Google probing possible inside help on attack - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60H1J620100118

<comment><USER2> Indeed; I've long suspected that one of the things prompting Google's action and fury is that the PRC government suborned some of their in country staff (not very difficult given the PRC's absolute ruthlessness).

<comment><USER3> Or they were planted from the beginning. Wouldn't be the first time.

<comment><USER4> It's easier to make someone talk than to plant an agent; you would need to match the right person with the right position, at the right time. Too many moving parts. It's just easier to show up at the right person's door on the first day of their vacation and flip them.

<comment><USER5> Or, since you're the government, you can just mandate that every foreign company 'partner' with one of a handful of PRC-vetted local companies.

Then all you have to do is rely on the ignorance and pride of the foreign company and maybe a few government edicts to ensure your ready-made plants have access to what they need to achieve your goals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The beginning of Mcarthurism in Google, where you have to swear you are not a commie...

<comment><USER2> Wouldn't "McCarthURism" be Google swearing that it would return to China ^_^?

The CIA mnemonic MICE on the reasons people turn is useful here:

      Money
      Ideology
      Compromise
      Ego

The PRC government doesn't require ideology (I suppose it would be nationalism more than anything else, especially for motivating the people) when they can use compromise, perhaps sweetened by a little money. Ego probably comes into play as well, when you're a "little guy" breaking into a world leader like Google.

<comment><USER2> I should also point out that one of the reasons for Google's (e.g. Brin's) fury is that by being in China, Google places its native and Chinese descent employees into an untenable position of divided loyalty, where no matter how well intentioned, employees will be forced to betray Google.

Brin would know well how the USSR played that game; as long as the PRC is following this economic model Google will be evil if it's in China.</comment></comment></comment>


Genius SQL injection?  - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/haspR.jpg

<comment><USER2> Please PLEASE someone tell me this is real. I would like to have that ray of humor in my day.

</comment><comment><USER3> Did that work?

What does "zwolnij" mean? "Release" ?

</comment><comment><USER4> He must be polish hacker.</comment>


EFF : use of social networking sites for investigations (criminal or otherwise) - <AUTHOR> http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/social_network/20100303__crim_socialnetworking.pdf

<comment><USER2> If your story post links directly to a PDF, please include a bit of meta- labeling (e.g. [pdf]) in the title.

Example: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1198116></comment>


After 7.5 years, Firefox finally adds line numbers to view-source: - <AUTHOR> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=246620

<comment><USER2> Well, nobody sent them a patch until two months ago, nobody added tests until a month ago, and nobody fixed the broken tests until yesterday. So the title should be more like, "Firefox adds line numbers to view-source the day after someone implemented them correctly."

This is how Free Software projects work; people that want a feature implement it. It's great that you want something and it's possible that your desires will line up with those of someone who can easily implement them ("oh yeah, great idea, i want line numbers too"), but more often than not, the people with experience on some project are more interested in some deeper problem. If you're hacking on the JS JIT, line numbers just aren't important to you; you never "view source" in the browsers and may not even run the browser all that often. It's likely that your "extracurricular hacking" will be on something like a better test harness or better Emacs integration with your development workflow.

It is hard to go from being a user of software to a developer of that software, especially in this day and age of easily-downloadable TV shows, movies, and /b/ memes. That's why it takes 7.5 years to find someone interested in hacking on this feature, them getting themselves up to speed on Mozilla, and then finally implementing an acceptable patch. It would be nice if someone got paid to work on this sort of stuff, but users are comparing Firefox to its competition with things like Javascript benchmarks and WebGL conformance, not whether the browser has line numbers in view source. That's not to say they're not important, but rather very easy to deprioritize when the people that know how to implement that quickly also know how to implement "bigger wins" more quickly.

Ultimately, a free software project lacks feature X because _you_ haven't added it yet. Remember that when you submit complainy titles to HN. Don't rely on someone else to make your life better because you're going to be pretty disappointed when you realize that you don't matter much to the world at large. Everyone else has other things to do too.

<comment><USER3> I think your point is that if you want a feature implemented in an OS project, you should implement it yourself. In practice, we're web developers, and it's much easier to just pick up google chrome than it is to get set up with developing firefox, getting into the code and implementing the change.

That being said, I'm seriously considering cowboying up and contributing to get the ruby tag implemented in firefox. This is not because I use Firefox myself, but my users do, and faking it with js/css is brittle as hell.

<comment><USER4> You can do so, however, note that you still need acceptance for mainline.

Obvious things such as line numbers, are obviously accepted once implemented properly.

Note: the below comment is actually inaccurate, I though ruby tag was the language (as the author mentioned js as alternative). Keeping it for the comments discussing it, but keep in mind I was actually wrong.

Things like a ruby tag might be more complicated than you'd think.

You see, the main difference between Firefox and Chrome (yeah, it's not the UI! ;P) is ideology.

Firefox folks believe in a standard and compatible web. Chrome folks believe in .. implement whatever we think is faster than what we have (or /flamebait hat on, whatever helps Google make money/adverts/lock-in users).

Supporting ruby might fall in the "but it's not standard" "it splits the web" category.

And that's be correct, in my opinion. So you might want to check on that before actually getting the code done, unless you plan to fork.

<comment><USER2> _Chrome folks believe in .. implement whatever helps Google make money/adverts/lock-in users._

Citation needed.

<comment><USER5> While I can't provide a citation, I believe that the contrapositive is true: _if it doesn't help Google, it's not going to be implemented_. Right now, Google's interests are aligned with a standardised, compatible web, and when Google gets big enough, or greedy enough, it's going to take Chrome in its own direction. Opera still fares badly at Google's services, but they consider IE worth supporting.

<comment><USER2> I see. So you're blaming Google now for something you imagine they might do in the future. How could Google defend itself against your accusations?

<comment><USER5> Not blaming, but worrying about. There is plenty of software that can read Word's .doc files. Yet I store my data as plain text, as I imagine that the software will be killed or end-of-lifed in the future, even though I can use it fine right now. In the same way, I'd rather use a browser designed for an open, standardised Web.

Chrome doesn't have nearly enough market dominance for me to make accusations about it; I just want to minimise any future disaster scenarios.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's quite a while, but actually I think it represents a trend we're seeing in HTML5/webdev, which is increased attention to developer experience.

While fancy components and CSS eye candy will continue to roll out, we're seeing even more work on development/debugging tools, the JavaScript language, and with web intents and web components, the seeds of a more robust reuse model. [<http://webintents.org>, [http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/webcomponents/raw- file/tip/explainer/i...](http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/webcomponents/raw- file/tip/explainer/index.html)]

</comment><comment><USER7> Next on the long-awaited feature list: word wrap in Eclipse.

I can't say I even noticed line numbers on the page source in Chrome either. The formatting of source on a rendered page can be a bit messed up when the request is served, with tabbing and whitespace ended up all over the place, especially with loops. Then there's minified source if you're using someone else's code.

Most of the time it's easier to note the error, try and identify where it occurred, then find it in your editor. And with things like Chrome's developer console, sometimes using view-source is redundant when you have a DOM inspector and a number of ways to traverse it.

And even then, with a good linter you can avoid making basic mistakes like typos or missing parentheses or whatever, and in some cases even have undeclared variables or functions highlighted (Sublime Text 2 has one that in some places can appear quite fascist in how strict it enforces its policies, particularly with Python). At that point, usage of the browser for debugging code is most useful for capturing errors you couldn't reproduce elsewhere, and errors that only appear in minified code.

Not that I'm saying the browser tools _aren't_ a great productivity boost. Because they obviously are. Just that I rarely find myself using the view source feature, really.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was waiting for that feature for Eclipse too. But I switched to Sublime Text (<http://www.sublimetext.com/2>) and shudder when I think how many hours I wasted waiting for Eclipse to keep up with me.

<comment><USER8> I'm probably switching to Sublime, even though it doesn't autocomp. PHP. whatever, few more lookups in the manual are probably less time-consuming and stressful than an editor just blatantly crashing all over the place when just simply...inputting text

<comment><AUTHOR> Although it'd be nice if Sublime came with autocomp out of the box (or at least an easier way to config it), the options are there. The blog I followed to set it up is <http://urbangiraffe.com/2011/08/15/sublime-text-2-for-php/>. It does make ST a bit more resource intensive than the vanilla version, but it is still loads lighter than Eclipse and also a small footprint on any modern machine.

 _Save yourself the time and skip the Soda UI part of the blog post_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> They've always shown up in the status bar if you put the cursor on a line. You can also press Ctrl+L to goto a specific line number. Just in case someone didn't know.

</comment><comment><USER10> I never understood this. I believe even Visual Studio defaults to having the line numbers off.

So even though errors are reported as to which line number they are on the line number is not displayed on screen by default!?

Is there reasoning behind this?

<comment><USER4> Because you can just "go to line" and the current line is also displayed already. having the line numbers in a side column is redundant, so its far from critical (that's why the bug didnt get fixed).

Personally i also prefer to have the line number in the status bar, because side bar adds visual clutter and isn't really useful.

It's the same with VIM btw. Default setup doesn't have line numbers but you see them in the status bar. Some people like to have line numbers on the side tho.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The title is a bit misleading. It's not that they were trying to add them for 7.5 years, but weren't able to do it, as the title suggests. It's just that hey didn't have intention of adding line numbers, but changed their minds recently.

</comment><comment><USER12> The wheels of progress turn slowly, to paraphrase someone talking about mozilla.org in 1999.

