How to piss off your users. - <AUTHOR> http://www.jacksonfish.com/blog/2008/04/07/how-to-piss-off-your-users/

<comment><USER2> But if we toppled this horribly useless company, how could we laugh at the jokes based on it (think How I Met Your Mother: "Yes, I received your submissions Barney, and no, we will not be attending any parties in your pants." "But you enjoyed the evite, right? That was an ACTUAL picture of my pants.")?

In all seriousness, however, I'm a big fan of Facebook event creator. And as most of my friends are on Facebook, it saves me a lot of time and hassle to try to figure out everyone's phone number/address/email--just type in approximately the first four letters of their name, select them from the now extremely narrowed down list of friends with those four letters in their name, and tada! You have just completed what used to be several hours worth of work.

Now if only we could get our parents and distant relatives on, so we don't have to send all those wedding invitations by mail.

<comment><USER3> "Now if only we could get our parents and distant relatives on, so we don't have to send all those wedding invitations by mail."

How little you understand about women and their universal, deep, and abiding love for all things stationery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I hear this sentiment about eVite alot. I personally hate that they don't put the contact info in the email for me either, and people keep using it to send me invites. And their iCal import is provided only as a file, doesn't hook in to google calendar, 30 boxes, etc.

That said, lots of people have tried (and failed) to topple eVite. Maybe people keep using it because it caters to people that send out invites, and not to people receiving them--and there in lies the dissonance.

The only thing I've seen that circumvents eVite is facebook's own event inviter.

Anyone have a good strategy to topple eVite? (I'm not in the invitation business) It'd be an interesting thought experiment.</comment>


Analyzing Hacker News book suggestions in Python - <AUTHOR> https://towardsdatascience.com/hacker-news-book-suggestions-64b88099947 <comment><USER2>
      - Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon by Valley John Carreyrou
      - Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep by Matthew Walker
      - The Magicians by Lev Grossman
      - Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of NIKE by Phil Knight
      - How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan
      - Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World by Hans Rosling
      - Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
      - Deep Work by Cal Newport
      - Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
      - The Phoenix Project by D.M. Cain
      - 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari
      - Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Tia T. Farmer
      - Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
      - Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
      - Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink
      - Linear Algebra by Jim Hefferon
      - 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson
      - Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall
      - Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
      - Atomic Habits by James Clear

Most are about self improvement...i wonder if this bias says something about those who recommended the books. Was hoping for some new fiction books to put on my audiobook list.

<comment><USER3> Always puzzled with tech worker's constant need for self help books. Go read history or a novel every now and then!

<comment><USER4> Time reading novels (or doing anything else for fun) is time not spent improving, which in this all-against-all knife fight world is foolish.

<comment><USER5> HN being what it is, I can't tell if this is intended as satire.

<comment><USER6> It applies to me too. I can't afford books so I pirate them. But I can't enjoy fiction without physical books so I never read any lately.

<comment><USER7> No public libraries where you live?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Rediscovering nonfiction a few years ago was really cool, but unfortunately I think I'm out of books. I've noticed nowadays that most non-fiction books are basically "pop non-fiction," is high basically entail a giant collection of studies and anecdotal stories all around a central theme, in easy to read language. There's nothing wrong with this, just they don't do a lot of synthesis of their own.

The problem is, the only books that do any actual synthesis of their own tend to be very long and very hard to read.

There are a few books that meet a sweet spot that are easy to read and are deep on content, (12 Rules for Life, Sapiens), but they're hard to find.

<comment><USER9> I wouldn't call 12 Rules particularly "deep" in content, it's mostly anecdotal stories, bible quotes, and Christian Conservatism.

<comment><USER10> While sometimes the bible quotes went too far for my taste, I wouldn't say it's not deep. One thing it did for me is help me see religion in a new light. Religion is a constant in most (all?) human societies, this book helped me understand why.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The author of Thinking in Systems is incorrect. The author is Donella H. Meadows: [https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H- Meadows/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H- Meadows/dp/1603580557)

</comment><comment><USER12> Great, so my "won't recommend The Phoenix Project" made it to the top 10 (it is quarter of the votes for the book).

</comment><comment><USER13> Nice overview. However, if I search in the tread, I can find "Thinking in Systems: A Primer" only twice. There are a few other books with "systems in the title, maybe some of those are counted as well?

</comment><comment><USER14> See also: [https://hackernewsbooks.com/](https://hackernewsbooks.com/)

<comment><USER15> this is great, though I wish it had year-by-year lists too (instead of week- by-week)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hmm, Linear Algebra - Jim Hefferon does not seem to be mentioned at all in that thread.

<comment><USER17> Yes, I thought the original thread was interesting and so I was reading the article (which I thought is also interesting). Suddenly, there is my name--- that's a bit of a start. However, I don't find that I come up when I search the discussion, although there are three instances of "Linear". A glitch, I guess.

<comment><USER18> It looks like when the script fed the titles into the Goodreads API, it picks the most common (popular?) book with that title. Since the subtitles were stripped out it got confused.

In the original thread, the two books were: -Linear Algebra, A First Course by Kutler -A Concise Introduction to Linear Algebra by Schay both in JabavuAdams' post.

Then there was a mention of the Linear B language elsewhere

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> That thread is my favorite thread each year. I look forward to it! I always find a few gems I wasn't aware of and I love the way people share - warms my heart. So thanks for putting this together!

</comment><comment><USER20> I recommend removing the "Show HN" prefix, which is not allowed for blog posts, before a mod changes the title of your submission to sth you may not like.

<comment><AUTHOR> Done!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Thank you! Nice explanation of how you did it, combined with a useful result, makes for a great "Show HN". Bravo!

<comment><USER22> Incidentally those are reasons why it's a _bad_ Show HN thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

> Blog posts, sign-up pages, and fundraisers can't be tried out, so they can't > be Show HNs.

<comment><USER21> Whoops! I've been here long enough I should've known better. Thanks minimaxr</comment></comment></comment>


I'm leaving the UK - <AUTHOR> http://ryancarson.com/post/28861598055/im-leaving-the-uk <comment><USER2> Anyone with serious ambition in the Web tech sector would jump from the UK to the US in a heartbeat if it were a practical option and for many, like Ryan, it is and they do. This can only mean good things for Ryan and Treehouse.</comment>


New emperor, new era: How a single word defines Japan - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-47729398 <comment><USER2> In the article they mention the "leaked" era name "ankyu". This leak I expect was more of a political joke and never a true candidate.

Ankyu would be 安久 and thus mean "peace forever". Except the current prime minister Shinzo Abe's Abe is 安倍, notice the same first charcter. Thus the double meaning of Ankyu would be "Abe Forever".

<comment><USER3> strongmen stubbornly refusing to abdicate their office would however be very much in the spirit of modern times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So that's why there was this Java update a few weeks ago...

        </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--- java-8-openjdk/calendars.properties </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---
        index 49f68ac..8ffee4c 100644
        @@ -29,12 +29,14 @@
         #   Taisho since 1912-07-30 00:00:00 local time (Gregorian)
         #   Showa  since 1926-12-25 00:00:00 local time (Gregorian)
         #   Heisei since 1989-01-08 00:00:00 local time (Gregorian)
        +#   NewEra since 2019-05-01 00:00:00 local time (Gregorian)
         calendar.japanese.type: LocalGregorianCalendar
         calendar.japanese.eras: \
          name=Meiji,abbr=M,since=-3218832000000;  \
          name=Taisho,abbr=T,since=-1812153600000; \
          name=Showa,abbr=S,since=-1357603200000;  \
        - name=Heisei,abbr=H,since=600220800000
        + name=Heisei,abbr=H,since=600220800000;   \
        + name=NewEra,abbr=N,since=1556668800000

</comment><comment><USER5> Disclaimer: I am a Japanese national who was born and raised in this country.

