraq_buys_4000_play...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/12/19/iraq_buys_4000_playstation_2s/)

</comment><comment><USER17> > "The Air Force had to convince Sony to..."

To be a fly on the wall during that discussion. I'm sure money wasn't an issue for the Air Force, or that Sony had some balls of steel.

<comment><USER18> Are you implying that the Air Force is in the business of making "offers that cannot be refused" especially to foreign owned companies?

<comment><USER19> Well, actually yes.

Notice how there's very few military aircraft companies in the USA?

That's because the little fish got a visit from Washington saying, "that was your last contract unless you merge."

Northrop tried to resist, for a while anyway.

Regarding foreign companies, the Avro Arrow was cut up after the US offered Canada a northern missile defense network. The Arrow was an early Mach 2 interceptor - think of the foreign sales possibilities.

Many of the designers ended up at NASA.

<comment><USER20> actually [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/20/opinion/military-right- to...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/20/opinion/military-right-to- repair.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > the PS4 can't easily be turned into a cog for a supercomputing machine. > "There's nothing novel about the PlayStation 4, it's just a regular old PC," > Khanna says. "We weren't really motivated to do anything with the > PlayStation 4."

The article doesn't really explain in detail the difference that made the ps3 an attractive buy for making super computers over regular PCs. Can someone elaborate?

<comment><USER12> From Wikipedia about another, similar project (Folding@Home)

> At the time of its inception, its main streaming Cell processor delivered a > 20 times speed increase over PCs for some calculations, processing power > which could not be found on other systems such as the Xbox 360.[36][190] The > PS3's high speed and efficiency introduced other opportunities for > worthwhile optimizations according to Amdahl's law

> The PS3's uniform console environment made technical support easier and made > Folding@home more user friendly.[36] The PS3 also had the ability to stream > data quickly to its GPU, which was used for real-time atomic-level > visualizing of the current protein dynamics

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding@home#PlayStation_3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding@home#PlayStation_3)

<comment><USER22> Ironically, this is the kind of massive research that got Sony into troubles because it costed a ton and was hard for developers to master (SEGA felt this hard a decade prior), hence the Nintendo U-turn and Sony/Microsoft 90% mainstream hardware follow-up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It was a cute way to get a Cell processor running Linux for an order of magnitude less than any other option, during the brief window where that processor looked like it was going to be future of high performance CPUs. (Anyone else here have the misfortune to work with LLNL's Roadrunner?). But then IBM killed it, and Nvidia came along and ate the market.

<comment><USER24> LANL had the Roadrunner. LLNL had BlueGene/L at the time.

<comment><USER23> quite so. time and autocorrect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> That wire rack shelf (sans wheels) is still how some low budget colocation/dedicated server operators set up their hardware. Minitower or mid- tower microatx/ATX sized cases with low cost motherboards, CPU, power supplies. A cheap microatx sized tower case with one rear exhaust fan is $35.

Each system with one or two cat5e cables and a single power cable. In really low cost colocation facilities the limiting factor is often total kW of electricity and cooling available, not square footage of floor space.

It's been a common thing in the datacenter/dedicated server business for about 18-20 years.

The same general idea was adopted by Bitcoin miners using ASIC hardware, and later on with Ethereum mining again with systems using two or four GPUs connected to a low-cost ATX motherboard.

<comment><USER26> If you're not running 7+ cards on a mining rig you're probably doing it wrong. The higher the number of cards you run in a rig the more you can distribute the cost of the non mining hardware (HD, mobo, cpu, memory) across cards.

A mobo that supports 8 cards might be double the cost of a board that supports 4 cards, but it prevents you from having to buy a second cpu, a second hard drive, second psu, and more memory to put in your second cheapo mobo.

Now if you can buy random cheap ATX boxes for less than $27 dollars per PCI-E slot you are better off initially, but then management across all your various junk boxes becomes a PITA quick.

<comment><USER25> The last time I spent 15 minutes doing a possible ROI calculation on a GPU based Ethereum mining system, about a year ago, I came to the conclusion that the upfront cost of buying the GPUs alone, plus the electricity (entirely ignoring the cost of a dedicated mining purpose motherboard and cpu/ram, power supply, etc) would not have a reasonable payback period. Even if the electricity was 1.5 cents a kWh, and cooling was free.

I've seen the various motherboards from Taiwanese board manufacturers which are designed for mining, with many small pci-express 3.0 slots intended for use with riser ribbon/interface cards, such as for use as you describe with 8 GPUs attached to one motherboard.

[https://www.techradar.com/news/best-mining- motherboards](https://www.techradar.com/news/best-mining-motherboards)

<comment><USER27> I did some Ethereum mining for a little while and simply couldn't believe that people were buying/building new systems. PCI 3 is backwards compatible with PCI 2, which has far more bandwidth than a mining GPU will ever need.

I bought surplus Core2Duo systems for $10 and slapped in a cheap SSD and a 1060 6GB. The CPU would sit there at 99% idle and the power supply never broke a sweat.

<comment><USER25> That is a very good point. The calculations I did were well after the value drop (early 2018) in Ethereum, and assumed that case, motherboard, cpu, ram and power supply were 0 dollars. Just based on the cost of electricity and buying several thousand dollars of GPUs. Even then it didn't work out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I would expect this to be more viable than ever, now that the cost of console hardware is so heavily subsidised by online subscription services.