</comment><comment><USER13> Seems like some of Blake Ross' code was not touched since his departure many years ago.

        1.11   *   Blake Ross <email@example.com>
        1.12 + *   Geoff Lankow <firstname.lastname@example.com>

</comment><comment><USER14> Great. Maybe soon disable-output-encoding if Firefox XSLT processing will get implemented.

<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=98168>

<comment><USER15> Given that it requires a complete rewrite of how XSLT works in Firefox, that the rewrite would make the XSLT much slower, and that the use cases for XSLT on the web that actually want this feature are few and far between, the chances of this happening are low.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> And no other feature was implemented in that timespan! Outragealicious!

</comment><comment><USER17> Just in time for the removal of the "View Source" menu item.

<comment><USER18> It was moved to the "Web Developer" menu, not removed entirely.

<comment><USER19> I haven't even noticed the move. It's always been Ctrl+U for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> and 7.5 years I still think it's not that useful anyway.

you could always go to a specific line (edit>go to line, or Ctrl+L), which is over 9000% more useful from anyway you look at it.

you also could have seem the line number on the statusbar.

</comment><comment><USER21> The line to shout FINALLY! at the top of their lungs starts here.

<comment><USER22> Haha, I just about wrote the same thing but scrolled down.

Having line numbers will be a nice addition when I'm not using Firebug as a simpler way to quickly find something.

<comment><USER22> Just trying to learn about HN. Commenting why having page numbers will help me is a down votable offence?

<comment><USER23> >Haha, I just about wrote the same thing but scrolled down. HN response: "Oh, good, another redditor. This is a place for discussion, not conversation. Downvote."

>Having line numbers will be a nice addition when I'm not using Firebug as a simpler way to quickly find something. HN response: "No shit?"</comment></comment></comment></comment>


OldSF – Pictures of San Francisco from 1850-2000 - <AUTHOR> http://www.oldsf.org/#

<comment><USER2> One might think, as I did initially, this is just an API mash-up, or some natural language processing, but the developers geocoded many of these images manually. It's not clear a digital solution exists. This is an important contribution to the common historical record :-)

<comment><USER3> You can read more about that (and download the geocodes as a JSON file!) here: <http://www.oldsf.org/about>

The gist is that we made a big list of San Francisco streets and looked for intersections and addresses in the descriptions. This approach can even work for complex strings like "Mission between 16th St and 17th St". The lookup for "16th and 17th" fails, but the other two pairs succeed. We average "Mission and 16th" with "Mission and 17th" and get a geocode at the perfect spot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You can read about some of the recent development work on OldSF here: [http://www.danvk.org/wp/2013-01-21/developing-the-oldsf- slid...](http://www.danvk.org/wp/2013-01-21/developing-the-oldsf-slideshow/)

</comment><comment><USER4> The date range could use some affordance that it is clickable without mousing over. If I didn't know the feature of restricting the date range existed, I wouldn't have found it. (Awesome feature! :)

<comment><USER5> Hey, thanks for your feedback (I'm the designer). Initially we had the slider visible, but I hid it to reduce chrome - and because it wasn't a feature that I (casually) observed people using all that often. You're the second person to request that it be visible again, so I'll work on either making it easier to discover or making it fully visible on page load. Thanks again!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I recommend Sutro Baths:

[http://www.oldsf.org/#ll:37.780073|-122.513765&m:37.7772...](http://www.oldsf.org/#ll:37.780073|-122.513765&m:37.77724|-122.50542|14)

and building the Palace of Fine Arts:

[http://www.oldsf.org/#ll:37.802903|-122.447580&m:37.8027...](http://www.oldsf.org/#ll:37.802903|-122.447580&m:37.80272|-122.44669|16)

<comment><USER7> Sutro Bath pictures are awesome, I'm bummed I never got to see them.

Union Square too: [http://www.oldsf.org/#ll:37.788056|-122.407500&m:37.7900...](http://www.oldsf.org/#ll:37.788056|-122.407500&m:37.79002|-122.40579|16)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is really cool. FYI. Old photography exhibit going on now at Rayko. [http://www.UpOut.com/sf/do/photography-exhibit-san- francisco...](http://www.UpOut.com/sf/do/photography-exhibit-san-francisco- then-and-now)

Full disclosure: I am a cofounder of UpOut

<comment><USER9> That page does not degrade. Visiting it with JS disabled displays a page with a modal popover that cannot be closed.

<comment><USER10> so?

 __ _don't disable js_ __if you want to use the www. It's not worth web developer's time catering to people like you.

if I take out my car's engine it takes me forever to get anywhere, but is that Honda's problem?

<comment><USER9> What a strange thing to say. Why do you think degradability is a concept?

<comment><USER11> Is this some technical meaning of "concept"? A thing is a concept if we can conceive it in our minds. I can think about the idea of degradability, so it's a concept.

<comment><USER9> You know what I mean.

<comment><USER11> I don't. Seriously. If I had to guess, I'd guess it was some new name for an old thing in whatever programming notation is hip with the kids now. Most things around here like this turn out to be new names for old things.

<comment><USER9> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_enhancement>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This has been done for Moscow and Saint-Petersburg (both in Russia) -- <http://oldmos.ru/> and <http://oldsp.ru/>

</comment><comment><USER13> Are you planning to open source this code? I can see that this would work for many geo locations. I want do a similar web app for cities in India.

<comment><USER3> The code for the viewer lives on github here: <https://github.com/danvk/sfhistory/tree/master/viewer>

(start with viewer.html). If you use it to build something for India, I'd love to hear about it!

<comment><USER13> Thats awesome. Thanks, I will check it out and report back once I have something built.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Can people submit more pictures? I lived there from 1990 and took a lot of shots (mostly on film bef 2000, and mostly in storage right now)

<comment><USER3> Not on OldSF. There are a number of other sites which let you pin your own photos. historypin and sepiatown are two of them.</comment></comment>


Featherweight Go - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.11710 <comment><USER2> There's an upcoming talk by Philip Wadler on this paper on June 8 - [http://chalmersfp.org/](http://chalmersfp.org/)

YouTube channel where the talk will be streamed live - [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiGOzKde1rlvzEB7J73gvrQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiGOzKde1rlvzEB7J73gvrQ)

</comment><comment> ainar-g From the conclusion:

      Featherweight Go is restricted to a tiny subset of Go.  We plan a model
      of other important features such as assignments, arrays, slices, and
      packages, which we will dub Bantamweight Go; and a model of Go's
      innovative concurrency mechanism based on "goroutines" and message
      passing, which we will dub Cruiserweight Go.

Love the naming!

<comment><USER3> > Featherweight Go is restricted to a tiny subset of Go. We plan a model of > other important features such as assignments, arrays, slices, and packages, > which we will dub Bantamweight Go; and a model of Go's innovative > concurrency mechanism based on "goroutines" and message passing, which we > will dub Cruiserweight Go.

Required better for mobile.

<comment><USER4> And desktop, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's also a generics implementation on a branch of the go repo.

I'm most curious how they perform on compilation speed assuming a big project makes decent use of generics. I doubt golang would merge anything that causes significant slowdown. And I don't blame them, the only reason I don't dread TypeScript dev given its slow compile times is you can typecheck async and strip the typing information for the hot reload.

<comment><USER6> Don't ever try Scala. I work on a mid-sized CRUD application, and everything we need to recompile from scratch it takes 10 minutes. Typescript and Go are amazing in comparison in that department, but I miss the stronger typing of Scala.

<comment><USER7> >Don't ever try Scala.

Don't ever try C++. I work on a medium-sized low-level C++ application, and every time we need to compile from scratch it takes over two hours on a single core. Even with distributing the compilation out across over a hundred cores the fastest it can get down to is around 20 minutes.

<comment> Iwan-Zotow how come hundred cores is only speedup of ~6?

<comment><USER7> Linking in particular. At one stage, due to enabling LTO, our release build alone took over 20 minutes just to link. And linking cannot easily be parallelised (if at all? I'm not familiar with what the state of the art in linkers is).

<comment><USER8> I believe that ThinLTO does most of its work in parallel and provides most of the benefit of LTO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Whereas most programming languages use nominal subtyping, Go is unique among > mainstream typed programming languages in using structural subtyping.

I thought typescript also used structural subtyping? i.e. in typescript I can define:

        interface Stringer {
          String: () => string
        }
        function takesStringer(s: Stringer) {}

And now I can call takesStringer with any class that happens to have a String() method.

This seems to match structural subtyping in go.

Am I missing some reason that this isn't structural subtyping as referred to in the paper? Do they mean to say that typescript isn't a "mainstream typed programming language"?

<comment><USER10> It absolutely does. It doesn't have any nominal typing at all, so even classes are compared structurally.

I assume they're not considering it because typescript compiles to javascript, so it doesn't have the problem Go faces of how to generate code for its generics. The wording is definitely weird though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm curious on this part, "Although monomorphisation is widely used, we are one of the first to formalise it.", which are other language had formalise as well?

</comment><comment><USER12> The talk by Philip Wadler is one of the most insightful I have heard : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq0WFigax_c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq0WFigax_c)

In brief, they are following a process of stripping Go to the most basic possible syntax, and then adding generics (Featherweight). Then they will add more features back and build up to the full language, ending with Cruiserweight where channels will be addressed.

The generics proposal builds on interfaces rather than contracts. Wadler sees Go occupying a unique space in terms of supporting "open supertypes" in the sense that in Go we do not have to declare a struct to be of a particular interface type it is automatically derived based on the methods defined on the struct. This allows a proposal which allows Go to be extended tp solve the "expression problem" first defined by Wadler in 98.