For god sake, I really hope fellow Japanese people stop using this inefficient and confusing year counting system.

Every time I'm asked what Heisei this year is, I don't remember, so I have to open safari! It is really annoying.

Besides, who cares about who will become next emeperor of Japan. I would not care if current emperor suddenly die tomorrow. This might sound very disgraceful, but I rather hope the royal family of Japan vanish along with old-fashioned tradition.

<comment><USER6> It's just "subtract 1988".

<comment><USER7> Which makes it very easy for all people who were born in 1988, but inconvenient for everyone else :)

<comment><USER8> Makes it easier for people born in 1987.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One issue is that most programming languages links their version to a particular unicode version, by example, .NET 4 supports Unicode 5.1 while .NET 4.5 supports Unicode 6, etc.

The new Era will be soon supported by Unicode 12.1 [1]. For older version of .Net (or Java) you also need to support the new Era without supporting the whole Unicode 12.1 spec, introducing a non backward compatibility behavior because the new code point U+32FF has now a different meaning.

Currently we have already added tests for the new code point in all our supported applications and are ready to update them using the same channel as a security issue.

[1] [http://blog.unicode.org/2018/09/new-japanese- era.html](http://blog.unicode.org/2018/09/new-japanese-era.html)

<comment><USER10> Oh, interesting, didn't know that they "create" a new Kanji with the sum of all the possible kanjis in the Era name. Two questions:

\- Should I be safe in the way that, even in my software doesn't support that unicode version, or my font doesn't have that symbol, I'll at least get a "notdef" or whatever symbol and not break everything? \- what if the new name is composed by just one Kanji? Is it getting an unicode symbol anyway? Is it considered a different Kanji?

<comment><USER11> > what if the new name is composed by just one Kanji?

It will be two existing kanji. That's pretty much a given.

Don't worry about it. These compound characters are compatibility characters for older software, and for use as a compact notation in print (i.e., it is mostly a display issue). Any new code point assigned will not be in use now (U+32FF), so you won't break anything. Your software may display a box with the code point address in it, or just an empty box, instead of a glyph from one of the installed fonts.

If you deal with years written with the era name, you tend to get them written as two characters. This year (until the abdication) is 平成31年 (year 31 of Heisei).

Abbreviations do occur; you will then get only the first character of the name era, so 平31. This is why the new name will not start with 平, 昭, 大, or 明 (the first characters of the past four era names).

<comment><USER12> I believe newspapers are the most likely to use compounds, like they do for katakana, e.g. ㌔ for キロ.

<comment><USER11> The compound characters are also very useful for compact typography in tables, including public transport timetables.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Fun fact: Taiwan (ROC) also has an unusual year counting scheme, where they count from the founding of the Republic of China.

I once bought a Japanese product in Taiwan which had an expiration date using Japanese years, included a ROC year translation of said date and the receipt was printed with the gregorian year. Three different counting schemes in just one transaction, quite amusing.

<comment><USER14> The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (aka North Korea) uses what is basically the same scheme, and calls it the Juche calendar. That it counts from the same year is coincidental.

<comment><USER15> Even more coincidence: Japanese era Taisho also counts from the same year (1912).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I wonder if anyone here will be working hard in April to implement the new era in software?

<comment><USER16> Shouldn't be much work at all to add another name and offset. This isn't the first era change in my lifetime, and date libraries should already support the basic concept, e.g., [https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/nsdatec...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/nsdatecomponents/1416364-era)

<comment><USER12> Well this is the first era change in the life on many software and libraries, so while everyone knew it was coming sooner or later most software have never been tested in "real life".

I just hope no Japanese developer stored dates as "era+month+day" instead of Gregorian or epoch (or relying on a library that does).

<comment><USER17> You bet there are. Many old Japanese system still store 2019 as Showa 94.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> B-Con > Era names typically come from Chinese classical texts, and are usually only > revealed when one emperor has died and another has taken the Chrysanthemum > Throne.

Chinese? I'm guessing that's a typo. Not only would Japanese obviously fit better, but considering the bad blood between Japan and China I think they'd sooner not choose a word than choose one from China.

<comment><USER18> All kanji were originally Chinese, and still have an original Chinese reading along with Japanese.

<comment> B-Con Oh, they're reading _very_ old texts then. That wasn't the time frame I thought of when it said "classic".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "According to news outlet Nikkei, the name-picking process has been rehearsed at least once a year for over 30 years, so officials are always primed for "The Day"."

I don't even care how inefficient this seems to Western sensibilities ... I love this.

<comment><USER20> [https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/16/what- happens...](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/16/what-happens-when- queen-elizabeth-dies-london-bridge)

<comment><USER19> My undergraduate school that I won't name was located on a 'land locked ship' in Canada. It was literally land, but commissioned and christened in the Royal Navy as a ship in the 19th century.

When they closed it, they had no idea what to do, and the Canadian Navy had to call up the Royal Navy to figure out the protocol.

They didn't know either.

So they had to dig through their own records to figure out the right protocol.

And then we did it: a 'ship decomisioning ceremony' for a land-locked ship, which I don't think has been done in a very long time in the UK/Empire, and probably never in Canada.

Pretty much the entire W. Coast Canadian Navy 'paraded by' ship by ship, and a few other neat things. A sight to behold.

Someone, somewhere is keeping track of all that.

The interesting paradox is how from one perspective, it makes no sense, and yet from another, it makes perfect sense.

<comment><USER21> That sounds odd to me - more than one stone frigate in the RCN has been paid off in living memory, more than one during the unification process (which is within _my_ memory). Yes, it's a bit of a ceremony, and necessarily a kerfuffle, but there is no reason why the protocol should have been a mystery.

<comment><USER22> My guess is that with the restoration of name and insignia of the Royal Canadian Navy, various traditions that had been dropped or elided from unification onwards were also brought back. Paying off of stone frigates probably changed in ceremony like so many other things did with unification of the forces, and so the modern RCN had to look up the traditional ways again.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Basic Library List: Math Assn of America Recommendations for Undergrad Libraries - <AUTHOR> https://www.maa.org/press/maa-reviews/the-basic-library-list-maas-recommendations-for-undergraduate-libraries <comment><USER2> Here is a classic which is lacking: The Principia Mathematica (often abbreviated PM) is a three-volume work on the foundations of mathematics written by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell and published in 1910, 1912, and 1913. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_Mathematica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_Mathematica)

<comment><AUTHOR> Principia is indeed a classic, but the mathematical maturity required to follow that profoundly foundational approach is considerable. Even for professional mathematics (source: professors of mine who specialized in mathematical logic).