<comment><USER29> The CPUs of modern console are pretty standard general-purpose CPUs: the PS4 and XB1 use customised AMD APU, and the Switch uses a Tegra X1. That's not useful for supercomputers.

The PS3 was using a pretty weird CPU, which importantly had a single general- purpose core but 6 SIMD co-processors, making it _very_ useful for compute tasks on supercomputers.

These days you'd use off-the-shelf compute-oriented FPGA or stream / GPGPU units paired with general-purpose CPUs e.g. OLCF-4 has 9216 general-purpose CPUs driving 27648 Tesla V100.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I have a recollection that at the time when this sort of thing became possible, that there was some worry that unfriendly nations could use this to get around technology export restrictions (what no, we're not buying a supercomputer--we're just buying 500 game consoles for our weapons designers).

</comment><comment><USER31> I love the plug for Person of Interest and was surprised that the original ones from the Air Force ended up there.

</comment><comment><USER32> It would be awesome if you could install Linux on modern Xbox or PS4 consoles and use them as PCs...

<comment><USER33> I'm not sure how much of a benefit that'd be at this point — the PS3 was some custom hardware that was unique to its era, while the current consoles are 5-year-old x86 chips running custom OSes. Putting Linux into that mix only gets you a stable, but outdated, hardware platform.

<comment><USER32> I was really thinking more about the upcoming PS5 and Xbox Scarlett, which both should have Zen 2 CPUs and Navi GPUs, along with a generous helping of GDDR6 memory and SSDs.

<comment><USER33> At launch, those systems will probably be very competitive with off-the-shelf PCs. By 2022, they won't look as good.

One thing these new consoles are doing that seems interesting is that they use a huge pool of unified RAM (rather than two independent pools of main+video memory).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> he article neglects that the PS3 supercomputer was popular because Sony sold them at a loss.

No hardware manufacturer does this any more.</comment>


How the United States Lost the Naval War of 2015 - <AUTHOR> http://www.fpri.org/orbis/5401/kraska.navalwar2015.pdf

<comment><USER2> Blah blah blah. 'I'm a Navy shill and let me tell you, China's going to kill us all within a very implausibly short-time if we don't shovel billions into cool new ships & weapons. We must eliminate the carrier gap!'

Haven't we heard this story before?

And here I was hoping for an interesting analysis of the Iran wargames and the dismal results for the carrier groups, but all I got was let's build a bigger bluewater fleet.

<comment><USER3> Indeed. It was a Tom Clancy book with a hawkish pitch. Let me know when the movie adaptation comes out.

<comment><USER4> Because there isn't enough pornography on DVD already...

You know the author of this story was hot and bothered during the entire writing process. A Christian, no doubt, too. Probably skipped Bible study when they covered the section that says "Those who delight in violence [God] abhors".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Out of every $100 spent on national defense _worldwide_ , $40–$50 are spent by the United States. About 30% of the US Federal budget is military spending, and about 13% is paying interest on money we borrowed for previous military spending.¹ Any hypothetical war that the US couldn't win unless it spends _even more_ coin on military hardware is not a hypothetical war that the US should be hypothetically fighting in the first place.

¹ [http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military- spendi...](http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending)

<comment><USER6> What the US gets for that money tho' is a vast amount of tech that eventually ends up with the general public. I have two GPSs on me at the moment. Which is ridiculous but hey, they're so cheap, why not stick one in every electronic device?! There's a reason that all that comes out of the US.

The EU as a whole spends about half what the US does on defence and ends up with about 10% of the capability. Hmm.

<comment><USER7> Your first argument would be more interesting, if you could compare it with a situation where the money remains in civilian hands.

(E.g. during the Second World War a lot of new technology came out of the military, too. But that was only to expect, since all resources went into the military.)

<comment><USER6> A good example is the UK. We spend ~200Bn a year on welfare and ~30Bn a year on defence. Yet the US leads in almost every technological field.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Surface navies are useless against competent organized opponents. Carrier groups are for power projection to scare the natives, little else. During a $250 million war game in 2002, OPFOR sunk the US fleet in the Persian Gulf. Sorry I can't find the original: <http://bassreport.com/forum/rec.boats.t664050.htm>

And another from the War Nerd: [http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is- how-the-carrier...](http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the- carriers-will-die/#more-6954)

He repeats this quote from the US Naval Institute about 10 times in that last article: "Ships currently have no defense against a ballistic missile attack," and points out that ballistic missiles are 50 year old tech.

The solution to defending a surface navy isn't to throw money at it, but to mothball it.

<comment><USER5> That is a rather glaring flaw in the OP's argument, innit? "The Chinese could bring down one of our massive ships with one cheap missile! Therefore we need... an even larger quantity of massive ships than we have now!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> For those who can't be bothered reading it, the posited scenario goes something like this:

1\. China torpedoes a US aircraft carrier for no particularly good reason

2\. China claims that the US aircraft carrier exploded all on its own, and nobody can prove otherwise

3\. The US doesn't bother to retaliate

4\. The US has thus "lost the Naval War of 2015".