I really hope these beautiful ideas turn out to be workable - I am sure Go will gain immensely if they are well thought out.

</comment><comment><USER13> Fingers crossed: hopefully this is a step towards generics in golang.

Up to now it always seems to have been one step forward, two steps back (or rather "wait another few versions")

</comment><comment><USER14> The irony of going back to Featherweight Java, done in 2001.

At least some work is being done, even if "This is the beginning of the story, not the end".

<comment><USER15> I don't think this is so ironic after all.

Featherweight Java is an idealized language, small enough for doing experiments. These experiments often involve the necessity of a formal proof. But being a small language, still capturing the crux of the full language, greatly simplifies the problem space.

Featherweight Go serves the same purpose: find the core. Give the core generics. Then you have a good chance at implementing generics for the full language.

Most languages which end up with type parametrization do so when the language is small and somewhat pliable. Neither Java nor Go did, even though both languages had plenty of prior work in the area. Hence, you have to "reconstruct" a world in which there is such a small language such that your experiments run fast.

<comment><USER14> Except that these kind of experiments contributed to Java generics, being made available 3 years before Go 1.0 was given a green light.

Which is why Go had already a good example to learn from on how not to do language design.

<comment><USER16> Are you suggesting all new typed languages have generics? What makes you so sure there isn't room in the design space for a typed language without generics?

As much as I like generics, Go's popularity is a success: programmers have spoken, and they value other things more than generics.

Hindsight is 20/20, and even this isn't a commitment to introduce generics in Go.

<comment><USER14> Go's popularity is due to author's employer.

Both its main influences, Oberon-2 and Limbo had zero traction on the market, and Limbo not only is quite close to Go, it had an whole OS full of the Plan 9 ideas to come along, yet it failed on the market.

Lack of generics has already been publicly acknowldge as problem.

> In three years of Go surveys, lack of generics has always been listed as one > of the top three problems to fix in the language.

[https://blog.golang.org/why-generics](https://blog.golang.org/why-generics)

And yes, there is no place on the 21st century for typed languages without generics, we already have enough of them from the previous century already.

CLU and ML, the first languages to support genericity are from the mid-70's, they are older than C++ and contemporary to C.

<comment><USER17> Is Dart's lack of popularity in spite of its author's employer, then?

<comment><USER18> Dart's lack of popularity is indeed in spite of the Google backing. I basically see two reasons. First, though Lars Bak has an impressive pedigree, Strongtalk and V8 aren't as well-known as Plan 9 and Unix. Moreover, rightly or wrongly, Dart had the appearance of "Google's attempt to kill JS", which neither endeared it to Web developers (who were riding a wave of JavaScript hype at the time) nor to other browser manufacturers (who were growing increasingly distrustful of Google's initiatives).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The syntax really makes me think to Zig - [https://ziglang.org/documentation/master/#Introducing-the- Co...](https://ziglang.org/documentation/master/#Introducing-the-Compile-Time- Concept). I'd be curious to know if the authors of this paper have looked at it.

</comment><comment><USER20> Info on the current implementation of generics in Go how to tryout the generics branch parhamn mentions is available at [https://blog.tempus- ex.com/generics-in-go-how-they-work-and-...](https://blog.tempus- ex.com/generics-in-go-how-they-work-and-how-to-play-with-them/)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's from the previous generics proposal, substantially different from this one.

<comment><USER21> This is the intersting discussion. What of the two proposals will receive the Go authors blessing? Isn't the arxiv version just a Guerilla attempt?

<comment><USER19> The former proposal was made by 2 members of the Go core team. And they are also in the team of the latter proposal. So, no, the first proposal wasn't good enough for the Go authors and the new proposal is in no way a guerilla attempt.

<comment><USER21> Thanks for clarification. I followed the discussion in [https://go- review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/187317](https://go- review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/187317) loosely, thought that this is the only way to go and wasn't aware of a second investigation stream.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Go generics without introducing contracts! This is exactly what I was hoping for!

</comment><comment><USER23> For anyone interested in seeing what's possible with Generics in Go - Here is an online playground that uses the browser-based playground and a WASM compiler to run the generics proposal (in browser).

The example includes a simple generic `Filter` function

[https://ccbrown.github.io/wasm-go- playground/experimental/ge...](https://ccbrown.github.io/wasm-go- playground/experimental/generics/#A4Qwxg1iDmCmAEBbEBLAdgKAwMwK5rHgDEUAbAF1gCcAKcgT2AQBUBKeG0gbQF1mAaeMHh4CNAG7w28AEYB7OaXa9m8AN4YAkHNzlgu+AC4AvPBVqAvlq3Y5VeAH1Bkk/Cog0ceKXVbNVWABnXAojU2AJVj8UbDcgkPJ4Y1NyKlwEDU1NeBz4HT0DUxBgJjQAExp8/XJnKKyrTQatAPJcKjQ83WqMKxx8QmR0GnZMwLCzHkDU9Gg1ACIQOcE5mSX4ObA5ps1Y1xIKahpAwVEwCXgpqhn2eUVfLJj4SWT11fuslraO7BBSQNg/BZ4FpcvB/LBWu14Kl0loLHUbHZHM5xu5PAhYplNMArmhyKQ0JE4T0MEA===)

</comment><comment><USER24> Is that a jab at Haskell in the very first paragraph?

> Today [Go] sits at position 12 on the Tiobe Programming

> Language Index (Haskell sits at position 41).

<comment><USER25> One of the authors, Philip Wadler, contributed heavily to the design of Haskell. So I presume it's friendly joking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> PLZ don't. Let's keep it C-like

<comment><USER21> May be an attempt to silence the Rust-fanbois because of the touted old- fashionism of Go. So let's sprinkle some ML topping an be good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Thanks for reminding me how the rampant abuse of nearly unreadable mathematical notation for things that can be easily expressed in concise natural language contributed to (voluntarily) shortening my academic career.

But more seriously, it's interesting how this produces publications before actual implementations.

<comment><USER15> Closer to logic. There is a straightforward rewrite into prolog if you want a program. Or one of the proof assistants.

The notation is abused though. Try looking up some of the work by Guy L. Steele in the recent years.

<comment><USER27> > _Closer to logic. There is a straightforward rewrite into prolog if you want > a program._

Journal papers usually don't get rewritten into Prolog or fed into proof assistants. They're read by human beings. I've long suspected (and colleagues used to "joke" about it) that excessive use of mathematical notation is just employed to impress and/or confuse peer reviewers into just accepting the paper instead of trying to comprehend it first.

<comment><USER28> Stop trying to justify your own ignorance.

The sequent calculus is great—I am far from an expert and for many papers I can skip the text at first, read the sequents, and then just go back to the prose only if I have specific questions. No prolog conversion needed.

As programers, we should be able to _read_ , not just write, formal languages, and appreciate the value of the precision they provide.

<comment><USER27> > _Stop trying to justify your own ignorance._

I am not ignorant. I tried to rationalize this in the beginning too. It's just hostile towards the reader.

> _As programers, we should be able to read, not just write, formal languages, > and appreciate the value of the precision they provide._

We should also be able to see where they are appropriate and where not.

<comment><USER28> It's not hostile towards this reader (me). It's perfectly appropriate. I would be annoyed if they _weren 't_ there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > The goal is to define a data type by cases, where one can add new cases to > the data type and new functions over the data type, without recompiling > existing code, and while retaining static type safety.

Not sure what real problem this is solving. In practise you don't just add new cases, you delete some cases, and you re-add different cases later. Two different people might add two different cases in parallel with each other. Oops, now you have to re-compile anyway.

</comment><comment><USER30> Suggestion: While your paper is very intellectual and I laud that, perhaps what would work better for mass uptake is to create your own programming language around the concepts you propose, and let people try that language. You could call this language "Featherweight Go" if you wish, but perhaps it would be better to call it something else entirely, and simply state that that this new language was inspired by Go.

This choice comes with potential business, legal, and other ramifications, for example, should Google get all of the benefit, in terms of fame, goodwill, users and other intrinsic bonuses from the work you've done; or could you profit (if that was your goal) if you were to create your own company around this new language?

You see, that's what I mean by potential business and legal issues.

Oftentimes, people who are employed by other people work extremely hard on academic pursuits, such as academic papers, yet their work is never adequately rewarded, compensated, or even appreciated.

Which is why I suggest you create your own language and possibly your own company around that language. Because otherwise you'll never know nor understand the true economic value of what you've created, and you might spend an eternity trying to convince people who are of lesser intelligence to read your paper, whereas they could be using, downloading, telling their friends about the great new language you created; and maybe even paying you money, if you played your cards right...

Note that I am not suggesting you go this route (it's your decision, maybe you just want to bring better free open source software to the open source community and that's highly laudable), all I'm saying is, you might be on your bed on your 85th birthday, and you might look back at your life, and you might wonder "boy, I wonder what would have happened had I tried to start a company around this set of ideas; I wonder what would have happened if I had taken the road not travelled.."

That's all I'm trying to say...

Nothing more, nothing less.

Your choice.

Make it wisely.

Your paper shows tons of intellect.

<comment><USER31> What are you talking about... Two members of the Go team are on the author list.

