Call this phone to become a part of William Binney's social graph at the NSA - <AUTHOR> http://hop3.de/konzept_en.html <comment><USER2> They should have made fake ads about getting a free iphone with calling this number, that would be much more effective.

It would be interesting to see the resulting numbers - how many people are already afraid to call that number? Are YOU afraid of calling that number?

That is a nice real life demonstration of where that ill-minded techno- dictatorship will lead us.

Unfortunately there is no way back, as the USA ANGST to fight these nazis is too strong, especially in Silicon Valley, where too many chicken-hearted apple shiners (nice word!) are hiding instead of standing up. It is shocking to see how established that culture of ANGST is already established in the USA.

So be prepared for a long war and many death friends - this is always the only long-lasting result when you let paranoid and aggressive Neandertalers lead your society. Look at Germany after WW II to see the future of USA if you do not stand up now against that bigbrotherism.

Yes, it is up to you to change it. Follow the few brave we have seen and change your government to obey the people, not the other way around. Do it now and the world will be very thankful and start to love USA again! Amen :)

<comment><USER3> Nazis? While your sentiment can be respected, comparing the US to a national- socialist political party that manufactured and entire industry of exterminating so-called inferior races is hyperbole to the extreme. Now if you had said Stasi..

<comment><USER4> _comparing the US to a national-socialist political party_

That's a good one. Saying Nazis were socialists. The word you're looking for starts with an f.

<comment><USER5> Take a look at where the Wikipedia page for "National Socialism" takes you.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialism)

<comment><USER6> Not only is nazi a shortening of National Socialism but it is also easy to understand when you look at how much focus there was on common effort compared to individual freedoms.

IMO calling nazis right wing is just a very effectibe play to frame liberals and conservatives as closer to Nazis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Also see:

[http://hop3.de/litfass_en.html](http://hop3.de/litfass_en.html)

"A project for public space, with posters put up in Karlsruhe and Cologne in autumn and winter 2015/16"

The German text on the posters, before the number, means "we are not afraid."

The whole exhibition is not just that project, it's much bigger:

[http://zkm.de/en/event/2015/10/globale-global-control-and- ce...](http://zkm.de/en/event/2015/10/globale-global-control-and-censorship)

</comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if they could _possibly_ know that a ton of people called this number after reading this article, and to disregard that data from their graph. :) Obfuscation is really difficult in highly effective surveillance states.

<comment><USER9> Ah, but what if the owner _wants_ their phone to be disregarded, and this is their way of baiting the NSA to do so? Now the NSA has no choice but to keep monitoring the phone, because of this possibility!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm for this in principle, but I have absolutely no assurance that this is the number it's claimed to be. I would not like to be part of a vigilante attack on someone who turned out the wrong person.

<comment><USER7> See the photos from the streets. It's not "just a webpage" giving you the number.

[http://hop3.de/litfass_en.html](http://hop3.de/litfass_en.html)

Also in the German media (the phone number is in the text):

[http://www.badische-zeitung.de/ausstellungen/kann-man- sich-n...](http://www.badische-zeitung.de/ausstellungen/kann-man-sich-noch- nackiger-machen--112459709.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It seems this is based on the idea that NSA is tracking connections to a person connected to him. Unfortunately, if anyone at NSA were to read this, they would be very easily able to segment off this connection if they wanted. Seems like it would be trivial to add an exclusion.

<comment><USER12> It's an art project.

> Do you really want to live a life where you shy away from completely normal, > legal things, like calling a mobile phone?

I think it's a personal experience and good political discussion more than anything.

<comment><USER13> But we are already at that point. Yesterday my significant other was riding the train when some police officers came and asked here and everyone else aboard to show their ID cards for identification checking.

She complied. Then she picked up her phone to text me what was going on but refrained herself at the last second. An officer was behind her back and she thought : « I don't want to be seen as suspect by using the phone while police officers are going on with their operation. ». She looked at the phone's clock instead.

I am pretty sure the officers were there to find some refugees. November 11th is WW1 Armistice day where we live which is a bit symbolic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is a cool idea! My contribution to anti-surveillance trolling is setting the subject of all encrypted mail to, "Your heroin order has shipped."

<comment><USER15> Which isn't bad: your method works against lexical analysis (which as Bill Binney said is terrible because it buries analysts under too much material), while this method is against the three hops policy.

Please, do not forget that encrypted e-mail should not be predictable: [https://futureboy.us/pgp.html#GoodPractices](https://futureboy.us/pgp.html#GoodPractices)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Well I just found out that international calling isn't included in my service plan :P

</comment><comment><USER17> I couldn't connect

</comment><comment><USER18> > This is an art project

What art is this producing? Will there be a final product I can look at, watch, or listen to?

<comment><USER19> > A project for public space, with posters put up in Karlsruhe, Cologne and > elsewhere in autumn and winter 2015/16

> Commissioned by ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe on the occasion of > the exhibition Global Control and Censorship, October 4, 2015 – May 1, 2016. > The Cologne part of the project consists of 200 advertising columns

If you click the link "Advertising Columns" you can see those. I guess I am still confused as to what calling the number does (that we can actually see) and how it relates to the art.

<comment><USER20> > The mobile phone with the number +49 174 276 6483 On display in a vitrine in > the exhibition Global Control and Censorship at ZKM | Center for Art and > Media Karlsruhe, October 4, 2015 – May 1, 2016

> It's turned on and connected to the network. No-one (human) will pick up if > you decide to make the call.

[http://hop3.de/mobiltelefon_en.html](http://hop3.de/mobiltelefon_en.html)

<comment><USER7> Pity that they don't have a kind of webcam so that we can see how many calls happened up to now.

<comment><USER21> I'll be going to ZKM next week. From the photo ( [http://hop3.de/mobiltelefon_en.html](http://hop3.de/mobiltelefon_en.html) ) it seems like the phone displays the number of missed calls. I'll let you know what it says.

<comment><USER21> As anotheryou said, the phone is sadly limited to displaying double-digit numbers of missed calls. It did ring every couple of minutes though while we were there. We were playing with the idea of calling the people back (like any phone it shows the caller's number unless the caller chooses to prevent that) but in the end we didn't.

Photo: [https://i.imgur.com/zBaVFMH.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/zBaVFMH.jpg) ("99 missed calls")

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> As much as I appreciate what the project is trying to illustrate I would think twice about really signing up for surveillance at second degree of separation. With Five Eyes surveillance reaching to three degrees of separation that makes me 'contagious', pulling every person I contact or have contacted electronically into surveillance as well.

This targeting of not only you but also everyone you've been in contact with is of course one of the reasons the system is so malicious.

As for signing up, then again, maybe it doesn't make that much difference in practice. With the Lists being as long as they are, two degrees of separation would have been a lot of people, but it seems that three would make for virtually everyone. Would I even be able to add my friends to the surveillance systems, or is every single one of us already there...

<comment><USER23> >I would think twice about really signing up for surveillance at second degree of separation.

It's amazing how quickly this kind of advice has become a accepted reality in the west. Try to to stay small in the eyes of the government. I hope everyone understands to feel little ashamed if they do this.

<comment><USER24> You used TOR, just to check it out? You have some bitcoin? You google strange stuff about electronics, just to know how things work? You downloaded truecrypt? You have a hacker or two in your phonebook? Use VPN?