Does this scenario strike anyone as especially plausible?

<comment><USER10> There would be records of the radar track in the computers of the Aegis cruisers in the task force. There may well be evidence of the launch captured by satellites.

ELINT is very powerful, and the US intelligence agencies have been at this game since before WWII. Their sneakiness boggles the mind! They were using signals bounced off of the moon to spy on Soviet equipment, and disguised the whole thing as radio astronomy!

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ>

If you are going to go up against the US defense establishment, you'd better be _damned_ sure you know what you're doing.

If I were the US, facing such an asymmetric threat, I'd keep most of my carrier groups around for the short term as a boondoggle, then come up with my own novel threat against my opponent's shipping.

(Sub launched cruise missiles, or mines? The advanced 21st century version, of course.)

<comment><USER9> _(Sub launched cruise missiles, or mines?)_

Nukes.

If I were the US, I'd simply make it an official matter of policy that any attack from a nuclear power would result in an immediate nuclear response, the logic being that once two nuclear powers are at war it's probably going to turn nuclear eventually, so you might as well make the first strike.

<comment><USER11> Please tell me you are joking.

Some of us spent our entire youth afraid of nuclear annihilation 24/7. We've been out of that for some time now, but I don't think anyone wants to send the world back to that point.

<comment><USER12> Fear of nuclear annihilation is why there hasn't been a war. Nuclear weapons = peace. Not a happy peace, but infinitely better than either no nukes or a single side having nukes.

<comment><USER7> You know that there were more hot wars during the cold war than we have now?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Amusing. I enjoyed this part:

 _The incident—could it really be called a ''war''?—_

Well, when you're making up some hypothetical event in the future, you can call it anything you want. Kind of weird to question it yourself though.

This whole thing is pretty stupid, though. As a former Navy guy, I find it pretty hard to believe that the US wouldn't be able to prove that China was responsible, or that they wouldn't retaliate even if they couldn't prove it.

</comment><comment><USER14> The references are pretty interesting for this article. I highly recommend the "Pentagon's Wasting Assets" article by Andrew Bachevich, which talks about this in a section of it from a less inflammatory perspective (mostly focusing on the Hormouz and Taiwanese Straits, as well as the 2002 war game mentioned below)

It's a known thought that since the late 80s, the Chinese Navy has been led by strategists who follow Mahanian decisive battle theory. It'll be interesting to see how carrier air groups are integrated into a theory that was adopted in the turn of the 20th century for a 'big gun'/dreadnought/battleship navy that was made obsolete by the emergence of naval air power.

Billy Mitchell just keeps winning...

</comment><comment><USER15> And Iraq has chemical weapons, and Iran is a dangerous nuclear power, blah blah blah... Isn't $500 billion a year (50% of the federal budget!) enough for you people?

<comment><USER16> The federal budget is significantly more than 1 Trillion USD

<comment><USER15> Yeah, the numbers change year to year, and the most recent numbers are even greater. From [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_States_federal_budg...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_States_federal_budget)], I tally ~ $743 billion in defense and veterans affairs. Add a large percentage of the $220 billion in interest payments. The important question percentage- wise is whether you include Social Security.

Anyway, the fraction of the budget is really besides the point. We spend an inordinate amount of money on the military, and there is no viable threats to defend against. China is the best pick because they spend the second most money ($85 billion), but can we legitimately think that we'll go to physical war with such a huge trade partner?

Our military is funded by campfire stories and yellow press.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Modern Carriers can't fit through the Panama Canal and I am sure they would be fine going around the tip of South America.

<comment><USER7> They are planning to enlarge the Canal. Though I do not know whether it will be large enough for carriers. (Probably not.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is almost the exact scenario of "Debt of Honor" by Tom Clancy. Only it was a Japanese sub that ambushed a carrier.</comment>


GameBoy Advance Emulator coming to iOS 7. No Jailbreak required - <AUTHOR> http://gba4iosapp.com/ Remember GBA4iOS? It was a gameboy advance emulator on iOS that used a AppStore enterprise bug to bring emulator to everyone without a jailbreak. Apple closed that bug but now its back with version 2.0 and the website has a countdown which will finish tonight. <comment><USER2> Yes jailbreak required.

From site: How can I install GBA4iOS? Unlike other apps for iOS, you can not install GBA4iOS from the App Store. Until GBA4iOS 2.0 is released, you can download version 1.6 from iEmulators, run by Start3rs, an awesome group of people who are beta testing GBA4iOS 2.0. To install, open the link on your iOS device, and follow the instructions at the top of the page.

</comment><comment><USER3> It seems like they are using iOS Enterprise distribution. It'll work fine until Apple finds out and blocks their signature and shuts down their developer account.

Edit: Also be adviced that this means Apple hasn't screened this app for malware and privacy issues.

</comment><comment><USER4> I guess this means it'll be browser based, but the screenshots make it look like a native app. Hmm.

<comment><USER5> A wrapper maybe?