<comment><USER30> If I were them, I'd leave Google and start my own programming language company. I can't speak for them of course, but that's what I would do if I were in their position.</comment></comment></comment>


A pitch deck with 5 slides and other useful tips on fundraising - <AUTHOR> http://knowledgeissocial.com/365-days-10-million-3-rounds-2-companies-all-with-5-magic-slides/

<comment><USER2> I think it's important to remember that he has ~40 slides in reserve to talk about the specific points that investors want to cover. These 5 slides are fantastic and will cover the bases that you want in a short meeting but I don't think we should gloss over the point that there is a deep well of hard data to draw on if the investor wants to.

Also, demos rock. If you took away the demo I don't think this approach would work. So, I'd rewrite the title as "A pitch deck with 5 slides ... and a demo ... and 40 backup slides." (not really but I think all three sides need to be there for the 5 slide deck to work :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally agree. The 5-slide presentation only works if you have the right backup. I wrote this blog post on how to make those appendix slides the best <http://altgate.com/blog/2008/09/vc-pitch-deck-a.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Not the voice of experience here, but has anyone considered pitching on an iPad? I did demos of Appointment Reminder from one and the user experience was awesome: they hold it and are in control, you have physical proximity and can say things like "... and if you tap here, you'll see..."

Plus, geek high. (The I wouldn't try it in a room full of people obviously.)

</comment><comment><USER4> I like this deck because it gets right down to the current health and state of the company. Too many pitches leave that out -- focusing only on the future, as if things will magically come together once X million dollars are stirred into the mixing pot.

Ideally, the story you want to sell is that your company doesn't need the money to survive. Your company needs the money to scale more quickly than you could by bootstrapping. (And hopefully that story is true).

</comment><comment><USER5> Great post, but a few notes:

\- The 5 slides are actually 6 with the blank one included, and like others said, he has a demo and 40 backing slides.

\- "I try not to have more than one point or key message per slide." He may have one key implied message like "we are a real established company on the right track with several employees, investors, advisors, etc.", but there are several points/messages being conveyed on each of the slides. That's not a criticism, but I think the quote is inaccurate.

</comment><comment><USER6> Excellent deck. Brevity is definitely key. However, the first thing that came to my mind after finishing the post was: what about competitors? You seem to mention server utilization in reference to a competitor at the bottom right of slide #1, but nowhere else do I see any mention of competition. If I were considering investing, I'd want this information up front, and might even think something was amiss without it. Has this not been the case in your experience?

</comment><comment><USER7> I like this because it's different from the usual 10-slide, boring template that everyone mentions. I can see why those slides would make you more likely to raise money.

</comment><comment><USER8> This was especially helpful to me. Thanks.

You made a minor point about the advantage of putting you on the same side of the table when you don't use a projector. I think that point is actually huge. I'm frequently an imposition to restaurants getting them to set the seating up at a 90 degree angle instead of across the table for the same reason. It's conspiratorial instead of competitive.

</comment><comment><USER9> Good tip on when NOT to use a projector</comment>


We're Sexist Toward Robots - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/were-sexist-toward-robots?trk_source=popular

<comment><USER2> Not too surprised. They basically confirmed that existing stereotyping behavior also applies to robots. I'd also wager that other stereotypes would apply as well, and not just to robots but anything we anthropomorphize (fictional characters, pets, etc)</comment>


Nerds, it's time to up your fashion game. - <AUTHOR> http://140stitches.com/2012/8/2/nerds-its-time-to-up-your-fashion-game

<comment><USER3> Logged in just to comment here. Whoever's behind 140---STOP. Your copy SUCKS. Your alpha-ness or cool girl-ness or whatever wannabe intimidation factor oozes off the page, and you know what? Fuck you. Being "cool" wins you no points here. And here matters, at least to you, because you've apparently chosen it as your target market.

You want to know how to win friends and influence people here? Take a page from the book of OKCupid pre-acquisition. OKTrends was _amazing_. That stuff is crack to your target market. Look at the data. Figure out the principles behind the stuff. Figure out the Laws of Fashion. If there _aren't_ any, and it's completely...well...fashion-driven, then drop down to the data _again_ , and cut your advice to, "shirt x has been selling 30% more than comparably- priced shirts, and female focus groups rated it significantly more attractive than the rest of its cohort."

Without data, you're just a fashion blogger who thinks they're among easy pickings.

<comment><AUTHOR> My target market is any guy who wants some advice when it comes to fashion. There will be some guys on HN who do want advice, and apparently some that don't. I understand that and I'm okay with it. I would agree that OKTrends is an amazing site. However, it's not what I'm going for. I'll let them handle the data. I'll stick with what I know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So I understand that this is the kind of copy that is frequently used to sell clothes. "Thou art insufficient! Accept my wisdom and I shall lift thee from thy ignorance!" It's just like every crappy teen movie, make-over show and magazine cover.

It's also not appealing. Your vision of "nerd" seems to be nothing but "young white guys who don't work out much": who thinks of themselves that way? It is possible to be a fashion nerd, approaching the topic from a scientific, data- driven, rules-based or technology-incorporating point of view. An article about the history of pants got a bunch of upvotes a while back. MIT has clothes that strip pollution out of the air. That's nerdy fashion.

When talking to nerds, I wouldn't don't assume the audience will be sold by being told that there is something wrong with them that you can fix. Instead, be passionate and apply a nerdy lens to whatever that topic might be. Most of us are perfectly capable of doing the research to look good, and most of us don't bother. We don't need a savior; we might use some automation to lower the effort involved.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your input. I enjoyed your thoughts on approaching things in a "fashion nerd" sort of way and was intrigued by the ideas of date-driven and scientific research to back up a point of view. However, I'm here to give simple fashion advice to guys who are willing to take it. They are perfectly capable of doing the research to look good; my hope is they'll find 140 Stitches to give it to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm definitely interested in learning more about fashion but your copy rubs me the wrong way.

Also, linking to blogs like <http://www.theurbangent.com/> is like linking a "first programming tutorial" to a CPU instruction set reference.

Things like [http://www.theurbangent.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/05/patte...](http://www.theurbangent.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/05/pattern-print-mens-trend-urban-gentleman.jpg) are baffling and incomprehensible to people who are not "into" fashion and are likely to make them reject the whole thing as a game for weird androgynous alien children.

As a nerd, what I would _love_ to see is:

How to identify quality clothes - how are they made, what makes them awesome? Designer/brand name hacks - what's a huge bargain for the quality and when am I just buying a brand name?

Color/pattern theory - still not sure what colors go together and how to mix patterns.

Some sort of system for building a wardrobe where I can easily select stuff that works together when my mind is busy thinking of building stuff and not what to wear.

How things are supposed to fit. How to care for stuff so it doesn't shrink or fall apart.

Hope this helps...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for your great advice. You are the epitome of the guy that I want to help, because I understand you're busy building amazing products and don't have time to think about clothes. I will definitely take your advice and write posts regarding each one, so keep a look out! And for the record, I think those guys on The Urban Gentleman look awful. Please don't leave the house in that. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> From her about me section:

If you think I'm just your average fashion obsessed girly girl, think again. I know my fair share about the interwebs and my favorite movie is The Social Network, in which I may or may not know every line. TechCrunch is one of my daily reads and Jack Dorsey has my heart. Jack - if you're reading this - <USER2> love you.

Basically what I'm trying to say here is, I understand your language.

[end quote]

Sigh.

</comment><comment><USER7> Dear Jordyn of 140stitches.com.

Thank you for your fashion advice! I'm one of the guys that organized the Perl 6 hackathon you so gracefully commented. I can inform you that we had absolutely no dress code requirements for this event, so your unsolicited advice is quite appreciated.

Obviously, failing to consider fashion issues when attending a Perl 6 hackathon was a mistake. We had no idea that more girls would show up to this hackathon - if we only had worn our best garments! I'm sure we'd all have Perl 6-hacking supergenius awesomely beautiful girlfriends had it not been for this single omission in our program.

You see, we've found out through several years of field testing, focus group sessions, long-form questionnaires and cross-section polls, that being "fashionable" has absolutely no effect on a practitioner's ability to write good software. If we only had known better!

We know now that we were mistaken. Thank you for enlightening us!

This is why I'd like to formally invite you to attend our next Perl 6 hackathon. I think it's reasonable that you get an opportunity to bring your expertise and garments to this venue, and show us all that your well-honed fashion sense can help us reach our (admittedly secondary) goal of bringing more girls to the Perl 6 community.

Thank you for your constructive critique, I'm looking forward to see your work at our next hackathon!

Kind regards,

\- sjn (hackathon organizer)

</comment><comment><USER8> I happen to be one of the folks on the image in the middle.

Going to a hackathon with a conference t-shirt seems to be quite appropriate to me.

And jordynclee, if you read this, please take that picture off that blog. I don't think you have permission to use it, neither from its creator, nor from the people on that image.

</comment><comment><USER9> The author misses the point. The bad looks and ill fitting clothes _are a fashion statement_.

They're a huge middle finger to the status quo, like punk rock or braid (The video game.).

I don't think any of the people in those photos would tell you they looked good.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand that for some, the ill fitting clothes are a fashion statement, and that's great! I could talk all day about personal style and wearing clothes that make you feel good. However, there are guys out there who actually want some advice because they really don't know what to wear. That's what I'm here for. If you're one of the guys saying fuck you to the status quo, then more power to ya. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Am I the only one insulted by this?

> Well, because I seriously love you guys and believe your inept fashion sense > is holding you back. It's holding you back from getting the girl.

