Demonstration of 4-Row Janko Keyboard (1986) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK4REjqGc9w <comment><USER3> I made an android app that implements isomorphic note layouts. They can be divided to hexagonal tiling (harmonic table layout, Wicki-Hayden layout, Janko) and rectangular tiling (bass/violin/mandolin fretboard).

The app does not allow choosing between those layouts, because customization stands in way of creativity. You can still customize anything by modifying code and have it interpreted on phone without re-compiling anything. To recreate Janko, you would modify hexpad.lua and set NE interval to 1 and N interval to -1. Here's the code [https://github.com/jmiskovic/hexpress](https://github.com/jmiskovic/hexpress)

The appeal of isomorphic lauyout is that everything you learn (intervals, scales & modes, chords, progressions, riffs) can be applied across all keys. Some musical patterns become more obvious and learning becomes less tedious. Another nice benefit is that such layouts are mostly two-dimensional, so they make good use of small screens.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have a Chromatone keyboard, with its 6-row Janko layout. The top row is really part of a chromatic run section at the top (you can just run your finger along and play all the notes). Looks like they're still giving them away for shipping only: [https://www.chromatone.jp/online- shop/en.html](https://www.chromatone.jp/online-shop/en.html)

I wrote a bit about it here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19668900](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19668900)

Quoting myself (no real updates since then - too busy with work):

It looks like it has an enormous number of keys, but they are linked together, with each horizontal position being a note, and 3-4 "buttons" on the same physical lever for each note. This makes fingerings very flexible. The closer spacing of the key layout means you can reach bigger chords more easily - <USER2> can comfortably play a 10th, for example. The layout is isomorphic, so transposing is as simple as shifting your hands along.

I have played (standard) piano for over 30 years, and this was immediately intuitive for anything melodic. I am far from an expert yet, but the biggest difficulty has been the lack of colours on the keys, which makes it hard to jump big intervals, or play the same note in different octaves in both hands. The lack of colours is because keys don't play a fixed note; the whole keyboard can be transposed by pressing a couple of buttons. Also, because the layout is isomorphic and they were trying to get away from the traditional note system. I am planning to try different colourings with masking tape or post-its, but I wish it had an RGB led for each key (not sure I can justify the effort of rigging that up).

The layout itself is great, and is the reason to buy this. Everything else is less great, and really shows its age (I have the newer model, the CT-312, which dates from something like 2007). The biggest hardware deficiency is the lack of a sustain pedal input, but I expect I can find a way around that with MIDI out or by rigging something up with the (toggle!) sustain button on the control panel. The sound synthesis is also pretty poor, but again, MIDI out.

The best thing about the Chromatone in comparison to all these other alternative keyboards, is that it's (1) Available, and (2) Free! They're clearing out old stock or something, so all I paid was shipping from Japan.

<comment><USER5> Would you suggest the Chromatone for a tone-deaf drummer who's never touched a piano in his life? Or is it better to learn the traditional piano first?

<comment><USER4> I think in your case it would be better to learn a traditional keyboard layout. There's way more training material and the fingering is a simpler (fewer choices). It also lets you just go to some other place and play the piano there (I think this is the main reason Janko didn't catch on).

I think Janko might be a good first keyboard layout for a guitarist or other stringed instrument player.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I just built a 6 row Janko keyboard as a retrofit for an existing keyboard or piano. It was a lot of work to make a layout that can be used that way and that is mechanically simple and reliable. The Janko layout makes playing the piano as easy as playing the guitar, everything transposes with ease and patterns have to be memorized only once.

That said, the piano/keyboard world is super conservative and people have literally invested a lifetime in the familiar layout so even if a Janko keyboard would be better on all measurable dimensions (and it isn't, though there really are a lot of advantages) it is an uphill battle to get any appreciable mind/market share.

See also: Dvorak and driving on the left hand side of the road, imperial versus metric and more of those irrational and yet immovable discussions.

<comment><USER7> I agree with most of these examples except for the side of the road one, which is truly arbitrary - at least in island nations.

I've driven in both left and right driving nations, the experience is fundamentally identical.

<comment><USER8> It's my experience, being right handed, that it's easier to tackle spatial problems center/right than center/left.

I've always assumed this was a common experience. If so, left and right hand drive are not identical.

<comment><USER9> But which hand would you prefer to shift with? Manual transmissions are still popular in many countries.

<comment><USER10> I am in the US but drive a Japanese Domestic Market truck, so the steering wheel is on the right side and I shift left handed. Someone who learns to shift right handed will pick up shifting left handed within 1 hour. The brain flips it all remarkably easily. The harder muscle memory to break is the turn signal and windshield wipers being swapped.

I actually think what I am doing (a right-hand drive vehicle in a drive-on- the-right country) is the easiest, because parallel parking is so much easier when you are driving on the same side as the street curb. And being able to get in and out of my vehicle from the sidewalk is nice.

<comment><USER6> I can drive both left and right hand side. It all works great but if I switch frequently and I need to downshift for turns and sit on the right hand side _invariably_ I'll hit the door really hard. I can't seem to get that bit reprogrammed to the point that it is not happening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This reminds me of the left hand buttons on the accordion (which play chords). They're arranged in the order of the circle of fifths, so you can instantly transpose to any key just by shifting your starting note and playing the same physical pattern - at least, until you run out of buttons at one edge or the other. It makes it much easier to play chords by ear compared to the piano (at least, for me).

</comment><comment><USER12> On a traditional keyboard the second row of keys ("sharps", typically black) are not only displaced further away from the player than the white keys, they are also higher. This facilitates thumb crossings, playing passages in thirds, makes common chords more comfortable, and so on. It seems these advantages are lost with this alternative keyboard. Ease of transposition is not a big advantage for a trained musician, who should be able to do it well for other reasons (like reading orchestral scores), and the contexts in which it might be useful are pretty small (accompanying a singer, pretty much).

<comment><USER13> > _Ease of transposition is not a big advantage for a trained musician_

"Fast typing with QWERTY is not a problem for a trained touch typist".

Only once the cost of training has been amortised, through endless hours of practice. This alternative design makes transposition trivial, and enables many other types of playing by offering more alternatives for chords, note relationships, etc.

Aside from manufacturing difficulties, standardization, etc (which make sense as difficulties) I never could understand the Stockhold syndrome with the prevalent designs being considered good for what they are. They are not any kind of optimal or best-compromise, just historical accidents.

> _makes common chords more comfortable_

This reverses cause and effect.

It's not like there are common chords people like and the piano makes it easier to play them. It's the reverse: the piano makes it easier to play certain chords, so people have resorted to using them more, making them more "common". They're common because the piano forces them on you. (Guitarists have similar common chords they prefer to write to, because the guitar design and standard tuning make them easier).

This alternative design frees people from having to accept some chords as easier making all chords equally easy and equally transportable. In fact easier, as there are multiple fingerings to chose from.

> _and the contexts in which it might be useful are pretty small (accompanying > a singer, pretty much)._

That leaves out jazz, which uses transposition all the time (singer or not), and of course downplays accompanying a signer, which is what 99% of professional keyboard players do. The world has more bands and honky tonks than classical pianists.

And it's not like such a keyboard like Janko or the Chromatone is some wild design that only some inventor and 10 fans use.

Historically tons of accordionists (in Eastern Europe and Latin America) play similar keyboard designs...

<comment><USER14> It's really not a big deal. A few years of playing every scale and chord progressions in every key back when I was 10 years old, and solfege training with "movable do" and now I can play anything in any key.

<comment><USER12> It's so natural that I'm skeptical that there is any additional cognitive burden for a trained player on the traditional system vs a trained player on the Janko system. Perhaps even the reverse

<comment><USER15> The Janko system would work very well with _solmization_ , as opposed to the usual kind of solfege. The relevant difference is that in solmization all half-step intervals (including those that are introduced via accidentals!) are always read as _mi_ - _fa_. These half-steps are precisely the intervals that are treated specially in Janko and other isomorphic keyboards, compared to the diatonic standard.

<comment><USER4> Do you have a link? The Wikipedia article on solmization says it's just the process of naming notes with syllables and that solfege is the most common form of it.