Even if it's only a wrapper, Apple may not approve it.</comment></comment>


Uh, So the Pentagon Spent $22M on a Mysterious UFO Analysis Program - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/uh-so-the-pentagon-spent-22-million-on-a-mysterious-u-1821359187?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_twitter&utm_source=gizmodo_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow <comment><USER2> More discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15940674](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15940674)</comment>


Study: Mass exodus over Facebook privacy flap won't happen - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?entry_id=64627&tsp=1 <comment><USER2> I don't know about this. I've already seen a few regular posters leave facebook. Facebook grew really quickly. Now that people know such a thing can exist, and know what to expect from it, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see some great exodus to a different site. It's not beyond the realm of possibility. I think what these articles (facebook is safe) fail to factor in is the invention of some really cool new thing that some other site comes up with. Facebook quickly aped the Twitter-style feed, but the next big thing they may not be able to do so quickly. After all, people have only so much free online attention, and if something new and shiny is perceived to be better than facebook, then it could happen, and quickly.

<comment><USER3> Precisely. Of course people don't plan an exodus from Facebook yet. Exodus to what? There are no prominent Facebook competitors with better privacy constraints. Nobody bothered to start one over the last few years, because that space was dominated by Facebook itself, before the company decided to abandon it! Nobody wants to pick a fight with Facebook on its own turf. And nature may abhor a vacuum, but a vacuum doesn't fill up instantly.

It will, of course, be harder to grow a privacy-enabled service than a promiscuous one. It's harder to establish the viral loop. But that doesn't mean it could not happen, and it is probably too soon to tell if or when it will.

Facebook will look fine for a while, but the damage to their brand is permanent. People don't jump ship without motive, means, _and_ opportunity, but now the motive is firmly in place for a lot of users. Wait and see what happens if and when someone invents the means and offers the opportunity.

<comment><USER4> The key value of Facebook is mass-opt-in messaging, including photos/videos as a sort of message. So if I'm going to such and such a party, I don't need to seek people out, I just post it on Facebook and people will know what I'm up to if they want to join.

Until a service exists and I can migrate there with all of my friends, I need Facebook to fill that role. Yeah, I could just restrict myself to those who seek me out (or I seek out), but that would likely mean discarding some people who might have been great lifelong friends.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this won't hurt Facebook much on the short-term, but it will in the long-term.

* Short-term: Active users won't delete their accounts because the benefit they get from Facebook outweighs their annoyance at the privacy issues. Long-term: Once a viable competitor comes, active users will change.

* Short-term: A handful of users (including me) deleted their accounts. Long-term: A lot of would-be users that would have signed up, won't.

* Short-term: Revised privacy controls ease the pain. Long-term: Permanent brand damage has happened. No longer can we believe in the sincerity of Facebook's "oops, we made a mistake" since it's becoming a pattern for them to ask forgiveness rather than permission. Remember Beacon? It will take years for the "we don't care about users" branding of Facebook to go away, if ever.

<comment><USER6> the other thing is, if you surveyed myspace users back in the day, you'd never have predicted the exodus to facebook once it appeared. Nobody leaves until there's a viable alternative, which is what we are all here for!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not sure if it would be even possible to collect analytics on this, but I think a real danger to Facebook could be that while people may not leave the site, the confusion over what shared information is shared with whom might cause users to use the site less and share less on it. As an example, most of the non-technical people I know, when prompted a few weeks ago to replace their 'About Me' page with a series of their fan pages, simply opted to make that page mostly blank.

Even though these people are not leaving Facebook, this still hurts them because their value is not only in how many people are on there, but what those people are actually doing and sharing. It's not just the nodes that make a network, but the connections between them.

</comment><comment><USER8> I really think we're all underestimating how much value the "shared by default" setting gives to facebook's users. And I'm not talking users like us, I'm talking users like my girlfriend. Whenever she's on facebook (which seems to be constantly) she's looking at pictures or profiles of people I've never met. I'll ask her who that is, and she'll respond "Oh, I don't know" and go on clicking through that person's pictures.

The default privacy policy might seem awful to us, but for the average user it's one of the things that makes facebook <del>engaging</del> addicting. I really don't think this privacy controversy will affect facebook as much as many of us think it will.

<comment><USER9> I wouldn't mind sharing more, in some cases. However, we do not have a -- codified -- social convention for how such information can and cannot be used. When I can lose health insurance, or a job, or -- in other countries -- potentially my life, as a result of public sharing, I'm going to avoid it.

Facebook grew to dominance in good part because it initially provided people control over their sharing. Statements now that they "give users (complete) control" over how their information is shared, are disingenuous. Lies, actually.

You can no longer hide your profile picture. Many of my friends have replaced theirs with photos of their pets, random graphics, or whatnot. This occurred after profile pictures -- _even pre-existing profile pictures uploaded and selected at a time when they could be limited to e.g. just friends_ \-- were forced to be public.

As someone who has had a family member selected and stalked based on appearance, I can tell you how troubling this is. Not to mention all the potentials for discrimination of various sorts. Yes, you can change your picture, but can you ever change the old version that Google and other sites cached before you caught on to the site's change of its visibility?

You cannot hide your friends (unless this has changed in the latest changes, for which I've not yet been prompted by the site). Even more insidious, there is a workaround that allows you to remove the "friends" widgit from your public profile page, but which does nothing to limit the availability of your friends list through the invisible, much less apparent, and much more commercially oriented API's.