BLL includes several categories on logic, though, which include classics by Kleene, Curry, etc. For instance, "Foundations of mathematics" [1], "Philosophy of mathematics" [2], and "Model theory" [3]

[1] [https://www.maa.org/press/maa- reviews/browse?field_tags_tid=...](https://www.maa.org/press/maa- reviews/browse?field_tags_tid=37046&field_bll_rating_tid=All&field_maa_review_value=All)

[2] [https://www.maa.org/press/maa- reviews/browse?field_tags_tid=...](https://www.maa.org/press/maa- reviews/browse?field_tags_tid=37253&field_bll_rating_tid=All&field_maa_review_value=All)

[3] [https://www.maa.org/press/maa- reviews/browse?field_tags_tid=...](https://www.maa.org/press/maa- reviews/browse?field_tags_tid=37199&field_bll_rating_tid=All&field_maa_review_value=All)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are all Bitcoins of equal value? - <AUTHOR>

I put in a fair amount of research without finding an answer, though bitcoin.org says price is determined by supply/demand, I am wondering can supply/demand be hacked increasing/decreasing the value of only certain bitcoin.  For example,
1. Hack demand: What if a certain Bitcoin (or fraction thereof) were owned by a celebrity, I would think there would be greater demand for that specific bitcoin maybe even greater demand for the transaction should it be purchased direct from the celebrity versus additional degrees of separation from the original transaction.
2. Hack Supply:  Lets say I create a new startup, and instead of paper shares/stock I purchase 1 Bitcoin to be representative of the ownership of the company.  While that Bitcoin and its units would maintain its market value they would additionally contain the respective value of the company.
3.  There are also things that are currently being done that in my opinion decrease the value of certain bitcoins.  For example, buying bitcoin from an exchange that is not properly licensed/registered opens the door to the potential liability that a government may freeze accounts or confiscate any and all bitcoins that flowed through that exchange. Or for example, the 144,000 bitcoins that the FBI seized from Ulbricht, what if he sold those bitcoins to various buyers well below the market rate and next thing you know the FBI confiscates those bitcoins from the buyers and now the buyers are out their USD and bitcoin.  Are these bitcoins inherently tainted? <comment><USER2> Bitcoins can not be distinguished between each other. Actually there are no bitcoins. There is only a "quantity" you have and this quantity is refered as "Bitcoin". You do not have any control over how you sent/spend bitcoin quantities. So If you have 2 bitcoins you can not number these as first bitcoin and second bitcoin.

But if you look into the minted bitcoins, yes these are possible. But they are not the currency in flow. They are special things.

</comment><comment><USER3> Colored coins is what you're looking for:

[http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/5695/what-are- col...](http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/5695/what-are-colored- coins)

</comment><comment><USER4> This is an interesting concept. I suppose you could do similar things with USD as well. You could declare, "Anyone with a dollar bill with this specific serial number now has control of my company." I would argue that the dollar bill still has a value of $1 by itself, but you can assign arbitrary value to it by making it representative of another thing.

<comment><USER5> That's sort of an inverse Gresham's Law [1] scenario

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law)</comment></comment>


Mark Cuban:  Here's How YouTube Can Make Money (And Lose Market Share) - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/7/mark-cuban-here-s-how-youtube-can-make-money-and-lose-market-share-

<comment><USER2> Am I the only one that thinks Mark Cuban is just mad that he didn't start YouTube?</comment>


Darktable 2.0 released - <AUTHOR> http://www.darktable.org/2015/12/darktable-2-0-released/ <comment><USER2> > darktable is an open source photography workflow application and RAW > developer. A virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, because it took me more than a few clicks just to figure this out. I was especially disappointed with the description of the GitHub repository, "darktable main repository".

<comment><USER4> I kind of like the idea from a few years ago, where there was a tagline under the logo of some web sites on every page, to explain what the site is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a blog entry about why there is no Windows build of Darktabe: [https://www.darktable.org/2015/07/why-dont-you-provide-a- win...](https://www.darktable.org/2015/07/why-dont-you-provide-a-windows- build/)

<comment><USER6> Yikes, had no idea they didn't even have a windows build.

I know a non-trivial number of photogs who are windows based, considering they aim to be a LR replacement I don't see that happening anytime soon. Also probably going to be harder and harder to make that port happen the more development moves along.

<comment><USER7> > considering they aim to be a LR replacement

Where did you even get this idea from? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have used Darktable and like it a lot, I can easily recommend it. Props to the team for this release, we sorely need an open photography tool.

</comment><comment><USER9> Never having heard of Darktable before, I had to click to the main page to find out what it was about. You might want to add a short blurb at the top of the release announcement about what it is.

<comment><USER10> I've heard of Darktable before and wanted to show this to my wife, a professional photographer who uses Lightroom, but there isn't much for her to see here. GTK+3? Packaging enhancements? These are noteworthy achievements for the developers, but I don't think most of the addressable market care about this any more than they care Lightroom was written with Lua.

<comment><USER11> Extracted from [http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/darktable-2-0-relea...](http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/darktable-2-0-released- with-printing-support):

> The port to Gtk+3 widget set is yet another major change that you might or > might not care about much. It's mostly to bring darktable up to date with > recent changes in Gtk+ and simplify support for HiDPI displays (think > Retina, 4K, 5K etc.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Glad to see this. I switched from Lightroom to dark table earlier this year and have been pleased. The only thing I really miss is the dehaze slider. That thing is magical. It's possible to produce similar effects in light table but more finesse is required.

</comment><comment><USER13> Everyone: it's just "raw". Not "RAW". It's not an acronym or abbreviation like IBM or ASM. But like assembly, it's not one thing, but a description of a class of things. It just literally means "raw" as in "uncooked" or "unprocessed" (though it's certainly not completely unprocessed, but nobody is going to call it "blanched" or "seared").

</comment><comment><USER14> You've got the development momentum but it's still not as good as rawtherapee for the editing bit which is the only part I'm interested in.

<comment><USER15> I wish I could use Rawtherapee as it has support for DCP profiles. Rawtherapee has a big disadvantage though. AFAIK you can't affect just parts of the image, you always work with the whole image. One could argue that this is fine as you can open the image in GIMP or PS post raw conversion. However, this has more than a few cons.

Example: let's say contrast is increased during raw conversion. Parts of the image will be darker then they were before the edit. If you want to lighten up the the areas around the eyes in a portrait, they now contain less information and there will be a lot more visible noise by bringing up these shadows post raw conversion.

<comment><USER14> In this particular situation you can developed two versions - one darker, one brighter - and blend them together in gimp. I don't really do such intrusive/creative editing.

<comment><USER16> It is essential to have this in-app, not going to another app. Most people do not realize that even famous images that have no digital magic applied where heavily edited for exposure to support composition.

See e.g. [http://petapixel.com/2013/09/12/marked-photographs-show- icon...](http://petapixel.com/2013/09/12/marked-photographs-show-iconic- prints-edited-darkroom/)

<comment><USER17> Why is it essential to have this in app ? Who makes these rules ?

<comment><USER16> No one said this is a rule but you.

Why? Because of the UX. It completely breaks the creative workflow if you have to save two [or several] versions of an image and switch to another app to compose them together to see an effect applied locally. And then go back and repeat, if the strength is not to your liking.

Besides, Gimp doesn't support floating point image editing, so there is a also data loss involved if you use this app for compositing your RAW samples. Krita & Natron seem the only alternatives on Linux unless I miss something. On OSX, you could use Krita, DaVinci Resolve, Fusion, or Natron. Or pay for Photoshop. In any case, switching apps sucks. :]

DT's authors understood this and added support for masks and module instancing. Plus a ton of blend modes. That's what sets DT apart from the competition when it comes to 'how' you work. As for the 'what': there is very little that the toolset of DT leaves to be desired. Even for professionals. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Congratulations darktable team. Very great going and keep it up. Its an amazing work you are doing.