I can get girls just fine with my v-neck shirt, thank you.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you're wearing v-necks, then you don't even need my help. :)

<comment><USER10> Then I think your target audience is rather small, I can't imagine many guys wearing _only_ hackathon t-shirts!

<comment><AUTHOR> I can't imagine guys wearing only Hackathon shirts either; that was just an example. My target audience is any guy who wants some fashion advice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> eh. i was thinking about this the other day. about how i'd like to tell people what style is. and how hard it is to tell anyone anything about such a personal choice.

i'm a nerd. i'm also someone who ended up in a completely different culture. one where, i realised, i looked just plain stupid. i changed. now, i think, i dress pretty well.

but it was a very personal journey. and i had to think hard about a lot of very important things on the way. i didn't wear a t-shirt and jeans just because i was clueless. it was also a statement about what was important to me. which certainly didn't include brands.

balancing that _and_ finding my own style took a lot of time. it was also very interesting. and i now enjoy thinking about clothes (in a broad sense - it's all about context and culture; it's only about money in the sense that culture and class are deeply linked).

i'm not sure how much of that you're going to get in an "advice column" format. and i'm not sure if you're expecting the kind of deep emotion behind "anti-fashion" that a lot of people have. i think you may be surprised at people's (negative) reactions...

<comment><AUTHOR> Your comment made me very happy, as I'm sure you've noticed the negative comments that you predicted. :) I would definitely agree with you that style is a personal choice. Good job finding a style that makes you feel happy and confident! My goal here isn't to tell people that they aren't dressing well. My goal is to help those guys who truly want some fashion advice. At the end of the day, some people will love it and some will hate it. If only one guy takes my advice and appreciates honest help, I'll be a happy girl.:)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > I'm here to let you in on the little secrets of fashion so people think > you're more awesome than you truly are.

I hope that came out wrong, I really do.

The copy on this site comes off as pretentious and kind of annoying to me. Maybe it's just the groups I associate with, but am I the only one who thinks that the stereotype of the fashion-clueless nerd really isn't as pervasive in current reality as it once was?

<comment><USER13> _I'm here to let you in on the little secrets of fashion so people think you're_ even more awesome _than you_ already _are._

That's how this should read. That would make unprofessional copy look like lazy professional copy, although I suppose there's a more general issue with tone throughout the post. Needless to say a lot of work still needs to be done.

As for the idea itself, I would probably try to appeal to qualities that nerds value. For example, they sure spend a great deal of time making sure their code is _elegant_. Maybe you could try to see how you can translate the rules of elegance as they apply to code into fashion parlance.

<comment><USER14> That's really no less objectionable, it's still suggesting self-serving dishonest manipulation of people vulnerable to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This post identifies a "problem" and then offers no solution whatsoever. Previews that offer no meaningful information at all belong in a movie theater. Not on HN. Flagged.

<comment><AUTHOR> The intention of this post is to introduce 140 Stitches. Solutions to the problem are what you'll find by reading through previous (and future) posts: [http://140stitches.com/2012/6/23/45dkoigztqz7m44e2xeach68214...](http://140stitches.com/2012/6/23/45dkoigztqz7m44e2xeach68214caw) and <http://140stitches.com/2012/7/1/bloglovin-raises-1m>. Hope this clears up any misunderstanding!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Nerds are always viewed as condescending towards "normal" people but imagine if somebody actually went and wrote on a technical subject aimed at a non- technical audience in this style.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm not clear on the mission of 140 Stitches. Are you just going to be blogging? Is the goal to offer consulting services? Will you be selling merchandise on the site?

<comment><AUTHOR> The mission of 140 Stitches is to provide fashion advice to guys who are looking for it. I do provide consulting services, but the main portion will be giving information to guys who don't know a lot about clothes or fashion. For example, I wrote a post about different ways you can wear a hoodie sweatshirt. I also hope to dive into how to spot quality clothing, when it's a good time to splurge on certain items, etc. Hope this helps!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This isn't fashion advice for nerds. Becoming traditionally fashionable will render nerds un-nerdy.

There's nothing wrong with fashion blogs, but this feels like it's aimed at what the author perceives as being low-hanging fruit / easy pickings. It feels a little bit condescending.

There might be a market here, but I don't think this site has the tone quite right (yet).

</comment><comment><USER19> "because nerds can be trendy too"

of course they can. who said they/we want to be?

</comment><comment><USER20> "If you're relating to these pictures"

... what pictures?</comment>


Artificial Intelligence Learns to Talk Back to Bigots [audio] - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/artificial-intelligence-learns-to-talk-back-to-bigots/ <comment><USER2> Finally we will be able to manufacture online consensus.</comment>


The bigger economic disaster: 78 million baby-boom retirees - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/28/magazines/fortune/babyboomcrisis_walker.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008103010 <comment><USER2> You know, I've been aware of this problem for years, and (far from thinking there is a macro-level solution) I honestly can't come up with a personal strategy that doesn't involve moving to Uruguay or the badlands of Montana. The problem is that we are faced with very different possibilities:

1\. Argentinian-style perpetual insolvency. In this case, buying gold and certain foreign debts is the best strategy.

2\. Cuban-style socialism. In this case, offshore accounts will be needed.

3\. Bolivian-style hyper-inequality. In this case, it's probably best to bet on a few big corporations and hope they get most-favored status by the government.

4\. Chilean-style clown fascism. Least likely, but in this case, petty dictators come and go, leaving the usual bodies behind. Best bet here is to just shut up and mind your business.

5\. Mexican-style mediocrity. In this case, everything is pretty much the same, but everyone is poorer and the public infrastructure is shabbier. Really, this is most likely, because people won't see it coming, and won't have to shift their portfolios around too much.

<comment><USER3> US can just go back to normal historic policy and be open to immigration. That was it's growth engine in the past and can make it recover within years if properly regulated (i.e. make them pay taxes and slowly earn privileges.)

But suburban mild racism is in the way.

<comment><USER4> It's not racism (thought it _used_ to be - US immigration policies regarding "Orientals" were shocking at one point). If it were racial then it'd be ridiculously easy for western Europeans to emigrate to the US - and it's not. I've wanted to move to the US for a few years now.

However, like you, I've wondered why immigration isn't being discussed as a serious solution to our economic problems - so good one for bringing it up.

<comment><USER3> I am Latino and had to suffer US border checks many times.

To be fair, on the last couple of times the immigration officers were _very_ friendly, while the customs and (Homeland Security) ones were worse than ever. Uneducated bigots are the norm.

Let me tell you the last one. A customs officer started speaking to me in Cartman-Spanish (after a brief exchange in English) making a whole scene in front of about 50 people queuing behind me. After a while my patience was gone and I answered loudly "I'm very sorry but you _don't_ speak Spanish and I cannot understand what you want. You are speaking in infinitive and skipping words, so it isn't clear if you are asking where I've been, where am I going to be, or the reason of my stay. Migrations didn't have a problem, so either check my luggage or let me go." At that point it was 50-50 he would kick me back out, but I guess the dirty looks he got from the people in the queue convinced him to just let me get through.

I don't even look Latino and had a valid visa right there in my passport. What my friends, relatives, and fellow Latinos go through is nauseating, like the occasional cavity search. It is very ironic this happens often in states named in our Language.

So trust me, it _is_ racism.

<comment><USER5> Well I'm perfectly white and I still get randomly treated like a jerk by the various US border agencies, so relax. Also, in this story:

 _Let me tell you the last one. A customs officer started speaking to me in Cartman-Spanish (after a brief exchange in English) making a whole scene in front of about 50 people queuing behind me. After a while my patience was gone and I answered loudly "I'm very sorry but you don't speak Spanish and I cannot understand what you want. You are speaking in infinitive and skipping words, so it isn't clear if you are asking where I've been, where am I going to be, or the reason of my stay. Migrations didn't have a problem, so either check my luggage or let me go." At that point it was 50-50 he would kick me back out, but I guess the dirty looks he got from the people in the queue convinced him to just let me get through._

it seems like the only person acting like a jerk is you. All he's trying to do is speak in Spanish, and you went and made fun of him for it.

<comment><USER3> (Did you need to call me "a jerk"?) OK, I'll bite...

Perhaps I didn't put enough emphasis on the "making a scene" part and didn't _explicitly_ put he was asking about things out of his sphere. He was talking in a very _aggressive_ tone in Spanish _after_ he saw I could speak English fluently, after I showed him both my European and US visas, and after I explained it was a trip to my employer's HQ. He wasn't saying "como esta amigo", he was asking random questions that didn't make any sense _related to migrations and completely unrelated to customs_. I've been many times through different airports in US and _never_ a customs officer asked me those questions. Specially in front of other people. It went on for _at least_ 10 minutes while people were almost walking by in the other queue (including a friend of mine who had to wait and later told me he was thinking in calling the office for help.) I was the only one stopped out of dozens of people, just after he noticed my passport was from south of the border.

At that point I decided I rather get rejected from US and perhaps lose my job. And you know, if US rejects your visa, for whatever reason, you never get another one again. Luckily most people present clearly thought the guy was out of line.

This random uneducated guy on a power trip surprised me because it happened just a few minutes after maybe the nicest migrations interview I ever had (we even talked about football and his recent holidays in South America while we had to wait for a software reboot of some kind.) This is why I put the "to be fair" disclaimer on migrations vs. Customs and TSA/Homeland Security.

Normal in exchange with customs on every other country in the world:

      * In the most common case you just walk.
      * Second most common, one question: Something to declare?
      * Worst possible case, rare: Can you please take your luggage over here?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure this is as big a problem as he makes it seem...