Why should I worry about all this? Well, this article provides a decent, if thin on specific incidents, summary:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1387385>

Many things are "easier" when you are young and don't have much in the way of obligations (particularly in U.S. and some other Western/"advanced" societies). Or when you are a "superstar" and many people seek your attention and participation -- and are willing therefore to overlook some "eccentricities". A lot of people, however, are not in either of those positions.

Look how much trouble the U.S. has just trying to reach some consensus on how to deal with pre-existing medical conditions and health insurance. This despite the fact that the majority of the population seems at least to profess an aversion to, more so an abhorrence of suffering. And despite the fact that one can pay into insurance plans for years and years -- what might under other circumstances be interpreted as building up a considerable, as yet unrequited investment in the system. And yet ultimately be denied coverage due to a job loss, or just to the greediness of a system designed to place executives and shareholders first.

Comment on Facebook on your sore back or that RSI, and while you may receive some sympathy or even helpful suggestions in the short run, our current society and legal system does nothing to prevent that data from being mined and then used one day e.g. to deny insurance coverage.

Why are some people upset about privacy? Because some people have paid attention to the discriminatory uses and misuses of information, either in their own lives or in others', contemporary and historical.

The novel physical aspects of the Web can seem to cast this in terms of a new, unexplored context. But much of the underlying situation is neither novel nor surprising.

Personally, I am actually not a shirking violet in terms of sharing personal information, even with strangers. (Sometimes, in fact, it is easier to share things with a stranger; also, the novelty of getting to know someone is an often very enjoyable experience.) But I do NOT want it absorbed and ensconced into a medium that works mercilessly to associate it -- publicly -- with my identity and continues to hold it over my head for the rest of my life (in ways that literally threaten my well-being).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> As Tim O'Reilly remarked recently, what we are seeing is not so much a privacy backlash but rather an informed consent backlash.

Many people don't really care that much about privacy any more, but it seems they still don't like being tricked into releasing their info (or being tricked into anything else, for that matter). The way I see it, that is why people won't leave Facebook over privacy issues.

<comment><USER7> This line of discussion needs to be seen far more often. I think the biggest problem that the anti-Facebook crowd has is that they've allowed the news narrative to be structured in terms of privacy, when it is far more about personal control of data and informed consent to how that data is used.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Because everyone is busy collecting "friends". By the way, did you guys know that whoever has most "friends" on Facebook when they die, wins?

<comment><USER12> or, whoever has the most karmapoints on hacker news when he dies, wins. its the norm. a prefectly unsurprising social construct. its similar to the case right here on hacker news with the rampant downvoting action being practised by a small group of tinyminded people, who systematically downvote certain others comments regardless of how correct and how agreeable the content is, just to ''push them out'' indirectly thinking they themselves rise and gain from it. the downvoting of your comment illustrates it down to the letter and i would be willing to place a wager that there are even bandwagon type group action taking place between friends</comment></comment>


Testing REST Web Services with Rails - <AUTHOR> http://owenou.com/2011/07/20/testing-rest-web-services-with-rails.html <comment><AUTHOR> Testing REST web services has never been easy. It requires a running web server, multiple threads, network conection and complex transaction management.

Ideally, REST web service client test should have the following characteristics:

        The experience of testing web service API is similar to that of testing a ActiveRecord model
        Start up and shut down the web server for the purpose of running REST web services
        Rollback test data after each test
        Control fixture creation for REST web services

In this article, I demonstrate solutions to each of those mentioned with ActiveResource and Distributed Ruby.</comment>


First-ever IIHS headlight ratings show most need improvement - <AUTHOR> http://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/first-ever-iihs-headlight-ratings-show-most-need-improvement <comment><USER2> I think this rating category is overdue. It isn't as essential as crash test safety is, but there are many vehicles that cause blinding glare. Or, they just don't illuminate enough.

I hope the vehicle manufacturers pay attention.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The Toyota Prius V is the only rated vehicle to earn a "Good" rating from the tests.

It's great to see the methods they are using to test. I hope this leads to improvements in the future, like the small overlap crash test did.</comment>


Request For Startup: Personal CRM for Grown-up Friendships - <AUTHOR> http://www.daniellemorrill.com/2015/10/grown-up-friendships/ <comment><USER2> Someone could put this together pretty quickly with Google Sheets as the backend.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well said! What you need is a smart Contacts Manager: InTouchApp ([http://intouchapp.com](http://intouchapp.com)) .

<comment><USER2> 1\. It's tacky and irritating when people advertise their own company, but don't give a disclaimer. Don't act like you're unbiased and just trying to be helpful.

2\. It's even more irritating when the suggested company doesn't even help with the stated problem. InTouch is just a contacts manager, and it doesn't seem to do anything that stock Android doesn't already do.

<comment><USER3> @smt88, apologies. 1. Will keep this in mind in future. 2. InTouchApp is evolving into a Personal CRM. My point was that a smart contacts manager is your Personal CRM. InTouchApp aims to be a superior replacement to stock Android app (btw, > 70% of Android phones DO NOT carry the stock Android Contacts app!).</comment></comment></comment>


Apple pulls all non-official Reddit apps due to NSFW content - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/4edau1/psa_apple_pulled_narwhal_and_others_from_the_app/d1z609b <comment> awinter-py If AAPL didn't block third-party app stores on their devices, there would be a whole 'safe for kids' app store.