I bet any signle one of these actions make you more suspicious/interesting than 90% of the rest of the world and probably you did more than one thing in that list. And we all know they basically try to record everything. How are the chances they at least capture the most interesting 10%?

To (loosely) quote the artist: "We, as hackers, artists, political people, ended up on some list anyhow."

<comment><USER25> Yep. The potentially unconventional people are homogenized the most by surveillance. It's hard to be creative when you don't have the secrecy to play around with ideas unseriously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I don't really care to. I understand William Binney has provided some whistleblowing on the shady business the alphabets have been up to but he also came up with "5 Eyes" which is the foundational legal justification that routes around the Constitution (among other legal documents and protections among the "partners").

I guess I just feel he has an impossible task to make up for that. I think he's a good cautionary tale for young nerds who have an overwhelming amount of intelligence and cleverness but a paucity of wisdom, natural or developed over time.

<comment><USER27> > _... but he also came up with "5 Eyes" ..._

That simply isn't true.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement)</comment></comment>


Skype for Web - <AUTHOR> https://web.skype.com/

<comment><USER2> No, it is not for the web if it still requires a plug-in in this era of Webrtc, which is aimed at eliminating the use of plug-ins, at least the prevalent media plug-ins.

The Skype app perhaps needs to be re-engineered/overhauled. Why would it still need another app to be installed on an OS? We could forgive MS that it only runs on the Chrome browser at the moment but can't they implement their centralized architecture of the app to run only on the web? The app used to be some sort of P2P before now.

<comment><USER3> Awesome!. The world is now exploring Utox - [https://tox.im/](https://tox.im/) It's got the same look and feel like Skype AND more secure, better UI, more features e.t.c.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any more thoughts on the irrelevance of "news"? - <AUTHOR> Several years ago I read the post "I hate the news" by Aaron Swartz: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews
It was the first time I read this idea that "it's NOT a citizen's responsibility to keep up with the news". It resonated and, in the following years, it profoundly impacted my daily life. It was the single piece of writing with more impact in my actual behavior that I can think of. Today I include the news in the exact same category of any other form of entertainment. Just another choice between netflix, soap operas, reddit, youtube and some game on my phone. I watch it occasionally, but just for fun.
I am very happy with my current position on consuming news. Anecdotally, this position seems to be gaining more traction and I see less and less astonished looks when I share this position with others. But I never saw it more deeply articulated and debated by other people.
I would like to know about other people (articles, posts, books, videos) articulating this idea if the news is good, bad or irrelevant and offering advice on how one should deal with the news. Any references? Or just share your opinion on this. <comment><USER2> For me, it seems to be largely true. One distinction, though, is that "outrage" news seems to have a far more negative effect on my life than things like reddit or netflix.

I try to stick to "news" that's at least several months old. The really valuable stuff is at least a hundred years old--so not news at all anymore.</comment>


Ask HN: Hacking Learning Resources? - <AUTHOR> I have put myself on a heavy learning workload, as I feel I need to update most of my skills. As a teacher, I have set myself challenging, project based goals for this learning. Through some old HN submissions I have found some excellent resources on the various subjects (Math, AI, statistics, design, programming to name a few) The only thing that I can't seem to find are any resources about improving (or hacking) the process of learning (various google searches have led to articles on learning how to hack, but not hacking how to learn). I managed to uncover this site: http://oedb.org/library/college-basics/hacking-knowledge which has some good tips, but I would like to see if anyone here has some good book recommendations.
One thing to keep in mind is that I don't want to <i>cheat</i> so to say, I am not going for any exams or anything like that, and I am not looking for short cuts (I do have a few books on the memory palace theory and such for helping my recall). I am just trying to find some good ways to make my methods of learning more efficient, as I have a lot of information to go through. <comment><USER2> Isn't it somewhat paradoxically, that a teacher should ask for hack-how-to- learn recommendations?!

No offense meant. Just struck me. Being a teacher myself I know no one really knows the ultimate learning hacks.

Actually I'm in a similar process of brushing up my knowledge. For now I'm doing some meta reading:

 _How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading_

<http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0671212095/>

<comment><AUTHOR> No offense taken. I have just spent most of my time hacking how to teach, hence the way I have designed my own self-study course. But I realized that I need to look more on the student side in how I deal with the materials and organize it more. I think I know how to be a _good_ student, but then I thought, what ways can I maybe hack this? So as always, I like to see what is out there, and see what people have already done or tried, before I start to re-invent the wheel.

That book looks interesting, how do you find it so far?

<comment><USER2> I find How to Read a Book really promising. It seems like it will provide a solid framework for reading for really deep learning.

I found so far, that I'm not a bad reader. Apparently I already master several of the techniques described. But anyway I find it very valuable to become much more consciously aware of my own reading abilities. And I definitely expect to improve my abilities from the study of the book.

Also I find the arguments and supporting explanations in the book so far of distinct value.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Cal Newport's Study Hacks is excellent place to start: <http://www.calnewport.com/blog/>

In general, the best way to learn and retain memory of it is to collect, organize and repeat in small chunks, which you know already. To optimize the cycle is the tricky part. For collecting, keep a simple blog or a private posterous, so emailing it to yourself for future reference. And, use tags, my friend. Lots of tagging of your bookmarks. Amazing how much learning to know where things are when you need them is a handy thing to do.

As about organizing, have a buffer time on Sunday (as Cal would say) to organize the week ahead. And remember heavy ≠ optimal.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting link, that is the kind of stuff I'm looking for.

Yes, organizing is crucial. I am basically trying to do the collecting and repeating recursively. All of the various projects I have set up use a fair amount of similar "chunks", but in slightly different contexts, so I hope to have built in the repetition, but in an interesting way. The overall organizing I am still working on, as I am putting the finishing touches on the 'syllabus' I am going through. It looks as though I will have to write some custom software to do it, which is kind of good news in a way, because by doing that I will also work on areas which I am studying, i.e. data visualization. Thanks for the link

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is a series of books, which for the life of me I cannot remember, about learning various programming languages and such. The front of the books has tips like "Read just before bedtime" and talks about why the book is organized the way it is (for maximum memorability). They have illustrations and witty, engaging and generally interesting.

A quick google turns up the title "Head First" and I think that is the name of these books. Even if they don't teach any subjects of interest to you, walk into a book store and read the intro that talks about why these books are organized the way are and the tips and suggestions they offer for learning more efficiently.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, thanks. I think I have one of the head first books (UML I believe) so I'll check that out

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd suggest the book Why Don't Students Like School? (<http://www.amazon.com/Why-Dont-Students-Like-School/dp/04702...>) to those interested in applying the findings of cognitive science to their own learning. I'm finding it very useful in that regard.