</comment><comment><USER19> Have never tried it myself - but as a user of both DPP (canon digital photo professional) and Photoshop, I have found that the cabin software has an advantage with quality - something about understanding the camera better. How does darktable match up to DPP and Photoshop?

<comment><USER20> It doesn't fare that well. Proper RAW encoders have tens of manyears of dedicated work put in, intimate knowledge of the camera sensors (often with the assistance of camera makers), expensive labs for color tests etc, and top it with several patented proprietary techniques for the image processing part (Photoshop has tons of those).

<comment><USER21> Can you define what makes a proper RAW "decoder"? We actually discuss about RAW decoding here. Adobe offers the DNG SDK as open source, it gives quite good clue on how to process RAW images, alternatively dcraw from Dave Coffin has been online for ages and is the basis (in a way or another) of most of open source RAW processing software. Once the CFA bayer (or other mosaicing type) data is available (decrypted as it is crypted for quite a few camera makers), the demosaicing performed and the photo white-balanced and exported with its full dynamic range in a RGB colourspace, you have done most of the technical steps to start working creatively with it.

<comment><USER20> > _Adobe offers the DNG SDK as open source, it gives quite good clue on how to > process RAW images, alternatively dcraw from Dave Coffin has been online for > ages and is the basis (in a way or another) of most of open source RAW > processing software._

The DNG software is not really relevant, as it's mainly used by smaller camera makers. Yeah, it would be niced if everyone adopted an open standard, but in the real world Nikon, Canon, Sony etc use their own RAW formats, and those are undocumented and proprietary. dcraw from Dave Coffin, on the other hand, is a small, mostly one man, project based on reverse engineering.

> _Once the CFA bayer (or other mosaicing type) data is available (decrypted > as it is crypted for quite a few camera makers), the demosaicing performed > and the photo white-balanced and exported with its full dynamic range in a > RGB colourspace, you have done most of the technical steps to start working > creatively with it._

Having done "most of the technical steps to start working creatively" and having the best possible image resulting from the decoder is a totally different thing.

Choice of demosaicing algorithm (there's not an 1-1 mapping between a RAW file and that), and steps applied after that, like sharpening, color correction and some basic curves affect the end result in a big way, and are big parts of what makes a photo software good in its RAW handling. RAW images don't just get demosaiced and that's it before we view/start editing them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> can we start posting checksums over https?

<comment><USER23> s/posting checksums/doing everything on the web/

It looks like they actually offer https, just don't force it. There's a good chance they're just testing it, seeing as their CA, Let's Encrypt, was made available to the public less than a month ago (and their cert's validity period starts on the LE public beta launch day, so it's unlikely they were part of the private beta):

[https://www.darktable.org/2015/12/darktable-2-0-released/](https://www.darktable.org/2015/12/darktable-2-0-released/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Would be great if it could deal with Equirectangular <> Gnomonic/Cubic images too.

</comment><comment><USER25> So I assume the name is a play on Adobe Lightroom.

</comment><comment><USER26> Disappointed to find out no Windows support.

<comment><USER27> spacey up above posted a link[0] to a blog post explaining exactly why that is.

[0]: [https://www.darktable.org/2015/07/why-dont-you-provide-a- win...](https://www.darktable.org/2015/07/why-dont-you-provide-a-windows- build/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Lack of screenshots is usually a red flag; you guys should fix that :)

<comment><USER29> Its there:

[http://www.darktable.org/about/screenshots/](http://www.darktable.org/about/screenshots/)

:)</comment></comment>


Gmail blocked in China - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/29/google-china-idUSL3N0UD21W20141229 <comment><USER2> No no no this is bad journalism. Is not just blocking "access" to gmail, but one out of of five Gmail's MX servers are blocked

        gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com (220.127.116.11, blocked)
        alt1.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com
        alt2.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com
        alt3.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com
        alt4.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com

to be specific, all traffic to address of 188.8.131.52/24, including gmail- smtp-in.l.google.com, got null routed after AS4134

This means China now risks becoming isolated in global email network, not just "access" to Gmail.

And no, your VPN/SSH/whatever_tunnel won't work if all of the MX servers are blocked.

<comment><USER3> Why doesn't my tunnel work in China?

<comment><USER4> The issue is that Google's mail servers can't communicate with servers within China, so any user of a Chinese mail service will not be able to send mail to Gmail users (and vice versa). If you are within China using a VPN to access Gmail, Google still can't send emails back in to Chinese machines.

<comment><USER3> Ah. Seems dumb of them. There are millions of Chinese people all around the world that will be trying to email their family back home. Why block just one email provider? Why try to segregate yourself from the world's email network? It isn't even going to work because what every Chinese person will do is get a tunnel to sign up for the non-Chinese email service (maybe even Gmail!) and it will just further push people to use encryption.

If the Chinese government were shrewd, they would do what the American government does: make using American servers as easy as possible then spy on the contents.

<comment><USER5> Why block one email provider? Because China isn't a fan of Google. Yes they will be cut off from the world. But if you want to communicate with the Chinese, you will simply use something other than Gmail.

<comment><USER6> China might have figured out how to read the other major email providers.

If I worked in Yahoo!'s SOC this'd put me on high alert.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not surprising considering the tricks they've been pulling of late. What can be said here? The people have chosen an autocratic government and often, without me even provoking them, will tell me how superior is is to western values, the same way Russians will also do. As an international traveler and sometimes international worker, this is fairly typical stuff. I see this kind of thing on VK and Facebook all the time. Everytime some autocratic regime cracks down the people go, "Please more sir! We dont need the Western pigs and their decadent values!" They buy into the anti-Western narrative pretty deeply.

My personal take is that there's a great war for democracy going on right now and the final lines are being drawn. The weaker autocrats have fallen (mideast, Ukraine, etc) and the stronger ones are falling (Syria) but the strongest have double-down on oppression (China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, etc). I think this political dynamic will be the defining narrative for quite some time.

I also think a balkanazation of the internet is slowly happening. China is certainly doing it and Russia might follow. I personally don't have a big problem with this. Probably means less malware and cyberattacks for everyone. I think its obvious that easy access to information isn't this revolutionary thing, at least in autocratic regimes. People just seem to prefer state controlled media or narratives that fit in with their biases. Once China sets the precedent others will follow, especially if there's zero economic fallout from it.

<comment><USER8> There are rational reasons to prefer authoritative government, especially in changing countries, especially without a tradition of democracy. I have no idea why GMail was censored, but I´m assuming it has to do with heightened security protocol. It is likely that some people in China used the service for nefarious purposes (local official corruption is probable) and that the authorities wanted to keep opposable proof, in order be able to show to increasingly disgruntled citizenry that the rule of law can work -- as opposed to the often preferred option of social-media fuelled lynching.

My point is not that banning GMail is good, but that you are judging an institution without knowing their intent. They could be wrong, but not for the reason that you do not give them.

I certainly agree on the balkanisation, though. Ebbs and flows, I hope.

As for your more general point: Western values are great in Western countries; Western inequality in a country with red envelopes and little over-sight of officials is less ideal. Western alcohol is fun in a fancy restaurant with a French ceremonial Maitre d´ that frowns on excess; it is less ideal in a country without a tradition for moderation. The subsequent lash out can be amusing where a hen party ends trying to act sober and cute in front of a jaded cop; it is far less so to see your touchy-feely employer come home drunk in a country where domestic employment is akin to servitude. I'm obviously exaggerating, but Westernisation (and simultaneous but unrelated issues, like working class disempowerment) has left many people wondering, and they found reasons to doubt.