Not clear whether censorship (even well-meaning) produces healthier kids, but it won't be long before it produces an unhealthy software ecosystem. There are too many different users & use-cases for apps to be accessed usefully through a single storefront.

Even with recommendation engine magic, I'm not seeing what I should be seeing.

The worst outcome of bad app-store management is the decline of paid apps. This is terrible for developers but isn't even good for apple (who gets a cut of the pie). Seems clear they have no idea what they're doing vs, for example, steam -- valve has done a great job of cultivating non-free software.

Also worth noting -- the penis is the reason we don't have a lego MMO. [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-06-01-lego-mmo- develo...](http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-06-01-lego-mmo-development- dogged-by-dong-detection-software). Either UGC is really tricky or we should stop caring.

</comment><comment><USER2> I hate that Apple assigns itself as morality police. Hey Apple - ya know how you don't want the FBI all up in your shit? Yeah, same thing.

Edit: I get, to a degree, not approving an official RedTube app, but blocking a general content browser, especially one with access to huge amounts of legitimate non-porn content, is ridiculous.

Edit 2: wait, the official app gets a pass? How is this a thing?

Edit 3: forgive my incoherent ramblings.

</comment><comment><USER3> Oh dear. Are they going to pull their browser too? That might access that very same content.

</comment><comment><USER4> When you buy Apple stuff, you are also buying Apple ideas. Part of that is the idea that Apple controls your phone or computer to make sure that you have an Apple experience. You are giving up power to Apple to make choices for you. This is why, despite having many friends with Apple stuff and knowing how great it is, I will probably never own Apple again. I hate giving up my right to choose how I use the stuff I own.

</comment><comment><USER5> How the fuck does Tumblr say on the app store?</comment>


Linux v4.15: Performance Goodies - <AUTHOR> http://blog.stgolabs.net/2018/03/linux-v415-performance-goodies.html <comment><USER2> I hate to be "that guy", but that website is incredibly annoying for what amounts to a few paragraphs of text. Not everything needs to be animated.

<comment><USER3> This is a very popular Blogger theme. It might even be the default.

<comment><USER4> If anyone out there either is able to self-host their blog, or can afford a few bucks a month for it, I recommend Ghost ([https://ghost.org](https://ghost.org)). Example blog:

[https://blog.ghost.org](https://blog.ghost.org)

Open source customizable markdown blog engine, with great themes by default. I feel like it doesn't get enough attention.

<comment><USER5> Seems to have no IPv6 support. I'd prefer to be able to access other peoples' blogs and have my own blog accessible at all times.

<comment><USER4> Send their Pro team a feature request. Either way you have the option to self- host it, which is why I'm promoting this here. If you want IPv6, it's super easy.

<comment><USER6> Hey! Ghost(Pro) is targeted mainly at business users who want a solid managed service, but there's absolutely no downside to self-hosting. We don't do any feature-gating, so you get the same software no matter where you want to run it. Easiest way to get up and running on your own env. is with Digital Ocean, who have a 1-click image: [https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to- set-...](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-the- digitalocean-ghost-one-click-application-for-ubuntu-16-04)

If you want to just test it out locally first, that's easy too \- [https://docs.ghost.org/docs/install- local](https://docs.ghost.org/docs/install-local) TLDR: npm install ghost-cli -g && ghost install local

<comment><USER4> Since you're here I just want to say that I love the operation you guys run. Ghost is great, the pro service is great and the open source, transparent development of the engine itself as well as the company/foundation is fantastic.

You guys are up there with Gitlab as a model of how open source businesses should work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's really interesting seeing someone who has some intimate knowledge about the Linux kernel saying:

"In fact, with Linux v4.15 released, it is one of the rare times I've seen security win over performance in such a one sided way. Normally security features are tucked away under a kernel config option nobody really uses."

One just could be tricked into believing that the people suggesting that Linus doesn't care much about security could be right. ;-)

<comment><USER8> "One just could be tricked into believing that the people suggesting that Linus doesn't care much about security could be right."

I've got the impression over the years that Mr T _does_ care about security. However, security is only one aspect of kernel development and stomping on hand waving when it is used to justify badly thought through bodges with a single purpose in mind seems fair enough to me. That is something he has done time and again and once you get through some of the rather harsh language, he invariably has a good engineer's approach to what gets released.

We don't simply use computers to "be secure" \- that's nonsense. We use computers to do something and they should be secure as well. There are many, many design constraints imposed on OS kernel devs. The complexity of OS kernel development borders on the ridiculous to me sometimes (I'm just a sysadmin - I'm happy that I can compile and install the bloody thing when I need to by hand).

I did see your wink 8)

<comment><USER9> Reminds me of the security folks at my job that sport the biggest shinning smile of joy when they tell me that something can't be done because the security system blocks it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It seems the page is entirely broken for me, even after disabling all script blockers. Console reports CSP violations.

Is there a plaintext version since the link above is only blank?

<comment><USER11> "Is there a plaintext version..."