</comment><comment><USER6> As far as I'm concerned, Piotr Wozniak is the expert when it comes to hacking memory. Recalling important tidbits is inextricably linked to learning, and his methods seem to work best for remembering things.</comment>


Ask HN: Have you ever had Carpal Tunnel Syndrome? How did you deal with it? - <AUTHOR>

Just in the last few days I've been getting Carpal Tunnel symptoms. I've bought a wrist brace, a new mouse, and a new keyboard. They seem to be helping, but I'm still worried that if this continues or gets worse, it could endanger my career.<p>What has been your experience? <comment><USER3> I briefly had a painful bout back in 2000 - was working full-time and was taking classes too. Luckily, had a good physiotherapist and went for ultrasound. The nerve damage was minimal, and the following helped: 1\. Get some rubber squeeze balls - they have different strengths (indicated by color). Remind yourself to use them every 30 minutes 2\. You can substitute the above with Chinese medic(Baoding balls). They are extremely effective 3\. DO some hand stretch exercises (yoga helps here). A basic exercise is twining your forearms around each other and stretching them gently. 4\. Keyboard setup - make sure that your fingers are positioned as in playing the piano - <USER2> is, they should not raise the wrist but lower the wrist to the keys. 5\. Give regular rest to your hands - go free of mouse/keyboard.

These worked/are working for me - YMMV - I luckily avoided having surgery (not fun)

</comment><comment><USER4> I managed to give myself RSI [+], to the point that typing was seriously uncomfortable, by typing something like 20,000 words in a single day. What got me on the road to recovery was a pretty radical cure --- two weeks cold turkey on keyboards. That reduced symptoms substantially, to the point of twinges of pain on individual fingers, at which point I'd just stop using that finger.

At this point, I'm largely pain-free, but when that changes, I'm pretty aggressive about treating it --- laying off the affected hand, taking anti- inflammatories, and wearing braces for a few days afterward. (It's almost always the case that I've slipped into typing with bent wrists, and braces force me back into good habits.)

[+] repeated stress injury --- more likely tendonitis than carpal tunnel in my case, but diagnosis is tricky

</comment><comment><USER5> I had a serious case of RSI when I was putting together my University final year project and inserting screenshots into the documentation. Excessive mouse use cutting & pasting!

It was most painful when trying to get to sleep at night or when it was exposed to heat. Constant sharp tingling.

A long period of rest was the most effective. Ensuring your wrist isn't at funny angles, at any point during the day - esp if you still need to type daily. It's also a good idea to avoid resting on your elbow when bent as associated nerves are exposed..

I also had a swelling at the wrist joint that remained even after the tingling had gone. I found that this only went away when I started doing light punchbag work after several months of rest.

No lasting issues and I'm at a computer for 10+ hours a day.

</comment><comment><USER6> My Grandfather was big vitamin advocate. He was already 95 when an old girlfriend got Carpal Tunnel and he said to tell her to take a B-complex vitamin for it. I passed that advice on. In two weeks she was pain free. Gave the same advice to a professional guitarist friend a couple of months later. He was pain free in a week.

One of the B vitamins (honestly can't remember which B vitamin, though) is responsible for holding moisture in certaining tissues, including the tissues that line that tunnel. The tissues need fluid to protect the nerves in that tunnel from getting irritated and swollen.

Try taking that B vitamin complex for a couple of weeks. See if it helps.

</comment><comment><USER7> I had some RSI issues, and in the process of researching remedies, I came across an article that pointed out that a lot of RSI issues involve the way our arms lie when we're sleeping. Thinking about it, I realized that the days I had the most pain where usually the days that I noticed my wrist hurting as soon as I woke up. So I bought one of those wrist brace things and took to wearing it on and off throughout the day, AND while I slept. After a week or so, my issues cleared up.

I did also mix in some various hand and wrist stretches and a limited amount of icing my wrist down as well.

</comment><comment><USER8> Yep, I bought the 3M Ergonomic Mouse - it's not really a mouse, it's more like a joystick.

[http://www.amazon.com/3M-Ergonomic-Optical-Compatible- EM500G...](http://www.amazon.com/3M-Ergonomic-Optical-Compatible- EM500GPS/dp/B00008KWWG)

If you want to continue using a regular mouse, switch hands (it takes a bit of getting used to). Or buy a wrist guard that keeps your wrist straight. That helps a bit.

</comment><comment><USER9> Does it still hurt even when you take time off? If so it might just be all in your head. It was for me. For real. I had it for a couple of years. All I had to do was look at my wrists and say, "You're inflamed because I don't want to deal with my problems," and the pain went away. It took about three days.

Google "John Sarno" but don't bother buying his book. It's not that complicated.

</comment><comment><USER10> I stopped using mouse totally and use the trackpad. For some reason it feels better. Also I use the Anti-RSI software to remind me to take break regularly.

</comment><comment><USER11> I developed moderate CT several years ago. Fortunately just switching to a split keyword and time, my symptoms went away.

Its just weird now that I have to use a big keyboard plugged into my laptop.</comment>


I Asked 1000 Americans to Name a British City Other Than London - <AUTHOR> http://blogsession.co.uk/2013/09/british-cities/ <comment><USER2> I don't know what the author's real motives were (Was it really to beat on the theme that 'Americans are ignorant?), but I personally think this is a good exercise to humble yourself - 'My country/city is not as important as I think it is'.

Frankly, Britain is not as important as it once was and hasn't been for half a century. And it's not particularly notable. You would have better luck with Germany, France, Greece, Russia or many countries in Asia which are much more interesting tourist destinations and have more name recognition.

I see this in science a lot. There are people in a field who are very famous and who get a little spoilt by that fame. But if you happen to mention their name to someone from a slightly different field, its 'Who?'

I think it is important to realize that.

<comment><USER3> > _I don 't know what the author's real motives were (Was it really to beat on > the theme that 'Americans are ignorant?), but I personally think this is a > good exercise to humble yourself - 'My country/city is not as important as I > think it is'._

Defensive much? For one it proves they are quite ignorant on geography. Britain might not be as important, but it's as well known a country as they come. They would fair even worse with other European cities -- "You're from Austria? I love Kangaroos!"

Heck, a few of the people I've asked for information didn't know large-ish cities 50-70 miles across a state line from them. Like living in Grand Island and having never heard of Wichita or Topeka.

Now, I can understand why that is: you can live all your life in Oklahoma or Oregon without ever caring about what happens in New Mexico or Idaho, much less about Britain or Japan. You just know what you have to know to get by in your own life -- and you might be very knowledgable in your field and even active in local politics etc. After all each state is the size of a large or small country in Europe itself.

What's troubling is that this lack of geographical knowledge means a total lack of interest and knowledge about world affairs -- that's how the only affairs that matter to the population are the ones that have been spoonfed to them by the media, and in the specific way they have been spoonfed to them.

In Europe, geographical skills are more or less taken for granted. And caring about world affairs is very much mainstream, including going out of your way to learn about them, not just what happens to be the discussion of the month on TV/intertubes.

<comment> mkr-hn Most Americans care a great deal about what happens in other countries, but Europe, the middle east, and the rest of Asia are a long way from the drug war on the border or economic tensions with countries in south and central America. It's easy to forget that the planet is very big, and we're very far away from your local concerns.

Brazil and Alberta are more urgent interests for me than the debt crisis in Greece. That doesn't mean I don't care about what's happening over there, but I have to prioritize. There are over 100 countries and at least as many things worth knowing in each.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I saw the headline I tried to think of one and failed. Then I saw the list in the article and recognized most of the names, and could even say a few things about them. And with those as priming, could name a few more.

Brains are weird.