If you are a traveller who mainly faces empowered businessmen , it is difficult to conceive good examples of this -- but many stories would make you pause. Vice.com (has a very criticisable editorial line, but) offers a unique look in many such examples: I remember a couple about plastic surgery that were very telling (and unexpected for people more used to judging people´s coding style on a screen than their physique on a dance floor), one in Korea the other in the Caribbean. International style magazine has lead Koreans to go under the knife and unreasonable amount of time to look more Westerners: nothing to do with SMTP in theory, but enough to let family members amalgamate Yahoo! editorial choices and their shame over a daughter´s botched operation. I have no idea what aspect of Western world leads women in the Central America to inject motor oil in their… Well, try to look for that episode if you care and care stand far more than gore (it is incredibly gross) but in it, you'll hear people accuse International standards and social media a lot. It is sad for Westerners living in an Emirate when that only bar where you can kiss in public without being scorned gets closed for `indecency´ but I suspect there are more nefarious things that have happened there than diplomats remembering their honeymoon in Paris. My experience is pushing on "What do you mean by corrupt Western values?" doesn't usually lead to a detailed description of a working democracy.

<comment><USER9> So freedom, open society or democracy wont work in China because... Chinese people are inherently alcoholic, corrupt and sexually abusive to their employees?

<comment><USER10> The honest truth is liberal democracies do not come to fruition in vacuum, Elections are necessary but not sufficient condition for a functioning democracy. Afghanistan has multiple elections, Ukraine has elections, Iraq has elections, what is the state of affairs in these countries. There are subtle and messier parts in Democracy and every society cannot support it given their historical context - most societies have to evolve to certain point of maturity for democracy to take root and more years of practice of it to have it to work as intended.

<comment><USER9> It just sounds like excuses - which democratic country resolved _all_ (or any?) of their problems with gender inequality, violence, alcohol, corruption etc. before instituting democracy?

In any case, Gmail is just one of many email tools - if Chinese people are so culturally unprepared to deal with Gmail, how are they culturally prepared to deal with QQ Mail, or Weibo/Weixin for that matter? This is just further censorship of a tool either for economic/protectionist reasons, or because it protects the CCP's hold on power. I'd struggle to see this as part of any plan to gradually implement democracy or as part of any uniquely 'Chinese' democratic development.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The sentiment that access to Google services doesn't matter because there are sufficient Chinese replacements is absolutely wrong. The Chinese government is handicapping its tech labor development by blocking Google.

I teach a basic web development workshop to university and vocational school students. One of the things we teach is how to look up things for youself on the internet. (Is that a cry of disbelief I hear? You can't imagine how confused I was before we specifically modeled and taught this.) Baidu search results, when it comes to searching for technical answers, are really lame. Google's search results are better, mostly because they tap heavily into the stackexchange network. It's disappointing and frustrating to try to encourage students to search for things via Baidu because the answers to their questions are so difficult to find. I've had students tell me that they turn on a VPN in order to access Google because those search results are that much better.

And it's not just a problem with having poor search results, but blocking the actual sites that have information is mind-boggling to me. I /know/ that China can do finer grain filtering than on a per-domain basis; I've seen specific articles blocked on wikipedia while wikipedia itself remained accessible.

<comment><USER12> FYI, Bing is not blocked in China. That is all.

<comment><USER13> Anybody know why this might be? Is it because Microsoft has been historically friendlier to China (vs. Google) or because it's even worse than Baidu?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've had less and less success with VPNs in China - I resort to SSH tunneling / SOCKS proxies on personal boxes.

SOCKS proxies will get cut off after ~1h or so, you'll have a 'cool down' period of a few minutes, and then they'll come back.

Presumably this is to irritate, or perhaps to have a chance to see which requests slip through during the disruption.

<comment><USER15> Have you tried obfsproxy? You can make a tunnel that looks like web/skype/etc traffic, it's worked well for us in China when we've needed it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Travelling in China right now. No Google services work but Gmail via SMTP on my iPhone seems fine. I'm not confident all emails go through though. Heading to Hong Kong tonight so not sure if that will be different. Using VPN does open everything but obviously becomes slower. It's not only Google though, all social media.

Speaking to locals they don't care. There is an alternative for everything and they are better suited to Chinese culture too.

<comment><USER17> >>Speaking to locals they don't care

Locals don't care that they can't use certain American sites, or don't care that they are intellectually oppressed?

<comment><USER18> We do care. The problem is: What can we do? Using technical method to get through GFW? Well, it works now but technically, Chinese government controls all Internet facility and they do not even care to block thousands of IPs, even if it means block the whole Internet (It happened in Xinjiang and Tibet.) Moreover, ISPs constantly throttle the international data which means connecting to a server outside GFW may be very slow or even randomly disconnected. In short, any technical solution does not work on a government who controls the country's Internet facilities and does not care to pull the plug. Other solutions? You cannot turn to traditional media like newspapers and TVs, because they are, as well, controlled by the government, which is in turn controlled by a single party. There's also no way to make any meaningful non-violence political influence. The government is not voted by the people so they just don't care whatever their people say. The only possible way is to use violence, but we do not have guns.

<comment><USER19> Ummm...fight for your rights?

<comment><USER20> Interestingly, "fighting for your rights" seems to be one of those things that works only when a small minority is doing the fighting. For instance, the American revolution was instigated and conducted by a few discontented landholders, without seeking permission or widespread acceptance from the broader population. If the means for widespread democratic input had existed in the years leading up to 1776, would Washington have been able to mobilize successfully? Or would the mainstream media have been co-opted by the British to proclaim him a "radical dissident" or a "terrorist," hopelessly marginalizing the revolutionaries?

That's the problem that any would-be Chinese or Russian revolutionary faces. Earlier revolutions could be conducted with the involvement of only 10-15% of the population, but these days, you can't do much to change things even with 80% of the population behind you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What do citizens in China think of this? When Google Search was effectively banned, some scientists said that they depended on Google Scholar and Google Books, services which were also affected by the ban. Are Baidu and similar services really an effective replacement?

I'm also wondering what would happen if the U.S. takes this to the World Trade Organization. Arbitrarily blocking some company's services could well be interpreted as unfair trade practices. And a more aggressive U.S. government, perhaps with a more protectionist president in 2016, might well decide to retaliate.

<comment><USER22> The majority of Chinese netizens [citation needed] don't care simply because they're not as well educated to digest English content to begin with.

Looking forward to see this issue escalate, as it's the only way to deter the Chinese Gov't.

<comment><USER7> How exactly do you deter a government that rolls tanks against its own citizens? I really don't think there's a democratic reform avenue here. People will deal with it, and largely accept it due to their anti-western attitudes. The Communist Party sees citizens as their subjects and will put them in line as need be. Its not a democracy.

<comment><USER23>
        > a government that

Government is (usually) made of people. These people all want different things. This is as true as the Chinese government as it is of the US government.

A litany of complaints against the Chinese government can go on and on and on, but it's not (anymore) a single person dictatorship, nor is it an obvious kleptocracy despite robust corruption. Its claim of being a government for and by the people stands up to scrutiny, even if its methods and outcomes are oppressive and aren't democratic.