Baby boomers don't seem to be retiring. Or if they are, they're taking a second career. Like my mom, who retired from teaching to become a teacher consultant, or my friend's dad, who's starting his second company at age 70. Instead of drawing down social security, they're putting more into it.

The nature of work has changed since social security was enacted. Back then, most Americans worked in physically-demanding manufacturing jobs. They physically _couldn't_ work past 65, because their bodies wouldn't hold up. Now, most Americans work in white-collar knowledge or service work, and there's nothing stopping them from going to work until they die (though many want to cut down their hours).

</comment><comment> patrickg-zill Claim you are Amish: <http://www.amishnews.com/amisharticles/amishss.htm>

_Tucked into the 138 page bill was a clause exempting the Old Order Amish, and any other religious sect who conscientiously objected to insurance, from paying Social Security payments, providing that sect had been in existence since December 31, 1950. After Senate approval in July, the signing of the bill by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 13, 1965, made it official and canceled tax accounts of some 15,000 Amish people amounting to nearly $250,000._

<comment><USER7> I have to recommend not e-filing, if you decide to do this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> James K. Galbraith wrote the best response to these harpies who - lest we forget - were advocating a Social Security privatization (read stock market pump and dump) scheme as little as a year ago.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-

Source: [http://economy.nationaljournal.com/2008/10/is-there-room- for...](http://economy.nationaljournal.com/2008/10/is-there-room-for-fiscal- stimu.php#1152033)

Excuse me for asking an impolite question.

But did David Walker, Eugene Steuerle -- or Peter G. Peterson himself -- devote even five percent of the vast resources that they have lavished in recent years on the supposed "entitlement crisis" to warning about the impending mess on Wall Street?

Did they write anything about it? Did they speak out against the Bush administration's abandonment of supervisory responsibility in the financial system? Did they protest the massive abuse of unsophisticated home buyers by the loan originators in the subprime sector? Did they comment on "liars' loans," "neutron loans" and "toxic waste"? Were they heard about the risks involved in securitizing subprime loans? Did they foresee that credit default swaps could collapse like a house of cards? Did they caution that the stock market might crash, ruining the private retirements of millions of Americans?

If they did, I must have missed it.

Peter G. Peterson is one of the leading figures on Wall Street. Isn't it reasonable to ask, that if he and his team wish to be taken seriously on matters of public finance, that they should have shown some leadership, some wisdom, some insight and some foresight on the disaster brewing in their own backyard?

As the disaster on Wall Street developed, George Soros was heard from. Warren Buffett was heard from. Was Peter G. Peterson heard from? Was David Walker heard from? Was Eugene Steuerle heard from? I think they were not.

What is Mr. Walker's approach to subprime crisis today? His comment above makes his approach clear. It is to use the crisis as a rhetorical springboard, in order to divert the conversation back to what he calls the "super sub-prime crisis associated with the federal government's deteriorating finances..."

But the fact is, the subprime crisis is real. The collapse of interbank lending is real. The collapsing stock market is real. The disintegration of the financial system is real. The collapse of the housing sector is real. The credit crunch and the recession are real. You can see this in the interest rate spreads and in the credit that is unavailable at any price.

Mr. Walker's "super subprime crisis" of the federal government is not real. It is a pure figment of the imagination. It is something Mr. Walker sees in his mind's eye. He sees it in his budget projections. He sees it in his balance sheets, which are the oddest balance sheets I've ever seen, because they have all liabilities and no assets.

But the financial markets do not see it. How can we tell? Because those markets are willing, today, to lend unlimited sums to the Federal Government on supremely favorable terms. What is the 20 year Treasury bond rate? Last month, it was 4.32 percent. That is almost exactly what it was in December 1959, in the last month of the Eisnehower administration. The United States Government wasn't going bankrupt then and it isn't going bankrupt now.

The point is directly relevant to the question posed by National Journal: "is there room for fiscal stimulus?" Of course there is.

Not only that, sustained fiscal expansion (I dislike the term "stimulus" because I do not think that a short-term policy will work) will be essential in the next administration if the financial rescue just undertaken is to succeed. It will be necessary to stabilize the housing sector. It will be necessary to stabilize state and local government spending, undercut by falling property tax revenues. It will be necessary to stabilize the incomes and expenditures, in the aggregate, of the elderly. It will be necessary to finance new capital spending at the federal, state and local levels.

Failure to do this will cause the housing crisis to get worse. And that will cause the losses in the financial sector to multiply, overwhelming all efforts to stabilize finance.

I was at the Peterson Institute the other day. There I heard a very good panel discussion of the financial crisis, featuring Fred Bergsten, Adam Posen, Morris Goldstein and others. All agreed that the deficit would exceed one trillion dollars next year. All agreed on the need for the expansionary and stabilizing steps outlined above. Nobody was defending, in any serious way, the Walker-Steuerle line.

I found this greatly encouraging.

<comment><USER2> Can I suggest not copy-and-pasting an entire article?

What he's saying is this: "Keynesianism sure did a great job ending the depression, right? Let's try it again!"

That's what he's saying, and he's saying it in the context of an old, indebted, war-weakened country. In 1929, the US was young, solvent, and free from a large standing army.

<comment><USER9> It's not the size of the military that's the problem. Salaries are dwarfed by the cost of the equipment and supplies to wage expeditionary war.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Entitlements?

Hmmm, that's not what they called it when they took the first 15% of every check I ever received.

STFU and give me my money back.

<comment><USER11> The crowd that hangs out at HN isn't really the main problem, you guys make more than enough to be able to retire on your own. But for the rest of the US...

In Norway, which actually has a working health care and retirement system, that number somewhere in excess of 50%. (33%+ tax on income, 25% VAT on everything and any number of specialized taxes on most services people have to use). Social services are a _lot_ more expensive than most people realize.

What is the total tax level in the US? If it is even 30%, you shouldn't expect that the state will be able to cover everything. Your real problem is that wages are lower than in the rest of the industrialized world, and hence that the average worker is unable to save up enough money to retire comfortably in _any way_.

The way I see it, the US has been living a dream for the last 30 years. It's going to hurt. The median wage has to double, and you need to _save_ the excess. Or else you'll have a major poverty problem.

When I say this in other forums, people always bring up the discussion of private vs. public social services. This is a red herring. A well-run public system doesn't waste more than half of the money we put into it - if that is the case, you have more than one problem.

<comment><USER10> The 15% was for Social Security and Medicare only. That's all I want back.

I didn't include the other 20 to 30% for federal and state income taxes, 7% sales tax, not to mention property taxes, excise taxes, etc., etc., etc. We all _know_ that money is gone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> At the core of the problem is the fact that one generation of politicians can get elected promising goodies that another generation of politicians have to pay for. As long as elections turn on "what's in it for me", the system is spinning out of control. This example is just the biggest symptom of the underlying problem.

Options? At a national level, I don't see a solution without restructuring government. Once the federal government completely usurped the states, there was no longer and tension or balance between who was responsible for what. The feds are into everything, and the states don't have an even playing field. National politicians get elected not on national issues, but on how much money they can get spent in their district.

Personal/Startup options? I'd move my location to the best place for each stage of growth. Need to be in the Bay Area to start out? Fine, but you might not need those same environmental things at 2 years in. Then you might want lower cost-of-living, low taxes, and cheap infrastructure. The only way to survive is to be able to grow where the best soil is. BTW, that's the same way it is today, but the difference is that instead of just moving one time, a small startup might move 2 or 3 times -- sometimes across national borders. You can have a separate discussion of whether that's patriotic or not, but I'm just talking survival.

<comment><USER13> A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.

<comment><USER14> I've heard this many times but I always felt that a stable reaction was possible by limiting the size of the public treasury. Citizen's resistance to taxation seems to be a reasonable force capable of doing just this.

I feel differently now because it has morphed, via healthcare, into a moral issue versus a strictly financial one. People have grown into the idea that a person has a right to have _any_ amount of money spent to prolong their lives, even for a few weeks. Previously this was impossible. Death was almost always quick and cheap because there was only so much medicine could do. Science is changing this rapidly.

You can imagine how this would lead to the collapse predicted with a simple thought experiment. What if every person could, at the end of their life, press a magic "science button" and get one extra year? What if this button cost $100 million to press?

<comment><USER5> My preferred solution to this problem (bear with me for a while, since this is a pet theory I only unload very rarely):

Many democracies (e.g. the US, UK, Australia) have bicameral legislatures in which legislation must be passed by both houses, but where one of the houses no longer properly serves its original purpose. In the US and Australia the role of the Senate was to represent the voice of the individual states -- this doesn't happen any more and it just winds up filled with the same parties as the other house in slightly different numbers. In the UK the House of Lords was supposed to represent the interests of the nobility, but that's no longer seen as a desirable goal anyway. I'm not totally sure about the details of the systems in other countries.

Anyway, my suggestion is to keep the House of Representatives in its present form and replace the nonfunctional upper house with a "House of Taxpayers", in which the representatives are elected by voting among the nation's taxpayers with each taxpayer's vote being worth an amount proportional to the amount of tax they pay. This would ensure that any law being passed by the legislature would have to be approved both by all the people who might benefit from it (the House of Reps) and the people who would have to pay for it (the House of Tax). It might also have the added benefit of encouraging the lower classes to shift more of the tax burden onto themselves in order to have more say in how it's spent.