<comment><USER5> I guess our database reverse index is short thus prone to lose content while the data is still there. Once I give you the key, data flows out easily. It's annoying though.

Another memory graph glitch, a minute ago I couldn't remember the name of the file browser[1] .. for 20 seconds I kept thinking about Thor.. Thor.. then Fubar. This happened to me enough to know that these aren't unrelated answers. Answer was Thunar.[2]

[1] First time I boot this machine since a month, it has no desktop environment per se, I run some graphical programs through bash.

[2] Phonetic hints are the most common of this partial answers, at least in my brain, all of them shares a bit of the final answer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Now, ask 1000 Londoners to name a City in Illinois other than Chicago.

<comment><USER7> As a belgian european I often wonder if the United States seems as big to americans as Europe seems big to me.

I wonder if it feels different to be a citizen of a small country or a citizen of a continent-wide country such as the United States. Or maybe americans feel they are californians or new-yorkers before being american ?

<comment><USER8> I would say the culture here is fairly homogenous, so most people feel like Americans before they feel like a citizen of their home state.

<comment><USER9> Looking in from the outside, US culture is substantially less homogenous than Australian culture.

Cultural variety arises from isolation. The US was founded sufficiently long ago that there was time for each region to establish distinct cultural flavours, in no small part contributed by waves of immigration being unevenly spread throughout the country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You'd think that 'York' might be quite an obvious choice.

</comment><comment><USER11> It doesn't say why Liverpool is the most common choice, but here's my theory, as an American: the Beatles. Most Americans have heard of Liverpool in relation to them.

<comment><USER12> Also, history.

Majority of UK emigration to the US was through Liverpool: [http://www.european-emigration.com/uk/methods.html](http://www.european- emigration.com/uk/methods.html)

Families would only need to know their family history to be vaguely aware of that city.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Australian comedian John Safran (and all-round crazy person) made a pretty good point about this concept that Americans are uniquely ignorant of geography:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z27xVjXBbk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z27xVjXBbk)

<comment><USER3> Well, compared to what Australians? They are similarly insular.

A better comparison would be with Europeans.

The things he mentions as extremely insightful stuff people wouldn't know, e.g Zaire, Congo, Republic of the Congo, the civil war there, etc are all quite common knowledge.

<comment><USER9> If there was a way to lay a wager on this, I would bet you a thousand Euros that less than 10% of a randomly-selected sample of Europeans would be able to correctly identify that 1. Zaire changed its name to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2. where the DRC is, 3. that it is distinct from the RoC, 4. that there has been a civil war and 5. how many people have died in it.

<comment><USER3> Oh, I agree with that: less than 10% (with variatons from country to country). Still plenty though, and (I'd say) more than would know the same thing in the states.

As for knowing just simple facts about DRC, like where it is located and having a vague idea of it's past with Belgium etc, the percentage would be quite higher.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So ... people have mentioned "priming".

If you stopped me and asked me to name a list of almost anything I guess the results would depend what I'd been doing. Sometimes I'd be great and reel off a nice list of lizards or Belgian scientists or words used by genetic scientists in their papers or whatnot.

I also guess that most people would have similar results.

So, unless you turn this into a game[1] I'm not sure what the point is.

[1] ([http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2381/scattergories](http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2381/scattergories))

[1] ([http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4862/outburst](http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4862/outburst))

</comment><comment><USER14> Given I follow English football Manchester was my first thought. I'd have laughed if Midsomer made the list.

</comment><comment><USER15> As a Welsh man I'm fairly sure that Wales isn't a city :)

<comment><USER16> It's a city, but not in the UK. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wales_(disambiguation)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wales_\(disambiguation\))

</comment></comment><comment> mkr-hn It's reasonable that most people are assuming this is yet another boring jab at the ignorance that's somehow unique to us.

I could do the same and ask people to name a city in Georgia other than Atlanta, Athens, or Savannah. A lot of people won't be able to do that. I don't think anyone in Bogart or Carl is going to lose sleep over it, and I don't think it would tell you anything about the people surveyed.

</comment><comment><USER17> I found an interesting figure [1] for those of us who could name a few, but are not as well versed in the geography of Britain. It compares British cities to similar European cities by population. The scale is unnecessarily skewed, though.

[1] [http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/resources/figure1_tcm77-259156.png](http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/resources/figure1_tcm77-259156.png)

</comment><comment><USER5> I realize most of the British city names I know are from soccer teams (except for Arsenal etc). The rest is quite accidental :

\- music history (Beatles) \- trips (Canterbury is a regular short visit for french schools)

The interviewees could also cheat. New York : USA, York : England.

</comment><comment><USER18> It's interesting to see Birmingham in 8th place given that it's the 2nd largest city in the United Kingdom. It would be weird if you saw a similar list of American cities and Los Angeles came that far down.

<comment><USER19> A city like Phoenix (6), Jacksonville (12) or Columbus (15) would be a good analogue.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> You can cheat at this if you watch a lot of TopGear like I do.

<comment><USER21> I've watched all eps of TG, but I don't recall them mentioning city names too often.

<comment><USER22> _I 've watched all eps of TG_

You poor thing. Help is available if you only just ask.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Intriguingly in the full list he's lumped "brighton" with "briton/england" \- Brighton is actually a place, albeit not a city.

<comment><USER24> "he" is a "she" you sexist idiot.

<comment><USER25> I think you need to carry yourself a bit more like an adult. Whoever posted that comment probably didn't bother to check the gender of the author, and as in many languages, the pronoun people tend to default to is the masculine "he". There isn't anything inherently sexist about that, it's just how the language is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This screams of... did you not realize how unimportant you've become?

This game is equally well-played with all the places we like to bomb. Watch it.

</comment><comment><USER27> How is it our fault that there is only one British city that matters?

(Says the guy who lives in Sacramento)

</comment><comment><USER28> Paris :)

</comment><comment><USER29> Not sure how Manchester could be beloved of anyone.

<comment><USER30> as a foreigner: The Smiths, Joy Division (and then New Order), the Stone Roses, the Happy Mondays.

<comment><USER31> The Buzzcocks, The Chameleons, James (before they went awful), Inspiral Carpets, The Fall, Crispy Ambulance, and millions* more.

Plus the city itself is upmarket gentrified in the centre parts now. Just avoid the students and you'll be alright.

* ok, maybe tens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Camelot

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm not British(I'm American), but I'm going to start doing surveys like this to people in America. It looks to fun to see what we come up with.</comment>


Tribler: A different BitTorrent client - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Tribler/tribler <comment><AUTHOR> I was reading in the comments on the TPB that Tribler is less secure, but the code and wiki seems to say it is more secure? Perhaps I am confusing security and anonymity...

</comment><comment><USER2> If everyone who was using TPB would start using Tribler right now, it could get the necessary critical mass to "work well enough".

</comment><comment><USER3> So TPB down and an alternative is popping up... More decentralized.

I really didn't except that :P</comment>


Apple Pay Violates Patents Held by Security Technology Inventor, Lawsuit Alleges - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/21/technology/apple-pay-patent-lawsuit.html <comment><AUTHOR> This Ars article[1] has a bit more info, including the involved patent numbers. Since Visa is also named in the suit, I'm left wondering whether the suit is effectively an attack on EMV contactless payments as a whole. That would suggest that Android Pay might be an eventual target as well.