        > rolls tanks against its own citizens

The same way you influence the other one that deploys military-grade/style equipment against its people[1], by attempting to influence members of that government.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to- polic...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-police- departments.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Can mail server operators other than Google opt into this?

It would be an administrative simplification for me if China would block itself from my port 25.

</comment><comment><USER25> I live in Urumqi. Not only Gmail is blocked , but all the google services are blocked here. And it has been quite a long time.

<comment><USER26> Are you a foreigner or are you Chinese? I'm curious as I naively assumed that due to the unrest\resistance that even tourism in Urumqi was difficult to do legally, and therefore residence\work would be out of the question or nigh on impossible

<comment><USER25> I'm Chinese, but I am from minority. I am a developer so it is quite painful to live with this network.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Perhaps we are an edge case, but this has a potentially significant impact to certain businesses, namingly those that are Google Apps customers and rely on gmail to get work done. They'll be routing all web traffic over their own network via HK or Singapore, but...

That doesn't help employees who need Mobile email access. As of now, companies can't count on remote access to corporate gmail by Chinese employees. We have about 2500 Chinese employees with sanctioned BYOD phones - it's a huge problem!

<comment><USER28> We're going to be running into the same problem as we're planning to roll out thousands of new Gmail & other google app accounts over the next couple of months.

Has Google made any statement about whether these will be operable or not?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Chinese Gmail user here. Now the easiest way to access Gmail is via Mailbox. No kidding. It works on my android phone and Macbook, and should do as well on iPhone. The first time of use requires a proxy, but afterwards it is okay without any. My guess is email information is partially saved on Dropbox servers by Mailbox. I don't know for how long Mailbox would continue to work though. when it doesn't work, I will have to use a SSH tunnel every time checking emails.

</comment><comment><USER30> I have friends and family who are Chinese. Although it is not a universal ttuth, the fact is that many Chinese see the west only as something to be exploited, and do not wish to play by the same rules. This applies to individuals who have come here to work, not just the government or Chinese businessmen. The sentiment is that China was exploited inygr past, and now it is time for payback. One deals with China and Chinese without this backgroud at one's peril.

<comment><USER12> There is some of that, but it isn't "getting back." Its like going to Italy and getting ripped off as a tourist; there are plenty of people looking around for an opportunity for a quick buck on the gullible, Foreigner or Chinese. Then couple that with poor rule of law that make scams and unfair exploitation feasible, and you have China (as opposed to say Singapore, which is mostly Chinese but rule of law is strong and people are less hungry for a quick buck).

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I have only been to HK and Macau but never to the China mainland. Pardon my ignorance, but why does the Chinese government bother to censor the Internet? Are the people in China not happy with the progress that has occurred over the past few decades? Is the government really that concerned with their populace discussing politics or sensitive issues openly? Do Chinese provinces consider themselves to be separate and distinct or is it more like US states where the differences are superficial and the division is unimportant?

It seems to me the US doesn't have much leverage regarding this particular issue. We would be best served working harder towards more affordable and flexible manufacturing automation so we can be more self-reliant.

<comment><USER32> I think the Chinese government works more like a gang than the kind of government you are familiar with. The only politically correct thing is to maintain the ruling, and the real motivations are nothing uncommon: power and money, and most of the time the latter.

The great firewall project is a big business for a lot of people (e.g., billions dollars business if not much more). Hardware providers look for the deals. Professors in universities look for funds (for themselves and for their students). And the biggest cut would be bribes for officials and commissions for pimps. The worst part is this business is sort of under table and there is not much control.

All these people want this business to stay and grow under the name of glorious "reasons", and there is just zero motive for people to get in its way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> So if I want to start an email conversation with a vendor about some work I might need, they can't correspond with me because I'm on GMail? And this makes sense to the Chinese?

But on the bright side, looks like China will begin a struggle to stop "organ harvesting", a euphemism if I've ever seen one. (Not that the effort is forecast to be successful.)

From a meta narrative, it's interesting that there was a great push for centralization of everything, which Google benefited from. Now, due to political realities, we may be seeing another huge push for localization, even if it means owning one's own cloud server somewhere that one can VPN into.

</comment><comment><USER34> What would happen if everybody added random "free tibet human rights xinjiang" triggers to their web pages? Or even better, randomly embed real snippets from organizations that fight for human rights in China.

<comment><USER35> You misjudge the nature of Chinese political control; awareness of human rights organizations is not the issue.

Apart from a vocal minority of patriots, most people are quite aware of the lack of democratic freedoms, crackdowns of dissidence, or restrictions on speech. But most people are very satisfied with the prosperity of the status quo. Case in point: in response to the very public Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, the Mainland Chinese response was either "meh" or that Hong Kong people were overly optimistic that the Chinese government would allow universal suffrage in Hong Kong. Source: HK national.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> While this is undoubtably an aggressive move by China I can't help but doubt that the impact will be very large. By now most Chinese users of googles services are using VPNs so this really only affects the lowest common denominator of Chinese users

<comment><USER37> Using VPNs are becoming increasingly difficult too. All the large VPN services are blocked here; OpenVPN doesn't work; the only option left is to use unknown services which are not guaranteed to be genuine.

<comment><USER38> StrongVPN works fine for me. I leave it on pretty much 24/7 except when it disconnects a few times a day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> i didn't rtfa, but this is nothing new, i've been in shanghai since 2007, afaik, google services (including gmail) have been hard to access, it was really after eric schmidt put the assault on china by making things public (circa 2010) that things started to get to really bad. from memory, 50% of the time, google services (search, gmail, apis, compute engine, office apps, etc) would not work back in 2007, in 2010 probably 80% of access would fail, and recently in the past year and a half, it's been almost 99% to now 100%.

i've already started a backup strategy long ago (about 8 months ago) as the frustration was just started to drive me crazy, I migrated all my services to either local equivalents or microsoft (outlook.com), but there's only a matter of time before those perhaps also get blocked.

of similar relation, ever since the snowden leaks, it seems that china has started looking to ban or outright limit foreign technology services used by the china government which is basically almost like everything, the nickname is qu ioe, qu which stands for out/oust, ioe stands for ibm, oracle, and emc.

note that vpn still seems to work, and if you're traveling on a roaming mobile service, you can still access google services (and others like facebook, twitter, youtube), but if you're plugging into the hotel wifi without vpn, good f'ing luck. note that i also work at a foreign national software company in china, the office can access these services uninhibited since we have an mpls to the main office in the valley.

if you're living in china and dependent on foreign services/apis like google then it's really hard because you must have vpn or some equivalent. i suggest even using a jumpbox.

<comment><USER40> Hi, maybe I ask what's "mpls", did a Google search but had no luck.

<comment><USER41> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPLS_VPN](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPLS_VPN)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Gmail blocked shocked me a lot. I was optimistic about the future of China's speech environment by new Chairman Xi's comming, but from he got the power, the condition is not changed, still bad, and even worse. The internet block is more aggressive and now the gmail is blocked. This is my baseline because email is very individual services. I think it's time to think about immigrating abroad.