Yes. But you have to make it yourself from some XML. Example of a script to do that (^M means insert a CR. Ctrl-V then Ctrl-M. Or just \r if you are using a GNU sed):

         #!/bin/sh

         test $# -gt 0||exec echo usage: $0 proto://nameofBloggerblog.domain.tld;

         HTTPCLIENT=curl;# popular example only, not an endorsement of cURL;

         HTMLBROWSER=firefox;#popular example only, not an endorsement of Firefox

         a=$($HTTPCLIENT $1|exec sed 's/\\046/\&/g;s/\\46/\&/g;s/\\075/=/g;s/\\75/=/g;/targetBlogID/!d;s/.*targetBlogID=//;s/&.*//');test ${#a} -gt 0||exit;

         $HTTPCLIENT https://www.blogger.com/feeds/$a/posts/default|exec sed 's/^[0-9a-f]*^M//;s/</</g;s/>/>/g;s/&/\&/g;s/"/\"/g;1i\

         s/<name>/

name &/g;
         s/<uri>/
uri &/g;
         s/<generator>/
generator &/g;
         s/Blogger//;
         s/<id>/
id &/g;
         s/<published>/
published &/g;
         s/<email>/
email &/g;
         s/<title type=.text.>/

&/g;
         s/<openSearch:totalResults>/
total results &/g;
         s/<openSearch:startIndex>/
start index &/g;
         s/<openSearch:itemsPerPage>/
items per page &/g;
         s/<updated>/
updated &/g;
         s/<thr:total>/
thr:total &/g;
         s/<\/feed>/&

/;
         s/^M*/
/;
         ' |exec tr -cd '\12\40-\176' > 1.htm;

         $HTMLBROWSER file:///1.htm;

<comment><USER12> There is an easier method: just append AJAX crawling token to the query string: [http://blog.stgolabs.net/2018/03/linux-v415-performance- good...](http://blog.stgolabs.net/2018/03/linux-v415-performance- goodies.html?_escaped_fragment_=)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> dis-sys the mentioned nested epolls is interesting, will be great if there are meaningful benchmarks on some real world applications.

<comment><USER13> check the GIT commit changes listed in the post, you will see the details there, e.g:

[https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin...](https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=37b5e5212a448bac0fe29d2a51f088014fbaaa41)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Link with plain readable HTML: [http://blog.stgolabs.net/2018/03/linux-v415-performance- good...](http://blog.stgolabs.net/2018/03/linux-v415-performance- goodies.html?_escaped_fragment_=)

This should work on any blogger page.

Source: deprecate Google technology [https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax- crawling/docs/...](https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax- crawling/docs/specification)

This is crazy. They serve light HTML page for robots and a slow loading JS app for humans. And if an exception occurs inside their app humans get a blank page.

</comment><comment><USER14> I would like to see these backported into RHEL7. They backported the PCID code due to the Spectre / Meltdown vulns.

<comment><USER15> Did RHEL backport full PCID or just the bare minimum for Meltdown?

<comment><USER16> Just the bare minimum. Only two PCIDs are used.

There wasn't enough time unfortunately.

<comment><USER14> Are there any plans to implement more of it?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How can one survive in the current software engineering market? - <AUTHOR> There are layoffs happening constantly, and gone are the times when people would spend years in one company and only then transition.
My condolences to all the people getting laid off, hopefully you find a better opportunity. What I wanted to know is how can one survive in this current software engineering market? The few ways I see is to either - 1) acquire knowledge that very less people in the organization have. 2) create tremendous value that everyone thinks twice to fire you
Or is the game so screwed up that there is no chance of surviving and getting fired is inevitable and one has to just keep moving on from there? <comment><USER2> Not sure which layoffs you're talking about, but the ones I've heard of are mostly frivolous VC-funded (and not profitable) Silicon Valley companies.

If you want to avoid layoffs, try looking for jobs at safer companies -- ones that are profitable and have a genuinely useful product. For example, choose a SalesForce over a scooter company.

As more general advice, I'd suggest working on soft skills, like managing teams, understanding product, translating business reqs into coherent tech specs, etc. It's easy to find people who can code, but it's very difficult to find people who can understand the entire business (all the way from the client thinking "I need something" to a coder writing it to a final delivery of that value).</comment>


Higgs boson 'hints' also seen by US lab - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14266358 <comment><USER2> If anyone is interested, this is a great book for the hobbyist curious about this sort of thing: "The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality" by Brian Greene</comment>


Grant Imahara, 'Mythbusters' Host, Dies at 49 - <AUTHOR> https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/grant-imahara-mythbusters-dead-dies-1234705834/ <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23828253](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23828253).

</comment><comment><USER3> For anyone wondering (since the linked article doesn't say):

> The reported cause of death was a brain aneurysm.

Source: [https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Grant- Imahara-M...](https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Grant-Imahara- Mythbusters-star-dead-at-49-15406085.php)</comment>


Ethics & Apple: do the optics matter? - <AUTHOR> http://jessesmith.tumblr.com/post/569060525/r-egardless-of-how-the-law-shakes-out-the-optics

<comment><USER2> "Optics." You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I've read the article twice, and am still puzzled. Does anyone else get this? Is it marketspeak?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's from David Carr's NYT op-ed: "... and regardless of how the law shakes out, the optics are horrible for Apple." So I think in that context it means "how it appears" vs. "how it is".</comment></comment>


Using Slack as a Personal Knowledge Hub - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@preslavrachev/using-slack-as-a-personal-knowledge-hub-43ae0b139c5b <comment><USER2> Sounds like nonsense at first, but actually a pretty interesting idea.