[1] [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/05/creator-of- secur...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/05/creator-of-securid-sues- apple-visa-over-digital-payment-patents/)

</comment><comment><USER2> According to the article, Weiss did not seek a license agreement or royalties from Apple or Visa after the release of Apple Pay because his law firm advised him to file the suit first. Why litigate without requesting an agreement first? Seems fishy.

<comment><USER3> Well, accrording to the same article and the complaint (See Paragraph 32-35):

"... In the suit and in an interview, Mr. Weiss said he had extensive meetings in 2010 with Visa officials, including its chief executive at the time, to discuss working together on the technology. In the interview, he said that Visa had signed a 10-year nondisclosure agreement to gain access to the technology, assigned engineers to fully understand the details, but then dropped further communication without securing a license.

Mr. Weiss said he also wrote to Apple at the same time seeking to license his technology, but the iPhone maker never responded to his inquiries. ..."

so clearly Visa had some working relationship with Weiss and was aware of Weiss's work in that area. Apple pretty much ignored Weiss. Considering Apple's past problems with suppliers, it's not surprising that they ignored him as well, knowing well that the technology was patented.

Apple has had legal problems with wireless SEP (Standard Essential Patent) holders like Qualcomm, Nokia, Ericsson every time contral renewal is up. Apple believes that while their frivolous patents (eg, slide-to-unlock, rounded corners) are worth almost $8 per devices, SEPs held by those companies are worth $0.0000000x. QE, the law firm representing Weiss, probably made the right call in suing Apple first.</comment></comment>


SurfEasy Sold User Data in 2017 [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://web.archive.org/web/20170518204556/http://coxit.net/opera/img/presentations/Chris-Houston_SurfEasy_CMD_2017.pdf <comment><USER2> From slide 7 "Opera VPNFree | VPN for iOS and Android with 2M MAU. Anonymized subscriber data resold to third parties for market intelligence."</comment>


Ask HN: SPARK2014 or Rust for high-integrity, secure, distributed application? - <AUTHOR> I have a job opportunity to develop a secure, high-integrity, high-reliability, very low fault distributed communications application where I will have the option of choosing the PL/platform. SPARK2014 has an edge over Rust due to its more venerable Ada relationship, verification toolset, and use in government contracts. I know Rust has gained a lot of traction, but the arena for this opportunity is slow to adopt new technologies. I didn't put Erlang/Elixir in the title, although the fault-tolerance and distributed nature of them has me interested especially NIFs in Rust. Any advice or tips are very much appreciated. Thanks! <comment><USER2> Both of those choices have huge costs. SPARK may cost you actual money to use. It also takes longer to develop because of the large amount of safety checks. It is suitable for writing code that runs on nuclear missiles. But you may not actually need that level of correctness and can just use Java instead. Rust's safety features focus on memory errors, which with Java is already solved for you. Another aspect of Rust's safety is preventing data races, which Java doesn't guarantee prevention of but SPARK does[1]. Rust covers a small subset of potential errors your program could have whereas SPARK could find errors throughout your code including in logic. Honestly though most "high-integrity fault tolerant distributed systems" out are written in C++, so just using something like Java is already a massive improvement in safety. But if you must choose one of these two, then it must be for a good reason, so choose SPARK. Rust occupies this middle zone which is neither specialized for extreme correctness nor convenience like Python.

[1] [https://docs.adacore.com/spark2014-docs/html/ug/en/source/co...](https://docs.adacore.com/spark2014-docs/html/ug/en/source/concurrency.html#preventing- data-races)</comment>


Colorado's first drive-up Covid-19 testing facility in Denver, free of charge - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.twitter.com/EvanFeigenbaum/status/1237954197942910976 <comment><USER2> Sounds good1 I assume they have developed their own PCR Assay protocol. Does anyone know the details? Where are they sharing specifics of the test procedure? Are they making a summary of the test results available to the public? How much time is required until someone can get the results of their test?</comment>


Microsoft Statement on TikTok - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2020/09/13/microsoft-statement-on-tiktok/ <comment><USER2> Ongoing discussion at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24464933](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24464933).

</comment><comment><USER3> Strange, it seems like they are in a way accusing ByteDance of not selling to them because MS was going to make changes to meet their "highest standards for security, privacy, online safety, and combatting disinformation".

Is it usual for a company to give out any statement when a potential acquisition does not happen?

<comment><USER4> I don't think they're being as coy as the phrasing "in a way accusing" suggests. This is a very direct accusation that Bytedance is not on board with changes for privacy, security, etc.

<comment><USER5> with changes _Microsoft claim to be_ for privacy, security etc. to the public.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok's users, > __while protecting national security interests __

Does anyone seriously believe TikTok is a threat to national security?

> combatting disinformation

There you have it. I've seen TikTok videos go viral being really critical of the US government including its foreign policy. The kind of video that would just be invisible or outright banned from Youtube or Facebook video. That's why they want to get rid of it.

<comment><USER7> >Does anyone seriously believe TikTok is a threat to national security?

Everyone who believes Facebook was used to influence the 2016 election should believe TikTok poses a similar threat. I'd agree that the threat is overblown, but many serious people, in good faith, seriously believe it.

<comment><USER8> Current US intelligence officials [1] are among those serious people who seriously believe that social media is being used to influence American elections.

[1]: [https://www.foxnews.com/politics/china-election- interference...](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/china-election-interference- threat)

<comment><USER9> If you read any account of the history of the KGB and GRU (obviously the west does it too), so-called Active Measures are their bread and butter. It would be bizarre if they weren't trying to influence countries via social media

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks like they decided to sell to Oracle instead.

I wonder if this is Microsoft's way of saying, "It still won't be safe under Oracle".

</comment><comment><USER11> Short, sweet, and to the point; you can feel the rage.

</comment><comment><USER12> There's a Reuters article that claims the Chinese government prefers TikTok close US operations like in India than go through with a forced sale and asset transfer, and they're willing to use heavy-handed policy to make Bytedance do what they want. Makes sense. Acquisitions should not be made under the barrel of a gun from the US government. It will be very harmful to the Chinese economy if more companies are required to spinoff US operations.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, it's like US companies buying UK companies and then massively profiting off them. Why should China subsidize startup costs for a company and then sell it so the US can make massive profits off it? It doesn't seem to be in their interests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "combatting disinformation"

I.e., US govt doesn't want a popular social network that is not under its control.

</comment><comment><USER15> Seems like killing tiktok would be the perfect way to turn out the youth vote.

<comment><USER12> Democrats like Chuck Schumer wanted to force the sale and asset transfer of TikTok too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> They found a higher bidder? Or did export restrictions from China hinder sale?

<comment><USER17> ByteDance announced they weren't going to hand over the recommendation algo for TikTok which seems like a bit of a dealbreaker.

~~[https://twitter.com/verge/status/1305285085722292224~~](https://twitter.com/verge/status/1305285085722292224~~)

Right link: [https://twitter.com/business/status/1305179144171421708](https://twitter.com/business/status/1305179144171421708)

<comment><USER18> Your link has nothing to do with recommendation engines? Perhaps you pasted the wrong one?