</comment><comment><USER43> Here is an editorial from Global Times ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Times](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Times), a government mouthpiece known for its ardent pro-Party slant): [http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/899197.shtml](http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/899197.shtml)

Some select quotes:

 _" The problems with Gmail access this time may be caused by the China side, by Google itself or a combination of the two. But Western media pointed the finger at Chinese authorities immediately, accusing them of strengthening its cyber censorship. This is far too simple a hypothesis. It should be noted that Google voluntarily quit the mainland market in 2010. The issue at heart is to what extent Google is willing to obey Chinese law, on which China's attitude is steadfast."_

 _" In this sense, it's dubious that China "blocked" Gmail simply over security concerns. Since both Google and China haven't given an explanation and meanwhile Gmail is a technically complex system, there may be some puzzling reasons behind the incident._

 _" If the China side indeed blocked Gmail, the decision must have been prompted by newly emerged security reasons. If that is the case, Gmail users need to accept the reality of Gmail being suspended in China. But we hope it is not the case."_

The article's original Chinese version can be found here: [http://tech.huanqiu.com/internet/2014-12/5313893.html](http://tech.huanqiu.com/internet/2014-12/5313893.html)

Curiously, the English version is missing the following two paragraphs:

 _" 中美围绕互联网既有合作,亦有摩擦,双方的相互适应过程仍在继续。由于中美关系庞大而复杂,互联网问题只是其中一部分,外部变数的影响也是存在的。"(Third to last paragraph)_

My translation: _In regards to the Internet, China and the US both cooperate and experience some frictions, so the mutual adaptation process of the two sides continues. Due to the complexity of the Sino-US relationship, Internet issues are only a part of it, and there also exist other external variables._

 _" 因此无论Gmail"失联"是谷歌还是中方的原因,或者是复合原因,使用者们不妨顺其自然,做多手准备。中国发展有过多难以计数的磕绊和插曲,这个故事又算得了什么。"(Last paragraph)_

My translation: _Whether Gmail 's "losing contact" is caused by Google or China, or a combination thereof, users should just go with the flow, and be prepared with other backup plans. China's development process has been met with countless stumbles and other interludes, so this story doesn't really matter in the end._

</comment><comment><USER11> Any HN'rs who live in China use Fastmail? Can you share your experience?

I'm thinking of switching over but my primary concern is whether Fastmail encounters similar problems to Gmail. (You might recommend using a VPN all the time, but that doesn't always work for me).

</comment><comment><USER44> Slightly OT, but I'm going to travel through China in a couple days and before reading this thread I thought I could get away with my VPN (hosted on my Digital Ocean VPS) plus eventually Tor, but now I'm not quite sure anymore.

Could anybody shed light on this?

<comment><USER32> VPN is roughly ok as long as your IP address is not in the blacklist. But it could be unstable. The GFW may drop your connections from time to time. I am not sure about Tor but I believe it probably doesn't work any more. Private VPN/shadowsocks is now the majority I think.

<comment><USER45> Out of curiosity: what does shadowsocks do that regular SSH tunneling doesn't do?

Why is an entire program needed just to run a simple ssh command? I couldn't find any info on the matter.

<comment><USER32> Shadowsocks is (arguably) easier to use for ordinary people and better informed. Most people don't even have command line experience before. After all this is one problem limited in one country which couldn't be freely discussed so choices may not be "optimal" in some sense.

<comment><USER45> Ah thanks. So it doesn't actually offer additional functionality, then?

The best tool I've ever used was [https://github.com/apenwarr/sshuttle](https://github.com/apenwarr/sshuttle) , because it was far lower level than a proxy. Unfortunately, it's super unstable on modern OSX versions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I'm fairly sure this has been the case for a few months, this site is very useful: [http://www.blockedinchina.net/](http://www.blockedinchina.net/).

<comment><USER47> That web site tests HTTP. The article specifically mentions IMAP and SMTP.

<comment><USER46> Ah, thanks. I spoke too soon. I remembered it started earlier this year and thought this was a repeat of the story. This is a colossal increase.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> This URL appears to be accessible from mainland China.

[http://viewdns.info/chinesefirewall/?domain=gmail.com](http://viewdns.info/chinesefirewall/?domain=gmail.com)

</comment><comment><USER17> Is Tor not an option? I thought it could hide itself pretty well via HTTP tunneling. Maybe the performance makes it a last resort.

<comment><USER49> all public tor bridge is blocked in China. Besides, it's soooo slow...

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Is this true in the FTZ as well? I've yet to find really good reliable info on the net situation in the FTZ...

</comment><comment><USER51> this is so stupid. we are a startup team from China using Google's Apps service. So far most of mainstream mail provider like 163.com and qq.com can still exchange email with gmail. But without VPN we can't send/receive mails from mobile.

</comment><comment><USER52> Two observations:

1) Since China effectively blocked most of Google's services (and uses Google's mobile operating system for free and makes a ton of money off it - look at Xiaomi), Isn't it basically that China was able to rob Google, and doesn't suffer any consequences from it?

2) Also most US websites are blocked in China (Google, Facebook, Dropbox, Youtube, Twitter, Wikipedia, NYTimes, the list goes on and on...) Why is it that the US government doesn't take any action against that, where as China is freely dumping cheap manufactured products that are made in factories that violate human rights?

<comment><USER53> >>Why is it that the US government doesn't take any action against that

Because the US goverment is in league with China[1], and American voters have a non-pragmatic view of unilateral free-trade? [1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_fin...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_finance_controversy)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Oh yeah, let more people see through the nature of the RED empire.

It's funny that they even hosted a world internet conference recently.

</comment><comment><USER55> But the big bad USA is still much much worse than China let us not forget!

</comment><comment><USER56> Trade war imminent?

<comment><USER57> I wonder that as well.

<comment><USER58> What motives does China have to begin a trade war with its largest trade partner? Serious Q

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> So, should I understand that essentially centralising email within gmail is bad? How have we not seen this coming? /sarcasm

</comment><comment><USER60> This is likely because of Google's agreement with the US government to provide access to Chinese emails to officials as part of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, and the Chinese hacking of the access systems put in place by Google for law enforcement to collect a list of active surveillance targets.

<comment><USER61> It is good that China is protecting their citizens like this maybe Europe can do it too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> It's fairly interesting to contrast the reaction here with that whenever Uber is involved. Google violate laws in China, but apparently that's to be encouraged, yet if Uber do the same in a nice supposed liberal democracy they are to be criticised?

As it stands end users are reduced to pawns in the emerging power struggle between governments and multinationals.

<comment><USER63> What law did Google break that caused gmail to be shut down? According to the article the Chinese government denies doing anything.

I also don't think you understand HN very well. What is supported is not supported on grounds of legality but on what is viewed as good for people as a whole. "What is legal is what is right and what is right is what is legal" is the antithesis of how most hackers think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> The "Great Firewall" in China has over 600 million active Internet users. That's double the population of the United States. Baidu is the dominating search engine, there are replacement services for Twitter, Facebook, and others. Their IM "Wechat" has over 300 million active users alone.

In all reality, Google, Facebook, and others would _love_ to have even the smallest presence in China to get access to that user base. It's a gold mine just waiting to be cracked. Until they are, it will be referred to as "The Great Firewall", when in reality, Chinese internet users probably aren't really missing a lot, outside of politically charged sites, perhaps.

<comment><USER40> If you guys are having a difficulty understanding what is 50 cent party ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party)), or its derivation, Ziganwu ([http://www.china.org.cn/china/2013-12/27/content_31021911.ht...](http://www.china.org.cn/china/2013-12/27/content_31021911.htm)), I guess atoponce can be an example.

<comment><USER64> China has more Internet users than most countries have for a population. It has a cornucopia of content and services that would rival the "free Internet" you and I enjoy. It's hardly a digital vacuum mainstream media would like you to believe. It's no North Korea.