<comment><USER15> [https://www.earlymusicsources.com/youtube/solmization](https://www.earlymusicsources.com/youtube/solmization) The wikipedia articles on solmization and hexachords are not very good unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I love the Janko keyboard. I made an iPhone version (never released) in 2009, and I still use a monome version I also created. The monome version doesn't have the staggered keys in every other row, but it's still quite usable and retains the same properties with chord shapes always being the same in every key.

</comment><comment><USER17> I tried visualizing what playing a d major scale would look like on that keyboard, and it doesn't seem any more obvious than on a normal keyboard...

<comment><USER6> The point isn't that a single scale is 'more obvious', the point is that they are _all_ the same.

All of the patterns repeat, you can start any piece on any note and play it blind and it will work instead of having 12 different ways of doing it.

<comment><USER18> Also the "Muto Music Method": it's not just that the common keyboard finger positions aren't the same in 12 different scales, the notation could also be made without all these # and "b" (sorry HN filters out the flat sign U+266D from the text) and without the shapes of the melodies changing:

[https://muto-method.com/en/issue.html](https://muto-method.com/en/issue.html)

"The problems with 5 line notation"

I've found the page thanks to user mkl mentioning Chromatone keyboard here.

<comment><USER6> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTRtCgaAEDE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTRtCgaAEDE)

is really neat</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Isn't Google Chrome A Part Of Android? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/17/google-chrome-android/ <comment><USER2> imho its because this simply isn't an actual problem worth spending time and resources on solving. It irks critics because it doesn't fit into the narrative of trying to discern the internal rational-actor brain of a anthropomorphized corporation. It irks engineers because we like to pick one and make it the best. But for google... _shrug_... let them both keep going, see what happens. They've got plenty of money to pay for both teams, and consider what they're working on important enough that it doesn't hurt to have a plan b. Even if you're not sure which is A and which is B.

</comment><comment><USER3> If they just rename the browser "Chrome" (or "Chrome mobile"), it would be pretty good for branding and making Google seem less fragmented.

On the other hand, a lot of Android's userbase is less tech-savvy who may not make the connection. "Browser" is pretty obvious to what it is.

</comment><comment><USER4> I like to think that the lack of answer is telling. Could Android's APIs be ported to Chrome? Could Chrome live as an Android application? Could NaCl have something to do with it?</comment>


AngelList lays off a number of staff and cuts executive salaries - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/06/angellist-lays-off-a-number-of-staff-and-cuts-executive-salaries/ <comment><USER2> The pandemic makes it easier to make layoffs you were considering otherwise. It gives both employers and employees cover by letting them point to big economic changes. I'm firing you because virus, not because I made a mistake when I created your department. I got fired because virus, not because I wasn't productive. It saves face all around, making jobs less sticky.

<comment><USER3> or when the tide goes out do you discover who has been swimming naked.

<comment><USER4> No, nobody was naked - the tide was just so strong that their swimsuits fell off.

<comment><USER3> I respectfully disagree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As another commenter has pointed out, AngelList's recruiting/job hunting service is in poor shape.

I was headhunted and when I test-drove their app I actually considered the idea that they had feature-flagged my email address and were showing me a dysfunctional version to see how honest I would be in my assessment.

Using their recruiting tool is similarly confounding. It's just such a PITA I know candidates are getting ignored via that channel at my current employer.

<comment><USER6> I've had a lot of success recruiting engineering talent on AngelList for years. It's actually my preferred channel for recruiting. I seem to get higher quality candidates and into interesting discussions faster than other platforms.

<comment><USER5> The very first time I got an email from AngelList saying "so and so is interested" a dark pattern in their UI got me to connect with them or whatever they call their conversion metric.

And my experience was downhill from there.

Now my attitude is: if you're interested, apply on our careers page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hm, lots of hate for AngelList here. Ive only used them once, but they were central to my last job hunt, and I thought they were pretty great. Being reached out to directly by serious founders or technical VPs/directors was infinitely better than wading through recruiters who have no understanding of the jobs they're hawking (or any other technical jobs, for that matter).

</comment><comment><USER8> Its soo hard to comprehend that our economy is soo fragile. I understand, cashflows are tight in restaurant and tourism industry. But honestly, you shouldn't run a tech company, if you cannot burn through a quarter.

<comment><USER9> > But honestly, you shouldn't run a tech company, if you cannot burn through a > quarter.

Everyone knows this pandemic is going to last WAY longer than a quarter. Probably a year+

<comment><USER10> > Everyone knows this pandemic is going to last WAY longer than a quarter. > Probably a year+

It's not gonna last a year+ lol. Lately it seems that people of hackernews and r/coronavirus have an extreme overlap. Extremism is bad no matter which end you stick to.

<comment><USER9> The world will essentially be on lockdown until there is a vaccine. Not because its so deadly, its really not, but because its SO contagious, especially per-symptomatic. It only takes one or two people to cause another massive flare up, thats why it will be more than a year. Even if a vaccine is found tomorrow, we still need BILLIONS of doses, and thats after approval. This is going to be a long economic disaster. We havent even gotten to significant layoffs yet I feel, the next two months will get real bad across all industry.

<comment><USER11> It almost seems comical that the market has rallied heavily in the last two days. It's not to the levels of Feb 19th, but surely more value should be knocked off than where it currently sits.

<comment><USER9> The market has nothing to do with revenue or people keeping jobs though. Wait until we start seeing quarterly reports from companies. wait until companies that were setup to have a few months of bad sales start running low on reserves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So if the cuts were mostly in recruiting, does that mean places link LinkedIn are in for lean times? Will being part of MS shield them from layoffs? Or do they diversified income now?

<comment><USER13> So, LinkedIn isn't solely recruiting, I see very significant use by sales people. And I'm in a position where I have directed purchasing for my company and essentially every salesperson I've worked with has connected with me on LinkedIn.

<comment><USER12> Oh yeah, things like sale navigator I think? But does that bring in much revenue compared to postings?

<comment><USER14> I'd (guess!) an order of magnitude more.

Why? Every AE at my company has Sales Navigator. One recruiter has the $10k/year Linkedin Recruiter package.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Didn't know AngelList had a staff of more than 2

</comment><comment><USER16> Is AngelList still active for seed investments?!

Especially for finding new potential investors outside the immediate network.

</comment><comment><USER17> They've raised exactly a marathon worth (26.2mil) in VC.

</comment><comment><USER18> Really hard for me to comprehend this when Naval is an omniscient oracle on Twitter.

<comment><USER19> Is he really though? I feel like the tweets of his that grow the longest legs merely sound deep. I don't get the hype.

<comment><USER20> I once read a critique of Twitter that went something like, "The more followers an account gets, the closer their tweets resemble fortune cookies."

Seems apt with Naval.

<comment><USER21> It's a lesson taught through hip hop. As demonstrated by one Mister Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi:

      All I do is try to make it simple

      The ones that make it complicated

      Never get congratulated</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Nearly half of U.S. corporations issuing Macs to employees - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/04/04/nearly_half_of_us_corporations_issuing_macs_to_employees.html <comment><USER2> It's probably less of a headache. I've run corporate networks and used to have the same people getting infected with viruses and spyware on a weekly basis.</comment>


Realtime heatmap with canvas & js - <AUTHOR> http://www.patrick-wied.at/static/heatmap/v2/

<comment><USER2> Very cool - I was totally surprised and delighted when I clicked Demo and saw what happened after.

Couple notes- it's not a true "heatmap" since it only works when the mouse is moving. If I two-finger scroll to another place, it doesn't register that the mouse has been over a new spot until I move it again. Likewise, if I hover over a spot for a long time then quickly move it somewhere else, it doesn't turn red, only registers a small blue dot because the mouse was not moving (only works when mouse is moving).

Then again I think the applications for this tech/visual effect are much wider than an analytical heatmap.

<comment><USER3> It definitely has some cool potential applications - what about tracking where the user moves their mouse and how long it stays there on a regular web page, to judge what grabs their attention more (or less)?

<comment><USER4> sort of what mouseflow.com does

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This looks like my drag and drop fake heatmap generator, which wasn't my original code either, just a mashup. <http://www.robertivan.com/fakeHeatMap.html>

<comment><USER6> There are too many guys out there who don't take license headers seriously or just don't know what licenses mean.

You are the first one who kept the license header in my code - thank you for that!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> That's really fun to draw with. I'll have to take a look at the source and put in some different color options and such.