<comment><USER17> Oh whoops, I picked the tweet next to this one: [https://twitter.com/business/status/1305179144171421708](https://twitter.com/business/status/1305179144171421708).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This reminds me a bit of a wing-man situation not working. "Donald tried to hook us up on a date, but she wasn't interested."

</comment><comment><USER20> Ultimately I feel that this deal is so skeezy and coated in the slime of Trumpist corruption that I wanted it to go to the worst possible company and it looks like this happened.

</comment><comment><USER21> Yahoo had a similar decision some years ago, greedy corporates per se

</comment><comment><USER22> Why would anyone invite cancer?

</comment><comment><USER23> Womp womp..

</comment><comment><USER24> So basically if you want to serve the USA market, you have to give up the shares of your company to ruling class of USA? This is eerily similar to how communist China operates.

<comment><USER25> If TikTok were a Canadian, British, French, German, Korean, Japanese, or Taiwanese company, the US government wouldn't have intervened in the first place. It's mainland China that concerns people and governments.

<comment><USER26> that's simply wishful thinking.

the US sanctioned Japan when it threatened its economic dominance too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Storm in a teacup over a stupid vines app. Really.

</comment><comment><USER28> Frankly, I don't give a shit about the national interest of the US or the national interest of China. As a user of tiktok, I enjoy the content and I will be saddened if it shuts down. We like to think of our country as our team, and to root for it in international struggles, but the reality is that it's the average consumer that gets harmed by these power struggles between nations. These economic proxy wars are just as much of a racket as conventional wars, and the sooner we stop allowing the few to rule the many, and play out their egoic power struggles with our lives, the better.</comment>


The state of the freelance job market - Exquisitejobs survey results - <AUTHOR> http://exquisitejobs.com/blog/survey-results/

<comment><USER2> $63/hour seems very low for high skill specialized work like this.

Assuming a 2000 hours/year (50 weeks, 40 hours/week), that's only 126k (gross, probably 50% of that net after insurance, healthcare, expenses, etc.), and I highly doubt most people working freelance work 2000 hours in a year as a whole lot of the job is unpaid hustle to get the next job.

Most smart tech people are worth, at minimum, $100/hr in a consulting/freelancing capacity.

</comment><comment><USER3> "There were a good spread of skills, with the vast majority checking web development, and far too many checking other (who are you and what do you do 47%!?)"

Are you trolling us? The survey questions only had spots for web dev, design, ios and android. What about working on metrics, databases, desktop software, games, systems programming or just _general server side code_?

</comment><comment><USER4> It might be a good idea to email applicants (or at least the people who filled out the survey) about these results. I couldn't find any information about it on the website or Twitter account, so if I hadn't seen it here, I probably would have missed it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I think I'll do that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Creator of Tinyproj here. Would love to chat: email is in my profile.

</comment><comment><USER6> Typo: "and _the the_ overall average desired wage".

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed</comment></comment>


"Information gerrymandering" influences voters - <AUTHOR> http://news.mit.edu/2019/information-gerrymandering-influences-voters-0904 <comment><USER2> About 2 weeks ago there was some discussion on the Nature "News and Views" piece discussing this result: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20909056](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20909056)

</comment><comment><USER3> Are these graphs undirected?

You do not have follow your followers/friends. They will see your updates but you won't see theirs.

</comment><comment><USER4> Someone please save democracy from the people! They just can't be trusted...

<comment><USER5> We should just leave politics to the professionals.

<comment><USER4> I was joking when I wrote it but it's no joke really. We're meat machines. And after thousands of years we finally start to figure out how our primitive meat brains tick.

Eventually some neural network will be able to sway one's vote by showing a cute dog picture at just the right time.

We better start thinking about what we need after democracy has ran it's course...

<comment><USER5> I wasn't serious either, more sarcastic than anything else. I don't think that we should leave it to the pros - especially when the prevailing 'realpolitik' political theory explicitly eschews moral guidelines in favor of pragmatics. What happens to us peons when the professional overlords get tired of playing nice?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thats why the politicians and there henchmen need more secret powers to middle man facebook, doh i mean, police facebook, you know, just in case the Russians and the Chinese are influencing your vote for trump</comment>


Show HN: openpoll, a democracy for the rest of us - <AUTHOR>

Hey HN,
I've been working on my MVP for awhile now and just released a droid app.  I would appreciate it if you'd check it out.
What is openpoll?
openpoll is an online democracy that empowers Americans by letting them vote on state legislation they don't normally get to vote on.
Why is it important?
openpoll is important because it will give us a popular opinion on legislation.  This popular opinion is an important check and balance on legislators votes.
Any and all feedback is appreciated! Thanks!
website: https://openpoll.us
google play link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.openpoll <comment><AUTHOR> clickables

<https://openpoll.us>

<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.openpoll></comment>


Ask HN: Who are the best journalists/bloggers covering AI/ML? - <AUTHOR> We're looking to release a story about a recent ML project that we have been working on. Who should we reach out to? <comment><USER2> Major tech publications.</comment>


Elf Hello World - <AUTHOR> http://www.cirosantilli.com/elf-hello-world/ <comment><USER2> This tutorial should be read alongside his _Address Relocation_ answer from Stack Overflow:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12122446/how-does-c- linki...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12122446/how-does-c-linking-work- in-practice/30507725#30507725)

And then you might want to skim through _An Evil Copy: How the Loader Betrays You_ :

[https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/evil- co...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/evil-copy-loader- betrays)

<comment><USER3> That new CoRev paper is interesting. I haven't had time to read it in detail but it sounds like an intriguing case for compiler/linker buffs.

Slightly OT, there was a very fun ActionScript exploit published by Mark Dowd of IBM in 2008. I'm reminded of it because it's about memory protection vulnerabilities.

"Application-Specific Attacks: Leveraging the ActionScript Virtual Machine"

[https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~shmat/courses/cs6431/dowd.pdf](https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~shmat/courses/cs6431/dowd.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My favourite page on ELF executables of all time: [http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/software/tiny/teensy.htm...](http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/software/tiny/teensy.html), "A Whirlwind Tutorial on Creating Really Teensy ELF Executables for Linux (or, 'Size Is Everything')"

<comment><USER5> That one is awesome and inspired me to write [http://www.hanshq.net/making- executables.html](http://www.hanshq.net/making-executables.html)

<comment><USER6> I like your page about making Android executables, especially the quote from Carmac and comment about the vurtues of being control freak. Have you tried to do the same thing for iOS? What is the current file and directory count for Xcode?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you enjoyed this you might also like the following article:

[http://nullprogram.com/blog/2016/11/17/](http://nullprogram.com/blog/2016/11/17/)

</comment><comment><USER8> In elftoolchain you'll see some elfs having a size of 52 instead of 64

[https://github.com/sergev/elftoolchain/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93...](https://github.com/sergev/elftoolchain/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=e_ehsize&type=)

Also it is interesting that the powerpc elf loader verifies that the e_ehsize is the same size as the allocated buffer, perhaps they had an issue at one point.

[https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/ba6d973f78eb62ffebb32...](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/ba6d973f78eb62ffebb32f6ef3334fc9a3b33d22/arch/powerpc/kernel/kexec_elf_64.c#L175)

</comment><comment><USER9> It's great, thanks!