Sure, there are social and political issues, but most Chinese Internet users are very happy with what's available to them. The reality is, there are two "Internets", and China's Internet is a very large one.

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


Ask HN: Best book to learn ReactJS? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Hands on book to build your first own application in plain React: [https://www.robinwieruch.de/the-road-to-learn- react/](https://www.robinwieruch.de/the-road-to-learn-react/)

\- state management

\- fetching data

\- interactions like search and sort

\- pagination

\- client-side caching

\- ...

3rd edition will be released soon. 2nd edition was released in January, so it's pretty up to date and will stay up to date.

<comment><USER3> This was a great book with practical examples.You get to create hacker news clone.I highly recommend it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is an online course '30 days of React' with an online PDF which teaches React in small chunks.

You can also use React[2] and Redux[3] tutorials by New Boston and practice along with the course.

Other than that, You can go through React documentation or register for courses on Udemy and Pluralsight.

Links [1] [https://www.fullstackreact.com/30-days-of- react/](https://www.fullstackreact.com/30-days-of-react/)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6gx4Cwl9DGBuKtLgPR_z...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6gx4Cwl9DGBuKtLgPR_zWYnrwv- JllpA)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6gx4Cwl9DGBbSLZjvleM...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6gx4Cwl9DGBbSLZjvleMwldX8jGgXV6a)

</comment><comment><USER5> Not "books" exactly, but I keep a big list of links to high-quality tutorials and articles on React, Redux, and related topics, at [https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux- links](https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux-links) . Specifically intended to be a great starting point for anyone trying to learn the ecosystem, as well as a solid source of good info on more advanced topics.

If you really _do_ want some actual books, I have links to several at the end of the "React Tutorials" page in my list, and this recent post lists a number of React books with some short summaries: [https://reactdom.com/blog/reactjs- books](https://reactdom.com/blog/reactjs-books) .

</comment><comment><USER6> It's a video-based web course, not a book, but it's still the best resource I recommend for learning React.

 _React for Beginners_ by Wes Bos [1]

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

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't think React has a big enough API to warrant a book. That said grokking the concepts behind Redux does require a bit of assistance.

Dan Abramov's screencasts on EggHead.io do that: [https://egghead.io/courses/getting-started-with- redux](https://egghead.io/courses/getting-started-with-redux)

</comment><comment><USER8> I find that the best way to learn a new language is practice and practice so I recommend [https://www.codecademy.com/learn/react-101](https://www.codecademy.com/learn/react-101) for starter and then move on to [https://www.udemy.com/react- redux/?couponCode=iea9](https://www.udemy.com/react-redux/?couponCode=iea9) to clear up a lot of topics that were vague in the official docs and then more practice... :)

</comment><comment><USER9> I've got a lot out of reading [https://www.fullstackreact.com/](https://www.fullstackreact.com/)

React, Redux, Relay, GraphQL are covered comprehensively, with good examples and explanation.

</comment><comment><USER10> Here is a complete guide with free resources and tutorials to follow: [https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-best-place-to-learn-React- js](https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-best-place-to-learn-React-js)

... and a free tutorial ReactJS Redux, the Right Way: [https://www.ReactJS.co](https://www.ReactJS.co)

</comment><comment><USER11> Do people really buy technical books anymore? Can't you just read the official documentation?

<comment><USER6> The React docs are good for reference but they don't focus much on offering getting started material or a tutorial for varying audiences at the level of building a full app in React (or React + Redux). The way you combine components and share info across components is really what makes a React app. Personally I don't understand why they don't cover it more, but they have created a nice market opportunity for tutorial content.

</comment></comment><comment> gingerbread-man Books are great for learning the more academic aspects of programming-- when you're trying to wrap your mind around an unfamiliar concept, a high-quality explanation can be really helpful. When you're trying to pick up a new framework, though, the bigger challenge is usually figuring out where all of the controls are. The best (only?) way to do that is by building a simple project, and looking up what you don't know along the way. I'd advise staying clear of all of the other other popular tools in the React ecosystem (Redux, Immutable, etc...) until you've worked through the basics of how React works on its own. Learn to write messy React code first, then learn the idioms.

</comment><comment><USER12> [https://www.codecademy.com/learn/react-101](https://www.codecademy.com/learn/react-101)

</comment><comment><USER13> I've found Stephen Grider's videos on Udemy to be a great resource. Those + "30 Days of React" have been a good combo.

</comment><comment><USER14> related, redux:

[http://toranbillups.com/blog/archive/2016/01/22/redux-for- th...](http://toranbillups.com/blog/archive/2016/01/22/redux-for-the-very- beginner/)

</comment><comment><USER15> If you want something written in text it's always been the react documentation for me</comment>


EU Parliament Passes Resolution Against ITU Asserting Control Over Internet - <AUTHOR> http://falkvinge.net/2012/11/22/european-parliament-unanimously-passed-resolution-against-itu-asserting-control-over-internet/

<comment><USER2> I think the types of things ITU would want to assert control over are centralised functions around standards development and name allocation that are currently carried out by ISOC and its parts (IAB / IESG / IETF) and by ICANN and its parts. Both the Internet Society and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers are not-for-profit organisations that are not directly under the control of any government (but which are incorporated in the United States, and so are subject to US law).

From a purely democratic perspective, ITU, a public body that forms part of the United Nations, and ultimately controlled by governments worldwide (many of which are democratically elected) could be viewed as a more appropriate body to handle the centralised functions than private bodies in one particular country.

In practice, however, international government can be a very bad place to start from when it comes to standardisation, because politics can get involved to a much greater extent, and everything gets slowed down by excessive governance process which becomes a burden - ITU standards are being superseded at a faster rate than ITU can produce them.

Obviously, the EU / Pirate Party might also be concerned that the ITU would want to assert control over more than ISOC / ICANN currently do.

<comment><USER3> In all the articles I've read so far on this issue, I'm only being told that the ITU wants to control the Internet.

Can anyone point me to any actual information from ITU itself on what it wants to do ?

<comment><USER4> The context for this is the World Conference on International Telecommunications 2012 [1] to be held inn Dubai in December. A major purpose of the meeting is to consider updating the ITU's International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) [2,3] to include an internet governance role for the ITU.

Its not very clear what the detail of the proposed changes actually is, but the Internet Society have a summary [4] that suggests a takeover of technical standardisation efforts (e.g IETF and maybe W3C processes), the regulatory functions of ICANN/IANA, and maybe oversight of the regional IP registries.

One point of view is that this is a power grab by the ITU, who see this as a last chance to remain relevant as the networks they used to regulate (traditional voice and data comms) are absorbed by the Internet. Behind it are various ITU member states (principally China and Russia) who hope to use an enlarged ITU as a proxy to control the Internet to further their domestic and international agendas.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication_Union#World_Conference_on_International_Telecommunications_2012_.28WCIT-12.29)

[2] <http://www.itu.int/oth/T3F01000001>

[3] [https://fileshare.tools.isoc.org/groups/comms/public/Publica...](https://fileshare.tools.isoc.org/groups/comms/public/Publications/bp- itrbackground/bp-itrbackground-201108-en.pdf)

[4] <http://www.internetsociety.org/wcit>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you like corridors you can watch Amelia's web series showing some of her work in the EP.

<http://www.youtube.com/user/piratpartiet?feature=watch> Latest episode: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqY983gRScA></comment>