</comment><comment><USER8> this post uses his script + nodejs to display a multiuser realtime heatmap (on click event not on mousemove): [http://onesandzeros.posterous.com/multi-user- realtime-heatma...](http://onesandzeros.posterous.com/multi-user-realtime- heatmap-using-nodejs)</comment>


Shut Up About the Universe - <AUTHOR> http://www.stilldrinking.org/shut-up-about-the-universe <comment><USER2> Great read, it's kind of funny how much value we place on out ability to create complex patterns. Despite how often they are either bad at describing or completely detached from reality.

I find it very difficult to see astrophysics as a field of science. .1% involves creating models that describe gravity, movements of the planets, etc. Whereas the other 99.9% is selling bullshit narratives to society on the vastness and all-knowing/all-seeing grandeur of the giant vacuum surrounding our little planet.

Instead of being intellectually honest and admitting that the proofs/measurements required to verify their findings either aren't possible with current technology or aren't possible at all; they use the lack of reason in religion as some sort of pseudo contra proof.

The truth is, we know very little and we're collectively too terrified by that fact to admit it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I found this to be an intentionally trite and surprisingly insightful and concise description of humans thought patterns [within the context of people who start thinking big-picture operations are concerned with small-time operators]

</comment><comment><USER4> HN should disallow hyperbolic, clickbaity titles.

this thing reads like PR 101.</comment>


Roy Orbison hologram concert in L.A. invites awe and debate - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-orbison-hologram-20181006-story.html <comment><USER2> Wow! I haven't seen projections that look that clear. I can't tell how they are even doing this. What are they projecting the light on? Is there a person in some spl black suit standing there?

<comment><USER2> Found this cool vid explaining things - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuNj_rqx04o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuNj_rqx04o)</comment></comment>


Documents Unsealed in Yahoo's Case Against U.S. Data Requests - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/technology/documents-unsealed-in-yahoos-case-against-us-data-requests.html

<comment><USER2> 'at one point the federal government threatened to fine the company $250,000 a day if it failed to comply with the data requests'

Weren't these requests, which Yahoo objected to, intended to stay secret, by the wishes of the government?

Consider if Yahoo refused to honor the requests, and began accruing the fines. Presumably, if they didn't pay the huge bill for their fines, what would happen?

Surely, $250k/day would rack up fast... As I see it, eventually Yahoo would rack up such a bill that they couldn't afford it, and any collection of the fee by the government would force Yahoo to close its doors. At that point, surely they'd have to reveal something to the general public about said requests, and the fines, and everything else going on behind the scenes...

</comment><comment><USER3> Where are the documents?

<comment><USER4> Last line of the article states: "The company said it was now working to make the documents available to the public."</comment></comment>


Old School Color Cycling with HTML5 (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://www.effectgames.com//effect/article-Old_School_Color_Cycling_with_HTML5.html <comment><AUTHOR> Launch the demo to see what it's about

Inspired by [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24268346](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24268346)

Older discussion [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1546135](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1546135)</comment>


I Can Detect Your Facebook Username, Using W3C Standard - <AUTHOR> http://homakov.blogspot.com/2013/02/url-detection-with-hash-history-i-know.html?

<comment><USER3> It didn't work but I know why: I use a different browser for Facebook—not because of these hacks but because Facebook itself is more invasive than any of these tricks. I don't want to accidentally connect what I browser with Facebook. I have a separate browser icon that launches:

      google-chrome --user-data-dir=/home/myaccount/.config/facebook-chrome

And that launches directly to Facebook. I keep Facebook stuff nicely contained in that browser. I mostly just follow links out of Facebook. The real Chrome never even knows that I'm on Facebook.

<comment><USER4> I don't try to prevent Facebook from figuring out who I am or what I do. They should have a huge amount of info about me, but their ads are still entirely irrelevant.

<comment><USER5> It's not the ads. It's the "I'm already logged into some random app and one click away from accidentally doing something I don't want to do".

I've been using a separate browser for FB for quite a while now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Isn't this the same guy who discovered the mass assignment bug in Rails last year?

<comment><AUTHOR> > who discovered the mass assignment bug

IMO mass assignment was discovered not last year. 2006 maybe?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Cool story, followed link, tried example, it doesn't work at all. Either Facebook fixed it, or it was crap.

<comment><AUTHOR> i had a typo in PoC, now it clearly works

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Isn't it time browser implement a "safe" mode: \- Sharing cookies between tabs? Nope, unless you personally opened it another tab, and expires as soon as you type in a new url. \- Access or url on a different domain ... maybe, but certainly not to localhost. \- Font access ? No \- Plugin listing ? No \- Whatever the hell I don't know about: No. Then either allow the user to whitelist the site, and/or allow certain parts. Would it be easy for the user? No. Would we weed out a lot of issues? At least a few !

<comment><USER9> That would break way too many things to be acceptable. Web technologies are stupidly backwards compatible.

<comment><USER8> I know ... but if you are going to be backwards compatible with security flaws/designs ... cheese ... then it's never ever going to get fixed, and I'll stop bothering making web-apps: no security future!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> But can't you also find someone's username by hiding the facepile plugin from the user, waiting for it to load, then pulling the username once it's loaded?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not "pulling", detecting. Vuln is not severe but it is still fun!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This doesn't actually work. After allowing the popup, it just confirmed whatever username I put into the text box.

<comment><USER12> Same for me, but I also note that whatever I put in the dialog, I get redirected to my actual Facebook page.

Also, I had to allow popups.

<comment><USER13> <https://www.facebook.com/profile.php> always links to your actual Facebook page, so being redirected there doesn't mean the PoC is working.

<comment><USER12> I know I was implying it wasn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> There was a typo in my code! Sorry, now updating

<comment><AUTHOR> you can check only one username at time now. there was some caching / navigation bug which i don't have time to polish :( also default timeout = 9000 now! Please test <http://homakov.github.com/fbdetect.html>

sorry again for buggy PoC!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Okay, maybe I was stupid but I couldn't find the link to the demo in the article. Author posted it somewhere here in the comments: <http://homakov.github.com/fbdetect.html>

So all this does is to check if my username matches with some preexisting username. Its no way you can detect my username if you don't already know it. Also even after I gave the demo my username, chrome simply blocked a popup and the whole thing failed...

Either I don't get it or this is a lot less impressive than the title suggests.

<comment><AUTHOR> > chrome simply blocked a popup

blocked is ok, just wait.

i said 'detect'. you can check against predefined 10-50 list of friends

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> From what I gather, it would be useful for targeted attacks - <USER2> wouldn't really be viable if your handle takes 50 years to generate in javascript?

Not that it's hard to get people to click links, but am I missing what's so "nifty" about this vuln?

</comment><comment><USER16> Didn't work for me although I was logged in to facebook. Chrome 25.0.1364.99

<comment> throwaway54-762 Same, chrome 25.0.1364.97.

<comment><AUTHOR> guys, my bad - typo :(

<comment> throwaway54-762 WFM now =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> LOL, i entered my handle and it says I am not my handle!

</comment><comment><USER18> www.facebook.com/whitehat/report/

First hit when you Google for [facebook report vulnerability]

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) it's minor but still fun 2) facebook is only showcase, it's basically UNFIXABLE

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> How much does it matter if you know my username? As long as you don't know my password right?

</comment><comment><USER20> FWIW, it's still working.

<comment><AUTHOR> it is buggy, but conception is working. the thing is THERE IS NO WAY TO FIX IT. Because it's standard. and this is the fun part.

<comment><USER21> No way to fix it? Not that they should, but Facebook could just stop redirecting www.facebook.com/profile.php to www.facebook.com/<username>

By making that change (and having no other way to hit a page that redirects to my user page), there is no URL for the attacker to check against.

<comment><USER22> That probably breaks links though.

<comment> grey-area Who needs to link to the current user's profile page without knowing it? Only FB should have to do that and they know the profile page url. Other people should be linking to the profile page directly only if they know it, not based on which user is viewing. They should really have two profile URLs:

<http://facebook.com/profile.php> \- private profile, no redirect

<http://facebook.com/some.user.name> \- public profile (profile.php?id=123 could redirect here given an id so as not to break old links)

To fix this FB could stop doing this redirect entirely as it leaks information about the current user's session, and should not be necessary. I'm sure it'll break someone's links, somewhere, but it was a bad idea to begin with, and related is this old trick which let's you view a very popular profile:

<http://facebook.com/profile.php?=112398345098345>

All that should be required is a public profile url which can be shared (if you wish) or not, and a private profile url, and the url of the private profile should be generic and not redirected, so that it doesn't leak info in this way, and because it's not the same as a public profile anyway.