Thoughts for chapter 2: stuff that often confuses me: PLT, GOT, FDE/CIE.

<comment><AUTHOR> I love the fact that it's all on one page and uses HTML anchors to get around. It makes it super simple to archive and read up later if the site ever goes down.

<comment><USER10> Well, you can also fork and git clone it: [https://github.com/cirosantilli/cirosantilli.github.io/blob/...](https://github.com/cirosantilli/cirosantilli.github.io/blob/master/elf- hello-world.md) :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the article! I'm really enjoying learning this stuff. One thing that came up which doesn't appear very clear is why `ld` continues to set the entrypoint for executables at 0x08048000 when that seems like such an arbitrary number held over from a version of Unix made decades ago. Wouldn't it be better to just get rid of that and start programs at 0x00000001? (leaving 0x0 open for NUL).

<comment><USER11> Definitely not. In rough order of importance:

1\. Space for NULL should be big enough for at least a medium-sized structure, otherwise (*NULL)->field = blah will overwrite your code. 2\. Because of (1), Linux (for example) doesn't even allow processes to map the first page or so of memory. 3\. On many platforms the PC needs to be aligned to a word boundary.

<comment><AUTHOR> I see. I've obviously got a lot more to learn. Thanks :)

One more question, though: how much space should be safe to leave for NULL? Is 128MB enough? Why not only as much as required?

I suppose it doesn't really matter anyway since the entry point location is virtual at this point anyway.

<comment><USER12> It's impossible to know how much exactly is required. (While structures are fixed size, arrays indices are not.)

Linux allows you to configure the limit at /proc/sys/vm/mmap_min_addr.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Fantastic article. I noticed a couple of TODO's around, though. Does this hint at a second installment? :)

<comment><USER10> If I need it for work at some point :-) Not in forseeable future :-( But you can send PRs or fork it: [https://github.com/cirosantilli/cirosantilli.github.io/blob/...](https://github.com/cirosantilli/cirosantilli.github.io/blob/master/elf- hello-world.md)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Impressive work.

Anyone know of something equivalent for Mach-o?

</comment><comment><USER15> Great article...

Makes you wonder how ELF's brother (PE) and daughter (WASM) are doing.

</comment><comment><USER16> Is it just me, or are the author's ears slightly pointed?

<comment><USER10> You've uncovered my secret: I'm an ELF!!! :-)

<comment><USER16> I knew it!! :P</comment></comment></comment>


Impossible Burger: Commitment to consumers and our planet led us to use GM soy - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/impossible-foods/how-our-commitment-to-consumers-and-our-planet-led-us-to-use-gm-soy-23f880c93408 <comment><AUTHOR> Related story: [https://www.momsacrossamerica.com/gmo_impossible_burger_posi...](https://www.momsacrossamerica.com/gmo_impossible_burger_positive_for_carcinogenic_glyphosate)

> The levels of glyphosate detected in the Impossible burger by Health > Research Institute Laboratories were 11 X higher than the Beyond Meat > Burger. The total result (glyphosate and it's break down AMPA) was 11.3 ppb. > Moms Across America also tested the Beyond Meat Burger and the results were > 1 ppb.

> "We are shocked to find that the Impossible Burger can have up to 11X higher > levels of glyphosate residues than the Beyond Meat Burger according to these > samples tested. This new product is being marketed as a solution for > "healthy" eating, when in fact 11 ppb of glyphosate herbicide consumption > can be highly dangerous. Only 0.1 ppb of glyphosate has been shown to alter > the gene function of over 4000 genes in the livers, kidneys and cause severe > organ damage in rats

Question(s): Is the lab result significant or not? Is it fairly common for other veggie products in the US to show similar levels? What is the safe level according to the FDA?

<comment><USER2> The EPA safe level is about 140 mg/day for an average adult. There are proposals in progress to lower that.

[https://www.ewg.org/research/california-proposes-safe- level-...](https://www.ewg.org/research/california-proposes-safe-level- roundup-more-100-times-lower-epa-limit/californias-proposed)

<comment><USER3> 11.3 ppb would be 1.2ug per burger then, right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm all for GMO but I'm allergic to soy. I was disappointed when I heard they switched.

I developed a soy allergy when my mom decided to follow a fad in the 70s and switch me to soy in lieu of 'evil' cows' milk. One day my dad was watching me and got tired of having a continually sick infant. He switched me back to cows milk and I was fine after that.

</comment><comment><USER5> I wish they'd go back to using healthy wheat protein (gluten) in their product, too. They did in early formulations, but eliminated it later on.

<comment><USER6> As a celiac, I certainly don't. Even for those that aren't celiac, making the claim that gluten is healthy is dubious at best.

I'd also imagine there are many more celiacs out there than those with soy allergies.

<comment><USER7> This. Gluten allergies or intolerance seem to be on the rise. Probably makes sense to exclude it if they wanna be the future of food.

<comment><USER8> Why would gluten allergies and intolerance be on the rise?

<comment><USER6> I believe there are two factors contributing to the perceived rise:

1\. The US has lagged behind Europe significantly in their knowledge and diagnosis of celiacs disease/intolerance, so more people are finally being diagnosed. 2\. The wheat in the US today is significantly different from the majority of European wheat [1]

[https://recipes.howstuffworks.com/is-american-wheat- differen...](https://recipes.howstuffworks.com/is-american-wheat-different- than-european-wheat.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here.

This post quickly made the front page of HN, but after just a few hours, has now disappeared and doesn't appear anywhere when you page through hundreds of top stories.

Could this be censorship requested by investors, related to YCombinator? Does this sometimes happen?

[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/impossible- foods#sec...](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/impossible- foods#section-investors)

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-impossible-foods- fundrais...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-impossible-foods-fundraising- exclusiv/exclusive-impossible-foods-raises-300-million-with-investors-eager- for-bite-of-meatless-burgers-idUSKCN1SJ0YK)

<comment><USER9> The thread triggered the overheated discussion detector, formerly known as the flamewar detector, which is software that kicks in when a discussion seems to be generating more heat than light. We monitor those software penalties pretty closely, and turn them off in cases where the thread was just happily active. I don't think this discussion meets that bar, though. Diet threads are surprisingly prone to repetitiveness and anger, as are threads about GMOs, and this one alas combines the two.

> Could this be censorship requested by investors, related to YCombinator? > Does this sometimes happen?

No. YC wouldn't ask us to do something that stupid. The trust of this community is approximately 100% of the value that HN has for YC. Neither YC partners nor we on the HN side would ever jeopardize that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your reply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I really hope that the impossible burger and the likes will be a rising trend upticking US soy consumption. Maybe to a point US farmers don't have to rely heavily on China export to make a living.

</comment><comment><USER11> Good. Anti-GM crusades are a load of anti-science nonsense, and if you're serious about replacing a percentage of America's meat intake (as Impossible seems to be) then it only makes sense to make the most of GM crops to get you there.

<comment><USER12> They're doing this so they can irresponsibly dump roundup on the soy plants without killing them.

Roundup is a non-specific herbicide, so this will damage the environment near the farms. Also, Roundup is almost certainly a carcinogen, and impossible burgers already have higher levels than competitors.