It's probably not practical to pioneer this kind of constitutional reform in any existing democracy, but I certainly think it should be considered by anyone setting up a constitution for a new one.

<comment><USER9> _In the UK the House of Lords was supposed to represent the interests of the nobility, but that's no longer seen as a desirable goal anyway._

The House of Commons necessarily can't see any further than the next election, at most 5 years out. The House of Lords is full of people who know (or used to anyway) that any problems they create, their own grandchildren would have to sort out. Regardless of anyone's feelings about heredity, that was a very valuable capability and it has now largely been lost.

<comment><USER5> Good point, I'd never thought of it that way.

I still don't think the benefits are worth the costs, but that's certainly a benefit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> i'm unfamiliar with social security

what happens if a person can live to 200 yo? Will USA, starting from retirement age, pay till s/he dies?

what if the person only lives to retirement+1 age? can descendant carry over the benefits? ot it just poof?

<comment><USER12> Everybody jump in and correct me if I'm wrong.

Social Security was put forward as part of the New Deal in the 1930s. The idea was that truly old people would never be destitute. Once you reached a certain age, the federal government would send you a check each month. Sort of a "retirement package just for being a citizen" At the time it was enacted, the activation age was about a year more than average life expectancy, so it wasn't a huge promise. The checks would be paid for by the younger folks working. I believe at the time there was a ratio of workers-to-receivers of something like 45-to-1

Several things have happened in the last 75 years. People are living a lot longer. The benefits have been increased to cover people with profound disabilities, no matter what their age. Most critically, the boomer generation is coming through, taking the ratio somewhere south of 5-to-1. That means that five workers have to come up with the money to pay one person -- no matter how long they live. If life expectancy increases to 120 due to some new medical miracle, we're hosed. It's already common for people in their 90s to have receive benefits longer than they have worked.

You might ask -- what about all that money that was put into the system when the ratio was high? Surely that has accrued interest and is more than able to pay these costs. Well -- we spent it. Seemed like a good idea at the time. The current phrase is "intergenerational promise" -- in other words, it wasn't your money, it was ours, and we promise to make these new young workers help you out. And no -- unlike something that would be your money, this is just for you, and just for as long as you live (there are exceptions for a surviving spouse, I believe)

The current trick is to see how long we can keep from actually working on this problem while we invent even more wonderfully great, moral. feel-good ideas that some later generation can screw up.

<comment><USER16> >If life expectancy increases to 120 due to some new medical miracle, we're hosed.

Not really. They would just increase the retirement age.

<comment><USER17> I don't think you get it. For us not to be hosed in this scenario, the retirement age would have to be increased _now_ , not in 50 years when we realize that the boomers have all survived to age 120.

<comment><USER16> Oh really? What new medical breakthough has resulted in all the boomers living to 120?

Once you get the breakthough you can change things.

It's not like there is a switch: if you were born before date X, you will live an extra 50 years - it's a continuum, it's very easy to tell average lifespan by looking at the other people who live right now (remember them?).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> That guy's plan about a bipartisan committee that can bring everyone together on an agreement is one option. A more effective, one, however, is probably going to be learning survival skills, and running out into the Canadian wilderness in about 10 years' time..</comment>


Supporting virtual reality displays in Linux - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/748208/f38559cbed353f26/ <comment><AUTHOR> Some interesting ideas for better support for VR under Linux. Looks like there has been a bit of work done related to Wayland as the author mentions, but but the development mentioned in this article was related to X.

I'd love to see Linux be a first class citizen in the VR arena, so it's good to see some people paying attention to it.</comment>


Show HN: Chat with your app's users in Slack, for free - <AUTHOR> http://www.radialpoint.com/supportkit/slack

<comment><USER2> This is awesome! Is this something we can integrate into our website too or it is only a library for IOS? Definitely want to use this for a seamless interaction over both platforms.

<comment><AUTHOR> Stay tuned. Something for your website is on its way :)

<comment><USER2> I look forward to it, let me know if there's an email list to stay notified</comment></comment></comment>


Introducing http optimizer and analytics service - <AUTHOR> https://packetzoom.com/blog/introducing-http-optimizer-and-analytics-service.html <comment><USER2> Awesome, I was waiting this to happen for years. Paying $$$ to newrelic was not an option for me.

</comment><comment><USER2> And the charts looks very nice</comment>


Captain Picard, Enterprise CEO - <AUTHOR> http://thetarah.com/2014/12/15/captain-picard-enterprise-ceo/

<comment><USER2> His management style would never work in today's tech environment.</comment>


Write a toy strace and gdb - <AUTHOR> http://hondu.co/blog/write-a-strace-and-gdb <comment><USER2> Thanks for this!

I recently wrote a deep dive in to both strace [1] and Linux system calls [2] which may be interesting to folks reading this great article.

[1]: [https://blog.packagecloud.io/eng/2016/02/29/how-does- strace-...](https://blog.packagecloud.io/eng/2016/02/29/how-does-strace-work/)

[2]: [https://blog.packagecloud.io/eng/2016/04/05/the- definitive-g...](https://blog.packagecloud.io/eng/2016/04/05/the-definitive- guide-to-linux-system-calls/)

<comment><USER3> I'm just partway through the syscalls post, but these are really well done! you've got a knack for technical explanations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You may also want to see how Paul Fox is implementing Dtrace for Linux [0]

[0] [https://github.com/dtrace4linux/linux](https://github.com/dtrace4linux/linux)

</comment><comment><USER5> python-ptrace [1] is a good place to start if you're playing around.

[1] [http://python-ptrace.readthedocs.io/en/latest/](http://python- ptrace.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Awesome introductory example of `ptrace`. Thanks for sharing.</comment>


AMD Radeon 'Big Navi' RX Gamma Flagship GPU Specs and Benchmarks Leaked - <AUTHOR> https://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-rx-gamma-gpu-big-navi-benchmarks-specs/ <comment><USER2> I was legitimately disappointed realising this was an April Fools joke.

<comment><USER3> If it's fake then I don't understand what's supposed to be funny about it

<comment><USER4> The fact that it's fake is the funny part. Because hardware geeks love latching on to rumors so hard that they feel personally hurt if a thing is fake. I love it.</comment></comment></comment>


In Treatment for Leukemia, Glimpses of the Future - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/health/in-gene-sequencing-treatment-for-leukemia-glimpses-of-the-future.html?_r=2&hp

<comment><USER2> Here's some good commentary on this case in a blog post "The future of cancer therapy?" from a cancer physician in today's Science-Based Medicine blog:

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-future- of-...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-future-of-cancer- therapy/)

"While the story is basically one long anecdote that shows what can be done when new genomic technologies are applied to cancer, it also shows why we are a very long way from the true 'individualization' of cancer care.

. . . .

"Taking the results of the sequencing of the entire genome and RNAseq data and analyzing them allows scientists to probe the genome and transcriptome of cancers in a way that was never before possible. It produces an enormous amount of data, too, terabytes from a single experiment. At cancer meetings I've been to, investigators frequently refer to a 'firehose' of data, petabytes in magnitude. Indeed, the sheer quantity of data from these experiments challenges the bandwidth of universities doing them, and, in fact, it's not at all uncommon for the preferred means of sending experimental data to be to load up a hard drive with the data and send it by the quaint but effective method of overnight mail to other investigators because it's faster and more reliable that way. Not surprisingly, serious computing power and major advancements in computer algorithms have been necessary to develop the methods of analyzing data from these experiments.

"What I'm trying to convey is that what WUSTL did for Dr. Wartman was not a little deal. It was a big deal that took a lot of resources and effort and likely cost well over $100,000. Apparently it was paid for through research grants, and Dr. Ley claims that no patients were neglected while all that sequencing and computing firepower were transferred to sequencing Dr. Wartman's cancer genome and transcriptome, having done the same thing for a previous patient."

In other words, the glimpse of the future that we may be able to derive from this case shows that the future is still far off, and the steps to reach the future are enormously expensive. More details are available in other paragraphs of the linked Science-Based Medicine post.

<comment><USER3> I don't know. $100,000 to find a great treatment for one cancer, which previously had no treatment, seems cheap!

And I think a truck full of hard drives hurdling down the highway has had greater bandwidth than most of the world's networking for a while now.

As the future of medicine is clearly personalized I think the costs associates with genome sequencing and other analysis will come down. Or, at least, I hope they do.

<comment><USER4> Just to be clear, this $100,000 was spent to possibly identify a potential treatment for one _person's_ cancer, not one type of cancer in general.

In other words, this was a $100,000 diagnostic test with no guarantee that an actionable diagnosis would result. By that, I mean that the results of the sequencing analysis either (a) might not pinpoint a driver mutation or (b) might pinpoint a driver mutation that does not have an efficacious drug available to act on that mutation. Also, all caveats about tumor heterogeneity and evolution, etc., apply.

An integrating sequencing approach involving the analysis of normal and cancerous cells to identify actionable mutations is the best we have for now, but it is still a hugely expensive, time-consuming, and technically- challenging process with an enormous failure rate associated with it. Nonetheless, I think it's terrific that, in this instance, it yielded valuable and actionable information that resulted in a meaningful clinical result. One step at a time!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if he was somehow unknowingly, inadvertently exposed to the trigger in lab that caused the cascade of events leading to runaway cell division. He was, after all, working in a lab studying Leukemia, and he probably worked with Leukemia cell lines a lot. Of course, there is no way to really know how he contracted the cancer, but it is intriguing to wonder about such things.