<comment><USER23> The problem with that is that different people viewing the same URL (/profile.php) gets a different resource. What happens if someone gives a link to his profile.php over IM or something, expecting it to show his own profile? The URL the user is shown in the address bar should represent the current resource being viewed.

A better solution could be to replace links to profile.php with direct links to the real profile URL, and just kill that profile.php redirection.

<comment> grey-area In the same way that different people viewing:

<http://facebook.com/>

see a different resource? For a web app like FB I don't think this avoidable. All data served is dependent on who you are when you are logged in.

For another example of how to handle this better, see twitter:

twitter.com - the user's feed, content differs for each user

twitter.com/username - the user's public url, for sharing, a proper URI which everyone can use

twitter.com/settings/profile - the user's private profile, content differs for each user

I agree they shouldn't need that redirection with no id supplied and I suspect it's just a legacy of the original way of showing profiles (profile.php?id=n), they could just redirect it to root instead (shows the same as profile.php it seems) to avoid leaking state.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> very nice</comment>


Depression's Upside (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/magazine/28depression-t.html <comment><USER2> I've just started CBT to hopefully fix my broken spirit, the article nailed my symptoms. I'm not sure my staying indoors in a darkened room and sighing a lot is helping me to focus on anything though.

<comment><USER3> Good luck. I did some and found it helpful. I kind guess personally that it works by a kind of neural network rewiring. Before CBT some neurones are taking input, processing it as indicating things being crappy and directly signalling that to the older reptilian bits of the brain that deal with that, without conscious awareness. By consciously becoming aware of the things are crappy reasoning you can argue against it and rewire those networks. At least that's my theory on it.

<comment><USER4> That's essentially mindfulness too -- you catch a negative thought and then you construct a counter-argument against it to placate the reptile-brain. It's like living with a little child who's prone to temper-tantrums. Whatever it can take poorly it will, and it's your responsibility to re-frame things in a good light quickly.

<comment> d-equivalence But mindfulness is not about re-framing or answering back with an argument. Its exactly the opposite!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "I shall probably do little more but be content to admire the strides others made in Science." \- Charles Darwin

Understatement of the millenia?

</comment><comment><USER6> I suffered from depression for several years. What worked eventually is meditation. I meditate 1 hour every day in a meditation center and I participate regularly in retreats and I feel happier every day.

<comment><USER7> I would love if you would be willing to spare more details. I'm looking to start learning how to meditate. What worked for you? Where did you start?

<comment><USER6> A good posture, focusing on the moment, the sensations, the breathing, accepting the thoughts but not feeding them. Do that every day and be patient. It is best to practice with other people as more experienced people can guide you. Some people start right away with a retreat. It is also a good way to start.

<comment><USER7> I... need a guide or something. I expect I'll do more research this weekend, but just sitting and listening to myself breathe? I have plenty of calmness in my life, but surely there's a difference between meditation and relaxation?

Sorry, not really directing this at you, its late, kinda just stream of consciousing before sleep. I do appreciate your response : )

<comment><USER8> Check out [https://www.headspace.com/](https://www.headspace.com/) They have guided meditation that I really like. At least give the 10 free days a shot and see what you think, nothing to lose!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In the US, a surprisingly easy way to inadvertently cause mild depression is to decrease intake of iodized salt over time. The "natural" iodine content of many foods (bread, milk) seems to be dropping steadily due to organic and other preparation practices. Kelp-extract supplements with around 200mcg of iodine daily can go a long way towards preventing mild depression associated with borderline iodine deficiency.

<comment><USER10> If it's iodine deficiency that causes depression, then why would decreasing intake of iodized salt help?

<comment><USER9> Sorry for the poor phrasing. Decreasing salt intake is a healthy thing to do these days, which will likely also decrease one's iodine intake.

<comment><USER11> It's not. We don't really know for sure.

[http://www.medpagetoday.com/Endocrinology/GeneralEndocrinolo...](http://www.medpagetoday.com/Endocrinology/GeneralEndocrinology/49602) [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/06/m...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/06/more- scientists-doubt-salt-is-as-bad-for-you-as-the-government-says/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > They began by focusing on the thought process that defines the disorder, > which is known as rumination. (The verb is derived from the Latin word for > "chewed over," which describes the act of digestion in cattle, in which they > swallow, regurgitate and then rechew their food.) In recent decades, > psychiatry has come to see rumination as a dangerous mental habit, because > it leads people to fixate on their flaws and problems, thus extending their > negative moods.

This really spoke to me. My mild tendency to depression seems to be predicated entirely on rumination. To the extent that I can avoid taking the first few slippery steps in those mental pathways that spiral down into despair, I am generally able to avoid getting dragged down. That required me to accept that some existential questions aren't answerable in any satisfactory manner, and to simply stop posing them to myself.

</comment><comment><USER13> And Jonah Lehrer has magically regained credibility how?

<comment><USER14> Something something ad hominem. Besides that, to what are you referring?

<comment><USER15> In real world, ad hominem arguments make more sense that they are sometimes given credit.

Of course, in an ideal world, we should be able to just judge someone's argument based on its own merit; however, in practice, an 99% arguments (pretty much everything that is not a mathematical proof?) will cite external facts and references. This creates an ample opportunity for manipulation for someone dishonest and hence credibility is important.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> William Styron, one of the authors quoted in the article, wrote a fascinating memoir about depression called Darkness Visible. Highly recommended!

</comment><comment><USER17> I read an interesting paper a few years back showing a correlation between low(er) rates of depression in population areas with high(er) lithium content in their drinking water. The paper also discussed how big pharma had pushed doctors away from Li over the years towards more expensive drugs.

<comment><USER18> Lithium is quite dangerous, though. The quantities have to be pretty exact and injected with syringe, if I remember correctly, which means a doctor will have to do it for you. Every time. That's obviously problematic.

<comment><USER19> Lithium salts are most commonly prescribed in pill form. Their therapeutic range is quite narrow, and the toxic range follows quickly beyond that, so blood levels need to be monitored on a regular basis.</comment></comment></comment>


Mr. Chemex (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/mr-chemex/

<comment><USER2> This is a comprehensive and informative article, nice!

My one criticism is that the author really over-hypes the Chemex. A dang good coffeemaker? Sure! _" The undisputed king of pour-over coffee?"_ Most definitely not. To call it that overlooks the somewhat ridiculous amount of care and attention today's coffee geeks put into their cup of pour-over.

The Chemex is great, but like all coffeemakers, it's appropriate for some use cases and falls flat for others. If you're looking for schmancy new device to help you make an awesome cup of pour-over, I'd recommend reading something like this guide[1] to get an overview of what's out there, and then buying something suited to the kind of coffee you like.

[1] [http://prima-coffee.com/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-pour- over-...](http://prima-coffee.com/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-pour-over-coffee- brewing)

<comment><USER3> That site is gorgeous. Love the icons on the top navbar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The first comment at the bottom of the article is questioning the taste of using paper filters. I've often wondered this myself.

In Chicago, Intelligentsia is the main coffee joint and they brew pour over. There's definitely a lack of visible oil on the surface of the coffee like I get at home with my french press.

What do you guys think? French press or pour over?

<comment><USER5> I much prefer French press coffee. OTOH, the paper filter removes something that causes LDL cholesterol to increase, which at the time it was reported, was considered a bad thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice article. I very much enjoyed looking through Schlumbohm's inventions from that MoMA link. The Aeropress is mostly the modern version of the Chemex, in an innovative and affordable sense, but it's still lacking in aesthetic pleasures.

</comment><comment><USER7> Was a bit shocked to find a Chemex brew guide from my favorite hometown roaster, Cartel Coffee Lab.

If you're ever in Phoenix/Tempe/Scottsdale, I highly recommend checking them out!

</comment><comment><USER8> With that wooden collar you can't put it in a dishwasher. Ain't nobody got time fo dat.

<comment><USER3> The wooden collar has a leather thong around it that you can loosen. Then the collar can be removed, and the carafe washed.

However, since it's glass, you'll probably be drinking the coffee fairly shortly after it's made, and you can just rinse the chemex and be done with it.