I definitely won't be buying any more of their product.

Edit: Fun reading: [https://www.regulations.gov/contentStreamer?documentId=EPA-H...](https://www.regulations.gov/contentStreamer?documentId=EPA- HQ-OPP-2009-0361-0068&contentType=pdf)

The US is updating exposure guidelines for 2019. For soy, they recommend treating 20ppm as acceptable, even though they recommend keeping dietary exposure below 1mg/kg. So... it will be legal for the GM soy that impossible will be using to have 20x more glyphosphate than is considered safe. Assuming their product is mostly soy... well, you can do the math.

On the bright side, they're proposing tighter regulations regarding application and drift into adjacent farms.

<comment><USER7> Do you have any evidence they plan on doing this?

<comment><USER13> From the article: "94% of the soy grown in the US is genetically engineered to resist herbicide toxicity. This helps control weeds without more toxic weed control agents or over-reliance on tillage, which drives soil carbon loss."

And while GM soy _itself_ is harmless (per the links in the article), the Roundup herbicide it enables is far less conclusive as to its health effects: see [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/monsanto-parent- company...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/monsanto-parent-company- bayer-faces-thousands-roundup-cancer-cases-after-n1007246) and [https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/how-toxic-is- the-...](https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/how-toxic-is-the-worlds- most-popular-herbicide-roundup-30308)

It's very difficult to fully avoid produce treated by these products, and I doubt that Impossible Burger does anything to concentrate herbicide residue any more than any other processed foods. (EDIT: other links in these comments throw this into question.) And I respect that they've made a pragmatic compromise: their use of GM produce could truly move the needle on livestock consumption, whereas rejecting it could prevent market adoption of their entire category. They're making the best of a horrid situation; if you want to blame someone, blame Monsanto, not them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The potential downside of GM food is human extinction.

In the 80s and 90s the beef industry meddled with nature and started feeding animal meat to cows. The result was a disease that could have killed us all if we had eaten contaminated beef in the previous 10 years. If the genetic conditions that make people susceptible to vCJD were more common or universal, we might not be here today [1].

Grass-fed beef can be assumed safe because it has been eaten by humans for 200,000 years. Animal-fed beef turned out to be very dangerous very quickly. People who think GM food is as safe as food we've been eating for hundreds of thousands of years are highly delusional.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variant_Creutzfeldt–Jakob_dise...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variant_Creutzfeldt–Jakob_disease)

<comment><USER15> The potential downside of not worshiping _Roko 's Basilisk: Superintelligent Godess_ is similarly human extinction. She kills all pagans, you see. That's her thing. Kill the non-believers. Which is everyone, currently. Come to think of it...there are a literal _infinitude_ of things which may result in our extinction. Zombies. Aliens. Rogue trapezists. Who knows!

But we don't sweat the zombie thing. There's not sufficient evidence that Roko's Basilisk will destroy us. Or aliens. And so on. And until significant evidence shows that GMOs will destroy us, they're in the same boat. As the old saw goes: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Doubly so for extinction claims.

<comment><USER14> The burden of the proof is on the GMOs. We have plenty of evidence that eating food that we're not used to eat can cause catastrophic harm. If this was a local tribe experimenting with GMOs, then it's fine. But if we expose virtually every person to that downside, the risks are considerable.

<comment><USER16> GMO foods have been eaten for well over 3 decades. I think if there were adverse health effects, we would've seen 'em.

The only reason to dislike GMO is if they increased herbicide usage (e.g., roudup). But from what i hear, using GMO to reduce herbicide usage is more likely, and therefore, is better than a non-GMO version of the crop.

<comment><USER14> Every GM product is different.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


When I heard about Soylent, I thought my prayers had been answered. I was wrong - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2015/5/12/8590673/soylent <comment><USER2> Wow, that was a truly terrible article. The sheer level of laziness displayed is astonishing if only because that same person has managed to type up complaints of this length.

When your number one point about Soylent is it's too difficult to make then I begin to seriously question the author's ability to actually make it through a day.

Follow up points are equally pathetic. Arguing the inflexibility of a powder by only brewing large batches, while the concept that this is a powder, able to be mixed on demand in <5 minutes, appears to have never crossed the authors mind.

The final point appears to be a complaint that not everyone shares the author's viewpoint. Admittedly at that point I had started skimming hoping to see some semblance of an actual point, I was wrong.

Overall it seems this article is trying to use hyperbole and a few mediocre attempts at humorous comparisons to hide the fact that the author comes off as so lazy and incompetent as to have issues mixing powder and water.

One can only imagine the horror that is this individual's attempts to mix coco powder with those tiny marshmallows.

</comment><comment><USER3> My mental picture of the author of this article is of one of the actors you see in bad late night infomercials. The ones that are too inept to use a regular knife for simple tasks, or put a lid on Tupperware.

Just like the people in this little gem: [http://everythingisterrible.blogspot.com/2009/09/infomercial...](http://everythingisterrible.blogspot.com/2009/09/infomercial- hell.html)

I think Vox needs to reevaluate who they hand out free breakfast to.

</comment><comment><USER4> This was a rather obnoxious article. I wish there was a way to downvote the article itself.

</comment><comment><USER5> ... I'm completely dumbfounded that someone could actually complain that soylent is too much of a PITA to make. I genuinely worry for this person and their inability to do... anything.

</comment><comment><USER6> If the author is determined to replace food with gloop the could try any of the very many existing food replacement products that were on the market for many years before Soylent was created.

Point 2 is just baffling. Fruit and veg doesn't go from great to rotten over night just because you delayed a meal for a day. Learn to use a freezer and buy some of the very good quality frozen fruit and veg.

</comment><comment><USER7> This person is very lazy and very bad at cooking if she failed at making Soylent (mix powder with oil...) and thinks it is too hard and would rather drive to a fast food.

</comment><comment><USER8> In defense of the article, when picking between protein shake brands to stock up on, I ended up selecting a pre-packaged one for the exact reasons described in the article: quicker, less messy, requires no extra tools.

Pre-packaged soylent seems like a good idea. Might not be possible, but if it is, that would probably win me over. I have to imagine it'd make the author happy to.

</comment><comment><USER9> I agree with a lot of this. I have a lot of Soylent bags lying around, but I continually fail to make it in advance so it can chill, and once I do, I have a hard time eating it all before it expires. If I could just think, "I want some Soylent" and then have some Soylent, I would be eating it way, way more.

<comment><USER2> Buy a blender bottle, the ones with the small wire ball inside which are designed for mixing protein powders and the like. They're about ~20 floz so fill 8oz with Soylent, 8+ with water and you're good. Throw in some ice, shake, and no chilling is needed.

I stopped using the big container entirely since it's like 3-5$ for a bottle I just bought 2 and always have a clean one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Whelp, never have to visit Vox again.

</comment><comment><USER11> I can't decide if this is a misplaced Onion article, or I just read wordvomit from one of the most insipid people on the planet.</comment>


Warning: The Mobile Apocalypse Is Coming. Be Prepared - <AUTHOR> http://www.worryfreemarketing.com/warning-the-mobile-website-apocalypse-is-coming-be-prepared/

<comment><AUTHOR> Quite a few hits coming to this post - I loved the title. What do you all think?</comment>