<comment><USER6> This paper's title says he studied mouse leukemia, but does anybody have a link to the human leukemia paper?

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3069786/>

<comment><USER7> To the best of my knowledge, this hasn't been published.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article was part 1 of an NYT series called 'Genetic Gamble : New approaches to fighting cancer'

Part 2 : A New Treatment's Tantalizing Promise Brings Heartbreaking Ups and Downs

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/09/health/new-frontiers-of- ca...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/09/health/new-frontiers-of-cancer- treatment-bring-breathtaking-swings.html?pagewanted=all)

Part3 : A new genetic test of ocular melanomas offers uncanny accuracy, but do you want to know ?

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/health/genetic-test- change...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/health/genetic-test-changes-game- in-cancer-prognosis.html?pagewanted=all) ( HN : <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4220123> )

</comment><comment><USER9> I am not surprised that the guy didn't get any help from his insurer or the drug company.

<comment><USER10> Yea what more proof do you need that insurers will screw anyone out of money than an expert in his disease's field being denied a promising attempt to save his own life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What are the major differences between the type of sequencing that was performed in the article and the type that is provided by companies such as 23andMe?

<comment><USER7> Most of 23andMe's customers don't really get sequencing. They get genotyped on a SNP chip, which only tells you about a million or so positions (out of ~3.2 billion).

The other product that 23andMe is starting to offer is exome sequencing, where they analyze just the coding regions of the genome (around 1% of the total content). This sort of analysis can be enormously useful and can provide much information, but will miss variations in non-coding regions. It also has limited ability to detect structural variations, where a chunk of DNA gets moved around, deleted, or duplicated.

What they did here was whole genome analysis, coupled with sequencing the RNA products of gene expression. This turned out to be enormously important, because the main driver of his cancer turned out to be over-expression of a gene.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I find the lack of accessibility to the poor for such treatment troubling. Dr. Wartman was lucky enough to work in a cancer research lab that covered the costs of the genome and RNA sequencing AND he had rich doctor friends who helped chip in to buy enough drug for him. While the costs of sequencing are dropping quickly, medical drugs don't fall in price at the same rate. And there's always the chance that a drug to cure that particular mutation doesn't exist. What then? Spend millions on years of research to make the drug?

<comment><USER7> _And there's always the chance that a drug to cure that particular mutation doesn't exist. What then? Spend millions on years of research to make the drug?_

This is indeed the case for most mutations that we're finding in cancer genomes. (That's the bad news).

The good news is that many cancers do have "druggable" genes that are altered, and even though the cells have many mutations, attacking just the druggable gene is often enough to prolong life and improve outcomes.

The other good news is that even though many different genes can be mutated, there are a much smaller number of pathways that are altered. (those for cell cycle control, apoptosis, etc). By targeting key points in those pathways, one drug may be effective against dozens of different mutations.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Get Started with the Chrome DevTools Console - <AUTHOR> https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome-devtools/console/get-started <comment><AUTHOR> I write all the official DevTools docs. My docs philosophy is "more energy put into a doc = more knowledge retained". So I strive to make my tutorials as interactive as possible. DevTools is particularly fun because I can embed the interactivity directly into the page. In other words, you learn how to use the Console by opening DevTools on the very tutorial page. You press buttons and see messages get logged. You use the Console to change the text content of a DOM node on the page, etc.

My other philosophy is to solicit feedback as much as possible. I'm always on the hunt for new ways to find out if users actually find my docs useful. At the bottom of the page I make a personal appeal for feedback. My reasoning is that people have banner blindness around feedback, but if they know that it's actually coming from me, and that I actually look at it, they'll be more likely to take a moment and respond.</comment>


Australian newspaper asks readers not to draw penii on ballot papers - <AUTHOR> http://www.theage.com.au/comment/dont-be-a-donkey-join-in-our-democracy-20160630-gpvvz2.html <comment><USER2> I'll be that person. The plural of "penis" is "penises" in English. An alternative plural for the English word "penis" comes from Latin, the language the word is borrowed from, and it is written "penes", since the word is, in Latin, of the 3rd declension, and hence takes the plural ending "-es".

Words in Latin that end in "-i" in the plural are of the 2nd declension. Hence the status of the word "penii" as a plural for "penis" exists only as a hypercorrection [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercorrection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercorrection).

<comment><USER3> I venture that penii was used either for its amusement factor or to avoid saying penises which contains the word penis which is a socially embarrassing word. :) But 10/10 for being that person, thank you for being that person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Drawing a penis on a ballot paper is frustrating for people who actually care about the country – you've registered to vote so perhaps you could have spent 5 minutes becoming informed, and then making a proper vote rather than drawing a penis and rendering your vote informal (i.e. not counted).

That said it's infinitely better than donkey voting which is a more serious issue that plagues our elections.

A donkey vote is when someone numbers their preferences from top to bottom, or bottom to top on the ballot paper. This is considered a formal vote, and your paper will affect the results. Positions on the ballot paper are randomised to try and reduce this as much as possible.

</comment><comment><USER5> Wait, what? Is it mandatory to vote in Australia?

<comment><USER6> Kinda. The requirement is for the person to enroll, attend a polling station and have their name marked off the electoral roll as attending, receive a ballot paper and take it to an individual voting booth, mark it, fold the ballot paper and place it in the ballot box. The act does not explicitly state that a choice must be made, it only states that the ballot paper be 'marked'. According to the act how a person marks the paper is completely up to the individual.

<comment><USER5> Well, I'd definitely draw 'inappropriate things' if I was forced to do it.

<comment><USER4> It's not compulsory to register to vote.

edit: apologies, that's completely incorrect.

While it is compulsory, you are incredibly unlikely to be fined for not registering. The AEC typically sends a reminder every few years if they have information on your residential address from another government agency.

Once you are enrolled though, if you fail to vote at an election you will be asked to explain your absence and, without a satisfactory excuse, fined.

It looks like the AEC now has the power to automatically enrol you too.

<comment><USER7> From the Australian Electoral Commission's website: [http://www.aec.gov.au/enrol/](http://www.aec.gov.au/enrol/)

\--

It is compulsory by law for all eligible Australian citizens to enrol and vote in federal elections, by-elections and referendums.

You are eligible to enrol if you:

        * are an Australian citizen, or eligible British subject,
        * aged 18 years and over, and
        * have lived at your address for at least one month.

<comment><USER8> Interesting, I've never seen this spelling of "enrol" before.

I would also draw penii if voting was compulsory.

<comment><USER7> Australia uses British English, and enrol is the British spelling.

<comment><USER5> Ah, the joys of localization.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A tale of a DNS exploit: CVE-2015-7547 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/a-tale-of-a-dns-exploit-cve-2015-7547/ <comment><USER2> Just a small shoutout of thanks to the CloudFlare team who was excellent about communicating with us at OpenDNS in advance of this disclosure.

As one of the largest recursive DNS infrastructures in the world, they allowed us enough time to spin up resources to determine if we were vulnerable (we were not) which was very much appreciated.

We did a small post this morning that also captures some of the history of our codebase. [https://engineering.opendns.com/2016/02/29/a-brief- history-o...](https://engineering.opendns.com/2016/02/29/a-brief-history-of- opendnscache/)

<comment><AUTHOR> It was a no brainer to tell you guys.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you don't need DNS, a workaround that should still be valid is to disable DNS lookups entirely via the hosts entry in /etc/nsswitch.conf .

<comment><USER4> Or you COULD use DNS and just patch, but sure, yeah.

<comment><USER5> _If you don 't need DNS_

If you don't need DNS, then why would you keep it in place? As an example, I have a system that needs to contact exactly 2 hosts (one of which hosts package updates). So it has DNS turned off and I have a local hosts config. It seems like using a exploit announcement as an opportunity to review whether you need the service in question at all is actually good server administration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good writeup, but I'd disagree with the first Takeaway where it mentions WiFi redirects being done via a DNS hijacking. That is one way to do it, but it's rare in my experience. Far more common is simply redirecting TCP 80 traffic to a webserver that issues a re-direct to the captive portal URL.

Source: I've operated various public WiFi networks since 2001

<comment><USER7> I reckon that depends on where you are. I don't have any hard data on this, just a lifetime of disappointment with hotel wifis. It's not the captive portal on first use what irks me, but continued DNS intercepting after you pass the captive portal challenge which hampers either DNSSEC, local resolver, or both. This is not likely to change soon, so DNS folks dream about DNS/HTTP, DNS/TLS and all that.

Intercepting actual content transfers makes more sense to me than intercepting name lookups. One thing should be common - once user authenticates, no more MitMing.

<comment><USER6> I would agree with you. However, there are valid use-cases for "intercepting" DNS on public WiFi. The most obvious is to block adult content.

One example was a customer operating WiFi in restaurants. If a patron accessing the WiFi network was looking at adult content on their laptop, the restaurant owner could be liable for that. I believe it was a "public nudity/nuisance" law.

<comment><USER7> That is consented filtering and that's fine. I do the same thing locally and I'm okay with a public network operator refusing to serve certain zones (nudity, malware, illegal content).

Refusing to lookup a name != MitMing every query however, the latter crosses a fine line (for me) by both lying about answers (redirection to ad pages), and at the same time preventing users to validate integrity of the answer (or non- existence proof).

I'm not a lawyer and have no idea how much is this enforceable in terms and conditions of the service, but common sense tells me that by opting out of the provided name services liability transfers to patron. If the recursive resolution was more decentralised, this would have been moot.</comment></comment></comment></comment>