<comment><USER8> OK, really. I know coffee fetishists can be wound a little tight, but step back and be objective. You're on Shark Tank and you're pitching the 1970's designed Chemex. It has a _wooden collar_ and a _leather thong_ holding it together. It has a narrow neck so even if you dismantled it and put it in a dishwasher it might still need hand-work to clean it with a bottle brush. And you're going to trust your customers to reliably take it apart and put it together. How do you think that's going to pan out.

Right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The coffee is always cold from a Chemex at Outerlands in the Sunset in San Francisco. I watched the video in the linked article. Five minute brewing time? Cold, cold, cold. Put a cozy on that Chemex Outerlands. Your coffee is gross.

<comment><USER10> Do they pre-warm their Chemex? I use a Chemex on a daily basis at home and I always pour ~100ml hot water (200F) through the filter into the Chemex in order to both wash any loose paper particles off the filter and warm up the Chemex itself.

My brew time is closer to 3:30 though.

<comment><USER9> Pre-warm their Chemex? Who knows. And these down votes are hilarious. Anecdotes about what coffee is like from a Chemex isn't helpful?</comment></comment></comment>


Getting a 787 back in the air after a diversion - <AUTHOR> https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/a-quick-fix-getting-a-787-back-in-the-air-after-a-diversion/ <comment><USER2> Back when I worked at Boeing they had the AOG (Airplane On Ground) crew to do this sort of thing. Their job was to be on call 24/7 and do whatever it took to get that airplane back in the air, and they pretty much had a blank check to do it.

Naturally, they were the best mechanics Boeing had.

An airplane makes money only when it is flying. When it is sitting on the ground, it loses money at a prodigious rate. A large focus of the engineering on the 757 I worked on was to keep that airplane flying as much as possible.

I understand that Microsoft has a similar crew they can dispatch to any customer to get their business software working again. This is how Microsoft is able to successfully compete against free software.

<comment><USER3> "Prodigious Rate" \-- To put this in context, the latest numbers I saw is about $125 per min of unscheduled delay. It also doesn't take that many delays to wipe profitability to zero.

<comment><USER4> Southwest had a really memorable slogan: "wheels up" and the business really rallied around that priority ruthlessly for many years. It was pretty cool and gets used in business analysis as an example a lot about how to achieve big goals.

<comment><USER5> One such (very lightweight) analysis: [https://www.cnbc.com/id/43768488](https://www.cnbc.com/id/43768488)

It really is a great systems thinking story. Set the overall context and goal and then figure out how to optimize for the thing that drives results.

<comment><USER6> The _How I Built This_ podcast on Southwest [0] with Kelleher (since deceased) is an amazing episode. Both for trivia and giving context to what it takes to be successful behind the scenes.

Kelleher (a lawyer by training) ran a private practice while litigating a _3-year_ lawsuit against airline incumbents at the time... before Southwest flew its first flight in Texas.

And when asked "Why?" As in, why didn't you stop, return to law, or do something easier, he basically said "Because it didn't seem fair. Or right. That they could keep us from flying."

I'm sure he had his fair share of sharp business decisions, but he came across as a truly great human being.

[0] [https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/national-public- radio/how-i...](https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/national-public-radio/how-i- built-this/e/48306996)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you enjoyed this story, you might enjoy the story of a seaplane having to get back to LaGuardia from New Zealand the day after Pearl Harbor: [https://medium.com/s/story/the-long-way-round-the-plane- that...](https://medium.com/s/story/the-long-way-round-the-plane-that- accidentally-circumnavigated-the-world-c04ca734c6bb)

<comment><USER8> What an absolutely incredible story!

[https://www.amazon.com/The-Long-Way-Home-Revised- ebook/dp/B0...](https://www.amazon.com/The-Long-Way-Home-Revised- ebook/dp/B00457XJ2K)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> You know, behind these on-the-surface feel-good / oh-that's-cool stories is generally a less positive tale of deferred maintenance and poor choices by AA (and other airlines) that leads to this kind of rescue flight being necessary.

The article was from 2016, and the question you want to be asking is, "how often _should_ a 2 year old 787 be having engine issues requiring unplanned diversion?" and is AA's maintenance regime causing them to encounter these situations more than is expected?

What you will generally find is that because of labor costs in the US, and the thin maintenance margins that our carriers are incentivized to follow (partly also because penalties for stranding passengers is quite low), these kinds of diversions are more frequent than other airlines operating better-maintained long-haul routes.

Things are always breaking on airplanes. How much proactive maintenance is conducted is up to the airline, and determines how much builds up before 1 out of many issues on the minimum equipment list rises enough to ground the aircraft. It's quite an active decision for an airline, actually. In this case, AA maintenance probably made a decision (under all the other constraints they face) to fly the 787 to Shanghai (where they don't have a full maintenance depot) with some marginally performing or slightly-overdue-for- recommended-replacement engine part. And then on the return the strategy backfired.

Consider that when you wonder, "is it just me, or why does airline X seem to have so many more delays and aircraft swaps than others?"

<comment><USER8> You got a source for any of this?

<comment><USER9> Nope. People in maintenance departments don't generally write blogs about this, and it's not like an airline is going to help publicize their issues. And judging by how even my post is downvoted, they're not likely to either.

<comment><USER10> I like this thing people are doing where they're like, "huh, my post on Hacker News was downvoted? must not be for content, must be because, um...its DEFINITELY because airlines arent going to publish negative things about them, theres definitely a logical connection there!

...?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm going to bet those GE Aviation technicians that they charter anywhere to fix planes are unbelievably talented, experienced and well paid. I bet they've got all the best stories.

Also: on the first page, second paragraph of the special coverage, what does "Check Airman" mean?

<comment><USER12> Anecdote: My dad did this in the 70s. I believe you're correct. He was working overseas and was frequently dispatched to countries without modern repair facilities such as Saudi Arabia.

One story that stands out is he asked a local worker to warm up the APU. The worker proceeded to build a fire under the APU, destroying it. What he meant was start it up and let it run until it reaches operating temperature.

<comment><USER13> I might get some of the backstory halfway off, but my grandfather was in Alaska during WWII for the construction of the Alaska Highway. They tried to never turn off truck and equipment engines because if you did, you had to build a fire under them to get them warm enough to start again.

<comment><USER2> My family was stationed near London for a time. My father told me later that once an airline pilot mistook a WW2 strip for the Heathrow runway (!) and landed there, using every inch of it to get it to stop. The strip was too short to take off from, so what to do?

They stripped everything off the airplane they could. Seats, interiors, galleys, everything. They put in just enough fuel to hop over the trees to Heathrow. He said they did it, but barely.

<comment><USER14> I'm trying to google a similar "we landed here but now it's too short for us to takeoff again" story which IIRC happened in California, but I can only find this incident that happened with a cargo plane in Kansas: [https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/11/giganti...](https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/11/gigantic- plane-stuck-kansas-because-it-landed-tiny-airport/355374/)

<comment><USER15> This has happened more than a few times in Wichita. They are usually aiming for KICT but hit other airports. We had to file a flight plan out of Jabara for a private jet that was actually trying to land at KICT for maintenance. Didnt make the news but we did have to plan for the minimum amount of fuel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As this is aviation-related, of course there is a Wendover video on this topic, and indeed covering this specific incident!

Small Planes Over Big Oceans (ETOPS Explained) (2017) [video]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSxSgbNQi-g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSxSgbNQi-g)

</comment><comment><USER17> Had to build a runway for one take-off to get this private jet back in the air in 1983: [https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/features/humanintere...](https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/features/humaninterest/surprise- jet-arrival-left-lasting-legacy-in-town-228622.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> Meanwhile a month prior things didn't go so well for American:

[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7504393/American- ai...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7504393/American-airlines- flight-hell-left-passengers-stranded-Peru-THREE-DAYS.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> I found it interesting that a town of 100 had a runway capable of landing a 787. Was it built specifically for these kinds of scenarios, i.e. as an earliest diversion point for trans pacific flights?

<comment><USER20> Wikipedia says it was built for as US Army airfield in World War II. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Bay_Airport](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Bay_Airport)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I was wondering why didn't the crew elect to divert directly to Anchorage, reading the event description [http://avherald.com/h?article=49f44548](http://avherald.com/h?article=49f44548) it seems they were 2h from CDB and ANC would be another hour from there. Not sure what's the ETOPS rating of that aircraft but it might not have been 180min (though even longer times are common now)

<comment><USER22> If you're down to one engine, you opt for the nearest safe haven, independent of how long you're rated to fly on one engine. You don't tempt fate.