As an article though, it could do with a proof-read :)</comment>


The quickest path to $50m in revenue? Build fun. - <AUTHOR> http://nabeelhyatt.com/post/172687318/the-quickest-path-to-50m-in-revenue-build-fun <comment><USER2> Doesn't include data on % of companies in each category that fails.

<comment><USER3> Should it? Isn't that irrelevant to how fast the "best of the best" can get to 50 Mil?

<comment><USER4> True, but if you want to calculate your own EV over x years, you need that kind of data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 3 things I noticed (not sure if it affects the conclusions):

1\. Interesting that neither article (this or the WSJ post) seems to include data on mobile carriers or handset providers. Not sure why that is.

2\. Entertainment seems to be the only category that's primarly B2C companies. Almost seems like it doesn't fit. If you're going to include video game makers, why can't you also include Netflix and other such companies.

3\. I wonder how much acquisitions have affected these numbers.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, the data was just software companies. So no Apple, Nokia. They also didn't have Google or Yahoo, which was unfortunate. Still, in terms of top 100 software companies, it's a valuable sample.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Seems very unlikely to me that parallels can be drawn from the past to the present in that way. Markets go through different phases.

<comment><USER8> Yep, and did he just draw a general rule from just one example (Activision)?

<comment><USER9> No:

 _At least three social gaming companies I know of will be, or already have, hit $50m in revenue in their first three years of business._

<comment><USER6> Hi. Nabeel here. To be clear this should not be thought of as conclusive academic analysis. These were just interesting indicators that I found.

I was using the data that was available from the article linked, which means it's the largest 100 public software companies, then segmented by type. Which meant, any individual category had roughly 5-8 companies with which to sample.

In the entertainment category it was Activision (4 years to $50m), Electronic Arts (6), Take-Two (6), International Game Technology (10) and a few others.

<comment><USER7> Maybe gaming is timeless, it just seems to me that some fields have a time when they boom, and other times when they don't boom so much. So looking at a company founded during the boom could be misleading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> No ecommerce on the list?

</comment><comment><USER11> Zynga, Facebook, Myspace.</comment>


My Paperless Personal Finance System - <AUTHOR> http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2008/05/20/my-paperless-personal-finance-system-a-work-in-progress/

<comment><USER2> I actually use something similar but instead of coming up with a naming convention, I have my SnapScan scan it, OCR it, then send to Evernote.

This process is literally one button. The ability to bring up receipts via Search that are 6-12 months old, is worth the cost of the Fujitsu SnapScan + Evernote IMO.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you concerned at all about privacy?

Is it prudent to send private data to some third party that could misuse it or have the data stolen from it?

<comment><USER3> For this reason I have all my personal finance data on an encrypted disk image, backed up offsite to a service that lets me provide my own encryptionkey for the backups. It's more manual than one click to evernote, but I am concerned about security/privacy.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you are providing them with just a key, you are still trusting them to do the encryption right.

Better to encrypt it yourself, in my opinion.

Also, even if you encrypt it yourself but upload it somewhere, it's possible that the encryption will be cracked at some point in the future (with sufficient advance of technology).

So the safest way (in terms of privacy) is not to send backups offsite at all, or at least to make sure they're physically secure from anyone else getting their hands on them.

<comment><USER3> > If you are providing them with just a key, you are still trusting them to do > the encryption right. Better to encrypt it yourself, in my opinion.

I _am_ encrypting it myself, in addition to the backup being encrypted.

> Also, even if you encrypt it yourself but upload it somewhere, it's possible > that the encryption will be cracked at some point in the future (with > sufficient advance of technology). So the safest way (in terms of privacy) > is not to send backups offsite at all, or at least to make sure they're > physically secure from anyone else getting their hands on them.

Yes, those things are true. However - this system is a blend of convenience, security, and disaster recovery that works for me. Nothing is foolproof, but this lets me sleep at night, and IMHO provides more than reasonable security.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Prenda Asks Judge Wright To Lift Order Requiring Them To Appear Monday - <AUTHOR> http://www.popehat.com/2013/03/08/prenda-law-attorneys-ask-judge-wright-to-lift-order-requiring-them-to-appear-monday/

<comment><USER2> Someone also submitted the TF coverage of this story, so there's an HN thread with a few comments: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5349690>

Ars has good coverage as well: [http://arstechnica.com/tech- policy/2013/03/top-prenda-offici...](http://arstechnica.com/tech- policy/2013/03/top-prenda-officials-want-to-skip-hearing-no-dog-in-this- fight/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Bit of a "dog bites man" story if you've ever seen cases involving parties from different states.

It'd almost be malpractice not to wring your hands and claim the jurisdictional issues are the most burdensome in the history of common law (even though hiring local counsel to address jurisdiction is routine).

Judge will probably provide a short extension along with a warning that is equal parts stern and noncommittal.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm beginning to get real respect for Mr Pietz.</comment>