<comment><USER23> You can rarely be sure the failure wasn't something also experienced by the other engine.

Wasn't long ago a 747 flying over the North pole had all four engines fail simultaneously. Fortunately, conditions at 20,000 ft were better, and they got them restarted.

GE actually managed to figure out what went wrong and made sure it couldn't happen again. Makes me think they sort of knew it could happen, but the conditions seemed too unlikely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> (2016)

<comment><USER25> Ah, that was back when AA and Alaska were much closer partners, before the Virgin acquisition... I was surprised when reading the article that Alaska was so helpful.

[https://thepointsguy.com/2017/12/last-call-alaska- american-a...](https://thepointsguy.com/2017/12/last-call-alaska-american- airlines-partnership/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It just seems like a very bad idea that twin-engine planes can fly so far from an air strip. If the #1 engine had failed as well it would have been game over. There's no possibility of gliding a 787 for 2+ hours and hundreds of miles.

If the FAA wanted to prioritize safety, it would still require the use of four-engined planes, as it used to for most long ocean routes. The desire to fly twin-engine planes over the ocean is entirely driven by a desire to maximize airline profits.

Admittedly, it does appear that modern twin-engine planes are reliable enough that it's not entirely crazy. But it would only take a couple of fatal engine failures to make it seem really dumb in retrospect.

People are weirdly dogmatic around this ETOPs rule change by the FAA. There is almost no one questioning it and yet the entire motivation is purely monetary. The FAA and airlines continue to push the limits further and further.

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

<comment><USER27> ETOPS seems to have done pretty well. As far as I know, no ETOPS-certified twinjets have been lost due to both engines failing. There are a couple cases of the jet running out of fuel (the famous Gimli glider and Air Transat Flight 236), but that is going to be bad no matter how many engines you have. There are cases of airplanes flying into volcanic ash clouds and losing all engines; but more engines doesn't help you if the air around the plane kills engines. There are some poorly-engineered planes with 3 engines that have had a single- engine failure bring down the entire plane (United Airlines Flight 232).

ETOPS is not just some rubber stamp for a particular model of airplane that manufacturers self-certify (hello, 737 MAX debacle), but rather a process applied to (airframe, engine, airline). You have to service particular engines to particular standards to be allowed to fly ETOPS, and it depends on the airline. I could go to the store, buy a 777 and hire 4 ATPs and fly a 777... but I wouldn't be allowed to fly it ETOPS, for example.

All in all, the program seems massively successful to me. It saves fuel, which means cheaper flights and less CO2 being generated. That's a good thing. The main downside seems to be medical emergencies; I remember some stories about the aircraft that flew EWR-SIN... it has some special corpse compartments to stash away the inevitable deaths that occurred 9 hours away from an airport. (It had 4 engines, but engines don't perform heart surgery on passengers.)

The reality is that engines are pretty reliable. 2 is the right number.

<comment><USER26> Thanks for the thoughtful replies, all. I still don't buy the idea that this change was made with public safety as the top priority. I do get that it might be a reasonable trade off of safety/profits. I really do hope the ETOPS rule changes turn out to be a good choice over the long term.

<comment><USER28> ETOPS is not new. The 767-200ER entered service in 1985. We live in the future you are alluding to. Your concerns have not been validated by reality.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


PrivacyGrade: Grading the Privacy of Smartphone Apps - <AUTHOR> http://privacygrade.org/

<comment><USER2> How did WhatsApp receive an A rating when it can access your mic and camera to record without confirmation?

<comment><USER3> Considering the functionality that wasn't reviewed, I don't think it should be advertised as "A".

It might be "A" for the expected permissions, but if there's extra permissions which haven't been investigated, these should be marked down until explained. This would encourage app owners to work with whoever maintains the database to get accurate ratings. If Whatsapp is an A today, there's no incentive for the developers to justify / assist with anything unexplained permissions remaining.

In it's current state, if it's awarding A scores while significant permissions are unexplained, it doesn't help the end user.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Facebook gets an A? All the egregious permissions say "Not analyzed yet". In cases where permissions aren't analyzed the grade should at least be marked as tentative / incomplete.

<comment><USER5> If trust is earned then they should all be graded 'D' until shown otherwise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't see any information about how information is communicated between my phone and the app's servers. To me, that's a pretty big privacy concern. If Pulse, for instance, is connected to my LinkedIn account, are my credentials for authenticating with the app being sent over plaintext?

I suppose the above is more of a "security" concern than a "privacy" concern, but I think they are ultimately one and the same.

</comment><comment><USER7> Seems to be based on 'does this app have an apparently plausible reason for requesting the permission?' but nothing beyond that. Some app might introduce some incidental feature that requires access to browsing history, that doesn't justify giving it that permission.

Anyway, it's an impressive website, good to see new work being done in this area. Access to smartphone data is a wild west at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think this just highlights a problem with app permissions. Why should the Kindle app ( [http://privacygrade.org/apps/com.amazon.kindle.html](http://privacygrade.org/apps/com.amazon.kindle.html) ) require phone status and identity? (Also how is "not analyzed yet" helpful?)

<comment><USER8> Even worse, why can Skype ( [http://privacygrade.org/apps/com.skype.raider.html](http://privacygrade.org/apps/com.skype.raider.html) ) read my text messages when I definitely never want to use the feature?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anything that can read my contacts should automatically be a 'D' in my opinion. Take pictures and access the internet - that's a 'D' too. I know this site is measuring the difference to people's expectations, but privacy needs to be re-framed once you have an out of control government in the mix.

<comment><USER9> Given your username I find it a bit ironic that you're talking about "an out of control government" :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is this Android only?</comment>


US seeks Warhol and Monet art in latest 1MDB forfeiture request - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/f0fc0540-47e3-4420-bcd9-8af7e38f6941 <comment><AUTHOR> Also at:

[https://investmentmoneycnn.com/wp/us-seeks-warhol-and- monet-...](https://investmentmoneycnn.com/wp/us-seeks-warhol-and-monet-art-in- latest-1mdb-forfeiture-request/)</comment>


Multiple gas explosions and fires in Massachusetts - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/13/us/massachusetts-explosions-fires/index.html <comment><USER3> This is playing nonstop on all local news channels in the Boston area, and the footage is terrifying. One house just blew up, and then residents across a wide area said they heard hissing in their home and fires broke out in 70 of them. A news helicopter circled one of them for 40 minutes before firefighters could reach it, there were just too many other fires and not enough local resources. One of the towns (Andover or North Andover) had 38 fires in all, including 18 burning at one time.

They have a good "mutual aid" system here and fire apparatus from the neighboring communities including New Hampshire and all over the Boston area eventually flooded in to these three cities (Lawrence, Andover, North Andover) to help.

Someone mentioned there have been incidents like this before in Lexington, Mass. The news also mentioned another incident in Danvers more than 10 years ago but that wasn't natural gas, it was improperly stored chemicals: [http://archive.boston.com/news/specials/local/danvers_explos...](http://archive.boston.com/news/specials/local/danvers_explosion/)

ETA: An 18 year old died - he was sitting in a car in a driveway next to the house that exploded, and a chimney fell on the vehicle.

<comment><USER4> It's an absolute nightmare scenario. You can be doing everything right and, whoops, your house just gets blown up out of nowhere.

<comment><USER5> Does anyone know how you could go about installing your own regulator at your house on your gas line?

Would it even be able to mitigate something like this?

Curious..

<comment><USER6> You would need a overpressure relief valve, not a regulator. And it's not clear to me what you would do with the overpressure except either (a) block it to protect internal systems, leaving the externals to fend for themselves, or (b) flare it off via a rooftop vent system, which would be quite hazardous and unwieldy to maintain.

<comment><USER7> but who doesn't want a flamethrower mounted to their roof?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't know about the rest of the nation but the natural gas infrastructure in Massachusetts is comically terrible. It isn't unusual to be walking down the street in Boston (note: a separate utility than tonight's incident) and to walk into a cloud of natural gas. I had such a cloud on my residential street for years that was strong enough to burn your eyes. National Grid would come by every few months, stick a probe in the ground, and declare it not worth fixing despite our repeated calls. I wonder how much of their product actually makes it from production facilities to end households without leaking out along the way.

<comment><USER9> You might try looking up your gas company's agent for service of process (Secretary of State site search, probably).

Send a registered snail mail describing the leak in your neighborhood to the agent, copy corporate counsel and at least one local news organization. Major bonus points if you find and copy the gas company's insurance carrier. Emphasize the potential for destruction of property and death of innocents - and the gas company's potential liability. Raise the spectre of California's PG&E and San Bruno.

Management and its insurers care deeply about liability. Old-fashioned paper trails can be surprisingly effective.

<comment> swingline-747 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion)

<comment><USER4> > On January 13, 2012, an independent audit from the State of California > issued a report stating that PG&E had illegally diverted over $100 million > from a fund used for safety operations, and instead used it for executive > compensation and bonuses.

That's pretty impressively cynical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Do a google search for "columbia gas" before today. There's page after page of people being killed and injured in small scale explosions, and reporting severe leaks.

[https://www.google.com/search?biw=1920&bih=953&tbs=cdr%3A1%2...](https://www.google.com/search?biw=1920&bih=953&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A8%2F22%2F2010%2Ccd_max%3A9%2F12%2F2018&tbm=nws&ei=YRubW53sG4zN8APeq5ewAw&q=%22columbia+gas%22&oq=%22columbia+gas%22&gs_l=psy- ab.3..0l3.13549.15588.0.16005.2.2.0.0.0.0.74.220.127.116.11....0...1c.1.64.psy- ab..0.2.141....0.4SiU4j8KSiI)

Is this normal for other gas utilities?

<comment><USER11> > Is this normal for other gas utilities?

I've never heard of "mini gas leaks" that are supposed to be fine until I've seen this thread. Every gas leak that's reported here must be fixed. Gas- related explosions still happen, I'd say it's 50:50 people messing with gas piping and people attempting suicide.

<comment><USER12> I did a project on this some time ago. Columbia gas was one of the worst offenders for sheer volume of leaks. Not only is it normal to leave leaks unfixed, frequently they disappear from the public record without any recorded nearby fixes.

It'd be interesting to see whether there's a correlation between explosion and leak location.

Github: [https://github.com/RogerTangos/LostLeaks/tree/master/data](https://github.com/RogerTangos/LostLeaks/tree/master/data)

Overview (just for the Boston Area. I didn't do the analysis for Columbia gas.) [http://lostleaks.csail.mit.edu](http://lostleaks.csail.mit.edu)

I'm happy to lend a hand for the Columbia 2016-17, and 2017-18 data if others want to join in.

<comment><USER13> Interesting, what motivated you to do this project?

Some news sites would probably interested in this website/project at the moment...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When i was growing up something similar happened in our town - over pressure caused by connecting a high pressure gas line to the local supply - <USER2> closed off the whole town and a few bits and pieces blew up/caught fire.

[http://www.hertsmemories.org.uk/content/herts- history/towns-...](http://www.hertsmemories.org.uk/content/herts- history/towns-and-villages/royston/great-gas-crisis)

That was human error rather than failing infrastructure.

My initial thought in this case, before hearing about the underinvestment by the utility company, was SCADA kit tampering/hacking. Running the pressure slightly high would be a very similar approach to the spinning of centrifuges at slightly over speed - not immediately detectable but with serious consequences. Judging by the comments on this thread it looks more like ineptitude/negligence by the utility.

</comment><comment><USER15> This happened in Lexington Massachusetts a few years back. It was over pressurization of the gas system as suspected. Any little leaks get magnified.

[https://dailycollegian.com/2005/11/explosion-destroys- lexing...](https://dailycollegian.com/2005/11/explosion-destroys-lexington- home/)

[https://www.firehouse.com/photo- story/article/10550631/gas-e...](https://www.firehouse.com/photo- story/article/10550631/gas-explosion-fire-level-lexington-massachusetts-home)

<comment><USER16> We forgot how insane it is to pump explosive gas into our houses beacause we've gotten so good at it. I was remembering a similar accident near me, and it turned out to be 1982. That's a lot of unremarkable years in between.

 _(1982) A state of emergency was in effect today after 28 homes and businesses burst into flames within seconds when the pressure in a natural gas line was kicked up accidentally, causing water heaters and furnaces to spit fire like "blowtorches."_

[http://www.gendisasters.com/missouri/18442/centralia-mo- natu...](http://www.gendisasters.com/missouri/18442/centralia-mo-natural-gas- line-explosions-jan-1982)

<comment><USER17> As much as I love my gas stove, part of me can't help but think that we mostly won't be running gas lines into new houses within a few decades. Both gas and electricity can kill you, but a closed pressurized system of flammable gas is just harder (and more expensive) to engineer, install, and maintain than a wire run. But now I'm curious as to what sort of huge increase in power generation capacity it would theoretically take to cover for what gas heating currently provides...

<comment><USER18> In the process of moving to renewable energy, The Netherlands has banned natural gas connections to new houses starting 1 July 2018. This is even though the country has one of the largest gas fields in the world [1]. Electric (induction) cooktops and district heating are very good alternatives to using gas (and safer, even though the gas infrastructure is very good).

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

<comment><USER19> What are we going to do with all those dormant pipes? Could some clever startup use them to route physical packets of stuff? :)

<comment><USER18> Gas pipes don't have very large diameters. That being said, they could be used to route fibre optic cables through without digging.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I saw it mentioned elsewhere in this thread, but it may be worth noting that there has been a lockout of National Grid workers since June 25th. These workers serviced "700,000 gas customers in 85 communities in eastern Massachusetts", NGrid has replaced them with contract workers to continue service[0].

A site representing the union states that those locked out "do the critical work of maintaining natural gas lines for homes, schools, and businesses across Massachusetts"[1]

Unsure if this is related to the current incident & Columbia Gas

edit: Press conferences seem to indicate that Columbia Gas is responsible for this region and not National Grid. Seems Unrelated

[0]: [http://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2018/08/13/national-grid- lock...](http://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2018/08/13/national-grid-lockout)

[1]: [https://www.usw.org/act/campaigns/lockout-at-national- grid/r...](https://www.usw.org/act/campaigns/lockout-at-national- grid/resources/facts-about-the-lockout-at-national-grid)

<comment><USER21> This wasn't National Grid's gas line. It belonged to Columbia Gas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Not just Massachusetts -- a similar incident happened in the SF Bay Area a while back: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion) The pipeline dated back to 1956.

If you think about it: highly flammable/explosive substance transported under high pressure 24/7 in decades-old infrastructure -- it's amazing there hasn't been more accidents.

</comment><comment><USER23> I am wondering if Watch_Dogs-style cellphone-controlled terror might become reality soon if hackers manage to control gas companies' pressure systems; they could truly cause devastating blows to arbitrary cities with very little defense against and limited tracking back to perpetrators.

<comment><USER4> Stuxnet is the same idea. But really hackers are unnecessary when you have shoddy workmanship and lax regulation.

<comment><USER24> MA is not exactly the first state that comes to mind when one say "lax regulation."

We share a border with a state that prides itself on not over-regulating things and their houses aren't blowing up.

This is just the product of good, old fashioned incompetence and apathy from top to bottom.

<comment><USER4> I mean, Massachusetts is better than others. But that doesn't necessarily mean all the regulation is robust.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I hope this isn't an obvious question: Why aren't there safeties in the system to control these kinds of problems?

For example, I have a giant gas meter outside my home. How come it can't turn the gas off when the line is over pressure? Massachusetts state law requires that the gas company change it every few years. (I'm a MA resident)

My breaker box will turn off if there is a fault.

<comment><USER26> Couple of thoughts about gas and electricity and the similarities and differences:

\- an overpressure situation is specifically trying to blow through whatever "off" means (e.g. a ball valve or whatever the valves are). If the pressure rises too much, that valve is going to fail. That's true of circuit breakers too, but the "overvoltage fault voltage" of a circuit breaker is likely going to be way way way higher than anything you could reasonably expect from the grid, although lightning could probably flash over it.

\- Your breaker box will turn off during certain forms of fault, but not all. A line overvoltage probably wouldn't trip a breaker until the line voltage gets high enough to cause a fault in some piece of equipment connected downstream of the breaker (e.g. it blows up a switching power supply in your house and that fault current trips the breaker)

\- In the gas overpressure case, if all of the houses had gas meters that automatically turned off... the pressure in the community gas line would rise higher and higher. This is going to sound a bit cold, but it's likely better to have some houses blow up due to overpressure than to have a gas main explode after all of the houses have already shut off the gas.

Bad situation all around :(. While acknowledging that I'm not a Mech E, my guess would be that the best solution would be to have periodically-placed blow-off valves on the gas main that could flare the gas if there were an overpressure situation. You don't really want to just release it, because then you've got a cloud of gas floating around that could get ignited by... whatever random ignition source.

<comment><USER27> This is probably a stupid idea, (I know absolutely nothing about natural gas) but why can't we emergency vent the gas outside?

My gas meter is already outside the house, more than 30 feet away from anything flammable. In an emergency overpressure like this, shouldn't I be able to pull some sort of emergency lever to vent the gas _outside_.

Yeah, that gas is flammable, which is risky. But that has to be less risky than just sitting around waiting for my house to blow up, which seems to be my only option today.

<comment><USER26> If your gas installation is anything like mine, you could go outside and shut off the feed into your house. There's a valve that you could turn with a crescent wrench. Mine, at least, has a hole in it that the gas company can put a lock through when the valve is shut (which is what they do when they cut off your gas service).

That way you're at least not going to have the inside of your house fill with gas.

The trick with an overpressure gas main is that pulling that lever isn't going to be a "gas vents off for a few seconds and then things are good again" event. You won't be just reducing the pressure for your house, you'll be reducing the pressure for your entire neighbourhood, and there's going to be a pretty significant amount of gas that needs to vent.

Also, I'm not sure if this is the case with methane, but propane has a really fun property... Going from compressed/liquified propane to gas propane has a high enough latent heat of vaporization that it can cool the surrounding liquid enough to freeze it (!!!). There was a court case around here a few years ago with a propane truck that blew a valve and started venting propane to the atmosphere. The liquid->gas transition cooled off the valve so much that a solid propane plug formed and stopped the leak (-188 degC!). Temporarily, of course... the plug eventually thawed, the gas continued escaping, and things got bad again. Having devices that could experience similar behaviour installed at peoples' homes seems pretty dangerous to me.

It's all a shitty situation. Really, this is on the gas company. Their pumps should have never gotten the lines pressurized like this, and _they_ should have had mechanisms in place to vent it in a controlled and safe fashion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The US really need to get their shit together with how the taxes are used. Dams, roads, bridges, pipelines, water cleansing... All that needs maintenance and it is not being done.

<comment><USER29> You're comparing apples to oranges. Gas lines, electric lines, and telecom infrastructure is usually privately owned (or through a limited public utility), so your taxes don't fund maintenance for them.

<comment><USER30> It sounds like you're making an argument against private utility companies

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Infrastructure in the US is really old and very dangerous. 100+ years old and ready to fall apart. Sadly, not really surprised.

</comment><comment><USER32> From what I understand, some repair work was being performed. Apparently the gas infrastructure there is some of the oldest in the nation.

<comment><USER33> I used to live in Andover, MA in a prior existence, and while the town is very rich it is also as they say, very historic. I wouldn't be shocked if the infrastructure was ancient. As for Lawrence (disclaimer: it may have changed) it was a seriously poor former mill town, and I wouldn't be shocked if their infrastructure and services were in awful shape.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> From 2016: Methane Hazard Lurks in Boston's Aging, Leaking Gas Pipes, Study Says [https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30032016/boston- natural-g...](https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30032016/boston-natural-gas- pipelines-leaking-methane-climate-change-explosion)

</comment><comment><USER35> Something similar happened in Chicago in 1992.

[https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/blowing- smoke/Content?...](https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/blowing- smoke/Content?oid=883188)

</comment><comment><USER36> This is just bad infrastructure design. The gas line grid should have a safety vent that blows open in an abandoned field at some pressure between the operating pressure of the line and the maximum pressure the houses can handle.

</comment><comment><USER37> Natural gas infrastructure in New England and MA in particular is horrible. A big part of the reason why prices remain high (3-4x vs New York) in the region despite the recent fracking boom. Incidents such as this do not help.

<comment><USER4> As I recall the biggest thing was that the pipelines are insufficient and so in the winter it has to be shipped by sea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Security people, any chance at all this was caused by hacking some utilities SCADA somewhere? Tell me the Russians or the Chinese can't turn our houses into bombs...

</comment><comment><USER39> Is there any possibility that this was caused by hackers?

<comment><USER40> That idea has been floating around a lot. It's definitely not outside the realm of possibility, though what makes me think is was human error is the fact that Columbia Gas (company responsible for those lines) publicly announced work on the lines about a week before this happened.

<comment><USER39> I could also be that a week before the hack started. I know that my line of thinking is very "Mr Robot". Let's hope it's not a hack and it's just human error.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Hasn't there been a lockout of employees for a while, and folks were getting replaced by scabs?

<comment><USER42> All I can find is lockouts of National Grid workers and replacing them with scabs. They news is reporting that these are Columbia Gas lines.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We don't know if the cause is hacking, but it's likely that gas main pressure is controlled by a computer. It'd be shocking if a software failure could cause dozens of fires.

<comment><USER43> I'd speculate that the simplest root cause might be an system overpressure. Any hookup to a valve that couldn't contain a pressure of some level could be susceptible to leaking gas onto an ignition source which could then start a fire.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's surely overpressure, beyond what the regulators at each house can hold back. The question is why, and whether such a thing could be caused by hacking a SCADA system.

A gas explosion (claimed to be among the biggest non-nuclear explosions) was caused by the CIA hacking a soviet pipeline: [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1455559/CIA- plot-led-to-huge-blast-in-Siberian-gas-pipeline.html)

<comment><USER44> It's peculiar to me that you have repeatedly attempted to create a rumor that it was hackers even though there is no evidence to support that. Are you playing at something or just enjoy spreading misinformation?

<comment><USER45> What seems strange is IF someone had root on a enemy nation's natgas distribution plant, a short spike resulting in a handful of explosions is the third least effective attack I can think of (the least being doing nothing, second least effective being some kind of blackmail attempt). Performing almost any other conscious action would be more destructive to life and property and economy. Therefore unless its literally accidental (like the SQL slammer attack decades ago causing DOS via flooding) there almost certainly can not be hacking / terror involvement.

Yet its also too destructive and attention seeking to be a plausible threat or sending a message; if outsiders messed with the SCADA to do this, fifteen minutes later all the passwords would be changed and sites physically locked down, such that a threat to do something more destructive next time (or else..) such as flicking the gas supply off for a couple minutes would be a non-starter. You have to look at it militarily like a stealth attack; giving away your position is not a wise first move if your whole strategy is stealth. You get one shot and this would be an intentional miss, so ...

This would also imply its not an inside job; an insider would know that in my state (admittedly not MA, thankfully) an interruption in pressure requires an attempt at physical access by a rep with a leak sensor to verify pilot light and pilot light safety interlock for EVERY point of use and/or door tag notification warnings. Its happened to me a couple of times for some street work replacing pipes and replacement of my old meter. Its kind of an expensive labor job, a wealth transfer from the company to the union. The fact this didn't happen kind of exonerates the union.

So rule out outsiders and insiders. A nutjob would probably drive a truck into an above ground facility, or frankly, just drive into people, so its probably not a nut. Not many options left. Space aliens did it accidentally? Maybe they closed down that solar observatory in NM because the space aliens are coming to mess with our delicious natgas.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


SoftBank to Lend Founder and Employees Billions to Invest in Fund - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/softbank-to-lend-founder-and-employees-billions-to-invest-in-fund-11566051247?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> This is insane.</comment>


Japan's middle-aged men hire themselves out to regain their social status (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/04/japans-middle-aged-men-hire-regain-social-status/ <comment><USER2> I was hoping to have some comments on this but after a week, not much unfortunately.

I wonder if this is also something the US will come up with in the coming decades. We seem to be around 20 years behind Japan in many respects.</comment>


Great Ideas Are Growing Scarce. That's Not So Great - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-08-09/federal-r-d-tax-credits-immigrants-might-boost-tech-innovation <comment><USER2> Its not that great ideas are growing less. Is that risk aversion is rising, which is also an indication of an ageing population (e.g. Japan).

This might be solved by new funding model which are less risk averse.</comment>